Witchbane is significantly worse unless you have 3 curse decks, which most people don't.
Ok, so your deck is ready, in the box and sleeved. Ready to go. How do you play the darn thing?!!
This is fairly simple. Play it like any other control deck, then play passive aggressive playing equipment spells(preferably Sword of Feast and Famine first), equipping your snapcasters and hawks then when they are battle ready, the deck plays like a voltron/control deck. Protecting your few creatures with your artifacts and cards in hand.
Some situations get weird though, and all I can say is, when in doubt, control them out. So, any suggestions for different cards are welcome, and if you are planning on trying the deck out, know that it is a little on the difficult side to playing, and can get you stressed out. After testing this deck with friends and my LGS, it is quite fun when your opponent sees a jace and runs for their life as you beat them mercilessly with your 9/9 prot black green red white and untaps all your lands, deals 2 more dmg, draws you a card, gains you 4 life, makes them discard a card and vigilance to block and do it the next turn.
I would consider Spellstutter Sprite and Mausoleum Wanderer and Spellqueller (Possibly not all 4 of's. They double as good carriers of swords and counterspells. Sword on Wanderer makes it a better counterspell. I also would look at Moorland Haunt to make more tokens to carry Swords. Mistveil Plains lets you recycle the hawks.
Just beat a guy at my LGS with this list. He was playing Skred. 2-1 in my favor, first game was simple. He kept on trying to burn me out with koth and I managed to keep him in a lock, ending the game with Batterskull.
This is the type of deck I'd see doing... Get the Mistveil Plains into the deck to recycle the Squadron Hawks, then get down to just three Squadron Hawks, they aren't good cards 2mana for a 1/1 flyer isn't good, but being able to not over extend keep one in hand to draw the recycled. Because you are a counterspell deck, creatures with Flash are good... Queller, Sprite, Snapcaster (I reduced one because you only have 16 spells).
Steelshaper's Gift is okay in the deck, but lots of them will just be dead. Two is probably a good number its a lot like running 3 of each Sword. Its a good turn 1 play on the draw or in sideboard games, but finding multiples aren't the best. But it can be a bad turn 1 play if you don't know which equipment to go get.
You don't need to run 4 Moorland Haunt, I'd run 2 or 3. Its mostly to hedge against long games with lots of removal.
Paradise Mantle is bad acceleration. But it allows you to turn your Steelshaper's Gift into a Bird of Paradise. Putting this on a Mausoleum Wanderer isn't terrible if it lets you turn 3 Wrath of God against some decks that's important. Some decks you can land a turn 3 Jace. It has real value and you'll be surprised how often turn 1, Mausoleum Wanderer, turn 2 SG for Paradise Mantle is correct for this deck.
Thank you all for your suggestions, mistveil plains is looking really good BTW.
Also, stonehewer giant does look pretty good, maybe a 2-3 of mainboard, probably replacing some steelshapers.
This is the new list, OH and the reason i am running irrigated farmland is because it can be fetched early, and cycled late to find counterspells and win-cons.
Steelshaper's Gift is 1 mana. Trophy is 3 mana to cast. Is the 2/2 body worth that? Obviously you can search for different things. What other than Swords would you search for at 3cmc? I'm not poo pooing, I just don't see how Trophy Mage is inherently better... The first thing that comes to mind is Crucible of Worlds, but that seems awfully narrow. Gift searches for Batterskull, which can be very very good.
I am not a fan of the Stonehewer Giant, it seems like 5 mana is lot in a deck that doesn't really want to tap out... Maybe its okay when you've got an active Sword of Feast and Famine in play, but then you don't have a ton of targets to search for and SoFaF is solving a lot of the same problems. You might try a singelton Sigarda's Aid in its place. Flash is really nice, cheap is really nice, saving you mana to equip is nice.
Also let me know how the Squadron Hawks work for you 1/1 flyers aren't too strong, in many ways Moorland Haunt and Eternal Scourge might serve a very similar function... Scourge is really hard to get rid of and Moorland Haunt helps to give even more 1/1 flyers and keep Eternal Scourge from getting stuck in your graveyard. The Swords grant a large amount of evasion with the protections.
The reason for the squadron hawks, are the swords do not add any evading abilities if it comes down to land or flying, and if they die i will have others to replace them.
