I've found titanshift to be pretty hit or miss, generally in their favor largely depending on how much our disruption is able to snipe their actual threats. Field of Ruin helps if they're forced to play a Valakut early, but that's not something that you can really count on.
If you're really after hate for the match up though you can go for Gideon's Intervention or Runed Halo and name Valakut. They can also serve double duty as hate against other decks, similar to Leyline.
While Kor Firewalker does help destroy burn, I think it's too narrow to occupy 4 sideboard slots. I'd rather have something like Blessed Alliance that can server as Burn hate, and work for additional match ups. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of Leyline in this deck either.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
Recently replaced a swamp in my tribal Gideons list with Shizo, Death's Storehouse. It's worked wonders versus grindy decks like valuetown and Jund. Being able to make Gideon unblockable is fantastic. I highly recommend the switch, despite being slightly worse against decks carrying Blood Moon.
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Modern:
Amulet Titan
BGx
Dredge
GDS
Hollow One
Living End
Mardu
Traverse Death's Shadow
I'm currently running a variation of Kyle Smitherman's list with decent success. Combo (aside from Valakut) aggro, and midrange feel great. Tron even feels better than for most Bx midrange decks. Unfortunately, the UWx matchups feel miserable. Does anyone have any suggestions for improving these matchups? It feels as though the moment they land a Jace or Teferi that it's lights out. The deck primarily plays at tap-out sorcery speed and has so many dead cards.
Just dump the spot removals and run sweepers with anguished unmaking. I love fatal push, but with a suite of life gain and more efficient removal, the only thing you need push for is lands.
I'm using LotV and Sorin GM. Sweepers, discard, anguished. It's a creature-less build. I was curious if anyone had tried divine deflection. Not as a 4 of or anything like that, but it seems like it can protect a walker moderately while dishing some damage out where ever u want.
I'm also using arena and am tinkering with gonti's machinations and revitalize.
I also am considering crucible for fetches and land hate. But I rather like rest in peace like a lot. That card is a free win so many times.
I've found 6 sweepers and 3 anguished to be largely effective, and that's just 9 slots. Still wanna add a couple pushes, it just pisses me off when it can't a creature.
I would rather play RIP than relic. I've used relic before. But artifacts are much more commonly easily removed. And Relic is just played around. RB is a common color pairing for graveyard abuse and they have zero answers for RIP aside from making you discard it. Moreover, its great against UW control.
So why not just remove Souls from the deck and improve grave hate with RIP?
Arena should be an auto 3-of along with 4 NW. This is a control deck after all, and with so many one for one's, its important to stay ahead of your opponent in card advantage.
That's a lot of life loss sure, but I think a card you guys might be discounting is Pulse of the Fields as a 2 or 3 of. It mitigates the life loss for card draw and keeps pace with agro decks. There's so much removal in the deck, what kind of a board are they actually going to have? A creature or 2? Clocking you for 3-5 life per turn? You might turn 3 a pulse and then turn 4 a wrath. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Don't overlook Vraska's Contempt as a 1 or 2 of. You need a way to deal with planeswalkers. It fills 3 niches here.
Lili needs to be a 4-of? I've tested just Lili and just Giddy and Lili is far more effective at controlling a board. I like Sorin GM too. Yet another way to deal with creatures/planeswalkers while providing more card advantage. I'm on a 4-2-1 count here between the 3 of them.
RIP is not good against UW. They play it in their own Sideboard. They can very easily win though it. Lingering Souls is one of the main reasons to be in BW so I wouldn't start cutting this card.
Playing 7 card draw engines is excessive. I wouldn't consider them necessary to the deck. BW generates advantage through token producers and planeswalkers. Cards aren't the only form of advantage. Pulse doesn't affect the board and is only useful in some match ups. And this sounds like a lot of air.
Contempt is an interesting idea. But I would need a specific reason to play it over Hero's Downfall.
Azcanta, Snapcaster. I mean yah torpor orb is better for uw but a transformed azcanta is no joke. FoR ftw, maindecked, 2, sb 2. UW runs it because its the best gy-hate in the format, despite having several cards that use the gy. Why don't they just run Relic? But hey there's different ways of doing things and I don't think either way is wrong, as Souls is a very good card with Lili and company.
