Finished this because I had some spare time. Deck + Sideboarding guide. I would love feedback, and feel free to use this however you see fit.
My idea is that jund/junk will be more prevalent then before. Key in this matchup is to: 1. Make sure you get into a topdeck situation, jund/junk help you out here 2. Make sure you have better topdecks. 1 is realized by having plenty of answers to goyf/rhino and liliana. 2 is realized by them having useless discard spells, and us having Snapcaster/Cryptic/Collonade/Hellkite to eek advantage and go over their top.
Also decks that are good against jund/junk will raise their head again, say tron and affinity. I built the deck with these in mind too.
The philosophy of the sideboard is to have a lot of cards that are upgrades against a lot of matchups, but there's very little full hoser cards. I'm basically tweaking the deck in a more controlling way after sideboard, depending on the matchups.
Short description of card choices:
3 resto / 1 hellkite -> This might be one too many of one of these. Elspeth/cryptic might be better? Hellkite is good against jund/junk though, and so are restos.
2 lightning helix -> Helix is good, but I against a lot of matchups I side them out. I expect jund/junk, twin and tron to be popular, and helix isn't too great there.
3 Cryptic -> A bit more controlling than a burn version of this deck. Cryptics make the jund/junk matchup complete. If there's a lot of zoo and other aggro decks, going down to two for a helix might not be bad.
2 Mana leak -> I feel having some hard counters is currently worth it. Although it's a bit of a nonbo with paths, Hard counters are better than remand against the more aggresive decks, and more of a permanent answer to cards like lily and siege rhino.
4 Path -> I usually prefer playing just 3 and one in the sideboard. However since junk is playing 4 siege rhino and tasigur now, I feel that now more than ever we want to be able to kill any creature. There are matchups where the card is dead, but it doesn't outweigh the previous factor in my opinion
2 Tectonic Edge -> Better than Ghost Quarter with mana leaks. Needed to counter jund/junk manlands in topdeck mode, and also good against tron/shift
2 counterflux/2 negate -> Sideboardable in a lot of matchups where control is key. Not hosers, but with 10 hard and 3 soft counters + (flash) creature pressure after sideboard, matchups like tempo twin, uwr control, tron, scapeshift, storm, living end, etc. become a LOT easier. Your burn basically turns into a huge heap of answers for their key cards.
2 Engineered Explosives -> Basically a potential catch all sweeper. Decent against jund/junk on 2 (or 0 for souls tokens/3 liliana), great against affinity/bogles/merfolk/zoo/tokens, and even playble against storm on 2 to catch their ascensions (key card to remove!)
1 Threads / 1 Celestial Purge -> Needed against jund/junk as more removal against goyf/rhino. We overload on removal against these cards so that we end up in topdeck mode to eek winning advantage with cryptic/collonade
2 Relic -> I'd play rest in peace because of the reinstation of golgari grave troll, but relic can be sided in against jund/junk/twin/uwr for extra velocity, and you do not want to lose the snapcster option as they are extra paths.
1 Wrath -> Just a sweeper to play alongside of EE for creature matchups, also matches up well against the 1 of Thrun in jund/junk sideboard.
1 Ajani Vengeant -> Needed an additional card against aggro decks and burn. Ajani is probably the best suited for this role.
It's worth mentioning that GP Prague 2014 was won by a UWR Geist deck.
Yeah, it was the right meta call at the time. I am always switching between twin, geist and control ur(w) variants as the meta sees fit :). Just my version had blade splicers/more cryptics and grim lavamancers, which were all strong metacalls (I ended 2nd in 3 grand prix trials ( ), and only barely missed day 2 due to 1. living end and me getting fulminatored and mulling to 4, 2. keeping a 6 card hand without counters against storm. I did win against 4 jund/junk decks in the gp trials, only lost to 1 in the finals. And in the GP itself I won against 2 jund/junk decks decisvely. My record was very good against the deck, even with deathrite shaman!).
I like your videos btw, keep it up!
I haven't tested Keranos extensively... but I feel that another batterskull, a hellkite (in the tempo-y version) or an elspeth, knights errant are just better. They all impact the board immediately, while Keranos provides inevitability. I think the former is where you want to be in the topdeck war, else you are a topdeck behind for 1-3 turns before the keranos gets its value in.
Elspeth can jump geists or chump a goyf infinitely. Hellkite uncontested wins the game in two turns. That sounds a lot better to me!