By the way.... I've been thinking about splashing red for burn spells and maybe one Pia and Kiran Nalaar, I might test it out.... If so, here is one of the lists i've come up with:
I am just going to throw this out there does this deck want to have Jace? The deck played Jace when Jace was standard legal. It also played Stoneforge Mystic, which is currently still banded. I know I'd rather play Stoneforge Mystic if it were legal and I was given the choice between the two. I am not certain that as powerful as Jace is that JtMS actually plays well enough with the rest of the themes of this deck to merit the inclusion. Seems to me that this deck wants to play an evasive replaceable threat, play a Sword of Feast and Famine on it, and then continue to tempo the game til you win with your equipment.
Jace is a great alternate win condition. Its an answer and a threat, but its a tap out for it card that doesn't let me hold up my counterspells. Jace does provide some tempo and can provide control over what your opponent draws or provide you with better card selection. Might Jace not be the right card for this deck? Maybe its a sideboard card better in some matchups than others?
In Standard you just play the best cards available, but with so many more cards available is it better to look for strong synergy and powerful cards?
I also really think Moorland Haunt is a better version of Squadron Hawk in this deck, when you are main decking Spellstutter Sprite and Spellqueller that both have evasion and have high end control utility. I have added three Eternal Scourge because it has synergy with Moorland Haunt and produces a bigger body than a Squadron Hawk and hopefully the equipment will provide enough evasion.
Totally agree about sometimes wanting to gain life. I'm curious if you think that War and Peace merits inclusion. Protection from Red usually isn't that important because all the Swords grant +2/+2 so they help put you out of Bolt range. I am a huge fan of Sword of Light and Shadow in the 75. Pulling a creature from the graveyard is amazing in grindy matchups. Pro White and Pro black also protects your creature from most removal and most flyers.
I still want to see why people want Trophy Mage over Steelshaper's Gift. I'm not saying its not a good idea, but generally, Trophy Mage adds 2 extra mana to getting a Sword in play over Gift. That mana difference can be really important. The 2/2 body could be worth it. The ability to seek out a non-equipment artifact could be worth it(but I want to know which artifacts you think are worthy of inclusion). The ability to stay mono-blue could be worth it. So I'd like to understand why people are liking the Trophy Mage. I don't want to be missing something. Looks to me like the only advantage is the body and the Crucible of Worlds in the sideboard, the mana base to the Wacky Wednesday deck scares me with so many colorless lands.
I think if you are not playing Blue for Trophy Mage, then BW might be a better color combination for this style of deck. It offers great sword-carriers in the already mentioned Lingering Souls plus Bitterblossom, Dark Confidant and Mirran Crusader. With so many 1/1s, one could also think about a few copies of the much underestimated Smuggler's Copter. Furthermore, discard > counters IMO, at least in this midrange kind of deck with clunky sorcery speed stuff like swords.
Stonehewer Giant (despite the higher mana cost) seems better than Trophy Mage for the most part (unlesd you plan to search out non-equipment artifacts) as the 4/4 vigilant body is much more relevant and the ability to deploy+equip at instant can also be pretty good (especially with Batterskull where it can save a lot of mana).
i like stonehewer giant but I see a problem in it's speed at 5cc. if we still has gitaxian probe he'd work, you could see its safe for a tap out. I say that since this is a deck making it reactive, stonehewer is a huge loss if it died on turn 5 to play it. your kind of forced to get to 7 mana some how just so you can protect your 5cc investment in stonehewer with atleast 1 counter spell.
there are other control designs on the forums that can put threats out there that don't necessarily warrent keeping protection mana up. thus also not needing to get to 7 mana for making sure their threats stick. i see trophy mage as following such a design.
@talionis & @eternal_infinity
on the topic of sword carriers, +2/+2 isnt enough to keep them out of lightning bolt range, but going the route of sword of light and shadow you atleast run the opponent out of bolts at worst case senario, as well as have an ability that recovers sword carriers from the graveyard, squadron hawk
against any red deck, sword of war and peace may go a long way maindeck, but add any sword to a creature with protection from , creature kor firewalker for example with a sword and the game should be going in your direction.
Jace is a great alternate win condition. Its an answer and a threat, but its a tap out for it card that doesn't let me hold up my counterspells. Jace does provide some tempo and can provide control over what your opponent draws or provide you with better card selection. Might Jace not be the right card for this deck? Maybe its a sideboard card better in some matchups than others?
This deck taps out a lot for win conditions anyway. Batterskull at 5 and Swords at 3 to cast and 2 to equip, for example. We just have to answer our opponent's threats efficiently and play around it, can't solely rely on Feast and Famine. I think your idea of evasive creatures is good. Geist of Saint Traft might be good in the main board, for comparison, Esper Deathblade in legacy runs True-Name Nemesis.
You can't play Batterskull efficiently without Stoneforge Mystic, Light and Shadow might be better mainboard.
