I think blade splicer it's a really good card against jund and affinity, where geist is awful (liliana, kozilek, seize, tarmo, bob, etc.), and on the contrary geist it's really good on the mirror match and maybe some sort of combo mathcup.
Really geist it's a difficult card to evaluate: he can bring home some match by his own, but he can also be a dead card in hand or on a board full of creature. You surely need to build your deck around him in order to maximize his value. Blade splicer is really a most "neutral" card in deck building.
In a deck capable of running Cryptic Command to flatten an opponent's army, is this even really a competition? Splicer is...not good.
Blade splicer is stronger against decks trying to grind you (ie Lil midrange decks). Geist beats face better, meta choice. I'd probably lean towards geist tho.
Edit: actually blade splicer seems stronger against lil really, I guess the token blocks etched champion as well?
I'm going to have to disagree with you about splicer being good vs grindy decks using Lili. That's exactly what 8Rack does and there were several times where if my opponent had Geist instead of Splicer my Lili would have been dead, and I would have probably lost the match and the Daily. Remember, Geist's angel flies and hits for 4. That makes Geist a great suicide bomber for Lili.
hellkite seems great vs tempo twin, and it's obviously amazing vs other decks trying to play lingering souls
resilient
What about that Stormbreath dragon? It gets past lingering souls tokens just as easily but it's also immune to Path to Exile, which is the only removal spell in the format that can profitably get rid of it. I had someone play it against me when I was playing Esper Midrange and it crushed me in a game I was almost certain to win otherwise. I had 2 paths and a snapcaster in hand.
Yeah, what was Memory Lapse saying about this deck being horrible?
To be fair I said multiple times the way to make the deck work was to use Cryptic Command in conjunction with Geist. His list looks like a UWR control list that uses Geist, the singleton Hellkite and Resto Angel notwithstanding.
There are a bunch of folks using Geist but not CC, or CC but not Geist. And then some crazies that use neither. The deck suffers from a lack of identity. Hopefully this top 8 list will finally bring some focus into this messy strategy.
Some videos of TiRune's list. No epic battles yet, these matches are just what I happened to get for the first few runs. I plan on making a couple more but I wanted to share these.
When I compare this deck to Sasky's they are both missing a critical piece. Sasky is missing Cryptic Command which allows Geist to swing. TiRune on the other hand wisely has Cryptics, but no Geists! I'm sorry but blade splicer is garbage compared to Geist.
Now go to daily #6488937 listed under UWR control. Click on the two 4-0 lists there. what do you see?
Two daily wins doesn't mean much in terms of the entire meta. Hell, my 8Rack has more wins than UWR midrange in the last month and that amounts to exactly zero impact on the meta as a whole. You have to look at the percentage of cards that are being played under the UWR control heading. People are playign UWR control a lot, and UWR midrange is not even a blip on the radar currently.
Now let's talk about your list. At a glance I like it a lot more than Sasky's which felt like playing catch with a bowling ball. I will make your list on MTGO verbatim and do some testing and record the videos like I did for Sasky's list.
EDIT: You have a 62 Card deck there. I am going to go ahead and take some liberties with your list to make it 60 cards.
This deck is not for everyone, like almost every aggro-control deck out there its not kind to players who make a lot of bad decisions like in your case MemoryLapse. It was very painfull to watch you, because I know that you hate UWR Midrange so so so much.
MemoryLapse I think that it is better that you stick with your Jund killer UW classic modern control experience maybe you will be more prosperous and please do not bother with this deck anymore.
I realize this is half troll, but i'll feed you anyway. If you see me make a mistake that could changed the result of any of the game post the time of the vid and ill take a look at it. Try come up with something more earth shattering than not playing a helix on turn 2 against an unknown deck. Like i said it could have been twin or delver or even fae. The deck is poorly positioned to fight jund, is anyone claiming otherwise?
I feel like this deck has an excellent game against Twin. That is actually very important in my mind considering Twin is the second most played deck in the meta behind Jund. The problem is that uwr control has the same match aganst twin and a much better match against jund. At some point you have to ask yourself why play this over something very similar that works a lot better?
