"45 spells? I don't think that's accurate. Delver is bad in Modern, especially with the lack of deck manipulation (and you aren't even running the full suite of Visions). This sounds like a case of a deck looking really good to you on paper, but I assume you haven't playtested it heavily."
why is delver bad in modern but awesome in legacy then? he is just as good in modern. i have play tested it i cant see playing a deck without him that's blue. he either eats a lighting bolt or causes mayhem. either way my life total is safe and after i untap with 2 lands its gg cause they are playing catch up and i sit back and counter. if they tapp out vs any blue deck i just counter or kill untap play giest and now they are in a worse position. applying pressure makes people fold most of the time and 3-4 turns with delver can get the job done as i sit back with my stuff untapped. i don't want to get in an argument over this all i wanted was some sideboard help.
You are wrong, I'm a huge Delver fan but delver is terrible in Modern. It doesn't flip often because you can't usually play 18 lands and 12 creatures because of bad cantrips, it doesn't flip because of bad cantrips, and it easily dies because of no free countermagic. It's also much worse when your opponent has 4+ lands for example, which (almost) never happens in Legacy due to Waste + Stifle and augments its power by tenfold.
In short, playing Delver in Legacy is like driving a Porsche and in Modern is like a Seat Ibiza. Don't play it in any blue deck, honestly
So I was wrong about Cryptic Command. It's fantastic. Mystic Gate really helped a lot when I drew it to play it as well. Love it.
Another big winner is definitely Threads of Disloyalty. I forced a Jund deck into -2ing his Lili to kill the Goyf I stole from him, allowing me to drop a Geist and win the game.
However, I think I need a little more against Affinity. Any suggestions? Aven Mindcensor definitely underperformed at times, but when it worked it worked REALLY well.
It kinda pisses me off when someone, at this day and age, after countless tournament results and the wide knowledge that Cryptic Command is one of the most, if not the most, powerful spells in modern, says that "he was wrong and now he loves it".
Just joking but maaan CC is the nutz and every deck who can support the UUU must run it obviously.
Still, don't be angry when you get 3 in your initial hand, because power comes with responsibilty and hands like that, you don't wanna keep, lol
hellkite seems great vs tempo twin, and it's obviously amazing vs other decks trying to play lingering souls
as for why people don't play baneslayer, my guess is batterskull is more resilient
As a Tempo Twin player I'm not really sure of that, it was indeed awesome in the GP but I mean tapping out for a 5 drop which will get Remanded, Cryptic's, or Snap + chooseyourcounterspell 90% of the time, plus me being able to just play an Exarch and instawin... haha don't know xDDD
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.
Lol, you got pwned dude. Nothing personal against you since I don't know you, but you almost destroying the WUR thread with your UW superiority nonsense wasn't cool at all, and know Geist of Saint Win winning... lmao mad
PS: regarding the Cryptic Commands, every good Geist deck already played 2 (not 3 tho) so your point is moot.
Yah, its to deal with drawing a late game vial that is basically a dead draw.
I did have scepter main board, but it is horrible against lists running abrupt decay, hence the sideboard.
Any thoughts on the vial?
Why would you play Vial with 8 creatures? I mean I'd understand in Eternal Command, but in this deck? It makes no sense whatsoever
Anyways, I'm a huge Delver fan but he's useless in Modern due to the terrible cantrips available. Just remove the Vials, Serum Visions, add some Cliques and Mindcensors and play the midrange WUR version which can actually be pretty good.
You could even try a Squadron Hawk + Swords package which i've found is quite amazing against removal heavy decks
Oi oi oi!! What is this?? Man, I go away for some months and this degenerates almost as bad as having Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus and Skullclamp legal in Standard haha
Anyways, nowadays I'm playing basically Twin since i feel like WUR was pushed out of the meta, even though it's still a good deck. I don't have any revolutionary ideas about how to make it tier 1 again, but I do have lots of experience with deck deck and spent many many hours trying to fine tune it.