I understand we tap out some, but I am running a lot of Flash Creatures. The Sword I most often get is Sword of Feast and Famine to have open mana on their turn. Batterskull is a mid to late game finisher that is supposed to represent inevitability since it can avoid removal well and it works well in a topdeck war, its also great against burn if you can live that long. I seriously keep Grafted Wargear on my radar because I like not having to use mana to equip it and think it has great synergy with Mausoleum Wanderer, but also with tokens in general.
My version is doing well in attrition matchups where games last to turn 7 and 8+, but I get run over early a lot. I don't think Jace helps me in those board states, where I get behind. Jace is a nice slow grindy card, but I feel like I am already pretty grindy and I might win a good amount of these matchups anyway. To be fair it plays a great role in those grindy control matchups.
I am beginning to think that I need to play Supreme Verdict and Wrath of God maindeck because of Humans and Hollow One and Affinity decks are just so aggressive. I wonder if cards like Path of Exile and Porphory Nodes might help. I just feel like I don't have enough removal.
Jace is a good other angle to attack from out of the sideboard. I like one in the sideboard for now, but its impact on a board to me doesn't seem to solve the problems this deck finds difficult. I'm not seeing the synergy, even though Jace is very powerful.
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Caw Blade, the most terrifying deck ever made in magic, can be a thing again?
YES, it can
Now that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is unbanned, we can create the deck for a more fast-paced meta.
The deck is simple, control and draw through your deck with jace and other spells, then win with Squadron Hawk or Snapcaster Mage equipped with Batterskull, Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Fire and Ice.
The Core of the Deck
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Squadron Hawk
4 SteelShaper's Gift
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
The rest of the deck is Counterspells and control/draw spells.
4 Serum Visions
3 Logic Knot
3 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
And the land base is fairly simple, your typical UW landbase.(24 Lands)
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Plains
4 Island
4 Ghost Quarter
Sideboarding:
Make your own sideboard as it depends on your meta, but here are some suggestions.
Control Matchup:
Aggro Matchup:
Supreme Verdict
Wrath of God
River's Rebuke?
Vapor Snag
Tron/Affinity/artifacts:
Graveyard Hate:
Burn/Turbo Discard:
- Leyline of Sanctity
- Witchbane Orb
Witchbane is significantly worse unless you have 3 curse decks, which most people don't.Ok, so your deck is ready, in the box and sleeved. Ready to go. How do you play the darn thing?!!
This is fairly simple. Play it like any other control deck, then play passive aggressive playing equipment spells(preferably Sword of Feast and Famine first), equipping your snapcasters and hawks then when they are battle ready, the deck plays like a voltron/control deck. Protecting your few creatures with your artifacts and cards in hand.
Some situations get weird though, and all I can say is, when in doubt, control them out. So, any suggestions for different cards are welcome, and if you are planning on trying the deck out, know that it is a little on the difficult side to playing, and can get you stressed out. After testing this deck with friends and my LGS, it is quite fun when your opponent sees a jace and runs for their life as you beat them mercilessly with your 9/9 prot black green red white and untaps all your lands, deals 2 more dmg, draws you a card, gains you 4 life, makes them discard a card and vigilance to block and do it the next turn.
Moved to Deck Creation - Torpf
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Steelshaper's Gift
4 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Cryptic Command
2 Logic Knot
2 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Flooded Strand
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Irrigated Farmland
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Plains
4 Island
4 Moorland Haunt
Sure it is much more expensive but it is a body and can cheat out the equipment and equip it.
Also, if you're playing Hawks you should have at least a copy of Mistveil Plains to recycle them.
But playing better flyers like the aforementioned Spellstutter Sprite and Mausoleum Wanderer or Vendilion Clique/Nimble Obstructionist does seem like a better idea.
Game 2: He launched super quick throwing Simian Spirit Guides for accelaration for Koth of the Hammer on turn 3.
Game 3: This one was pretty easy. He just got beaten mercilessly by a Spell Queller, exiling his Blood Moon, attached to a Sword of Fire and Ice.
Steelshaper's Gift is okay in the deck, but lots of them will just be dead. Two is probably a good number its a lot like running 3 of each Sword. Its a good turn 1 play on the draw or in sideboard games, but finding multiples aren't the best. But it can be a bad turn 1 play if you don't know which equipment to go get.
You don't need to run 4 Moorland Haunt, I'd run 2 or 3. Its mostly to hedge against long games with lots of removal.