As a side musing... Because junk has siege rhino now: Is the full tempo/burn plan not just worse than a more controlly version now? Siege rhino is both a huge blocker and attacker and counters a lightning helix. Perhaps we should play the geistless version with 4 snaps, 4 resto and 2 cliques a rev and a couple of wraths?
I'm losing interest in Geist, personally. 2 toughness makes it a 'must resto this to make it effective' if you are anywhere but ahead on board state. Sure, if you have their board clear and you have a Geist out, maybe you can pull ahead for a win but with anger of the gods, pyroclasm, and a huge beastiary of >2 power creatures, Geist just doesn't equate to the advantage I want it to in the majority of situations.
Actually i feel geist is way better in this current meta than the previous one. The only match from T1 decks (for the reference, T1 decks in mtgsalvation) that Geist doesn't shine is against Rock. But if you feel geist is not the route, i advice you to try UWR Flash build (for the reference http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/uwr-flash-in-modern/)
The deck was to a meta before KtK so against KtK meta it didn't worked so well, but maybe now that we have a similiar pre-ktk meta this deck could find its place.
Im was also wondering if the deck might not just be better going a slight bit more controlling and cutting geist/splicer all together. Nice idea.
Why do you assume your splicer will survive more than 1 round? they have 10 removal spells (more or less). those spells would be useless against geist, but are enough to deal with a 1/1 with cmc=3. Why do you think the people who had some success with the deck (i don't like to use the word 'pros') wouldn't use splicer? Splicer is better than geist vs rock, but that doesn't mean splicer IS GOOD vs rock. You are speaking like, if we change from geist to splicer, we would have a good matchup vs rock, and that is a lie. With geist or splicer, our matchup is not favourable. The difference is that geist renders a lot of spells useless, and is way better vs other decks than splicer (faster clock and hexproof).
Keranos is bad vs rock? go to any thread of rock decks (jund, junk or gb rock) and ask for the top 5 cards they are most scared of facing. Keranos would be there. Rock's goal is to put both players in top deck mode, where their better threats and planeswalkers could shine. Keranos is something they can't deal with, and keeps a burn clock or gives you extra cards (something they don't want to).
Splicer is better versus rock decks. You are saying that if we can get a match percentage from 40 to 45 its not worth it. If you say it is unfavourable, it matters to which extent it is favourable or unfavourable right? It's a non-argument saying that both unfavorables are alike, thus we should discard the splicer idea.
Geist doesn't render their spells completely useless. All their removal still works against your angels, cliques and collonades. Especially if a lot of one on one trading happens the difference in used removal/discard matters little.
Especially in topdeck mode, comparing geist and splicer: Both boards are empty. You draw a Geist/Splicer. Opponent draws a Liliana. In the geist situation, you have nothing, lilly is advantage for rock. In the Splicer situation, you have a 3/3 left and you kill the lilly. Board state is favorable for you.
Indeed most of the rock matches end up in topdeck mode. Here Cryptic shines and makes the matchup quite 50/50 in my experience. Adding blade splicer might even make it a slight bit favorable?
A Keranos from the sideboard is reasonable, so are batterskull and hellkite. Elspeth is prolly also quite good. I don't know how much these cards outrun each other, it probably depends on the other decks you plan on sideboarding against too. Personally I like to side out 3 lightning helix and 3 remand, and side in 2 relic, 2 EE and 2 Threads. This lets you 1 on 1 trade effectively with their deck, whilst you snaps/cryptics/electrolyzes etc. give you the edge in topdeck mode. In my opinion the 'burn' plan works worse than this against rock. simply because topdeck lighning helix to the face is worse than drawing threats and 1 for 1 spells.
I still don't think Splicer over Geist is the better choice now though. Rock is only 10-20% of a metagame at most in a diverse format like modern. Across the board geist is the better choice at the moment in my opinion.
Splicer doesn't suck against Abzan. Splicer is GOOD against that deck. It helps fight card attrition, makes your Restoration Angels much better and makes Liliana much worse. The token also teams up with any burn spell to first strike kill any creature in modern (6 toughness or less). Keranos is bbbaaaddd against that deck. 5 mana and then nothing happens, and then next turn maybe you get a card, maybe you get an upkeep lightning bolt? I tested it and found the 4 mana planeswalkers like Ajani Vengeant and Elspeth, Knight Errant to be more reliable and better at keeping you alive/ turning around the game.
Instead of playing 4 mana planeswalkers, isn't playing resto or cryptic just better?
I played blade splicer UWR in GP Prague last year, when deathrite was still a thing. A friend of mine I shared a plane with played jund. The matchup felt very favorable to me back then.