With that said:
1) Thanks to the mod for making another thread for UW, I've skimmed through the last pages and it's an absolute waste of time, with only Memory Lapse being COMPLETELY unable to accept disagreement. No offense dude but I had never seen nothing like it, you almost destroyed the thread for good. Jeez.
2) Your video demonstrating the UW deck is actually quite ironic because you make an absolutely terrible mistake in G1 (only seen that). How could you not path the Keldon? You could swing with geist, shorten the clock one turn so that he doesn't get the last points of damage, and even have Snapcaster and not have to chump (or make him get eaten with lavamancer). Plus, the opponent had only 2 cards in the yard at that time.
I think these lines of play prove that you in fact don't have experience with UW/UWR variants.
3) Putting delver in this deck changes it completely and is actually terrible in your shell. My true love has always been delver (RUG variant mostly) and I've tried to make it work trying almost anything, but the truth is it loses too much from Legacy to be truly good. I can get you some awesome free wins though.
The most success i've had with Delver is with a 18 land, 30 spell (4 Gitaxian/4 Serum) shell, and although it was risky, it was also quite amazing the consistency with which you flipped delver.
Your take with 23 lands is not gonna work, and it's extremely unfocused because you do NOT want to get to the lategame with delver, you want cheap, situational spells like Pierce to kill the opponent while he's off balance, not Cryptics.
4) Red is absolutely necessary if youa re playing with Geist, I can promise you that. The ONLY reason WUR Geist was so succesful a few months ago was because of Red.
The thing is, as many of you may have noticed, Geist is usually very scary for the opponent. They will try to block it and kill it in any ways possible, since that is the only thing that works if you don't have a sweeper or edict effect. So the deck, what it did, is capitalize on that to gain some massive card advantage with bad blocks involving RED burn. I can't remember the times where some opponent triple blocked only to have all of their creatures die, get hit by an angel, my geist living, and me even drawing a card with electrolyze.
Red does not only allow Geist to swing against creature decks (the other options, path and dismember, are very bad against small utility creatures), but it also allows it to gain MASSIVE VALUE by completely blowing up blocks.
5) Finally, my take on the archetype:
I've always liked the core of creatures to be
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Aven Mindcensor
The reason that i've always mained Mindcensor is simple: although overcosted as a simple 2/1 flier, it affects almost ANY deck (fetchlands) and can be devastating against Tron, Pod, and Scapeshift, some (quite) hard matchups.
The other reason is that this deck wants some kind of pressure if it doesn't have the Geist, and getting to 12 creatures helps alleviate the problem.
But with the current meta and seeing the recent Twin lists, i think a very wise option would be to main 2 Grim Lavamancer.
Again, it provides some pressure, it kills creatures like DRS, confidant, pestermite... anecdotically it can also shrink goyf.
I definitely think that Grim Lavamancer is a very interesting option right now.
Other things i tried some time back was Disrupting Shoal (nice to counter Lilianas while tapped out for Geist but ultimately too inconsistent and the card disadvantage is an issue) and Young Pyromancer (tokens can take over the game and provide Liliana fodder, but makes you want to run Gitaxian and tap out on turn 2)
Also have some other ideas but have to test more
Anyways, hope you liked my massive block of text, two months is a long time!! :nod::nod::p;)
turn 2 smiter can't be leaked, from that moment if I dont find a path soon, my geist becomes a Flame Javelin
I can bolt ooze if played in early, but in mid/late game he can simply respond by using the ability getting +1 counters and life
Thrun does not attack, he use it in defense while waiting for sigarda or other cows
Yes, your friends's deck is made to beat WUR since it's bolt resistant, has Thrun, Sigarda... a few Wraths and Batterskulls post board and he will easily fold.