I don't play Souls. I play 2 copies of Gid as a primary win-con. And a copy of Sorin & Near-Death Experience as secondary win-cons for the fun-factor. What's kind of interesting about NDE is you can stack it with Arena in any order. Those wins are hysterical, albeit rare(1 copy, don't need more). Opponent grimacing about who to attack, who not to attack wondering what you're gonna do with fetches, caves, arena, anguished, pulse, vraska's etc.
Last matchups:
2-0 Elves
0-2 UW Control
2-0 Jeskai
2-1 Tron
2-1 UW control
1-1 Merfolk
0-2 Mono U Fate Fortold
2-1 8-rack
2-1 Tron
13-9 against a lot of decks that aren't exactly kitchen table. That's not terrible for a deck that's in its early stages. If you're interested in giving advice/testing it out I would gladly take constructive criticism to improve the deck. It's a super grindy deck, and I like grindy decks.
The clock is a bit slow, its less aggressive than the standard BW version but it has a good bit of answers to non-creatures besides discard, and extra wraths built in. With less aggression, pulse really shines, often stabilizing until I can draw something that actually affects the board.
You can't always play Lilian on turn 3, but u can just about always play arena on 3. You can often times hide behind arena card advantage and pulse which is truly devastating to aggro decks running out of gas. Then just blow them out with a wrath and/or Lilian/Giddy
RIP improves your discard spells as well as your wraths but since it shuts off souls, a bane to PWalker decks, you'd rather use souls to combat souls? You could shut off a dozen powerful cards, a half dozen strategies, and a few powerful decks in general and just replace your souls with any win-con. I must be insane.
RiP is a SB card, when you bring it in against GY-reliant decks you can take out Souls.
There is no reason to mainbaord this card.
If you really want maindeck GY-hate cantrips like Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus would be a more reasonable option being not dead since they can replace themselves.
Hey everyone, I've truly enjoyed reading every post in this thread. I've been working on a Modern BW Control deck for some time. I've read the channelfireball post, a couple of YouTube vids and countless MtG.. Wiki..and other posts and articles. I found this to be the most interesting of the lot. Kudos to everyone who's contributed to this subject and to all of those who have posted decks. I started out buying into the LotV cult that many swear by for this deck. I didn't have a single LotV... So I had to start out playing with the limited number of linger souls and Gideon Ts and AKs that I had. Before I found this blog I was coming to the realization that Gideons were the key. I'm filling out my deck for some woefully needed cards, but here is the deck I'm aiming for...
Gideon package is better than Sorin package Just an opinion folks.
I run a 3-2-1 pack of Trials, AoZ, Jura
with 4 LotV
I run 2 Phyrexian Arena/2 Night's Whisper/2 Revitalize
and no LS
That's about as far as my deck differs. Burn can be a problematic matchup but you just replace the TS with Brutality and Leylines. Burning Gideon's is awkward but they cant kill the jura
Been on the more control-centric version for awhile now (big walkers over LotV similar to some of the original lists). I've been thinking a lot about lightly splashing blue mainly for search for azcanta and sideboard cards. I've always felt like the control-shell would greatly benefit from azcanta even if it doesn't flip for awhile. It's temping to jam blue cantrips and countermagic as well but I've never really found that to synergize well with hand disruption.
Not sure if anyone has considered/tried this here before but would like to hear other people's opinion on this.
I think Esper with Cryptic Command and Esper Charm would be better for that. There's a thread on that deck already. I'd have to see your list but I think Black is the best splash color in Esper. There's just more at a single B mana than there is at single U or W. (what are you losing by not supporting double black? Just Liliana and Damnation. Maybe Hero's Downfall and Kalitas but those are all easily replaced besides Liliana.)
Blue is a good control color because of counter magic. It lets you interact with their top decks. Black decks usually need to win quickly after a couple discard spells.
I've played a lot of UB control. The issue isn't targeted discard vs counter spells. it's LotV vs Counter spells. Thoughtseize into counter spell is super powerful and, imo, synergistic. Thoughtseize lets you know when their sandbagging their good cards (it informs your counter) and can snag the cards you can't counter. LotV makes you discard your own cards. So if you top deck a counter spell it's probably useless since Liliana makes you discard it unless you stop ticking up which is bad because she's your inevitability.