Blade splicer makes liliana quite a bit worse and performed very well against jund/junk. Lingering souls is less of an issue, and going splicer into resto is nuts. I played 2 Izzet Charms, which were great at countering liliana or killing deathrite/bob (not having deathrite might make it a bit worse?). Also 3 cryptics were instrumental in that matchup, I feel at least 2 is a correct number in a geist deck. For sideboard I had 2 relic, 1 hellkite and 3 EE (probably one too many) back then.
However, I do not think that Blade Splicer is the choice at the moment. Against decks like twin, remnants of delver, and the now absence of pod, they are probably just worse than geist.
The old list was very metagamey with 2 grim lavamancers and 4 splicers (lots of merfolk and pod expected). Here's an updated version I'm currently playing, feel free to shoot down card choices etc. I'm mostly wondering about the threads in the sideboard... Is it good enough against jund and is there not something better (purge perhaps?). Also wondering if the sacred foundry should not just be another steam vents, as the triple blue for cryptic on turn 4 is needed.
Agree that resto is a great spell. I was running 3 before as I said, but the deck felt like it had too many threats and not enough answers. Since I cut a few threats it might be possible that 3 resto is correct again... I'll test it in the trials in prague
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.
Think it's amazing that you make videos of a list to make your argument!
The list doesn't quite totally match my list though, the sideboard looks off in the videos ^_^. Would love to see some more videos though, really enjoyed them!
I'll try to see if I like the geists again in my lists instead of the blade splicer, testing your theory of it being good with cryptic command with the tapping. I really want eiganjo castle with geist though, it was amazing when I played them together... I don't feel comfortable cutting the blue sources for a castle if I run geist, so I'd probably cut a tec edge or the sacred foundry then. Difficult decisions :(.
Maxing out resto for the blade splicers is a bad plan in my experience. 4x resto's, 4x cryptics is surely too much, and I'd rather play the cryptics. 2 resto's is fine, even with 3 I found that I had too many draws with double resto which often really hampers development.
I do really like restoration angel though. It's not only 'cute' with the blade splicer, the 3/4 flash body is very relevant in matchups like twin where you can't really tap out in your main phase. It also blocks everything in that deck, and hardly gets bolted.
On another note, I'm playing this deck in prague this weekend, testing it in the trials on friday first to adjust it. I'll try to record my games so I can do a write up here :).
It hits very relevant spells in a few tricky matchups, and especially in the top 2 decks (imo) right now.
Countless spells in Jund get hosed by Spell Snare.
Tron runs a play set of Pyroclasm for a reason, and that card is one of their only outs against us. (it's a very good out, though) It also hits a few ramp spells if you need it too.
A Spell Snare in your opening hand against Affinity is pretty close to winning the game.
Scapeshift is also getting more and more popular, and Spell Snare hits a plethora of spells against them as well.
I'm just finding that Spell Snare hits against more decks than it misses.
Blade Splicer is almost a different deck, I think. I notice that most Blade Splicer lists are running 2-4 Cryptic Command, which is a card I've never had success running in a Geist list. I play my Geist shell by using removal to clear the way for Geist to swing in, which wins me the game. The Blade Splicer lists are almost using Blade Splicers as defense, not offense like you'd use Geist for. Geist lists really remind me like playing UWR Control, not midrange.
Blade Splicer is definitely good, but your entire game plan changes when you remove Geist from this shell.
I'll think about spell snare for sure, thanks for the feedback
I don't think blade splicer changes the plan at all. When you can remove blockers and hit with it, it's still 4 damage, only 2 less than geist. However, in the matches where you can't attack with it because of blockers, or there's pyroclasm or liliana etc. blade splicer can ALSO function as a blocker. It's like an extra feature, it doesn't warp the deck in any way. I still play a tempo with the deck.
The Cryptics can basically be ran more easily because you don't have to run eiganjo castle, tweaking the mana base a bit gets you enough blue sources. It's easily one of the strongest cards in the deck in my opinion, I'd prolly even run two in a geist shell.
So I'm coming to the realization that Spell Snare is just a necessary evil for G1. I don't like it in the SB, so I'll just keep playing two in the main.
Could you explain why you think spell snare is a necessary evil?
I also do think that Geist is outdated at the moment. It's poor against pyroclasm, liliana, blockers like kitchen finks and voice... That's the entire upper part of the meta except for uwr and tron. Blade Splicer fixes all these problems, and to boot it can block etched champions. It's also arguably better with restoration angel, and it gives an extra option against goyfs by blocking and bolting after first strike damage. You should test them, I'm pretty sure you'd like it.