Also, since he optimized his deck to beat midrange strategies like yours, it will be horribly beaten by almost any combo-type, make him play against some UR Storm and see if he stops playing the deck
Don't bother too much with Sowing Salt versus U Tron. You're better off winning counter wars over something like Geist and just applying pressure (U Tron has problems with beaters that get through counters) for a quick win. The longer the game goes, the better for the Tron player.
It is good versus RG Tron. Just stall it for some turns with Remand and Leak, then Salt some Urza land.
Yes, I've learned the strategy to beat Mono U and it's quite simple actually (and no, sowing salt sucks).
Basically, it all comes down to baiting one of their counters EOT. Sounds easy enough, but you'll probably really get it by Cliquing them or Snap + electrolyze, something which they care. Then, resolve a Geist and win. It's hilarious how they have absolutely no way of dealing with him, except for a single O-Stone.
They will desperately repeal and repeal the angel hoping to find an asnswer, quite amusing actually
So yeah, that's the trick, play draw-go, NEVER NEVER NEVER play on your turn unless they are tapped out (they have like 100000000 counters), and resolve a Geist. That is all. :nod::nod::nod:
Spellskite is good versus Infect and Bogle too, if you're facing these decks frequently. I also like it versus RG Tron to redirect Karn's ability and buy a turn, but this probably isn't needed in this deck.
Yeah, I don't SB Spellskite to protect my creatures at all (although it helps), but because it single handedly owns Bogle, Infect, Twin and sometimes Burn. It's probably the best SB card in the format, honestly.
I also like that against Scapeshift the Spellskite forces them to do a 8+ land combo, and Aven Mindensor + Spellskite is effectively a soft lock.
And I wouldn't dare ever take the Mindcensors out... I'm even thinking of maindecking 3!! It's brutal against some of our worst matchups, mainly Pod, Scapeshift, Tron, and Gifts :thumbsup::thumbsup:
Yes, I tried 1 Turn/Burn too and, while it was nice to kill a Reveillark with it (and potentially a Sundering Titan), almost all the time I wished it was a PtE instead of a 5-mana removal. In RUG it's awesome though, because that's one of the few ways to remove a Wurmcoil, etc profitably.
By the way, even if I don't particularly like it, I've gone up to 4 PtE main because, simply put, it's the best removal in the format against most of Moderns top decks which require the creatures to be exiled (Pod, Tron...) and, since almost ALL of the combo decks are creature based, I can't think of any matchup where it's truly dead (WUR Control I guess, since Eggs died and Storm is still niche).
Ghost i think you are mistaking the nature of this deck a bit.
What you are aiming to play sounds a lot like control to me, since you want heavy counterspells in big numbers, big finishers like sphinxs rev, and to stay untapped to make EoT plays as much as possible.
In the traditional UWR midrange the deck aims to be the aggresor and drop a big threath after another, curving out to overpower your opponent.
While it can play the control role (we have snapcaster, removal and counters) we needs to be the aggresor in every game, hence the name "midrange".
By definition, midrange decks are aggresive, they try curve out as much as possible and rarely do they want to be playing defense, except against faster and more aggresive decks (aka RDW, zoo, RG aggro, affinity, etc)
This deck is really flexible, and that lets you get away with playing like a control deck, but i think you are wasting a little bit of this decks strong points while being so defensive. We can play aggresive games, and we can easily trade with jund and junk, since our cards are as good as theirs, and we are prepared to 2-1 as much as they do.
Purpuosely putting yourself in the control role seems like a mistake here, that would be something that the wafo tapa UWR will shine at.
Still, seeing that your meta is full of aggro, it does make sense for you to play like a control deck, but again, i think you would do better with a pure control deck.
On another note, for those of you that have played with ajani, how was he? im interested in adding 1 or 2, but im not sure hes what i want here. Also, is he any better than elspeth?
Forget Ajani, Ral Rarek is the real deal, I've run him as a 2-of for a week now and he is usually the nuts, mainly because the +1 is so useful to mess up with the opponents counters, tapping random blockers, giving your creatures vigilance, attacking with a Turn 5 Colonnade...