Now you're just being plain rude (and seem to not understand how playing against combo decks work out). You obviously have an irrational hatred for this deck.
I'll be happy with playing this deck and you be happy with playing yours. You don't see me going to the UW thread to kick up a fuss even though I think the deck is really bad without red yes?
I guess. I just don't understand the logic of trying to fight Jund midrange when nothing in the UWR is forcing you to do that. Quite the opposite, UWR lends itself to control, not midrange. Black and Green have so many high value cards in the midrange, UWR - not so much.
You are right in saying that uwr control is better against the midrange decks though. I just prefer a more aggressive strategy to close games against combo and control. This deck is also much better against the increasingly popular delver decks.
But compared to UWR control you have a terrible game against Combo? And what control decks do you like to close out fast? UWR control?!
I only looked at the storm MU, since i was really surprised to hear you couldnt control it, so here are my impressions:
Your G1 was a slow start, you may not know if you are playing against combo or not, but there is just no point in playing a tapped shockland on T2, specially with 2 helixes in hand. You either bluff a mana leak, or helix them on the face. This is a tempo-midrange deck, you cant just have a blank turn 2, it is not acceptable. Except I could have been facing Twin and I might have wanted my Helix to attack a pestermite.
On the SB, keeping 4 geists vs storm isnt a really good idea, at least you should cut one for celestial purge, storm wont be able to go off without pyromancer´s after all.
On G2: i believe your clique you have taken pyretic ritual or electromancer, not past in flames.
The storm player had already missed a land drop and was at 13 life with a clique about to hit him, so he was forced to try go off next turn, and both these cards could be his first choice. Which one he chose would strongly depend of weather or not he drew the 3rd land off clique+turn, if he didnt, hes dead anyways; but if he did, taking out the ritual would force him to play globin and then manamorphose, which you could easily counter, leaving him with no rituals, then proceed to kill electromancer with elctrolyze next turn.
And even if you do take past in flames, why in hell would you leave yourself open playing geist????? YOU DO KNOW he has a goblin+ritual+draw, right? You saw his hand didnt you?
I dont understand why your opponent played double ritual and empty the barrens instead of trying to kill you that turn tough. I won game 2 and it was largely because the pressure I put on him with Geist early so none of this really makes sense. Again, I won the game. Derp.
On G3: Your keep without red is a bit questionable, although you had mana and counters, so i guess it can be excused to a certain degree, but you should know that a globin on T2 lets them attempt the combo on T3.
That aside, when he played a T3 ritual, why didnt you mana leak it? He had enough mana thanks to goblin to recast it, so the tempo loss didnt really affect him all that much. He may or may not have had a second ritual (which he did in fact, so you would have lost anyways) but you didnt know that, so its not an excuse for poor plays. I would have lost anyways and maybe if he fizzles the card I drew off Remand could have made a differece.
My impression is that you dont have enough experience with the deck.
And even if i dont particularly like sasky´s list, saying that it cant hold its ground vs storm or jund, just because you played 2 games and lost them isnt evidence to anything. Specially not when you made so many mistakes. It's doesn't take much experience with the list to pilot it. I mean its a pretty simplistic game plan. The mistakes I made were minor and did not affect the outcome, I make mistakes all the time, even with decks I created like 8Rack. You need to watch the match vs Jund where I get completely man handled. I agree 2 games isnt a large enough sample size to draw any conclusions, but I can tell you the FEEL of the matches left a really bad taste in my mouth.
I wish I have a proper video cam to record paper games because I don't play online.
Anyway, rhinne has already said what is needed. Loose keeps and not utilizing the cards right will cause game losses, not because the deck is bad.
Btw, let's not reboot the whole "uwr is worse than uw" here. This is not the right thread. You know where that led you to the last time. This thread is for IMPROVING Uwr lists, not make people switch to UW.
No I'm not going to bother getting you guys to see the light about UWR vs UW. Instead I am advocating UWR control over this UWR midrange. The daily results pretty much back me up here. UWR control is so much more successful because it doesn't try to beat decks like Jund and Junk in the mid game. Trying to beat those types of decks on their home turf is ridiculous to me. It's like trying to swim against the current at best.