I also changed 1 stony silence to wear // tear... I was blown out by blood moon in affinity, which seems like a popular sideboard choice atm. The guy also ran spell pierce to counter the stony silence. I think wear//tear is needed, and is also great as an extra card against kiki pod, and ok against tron (boarded torpor orbs and the like).
I'm also liking the 3 Engineered Explosives, it gave me more of a way out against Etched Champions which are otherwise an outright pain to deal with.
Don't they still play Sakura Tribe Elder in Scapeshift?
Because if so, you Spell Snare that snaky (ZING) bugger as soon as he's put on the stack, no questions asked.
There's no other way you're going to interact profitably with that thing.
Yeah, against scapeshift it's probably good, my mistake
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?
Should've been 2 cliques instead of 4. Small mistake :). 4 is naturally too many XD.
Would be awesome if you made some videos!
Changed the threads of disloyalty in the sidboard to an extra engineered explosives btw. It's good against the same matchups, and better against affinity :).
Updated the list. This is what I'm testing now.
Actually, spell snare is good vs tron too, since it hits sylvan scrying (relevant target) and pyroclasm (VERY relevant target).
It may not be so important for you since you dont have a geist to protect, you are a bit less vulnerable to pyroclasm, tough.
And vs scapeshift, spellsnare can hit remands, farseek and the good old pyroclasm, it may not look important to hit farseek, but i will trade one of my spells for one of their ramp any day.
Hmm, it has targets against tron, but it's not very good. If they don't have sylvan scrying then it's just dead. I'm also indeed less worried about pyroclasm with this list, it's prolly better in a geist list... Yeah I guess against scapeshift is fine. Living end however? Against some other weird decks like angel's grace/ad nauseam it also has no targets. I'll try and playtest some with spell snare and see what happens.
Some remarks:
* 0 Spell snare. I don't really like spell snare. Against jund you already have plenty of answers against the stuff that costs 2 mana (mostly creatures). Against affinity it is indeed insane. Against pod, tron, living end and a few other decks, spell snare is nearly just dead and you're happy if you can find a proper target for it.
* 2 Grim Lavamancer. Basically replaced the spell snares with these. Relevant against jund and twin, VERY relevant against Merfolk, Pod, Affinity and the like. Only somewhat dead matchups are tron and scapeshift, but it's still a reusable source of damage. Against tron it's also surely better than a spell snare or two since this actually does something. Similar idea to the Patrick Dickmann twin list running these. It's possible that these shouldn't be here, and that it's better to play more permission or creatures main so you can put anger of the gods in the side.
* 3 Remand. I'm very unsure about this. I want to run 4 path to exile, which is very bad together with Mana Leak. Remand is a hard counter against any deck with things like snapcaster or suspend cards, it's a great tempo swing against early decks, and at the very least cycles against any other deck and helps your mana base. It's possible this should be mana leak, it's also possible 2 of them should be spell snares or an extra izzet charm.
* 1 Izzet Charm. Played a GPT with 1 main, it has never disappointed me, and always been great. Tiago plays 3 in his UWR list, perhaps too many but I could see going up to 2
* 25 lands. I figure with the 3 remands it's possible to go down to 25 lands instead of 26, so I cut a tec edge that doesn't help cast much anyway. 26 already feels too many as we don't have that many expensive drops. I'm also not playing sacred foundry as it doesn't cast cryptic. Don't know if this is good, as sometimes you just want a sacred foundry to accompany your double island draw or something...
Sideboard: Thundermaw Hellkite
Great against jund/junk and melira pod. Also a big reusable lava axe against decks like control, burn and tron. One of the weaknesses of this deck is lingering souls, this deftly takes care of them. Blew up a whole board of BoP, lingering souls and aven mindcensor at a GPT with it, was amazing.
Counterflux
Insane hate against scapeshift, amazing against storm and living end (overload it so they can't ricochet trap). Also great against twin and control.
Negate
Felt like I wanted another counterspell against twin, uwr, tron and living end. extra counterflux felt like too much and I wanted something cheaper. Possible that this should just be an extra counterflux.
Sowing Salt
Tron. You need an effect like this to turn off this emrakul lategame
Stony Silence
Hoses affinity if they don't have the usual hate of nature's claim, thoughtseize or wear//tear. Playing 1 now instead of two, affinity sometimes has wear//tear against stony silence so it's less good. It's possible the tron matchup is already good enough after sideboarding for this stony silence to be a shatterstorm.