And he usually "starts" with 5 loyalty he is very difficult to kill. The bolt is obviously good, as always, period.
I will finally post what I personally think is the best list for Geist of Saint Win tomorrow, but I wanted to make a detailed post explaining all my choices.
Yep, counterflux is great against Scape, and personally I have removed my Sowing Salts from the SB and substituted them with
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Surgical Extraction
I think this package is much more solid against Scapeshift (removing a Valakut with Surgical or even a Stomping Grounds can be gg) and Tron, since having 3 Tectonics after SB is great on its own and you can cause the same effect as Sowing Salt with Surgical at the cost of 0 mana and 2 life (and easily Snapcasterable)
A. How does the deck deal with this card? If GoST dies, though unlikely to this card, how do we fix this?
B. Does Spotlight even see play in Modern?
Lol @ Glaring Spotlight xDDDD
Don't worry, I'll be very happy if anyone brings a card to deal (not kill) Geist, since that's a straight 2x1 (glaring + bolt or whatever). Look, we don't NEED Mr. Traft at all to win, it's just that when it resolves it's brutal against 90% of Modern's decks and single handedly wins you matches.
But winning with Colonnades and burn is very, very common too, and you should be glad that someone brings such a bad card against you
PS: no, I have never seen it played in Modern, ever
I actually tried it a few months ago, it seemed a natural fit. Didn't impress me very much due to having to tap out on T4, which was suicide against Storm and Eggs. Now the meta may have changed though!
What I did like a lot were its defensive capabilities against aggro/midrange decks and being able to own Liliana out of nowhere.
Speaking of which, I think this decks needs to focus less of the "flash" aspect now and more about playing powerful cards, especially because of voice of resurgence.
I don't think that tapping out for Lightning Angel, Ral Zarek, etc now is as bad as before, and may in fact be the best line of play.
All in all, happy about the performace of WUR in the GP (and those Grim Lavamancers look hot to clear the path for Geist easily!) and of Modern in general, Melira Pod is a great deck to win the tournament because it's unique to Modern and showcases some amazing interactions and mini-combos
Cheers!
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You are wrong, I'm a huge Delver fan but delver is terrible in Modern. It doesn't flip often because you can't usually play 18 lands and 12 creatures because of bad cantrips, it doesn't flip because of bad cantrips, and it easily dies because of no free countermagic. It's also much worse when your opponent has 4+ lands for example, which (almost) never happens in Legacy due to Waste + Stifle and augments its power by tenfold.
In short, playing Delver in Legacy is like driving a Porsche and in Modern is like a Seat Ibiza. Don't play it in any blue deck, honestly
It kinda pisses me off when someone, at this day and age, after countless tournament results and the wide knowledge that Cryptic Command is one of the most, if not the most, powerful spells in modern, says that "he was wrong and now he loves it".
Just joking but maaan CC is the nutz and every deck who can support the UUU must run it obviously.
Still, don't be angry when you get 3 in your initial hand, because power comes with responsibilty and hands like that, you don't wanna keep, lol
As a Tempo Twin player I'm not really sure of that, it was indeed awesome in the GP but I mean tapping out for a 5 drop which will get Remanded, Cryptic's, or Snap + chooseyourcounterspell 90% of the time, plus me being able to just play an Exarch and instawin... haha don't know xDDD
Lol, you got pwned dude. Nothing personal against you since I don't know you, but you almost destroying the WUR thread with your UW superiority nonsense wasn't cool at all, and know Geist of Saint Win winning... lmao mad
PS: regarding the Cryptic Commands, every good Geist deck already played 2 (not 3 tho) so your point is moot.
Why would you play Vial with 8 creatures? I mean I'd understand in Eternal Command, but in this deck? It makes no sense whatsoever
Anyways, I'm a huge Delver fan but he's useless in Modern due to the terrible cantrips available. Just remove the Vials, Serum Visions, add some Cliques and Mindcensors and play the midrange WUR version which can actually be pretty good.