You could make a base Black Esper list but I'm just not sure it's worth having three colors. Search gives us card selection, which BW decks need, but there are some options in black already. Maybe try discovery // dispersal. I've seen people play Night's Whisper and Discovery seems a little bit better than that. And staying two colors is a pretty relevant. It won't be long before Bloodmoon / FoR / etc makes a comeback.
NW helps hit land drops in a deck that runs a higher curve, gives fodder to Lili, and most removal in deck is single target. So yes, NW is way better than you give it credit.
If u want to add a 3rd color go to another thread or risk diluting this topic. These colors counterspells are TS, IoK, and CB with efficient removal. Furthermore this deck has a lot of doublecosted BB/WW cards. Moon is already an issue.
Mainboarding LoS? Any thoughts on this. Pitching it with LotV isn't terrible if you don't need it.
I've played Night's Whisper. It's only good in really slow games. This deck seems to already beat midrange so NW seems not great. Maybe a 1 or 2 of. I think Discovery would be better. You can actually play it against aggro and you can skip over cards you don't want. NW would be more attractive in a deck that didn't play so many high cost cards.
I don't see the point in telling @bulmedius to not ask a question. no one has posted here in weeks. It's the same deck with a splash, nothing wrong with that.
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If you're really after hate for the match up though you can go for Gideon's Intervention or Runed Halo and name Valakut. They can also serve double duty as hate against other decks, similar to Leyline.
While Kor Firewalker does help destroy burn, I think it's too narrow to occupy 4 sideboard slots. I'd rather have something like Blessed Alliance that can server as Burn hate, and work for additional match ups. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of Leyline in this deck either.
Amulet Titan
BGx
Dredge
GDS
Hollow One
Living End
Mardu
Traverse Death's Shadow
2 Cast Down
2 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
1 Settle the Wreckage
Land (25)
4 Field of Ruin
2 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
4 Marsh Flats
6 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
2 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Gideon Jura
3 Gideon of the Trials
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Sorcery (15)
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
2 Collective Brutality
1 Day of Judgment
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
1 Wrath of God
3 Damping Sphere
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Bitterblossom
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Collective Brutality
1 Cleansing Nova
Amulet Titan
BGx
Dredge
GDS
Hollow One
Living End
Mardu
Traverse Death's Shadow
I'm also using arena and am tinkering with gonti's machinations and revitalize.
I also am considering crucible for fetches and land hate. But I rather like rest in peace like a lot. That card is a free win so many times.
I've found 6 sweepers and 3 anguished to be largely effective, and that's just 9 slots. Still wanna add a couple pushes, it just pisses me off when it can't a creature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA37Rf7hHNU
So why not just remove Souls from the deck and improve grave hate with RIP?
Arena should be an auto 3-of along with 4 NW. This is a control deck after all, and with so many one for one's, its important to stay ahead of your opponent in card advantage.
That's a lot of life loss sure, but I think a card you guys might be discounting is Pulse of the Fields as a 2 or 3 of. It mitigates the life loss for card draw and keeps pace with agro decks. There's so much removal in the deck, what kind of a board are they actually going to have? A creature or 2? Clocking you for 3-5 life per turn? You might turn 3 a pulse and then turn 4 a wrath. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Don't overlook Vraska's Contempt as a 1 or 2 of. You need a way to deal with planeswalkers. It fills 3 niches here.
Lili needs to be a 4-of? I've tested just Lili and just Giddy and Lili is far more effective at controlling a board. I like Sorin GM too. Yet another way to deal with creatures/planeswalkers while providing more card advantage. I'm on a 4-2-1 count here between the 3 of them.
Playing 7 card draw engines is excessive. I wouldn't consider them necessary to the deck. BW generates advantage through token producers and planeswalkers. Cards aren't the only form of advantage. Pulse doesn't affect the board and is only useful in some match ups. And this sounds like a lot of air.
Contempt is an interesting idea. But I would need a specific reason to play it over Hero's Downfall.
I don't play Souls. I play 2 copies of Gid as a primary win-con. And a copy of Sorin & Near-Death Experience as secondary win-cons for the fun-factor. What's kind of interesting about NDE is you can stack it with Arena in any order. Those wins are hysterical, albeit rare(1 copy, don't need more). Opponent grimacing about who to attack, who not to attack wondering what you're gonna do with fetches, caves, arena, anguished, pulse, vraska's etc.