Wear//Tear
Good as a one of against pod. Decent against Tron and affinity as extra removal, great against twin as it takes care of splinter twin or batterskull, or the occasional blood moon.
I'm pretty sure 2 is the correct number at the moment, I only side both in against kiki pod (not melira), affinity and tron. Two is needed at the moment because affinity lists tend to run 3 blood moon in the side, this is your only real way of removing it as Engineered Explosives for 3 often has to be played preemptively. Make sure you fetch a basic plains against affinity after sideboarding! It's also fine against tron when they side in torpor orbs.
Relic of Progenitus
Gameplan against Jund. Once you remove their graveyard once and cantrip, they usually have a hard time filling it again lategame. It's also a gamebreaker against most graveyard decks. I do side out snapcaster against jund, so if you're not playing grim lavamancer these could be rest in peace... However, relic cycles at the very least, and rip costs you a card and can be decayed... Not sure yet :/
Sword of Fire and Ice
Too many twin/merfolk/delver decks running around. This helps a great deal, and is especially good with the two creatures from bladesplicer. Resolve this in those matchups and if you get to equip it it becomes very hard to lose (protection from their whole deck!)
Engineered Explosives
It's either EE or Anger of the Gods that should be in this slot. Anger is definately better against Melira pod and possibly also merfolk. However, it doesn't work well with the grim lavamancer plan, where this does. It's also a good removal spell against jund since it hits all their permanents.
Finished this because I had some spare time. Deck + Sideboarding guide. I would love feedback, and feel free to use this however you see fit.
My idea is that jund/junk will be more prevalent then before. Key in this matchup is to: 1. Make sure you get into a topdeck situation, jund/junk help you out here 2. Make sure you have better topdecks. 1 is realized by having plenty of answers to goyf/rhino and liliana. 2 is realized by them having useless discard spells, and us having Snapcaster/Cryptic/Collonade/Hellkite to eek advantage and go over their top.
Also decks that are good against jund/junk will raise their head again, say tron and affinity. I built the deck with these in mind too.
The philosophy of the sideboard is to have a lot of cards that are upgrades against a lot of matchups, but there's very little full hoser cards. I'm basically tweaking the deck in a more controlling way after sideboard, depending on the matchups.
Sideboard guide + deck here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eD10fgv9dt7QmBYKnDgFymaTAScarXmg8PgYYwDHZIM/edit?usp=sharing
Deck for people that do not feel like clicking the link:
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Restoration Angel
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
2 Electrolyze
1 Spell Snare
3 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
2 Mana Leak
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
4 Celestial Collonade
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Counterflux
2 Negate
1 Stony Silence
2 Wear//Tear
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Celestial Purge
1 Wrath of God
1 Ajani Vengeant
Short description of card choices:
3 resto / 1 hellkite -> This might be one too many of one of these. Elspeth/cryptic might be better? Hellkite is good against jund/junk though, and so are restos.
2 lightning helix -> Helix is good, but I against a lot of matchups I side them out. I expect jund/junk, twin and tron to be popular, and helix isn't too great there.
3 Cryptic -> A bit more controlling than a burn version of this deck. Cryptics make the jund/junk matchup complete. If there's a lot of zoo and other aggro decks, going down to two for a helix might not be bad.
2 Mana leak -> I feel having some hard counters is currently worth it. Although it's a bit of a nonbo with paths, Hard counters are better than remand against the more aggresive decks, and more of a permanent answer to cards like lily and siege rhino.
4 Path -> I usually prefer playing just 3 and one in the sideboard. However since junk is playing 4 siege rhino and tasigur now, I feel that now more than ever we want to be able to kill any creature. There are matchups where the card is dead, but it doesn't outweigh the previous factor in my opinion
2 Tectonic Edge -> Better than Ghost Quarter with mana leaks. Needed to counter jund/junk manlands in topdeck mode, and also good against tron/shift
2 counterflux/2 negate -> Sideboardable in a lot of matchups where control is key. Not hosers, but with 10 hard and 3 soft counters + (flash) creature pressure after sideboard, matchups like tempo twin, uwr control, tron, scapeshift, storm, living end, etc. become a LOT easier. Your burn basically turns into a huge heap of answers for their key cards.
2 Engineered Explosives -> Basically a potential catch all sweeper. Decent against jund/junk on 2 (or 0 for souls tokens/3 liliana), great against affinity/bogles/merfolk/zoo/tokens, and even playble against storm on 2 to catch their ascensions (key card to remove!)