You could even try a Squadron Hawk + Swords package which i've found is quite amazing against removal heavy decks
Anyways, nowadays I'm playing basically Twin since i feel like WUR was pushed out of the meta, even though it's still a good deck. I don't have any revolutionary ideas about how to make it tier 1 again, but I do have lots of experience with deck deck and spent many many hours trying to fine tune it.
With that said:
1) Thanks to the mod for making another thread for UW, I've skimmed through the last pages and it's an absolute waste of time, with only Memory Lapse being COMPLETELY unable to accept disagreement. No offense dude but I had never seen nothing like it, you almost destroyed the thread for good. Jeez.
2) Your video demonstrating the UW deck is actually quite ironic because you make an absolutely terrible mistake in G1 (only seen that). How could you not path the Keldon? You could swing with geist, shorten the clock one turn so that he doesn't get the last points of damage, and even have Snapcaster and not have to chump (or make him get eaten with lavamancer). Plus, the opponent had only 2 cards in the yard at that time.
I think these lines of play prove that you in fact don't have experience with UW/UWR variants.
3) Putting delver in this deck changes it completely and is actually terrible in your shell. My true love has always been delver (RUG variant mostly) and I've tried to make it work trying almost anything, but the truth is it loses too much from Legacy to be truly good. I can get you some awesome free wins though.
The most success i've had with Delver is with a 18 land, 30 spell (4 Gitaxian/4 Serum) shell, and although it was risky, it was also quite amazing the consistency with which you flipped delver.
Your take with 23 lands is not gonna work, and it's extremely unfocused because you do NOT want to get to the lategame with delver, you want cheap, situational spells like Pierce to kill the opponent while he's off balance, not Cryptics.
4) Red is absolutely necessary if youa re playing with Geist, I can promise you that. The ONLY reason WUR Geist was so succesful a few months ago was because of Red.
The thing is, as many of you may have noticed, Geist is usually very scary for the opponent. They will try to block it and kill it in any ways possible, since that is the only thing that works if you don't have a sweeper or edict effect. So the deck, what it did, is capitalize on that to gain some massive card advantage with bad blocks involving RED burn. I can't remember the times where some opponent triple blocked only to have all of their creatures die, get hit by an angel, my geist living, and me even drawing a card with electrolyze.
Red does not only allow Geist to swing against creature decks (the other options, path and dismember, are very bad against small utility creatures), but it also allows it to gain MASSIVE VALUE by completely blowing up blocks.
5) Finally, my take on the archetype:
I've always liked the core of creatures to be
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Aven Mindcensor
The reason that i've always mained Mindcensor is simple: although overcosted as a simple 2/1 flier, it affects almost ANY deck (fetchlands) and can be devastating against Tron, Pod, and Scapeshift, some (quite) hard matchups.
The other reason is that this deck wants some kind of pressure if it doesn't have the Geist, and getting to 12 creatures helps alleviate the problem.
But with the current meta and seeing the recent Twin lists, i think a very wise option would be to main 2 Grim Lavamancer.
Again, it provides some pressure, it kills creatures like DRS, confidant, pestermite... anecdotically it can also shrink goyf.
I definitely think that Grim Lavamancer is a very interesting option right now.
Other things i tried some time back was Disrupting Shoal (nice to counter Lilianas while tapped out for Geist but ultimately too inconsistent and the card disadvantage is an issue) and Young Pyromancer (tokens can take over the game and provide Liliana fodder, but makes you want to run Gitaxian and tap out on turn 2)
Also have some other ideas but have to test more
Anyways, hope you liked my massive block of text, two months is a long time!! :nod::nod::p;)
Nice list, but this is more of a WUR Delver list like the old ones and not Geist of Saint Win heheh... anyways gratz on your win and keep going!
Yes, your friends's deck is made to beat WUR since it's bolt resistant, has Thrun, Sigarda... a few Wraths and Batterskulls post board and he will easily fold.