Last matchups:
2-0 Elves
0-2 UW Control
2-0 Jeskai
2-1 Tron
2-1 UW control
1-1 Merfolk
0-2 Mono U Fate Fortold
2-1 8-rack
2-1 Tron
13-9 against a lot of decks that aren't exactly kitchen table. That's not terrible for a deck that's in its early stages. If you're interested in giving advice/testing it out I would gladly take constructive criticism to improve the deck. It's a super grindy deck, and I like grindy decks.
The clock is a bit slow, its less aggressive than the standard BW version but it has a good bit of answers to non-creatures besides discard, and extra wraths built in. With less aggression, pulse really shines, often stabilizing until I can draw something that actually affects the board.
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Night's Whisper
2 Wrath of God
2 Damnation
Instant
3 Pulse of the Fields
3 Anguished Unmaking
2 Path to Exile
2 Vraska's Contempt
4 Liliana of the Veila
2 Gideon of the Trials
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Enchantment
3 Phyrexian Arena
1 Near-Death Experience
Land
4 Marsh Flats
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Swamp
4 Plains
2 Field of Ruin
1 Godless Shrine
3 Damping Sphere
3 Stony Silence
3 Rest in Peace
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Field of Ruin
2 Infernal Reckoning
You can't always play Lilian on turn 3, but u can just about always play arena on 3. You can often times hide behind arena card advantage and pulse which is truly devastating to aggro decks running out of gas. Then just blow them out with a wrath and/or Lilian/Giddy
Lingering Souls is also an issue for control decks as it isn't really a good spell to counter and plays well around wraths.
There is no reason to mainbaord this card.
If you really want maindeck GY-hate cantrips like Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus would be a more reasonable option being not dead since they can replace themselves.
Looks like we got a 5-0:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1451015#paper
List looks a little weird to me: 4 Night's Whisper, no fetchlands with 4 Push, only 2 PtE, 2 Nixilis and no Sorins...
Any thoughts?
WB BW Control
WRB Mardu Nahiri
Modern
UC UTron
RG Karn Metal Ponza
WRB Mardu Nahiri
4 Night's Whisper, 2 Ob Nixilis and 4 Thoughtseize in the main. He did not play against burn in that league!
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
Gideon package is better than Sorin package
I run a 3-2-1 pack of Trials, AoZ, Jura
with 4 LotV
I run 2 Phyrexian Arena/2 Night's Whisper/2 Revitalize
and no LS
That's about as far as my deck differs. Burn can be a problematic matchup but you just replace the TS with Brutality and Leylines. Burning Gideon's is awkward but they cant kill the jura
Not sure if anyone has considered/tried this here before but would like to hear other people's opinion on this.
Blue is a good control color because of counter magic. It lets you interact with their top decks. Black decks usually need to win quickly after a couple discard spells.
I've played a lot of UB control. The issue isn't targeted discard vs counter spells. it's LotV vs Counter spells. Thoughtseize into counter spell is super powerful and, imo, synergistic. Thoughtseize lets you know when their sandbagging their good cards (it informs your counter) and can snag the cards you can't counter. LotV makes you discard your own cards. So if you top deck a counter spell it's probably useless since Liliana makes you discard it unless you stop ticking up which is bad because she's your inevitability.
You could make a base Black Esper list but I'm just not sure it's worth having three colors. Search gives us card selection, which BW decks need, but there are some options in black already. Maybe try discovery // dispersal. I've seen people play Night's Whisper and Discovery seems a little bit better than that. And staying two colors is a pretty relevant. It won't be long before Bloodmoon / FoR / etc makes a comeback.
If u want to add a 3rd color go to another thread or risk diluting this topic. These colors counterspells are TS, IoK, and CB with efficient removal. Furthermore this deck has a lot of doublecosted BB/WW cards. Moon is already an issue.
Mainboarding LoS? Any thoughts on this. Pitching it with LotV isn't terrible if you don't need it.
I don't see the point in telling @bulmedius to not ask a question. no one has posted here in weeks. It's the same deck with a splash, nothing wrong with that.