1 Threads / 1 Celestial Purge -> Needed against jund/junk as more removal against goyf/rhino. We overload on removal against these cards so that we end up in topdeck mode to eek winning advantage with cryptic/collonade
2 Relic -> I'd play rest in peace because of the reinstation of golgari grave troll, but relic can be sided in against jund/junk/twin/uwr for extra velocity, and you do not want to lose the snapcster option as they are extra paths.
1 Wrath -> Just a sweeper to play alongside of EE for creature matchups, also matches up well against the 1 of Thrun in jund/junk sideboard.
1 Ajani Vengeant -> Needed an additional card against aggro decks and burn. Ajani is probably the best suited for this role.
Yeah, it was the right meta call at the time. I am always switching between twin, geist and control ur(w) variants as the meta sees fit :). Just my version had blade splicers/more cryptics and grim lavamancers, which were all strong metacalls (I ended 2nd in 3 grand prix trials ( ), and only barely missed day 2 due to 1. living end and me getting fulminatored and mulling to 4, 2. keeping a 6 card hand without counters against storm. I did win against 4 jund/junk decks in the gp trials, only lost to 1 in the finals. And in the GP itself I won against 2 jund/junk decks decisvely. My record was very good against the deck, even with deathrite shaman!).
I like your videos btw, keep it up!
I haven't tested Keranos extensively... but I feel that another batterskull, a hellkite (in the tempo-y version) or an elspeth, knights errant are just better. They all impact the board immediately, while Keranos provides inevitability. I think the former is where you want to be in the topdeck war, else you are a topdeck behind for 1-3 turns before the keranos gets its value in.
Elspeth can jump geists or chump a goyf infinitely. Hellkite uncontested wins the game in two turns. That sounds a lot better to me!
As a side musing... Because junk has siege rhino now: Is the full tempo/burn plan not just worse than a more controlly version now? Siege rhino is both a huge blocker and attacker and counters a lightning helix. Perhaps we should play the geistless version with 4 snaps, 4 resto and 2 cliques a rev and a couple of wraths?
Im was also wondering if the deck might not just be better going a slight bit more controlling and cutting geist/splicer all together. Nice idea.
Splicer is better versus rock decks. You are saying that if we can get a match percentage from 40 to 45 its not worth it. If you say it is unfavourable, it matters to which extent it is favourable or unfavourable right? It's a non-argument saying that both unfavorables are alike, thus we should discard the splicer idea.
Geist doesn't render their spells completely useless. All their removal still works against your angels, cliques and collonades. Especially if a lot of one on one trading happens the difference in used removal/discard matters little.
Especially in topdeck mode, comparing geist and splicer: Both boards are empty. You draw a Geist/Splicer. Opponent draws a Liliana. In the geist situation, you have nothing, lilly is advantage for rock. In the Splicer situation, you have a 3/3 left and you kill the lilly. Board state is favorable for you.
Indeed most of the rock matches end up in topdeck mode. Here Cryptic shines and makes the matchup quite 50/50 in my experience. Adding blade splicer might even make it a slight bit favorable?
A Keranos from the sideboard is reasonable, so are batterskull and hellkite. Elspeth is prolly also quite good. I don't know how much these cards outrun each other, it probably depends on the other decks you plan on sideboarding against too. Personally I like to side out 3 lightning helix and 3 remand, and side in 2 relic, 2 EE and 2 Threads. This lets you 1 on 1 trade effectively with their deck, whilst you snaps/cryptics/electrolyzes etc. give you the edge in topdeck mode. In my opinion the 'burn' plan works worse than this against rock. simply because topdeck lighning helix to the face is worse than drawing threats and 1 for 1 spells.
I still don't think Splicer over Geist is the better choice now though. Rock is only 10-20% of a metagame at most in a diverse format like modern. Across the board geist is the better choice at the moment in my opinion.
Instead of playing 4 mana planeswalkers, isn't playing resto or cryptic just better?
Blade splicer makes liliana quite a bit worse and performed very well against jund/junk. Lingering souls is less of an issue, and going splicer into resto is nuts. I played 2 Izzet Charms, which were great at countering liliana or killing deathrite/bob (not having deathrite might make it a bit worse?). Also 3 cryptics were instrumental in that matchup, I feel at least 2 is a correct number in a geist deck. For sideboard I had 2 relic, 1 hellkite and 3 EE (probably one too many) back then.
However, I do not think that Blade Splicer is the choice at the moment. Against decks like twin, remnants of delver, and the now absence of pod, they are probably just worse than geist.