Also, since he optimized his deck to beat midrange strategies like yours, it will be horribly beaten by almost any combo-type, make him play against some UR Storm and see if he stops playing the deck
Yes, I've learned the strategy to beat Mono U and it's quite simple actually (and no, sowing salt sucks).
Basically, it all comes down to baiting one of their counters EOT. Sounds easy enough, but you'll probably really get it by Cliquing them or Snap + electrolyze, something which they care. Then, resolve a Geist and win. It's hilarious how they have absolutely no way of dealing with him, except for a single O-Stone.
They will desperately repeal and repeal the angel hoping to find an asnswer, quite amusing actually
So yeah, that's the trick, play draw-go, NEVER NEVER NEVER play on your turn unless they are tapped out (they have like 100000000 counters), and resolve a Geist. That is all. :nod::nod::nod:
Yeah, I don't SB Spellskite to protect my creatures at all (although it helps), but because it single handedly owns Bogle, Infect, Twin and sometimes Burn. It's probably the best SB card in the format, honestly.
I also like that against Scapeshift the Spellskite forces them to do a 8+ land combo, and Aven Mindensor + Spellskite is effectively a soft lock.
And I wouldn't dare ever take the Mindcensors out... I'm even thinking of maindecking 3!! It's brutal against some of our worst matchups, mainly Pod, Scapeshift, Tron, and Gifts :thumbsup::thumbsup:
By the way, even if I don't particularly like it, I've gone up to 4 PtE main because, simply put, it's the best removal in the format against most of Moderns top decks which require the creatures to be exiled (Pod, Tron...) and, since almost ALL of the combo decks are creature based, I can't think of any matchup where it's truly dead (WUR Control I guess, since Eggs died and Storm is still niche).
What do you guys think?
Forget Ajani, Ral Rarek is the real deal, I've run him as a 2-of for a week now and he is usually the nuts, mainly because the +1 is so useful to mess up with the opponents counters, tapping random blockers, giving your creatures vigilance, attacking with a Turn 5 Colonnade...
And he usually "starts" with 5 loyalty he is very difficult to kill. The bolt is obviously good, as always, period.
I will finally post what I personally think is the best list for Geist of Saint Win tomorrow, but I wanted to make a detailed post explaining all my choices.
:p:p:p
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Surgical Extraction
I think this package is much more solid against Scapeshift (removing a Valakut with Surgical or even a Stomping Grounds can be gg) and Tron, since having 3 Tectonics after SB is great on its own and you can cause the same effect as Sowing Salt with Surgical at the cost of 0 mana and 2 life (and easily Snapcasterable)
Lol @ Glaring Spotlight xDDDD
Don't worry, I'll be very happy if anyone brings a card to deal (not kill) Geist, since that's a straight 2x1 (glaring + bolt or whatever). Look, we don't NEED Mr. Traft at all to win, it's just that when it resolves it's brutal against 90% of Modern's decks and single handedly wins you matches.
But winning with Colonnades and burn is very, very common too, and you should be glad that someone brings such a bad card against you
PS: no, I have never seen it played in Modern, ever
I actually tried it a few months ago, it seemed a natural fit. Didn't impress me very much due to having to tap out on T4, which was suicide against Storm and Eggs. Now the meta may have changed though!
What I did like a lot were its defensive capabilities against aggro/midrange decks and being able to own Liliana out of nowhere.
Speaking of which, I think this decks needs to focus less of the "flash" aspect now and more about playing powerful cards, especially because of voice of resurgence.
I don't think that tapping out for Lightning Angel, Ral Zarek, etc now is as bad as before, and may in fact be the best line of play.
All in all, happy about the performace of WUR in the GP (and those Grim Lavamancers look hot to clear the path for Geist easily!) and of Modern in general, Melira Pod is a great deck to win the tournament because it's unique to Modern and showcases some amazing interactions and mini-combos
Cheers!