Impressions: The match against Bant was quite fun, though playing against Bant tells us nothing of the deck's viability in the format. The match against Splinter Twin was the only match that I felt like I had the upper hand the whole way. This is significant because Twin is one of the absolute best decks in the format. I think multiple games against Twin would yield a large percentage of wins in UWR midrange's favor.
The matches against Storm and Jund were lost before the games even started. The deck does not have anywhere near enough control to stop or even slow down Storm. Against Jund the match played out exactly how I predicted - Jund stomps the face of any deck trying to compete in a midrange game. You do not try to beat Jund in the midrange, they will crush you. You either go after them early like Red burn does or you drag them into a late game and beat them there.
UWR Midrange Must-Haves
Start with that as your basic shell and the rest will fall into place.
In a deck capable of running Cryptic Command to flatten an opponent's army, is this even really a competition? Splicer is...not good.
I'm going to have to disagree with you about splicer being good vs grindy decks using Lili. That's exactly what 8Rack does and there were several times where if my opponent had Geist instead of Splicer my Lili would have been dead, and I would have probably lost the match and the Daily. Remember, Geist's angel flies and hits for 4. That makes Geist a great suicide bomber for Lili.
1-17-14 8Rack Daily Round 4 vs UWR Midrange: http://youtu.be/G8qgFsW9kr8
I felt like Blade Splicer was a serious under performer. Use Geists people.
What about that Stormbreath dragon? It gets past lingering souls tokens just as easily but it's also immune to Path to Exile, which is the only removal spell in the format that can profitably get rid of it. I had someone play it against me when I was playing Esper Midrange and it crushed me in a game I was almost certain to win otherwise. I had 2 paths and a snapcaster in hand.
I've been wrong before, this wont be the last time.
To be fair I said multiple times the way to make the deck work was to use Cryptic Command in conjunction with Geist. His list looks like a UWR control list that uses Geist, the singleton Hellkite and Resto Angel notwithstanding.
There are a bunch of folks using Geist but not CC, or CC but not Geist. And then some crazies that use neither. The deck suffers from a lack of identity. Hopefully this top 8 list will finally bring some focus into this messy strategy.
1-7-14 TiRune's UWR Midrange Initial Assembly and Trial Run: http://youtu.be/gKB4rVu3jyk
1-7-14 TiRune's UWR Midrange vs Storm: http://youtu.be/kmm3dirdCYA
1-7-14 TiRune's UWR Midrange vs Twin RQer: http://youtu.be/63FPvGR75Ts
1-7-14 TiRune's UWR Midrange vs Polymorph: http://youtu.be/4eMj2XDcw9s
When I compare this deck to Sasky's they are both missing a critical piece. Sasky is missing Cryptic Command which allows Geist to swing. TiRune on the other hand wisely has Cryptics, but no Geists! I'm sorry but blade splicer is garbage compared to Geist.
Two daily wins doesn't mean much in terms of the entire meta. Hell, my 8Rack has more wins than UWR midrange in the last month and that amounts to exactly zero impact on the meta as a whole. You have to look at the percentage of cards that are being played under the UWR control heading. People are playign UWR control a lot, and UWR midrange is not even a blip on the radar currently.
Now let's talk about your list. At a glance I like it a lot more than Sasky's which felt like playing catch with a bowling ball. I will make your list on MTGO verbatim and do some testing and record the videos like I did for Sasky's list.
EDIT: You have a 62 Card deck there. I am going to go ahead and take some liberties with your list to make it 60 cards.
-1 Electrolyze
-1 Izzet Charm
Cool?
Actually you need to look closer. Click on the category and see what spells are being run.