The old list was very metagamey with 2 grim lavamancers and 4 splicers (lots of merfolk and pod expected). Here's an updated version I'm currently playing, feel free to shoot down card choices etc. I'm mostly wondering about the threads in the sideboard... Is it good enough against jund and is there not something better (purge perhaps?). Also wondering if the sacred foundry should not just be another steam vents, as the triple blue for cryptic on turn 4 is needed.
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Restoration Angel
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
2 Electrolyze
2 Izzet Charm
3 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
1 Mana Leak
2 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
4 Celestial Collonade
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Counterflux
1 Negate
1 Stony Silence
2 Wear//Tear
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Sowing Salt
Thanks! Yes Kitchen Finks sorta looks like a good option, but you need to warp the mana base awkwardly to do so. There's only 15 or so white and red sources sources in the common manabase, mainly because you want tec edge and you need 3u for cryptics... 15 isn't enough to consistently be able to cast two white or two red spells on turn 3 or 4:
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/
Finks is better in a UW list instead of UWR IMO.
Think it's amazing that you make videos of a list to make your argument!
The list doesn't quite totally match my list though, the sideboard looks off in the videos ^_^. Would love to see some more videos though, really enjoyed them!
I'll try to see if I like the geists again in my lists instead of the blade splicer, testing your theory of it being good with cryptic command with the tapping. I really want eiganjo castle with geist though, it was amazing when I played them together... I don't feel comfortable cutting the blue sources for a castle if I run geist, so I'd probably cut a tec edge or the sacred foundry then. Difficult decisions :(.
Maxing out resto for the blade splicers is a bad plan in my experience. 4x resto's, 4x cryptics is surely too much, and I'd rather play the cryptics. 2 resto's is fine, even with 3 I found that I had too many draws with double resto which often really hampers development.
I do really like restoration angel though. It's not only 'cute' with the blade splicer, the 3/4 flash body is very relevant in matchups like twin where you can't really tap out in your main phase. It also blocks everything in that deck, and hardly gets bolted.
On another note, I'm playing this deck in prague this weekend, testing it in the trials on friday first to adjust it. I'll try to record my games so I can do a write up here :).
I'll think about spell snare for sure, thanks for the feedback
I don't think blade splicer changes the plan at all. When you can remove blockers and hit with it, it's still 4 damage, only 2 less than geist. However, in the matches where you can't attack with it because of blockers, or there's pyroclasm or liliana etc. blade splicer can ALSO function as a blocker. It's like an extra feature, it doesn't warp the deck in any way. I still play a tempo with the deck.
The Cryptics can basically be ran more easily because you don't have to run eiganjo castle, tweaking the mana base a bit gets you enough blue sources. It's easily one of the strongest cards in the deck in my opinion, I'd prolly even run two in a geist shell.
Could you explain why you think spell snare is a necessary evil?
I also do think that Geist is outdated at the moment. It's poor against pyroclasm, liliana, blockers like kitchen finks and voice... That's the entire upper part of the meta except for uwr and tron. Blade Splicer fixes all these problems, and to boot it can block etched champions. It's also arguably better with restoration angel, and it gives an extra option against goyfs by blocking and bolting after first strike damage. You should test them, I'm pretty sure you'd like it.
T
I'm also liking the 3 Engineered Explosives, it gave me more of a way out against Etched Champions which are otherwise an outright pain to deal with.
T
Yeah, against scapeshift it's probably good, my mistake
Should've been 2 cliques instead of 4. Small mistake :). 4 is naturally too many XD.
Would be awesome if you made some videos!
Changed the threads of disloyalty in the sidboard to an extra engineered explosives btw. It's good against the same matchups, and better against affinity :).
Updated the list. This is what I'm testing now.
Hmm, it has targets against tron, but it's not very good. If they don't have sylvan scrying then it's just dead. I'm also indeed less worried about pyroclasm with this list, it's prolly better in a geist list... Yeah I guess against scapeshift is fine. Living end however? Against some other weird decks like angel's grace/ad nauseam it also has no targets. I'll try and playtest some with spell snare and see what happens.
T
Edit:
Added the current sideboard I'm working on.
http://www.dumpt.com/img/links.php?file=i3bgkthj3n9dmsni79zm.png
My Current list:
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Blade Splicer
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Restoration Angel
Removal (14)
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Electrolyze
1 Izzet Charm
4 Path to Exile
Counterspells (7)
3 Remand
4 Cryptic Command
4 Celestial Collonade
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Mountain
2 Island
1 Plains
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
2 Counterflux
1 Negate
2 Sowing Salt
1 Stony Silence
2 Wear // Tear
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Engineered Explosives
Basically ripped the YYSapporo list and changed it to my liking. It is also close to Tiago Chan's list from here:
http://blog.mtgmadness.com/index.php/uwr-mid-range-kiki-jiki-at-grand-prix-antwerp/tiago-chan
Some remarks:
* 0 Spell snare. I don't really like spell snare. Against jund you already have plenty of answers against the stuff that costs 2 mana (mostly creatures). Against affinity it is indeed insane. Against pod, tron, living end and a few other decks, spell snare is nearly just dead and you're happy if you can find a proper target for it.
* 2 Grim Lavamancer. Basically replaced the spell snares with these. Relevant against jund and twin, VERY relevant against Merfolk, Pod, Affinity and the like. Only somewhat dead matchups are tron and scapeshift, but it's still a reusable source of damage. Against tron it's also surely better than a spell snare or two since this actually does something. Similar idea to the Patrick Dickmann twin list running these. It's possible that these shouldn't be here, and that it's better to play more permission or creatures main so you can put anger of the gods in the side.
* 3 Remand. I'm very unsure about this. I want to run 4 path to exile, which is very bad together with Mana Leak. Remand is a hard counter against any deck with things like snapcaster or suspend cards, it's a great tempo swing against early decks, and at the very least cycles against any other deck and helps your mana base. It's possible this should be mana leak, it's also possible 2 of them should be spell snares or an extra izzet charm.
* 1 Izzet Charm. Played a GPT with 1 main, it has never disappointed me, and always been great. Tiago plays 3 in his UWR list, perhaps too many but I could see going up to 2
* 25 lands. I figure with the 3 remands it's possible to go down to 25 lands instead of 26, so I cut a tec edge that doesn't help cast much anyway. 26 already feels too many as we don't have that many expensive drops. I'm also not playing sacred foundry as it doesn't cast cryptic. Don't know if this is good, as sometimes you just want a sacred foundry to accompany your double island draw or something...
Sideboard:
Thundermaw Hellkite
Great against jund/junk and melira pod. Also a big reusable lava axe against decks like control, burn and tron. One of the weaknesses of this deck is lingering souls, this deftly takes care of them. Blew up a whole board of BoP, lingering souls and aven mindcensor at a GPT with it, was amazing.
Counterflux
Insane hate against scapeshift, amazing against storm and living end (overload it so they can't ricochet trap). Also great against twin and control.
Negate
Felt like I wanted another counterspell against twin, uwr, tron and living end. extra counterflux felt like too much and I wanted something cheaper. Possible that this should just be an extra counterflux.
Sowing Salt
Tron. You need an effect like this to turn off this emrakul lategame
Stony Silence
Hoses affinity if they don't have the usual hate of nature's claim, thoughtseize or wear//tear. Playing 1 now instead of two, affinity sometimes has wear//tear against stony silence so it's less good. It's possible the tron matchup is already good enough after sideboarding for this stony silence to be a shatterstorm.
Wear//Tear
Good as a one of against pod. Decent against Tron and affinity as extra removal, great against twin as it takes care of splinter twin or batterskull, or the occasional blood moon.
I'm pretty sure 2 is the correct number at the moment, I only side both in against kiki pod (not melira), affinity and tron. Two is needed at the moment because affinity lists tend to run 3 blood moon in the side, this is your only real way of removing it as Engineered Explosives for 3 often has to be played preemptively. Make sure you fetch a basic plains against affinity after sideboarding! It's also fine against tron when they side in torpor orbs.
Relic of Progenitus
Gameplan against Jund. Once you remove their graveyard once and cantrip, they usually have a hard time filling it again lategame. It's also a gamebreaker against most graveyard decks. I do side out snapcaster against jund, so if you're not playing grim lavamancer these could be rest in peace... However, relic cycles at the very least, and rip costs you a card and can be decayed... Not sure yet :/
Sword of Fire and Ice
Too many twin/merfolk/delver decks running around. This helps a great deal, and is especially good with the two creatures from bladesplicer. Resolve this in those matchups and if you get to equip it it becomes very hard to lose (protection from their whole deck!)
Engineered Explosives
It's either EE or Anger of the Gods that should be in this slot. Anger is definately better against Melira pod and possibly also merfolk. However, it doesn't work well with the grim lavamancer plan, where this does. It's also a good removal spell against jund since it hits all their permanents.
Sideboard guide I'm working on... work in progress
http://www.dumpt.com/img/links.php?file=i3bgkthj3n9dmsni79zm.png
Now go to daily #6488937 listed under UWR control. Click on the two 4-0 lists there. what do you see?