38% 2 Vendilion Clique 1UU 73.82
35% 2 Restoration Angel 3W 9.16
Spells
100% 4 Cryptic Command 1UUU 75.88
100% 4 Lightning Bolt R 0.32
100% 3 Mana Leak 1U 0.09
100% 2 Path to Exile W 4.22
96% 4 Electrolyze 1UR 0.68
92% 2 Lightning Helix RW 0.32
88% 3 Spell Snare U 0.96
73% 2 Think Twice 1U 0.12
73% 2 Sphinx's Revelation XWUU 64.46
62% 1 Ajani Vengeant 2RW 7.00
58% 2 Supreme Verdict 1WWU 4.46
50% 1 Gideon Jura 3WW 2.78
50% 1 Shadow of Doubt UbUb 3.28
42% 1 Wrath of God 2WW 3.23
Land
100% 4 Celestial Colonnade 33.44
100% 4 Scalding Tarn 99.12
100% 3 Sulfur Falls 4.47
100% 3 Arid Mesa 41.82
100% 3 Island 0.06
100% 3 Tectonic Edge 3.63
100% 2 Steam Vents 7.22
100% 2 Hallowed Fountain 7.04
100% 1 Mountain 0.02
100% 1 Plains 0.02
88% 1 Sacred Foundry 5.49
62% 1 Glacial Fortress 0.11
Sideboard
96% 2 Sowing Salt 2RR 1.26
96% 2 Counterflux UUR 0.32
85% 2 Stony Silence 1W 0.96
69% 1 Wear // Tear 1R // W 0.22
62% 2 Celestial Purge 1W 0.06
62% 1 Dispel U 0.05
42% 1 Combust 1R 0.06
38% 2 Grafdigger's Cage 1 3.96
38% 2 Engineered Explosives X 5.62
27% 1 Timely Reinforcements 2W 0.06
23% 1 Detention Sphere 1WU 1.58
23% 1 Crucible of Worlds 3 16.66
23% 1 Pyroclasm
I realize this is half troll, but i'll feed you anyway. If you see me make a mistake that could changed the result of any of the game post the time of the vid and ill take a look at it. Try come up with something more earth shattering than not playing a helix on turn 2 against an unknown deck. Like i said it could have been twin or delver or even fae. The deck is poorly positioned to fight jund, is anyone claiming otherwise?
I feel like this deck has an excellent game against Twin. That is actually very important in my mind considering Twin is the second most played deck in the meta behind Jund. The problem is that uwr control has the same match aganst twin and a much better match against jund. At some point you have to ask yourself why play this over something very similar that works a lot better?
I guess. I just don't understand the logic of trying to fight Jund midrange when nothing in the UWR is forcing you to do that. Quite the opposite, UWR lends itself to control, not midrange. Black and Green have so many high value cards in the midrange, UWR - not so much.
But compared to UWR control you have a terrible game against Combo? And what control decks do you like to close out fast? UWR control?!
You make no sense to me.
Mine is blue.
No I'm not going to bother getting you guys to see the light about UWR vs UW. Instead I am advocating UWR control over this UWR midrange. The daily results pretty much back me up here. UWR control is so much more successful because it doesn't try to beat decks like Jund and Junk in the mid game. Trying to beat those types of decks on their home turf is ridiculous to me. It's like trying to swim against the current at best.
Just look at the stats of UWR control: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern
UWR Control is only behind Jund, Twin and Affinity in numbers of daily prize winning finishes. UWR Midrange isn't even on the list.
Sasky's UWR Midrange Initial Assembly and First Game: http://youtu.be/2R-Ukm_c_8o
1-5-14 UWR Midrange vs Bant Midrange: http://youtu.be/Wd6TlzYNmuo
1-4-14 UWR Midrange vs Splinter Twin: http://youtu.be/KHpoIKaRwEo
1-4-14 UWR Midrange vs Storm: http://youtu.be/mw2te4tUd6g
1-5-14 UWR Midrange vs Jund: http://youtu.be/7UfOU5wzOYU
The matches against Storm and Jund were lost before the games even started. The deck does not have anywhere near enough control to stop or even slow down Storm. Against Jund the match played out exactly how I predicted - Jund stomps the face of any deck trying to compete in a midrange game. You do not try to beat Jund in the midrange, they will crush you. You either go after them early like Red burn does or you drag them into a late game and beat them there.