Paradise Mantle is bad acceleration. But it allows you to turn your Steelshaper's Gift into a Bird of Paradise. Putting this on a Mausoleum Wanderer isn't terrible if it lets you turn 3 Wrath of God against some decks that's important. Some decks you can land a turn 3 Jace. It has real value and you'll be surprised how often turn 1, Mausoleum Wanderer, turn 2 SG for Paradise Mantle is correct for this deck.
4 Spell Queller
3 Squadron Hawk
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
2 Steelshaper's Gift
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Cryptic Command
1 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
1 Paradise Mantle
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Flooded Strand
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Irrigated Farmland
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Plains
3 Island
1 Mistveil Plains
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
3 Vendillion Clique
2 Negate
1 Dispel
Also, stonehewer giant does look pretty good, maybe a 2-3 of mainboard, probably replacing some steelshapers.
4 squadron hawk
2 snapcaster mage
2 spellstutter sprite
1 vendilion clique
2 stonehewer giant
3 jace, the mind sculptor
2 steelshaper's gift
3 remand
2 cryptic command
2 mana leak
4 serum visions
2 path to exile
1 sword of fire and ice
1 sword of feast and famine
1 batterskull
4 glacial fortress
3 hallowed fountain
4 flooded strand
1 mistveil plains
2 moorland haunt
3 plains
3 island
Also let me know how the Squadron Hawks work for you 1/1 flyers aren't too strong, in many ways Moorland Haunt and Eternal Scourge might serve a very similar function... Scourge is really hard to get rid of and Moorland Haunt helps to give even more 1/1 flyers and keep Eternal Scourge from getting stuck in your graveyard. The Swords grant a large amount of evasion with the protections.
4x Squadron Hawk
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Stonehewer Giant
3x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
4x Serum Visions
3x Logic Knot
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Lightning Helix
2x Cryptic Command
3x Path to Exile
2x Steelshaper's Gift
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Flooded Strand
4x Hallowed Fountain
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Steam Vents
1x Mistveil Plains
3x Plains
3x Island
2x Moorland Haunt
Sideboard:
2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2x Spell Pierce
1x Vendilion Clique
2x Wrath of God
2x Shattering Spree
2x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
2x Leyline of Sanctity
BTW, Scalding Tarn can easily be replaced with Arid Mesa, if you are not into the price of the Tarn
Jace is a great alternate win condition. Its an answer and a threat, but its a tap out for it card that doesn't let me hold up my counterspells. Jace does provide some tempo and can provide control over what your opponent draws or provide you with better card selection. Might Jace not be the right card for this deck? Maybe its a sideboard card better in some matchups than others?
In Standard you just play the best cards available, but with so many more cards available is it better to look for strong synergy and powerful cards?
I also really think Moorland Haunt is a better version of Squadron Hawk in this deck, when you are main decking Spellstutter Sprite and Spellqueller that both have evasion and have high end control utility. I have added three Eternal Scourge because it has synergy with Moorland Haunt and produces a bigger body than a Squadron Hawk and hopefully the equipment will provide enough evasion.
4 Spell Queller
3 Eternal Scourge
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
3 Steelshaper's Gift
2 Cryptic Command
1 Logic Knot
1 Negate
3 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
1 Paradise Mantle
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Irrigated Farmland
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Celestial Colonnade
1 Academy Ruins
2 Plains
3 Island
3 Moorland Haunt
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
3 Vendillion Clique
2 Negate
1 Dispel
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Jace the Mindsculpter
1 Grafted Wargear
I prefer Andrew's approach with the trophy mage. I'd run sword or war and peace or sword of light and shadow in the maindeck with trophy because you need one of the equipments to give life.
Totally agree about sometimes wanting to gain life. I'm curious if you think that War and Peace merits inclusion. Protection from Red usually isn't that important because all the Swords grant +2/+2 so they help put you out of Bolt range. I am a huge fan of Sword of Light and Shadow in the 75. Pulling a creature from the graveyard is amazing in grindy matchups. Pro White and Pro black also protects your creature from most removal and most flyers.
I still want to see why people want Trophy Mage over Steelshaper's Gift. I'm not saying its not a good idea, but generally, Trophy Mage adds 2 extra mana to getting a Sword in play over Gift. That mana difference can be really important. The 2/2 body could be worth it. The ability to seek out a non-equipment artifact could be worth it(but I want to know which artifacts you think are worthy of inclusion). The ability to stay mono-blue could be worth it. So I'd like to understand why people are liking the Trophy Mage. I don't want to be missing something. Looks to me like the only advantage is the body and the Crucible of Worlds in the sideboard, the mana base to the Wacky Wednesday deck scares me with so many colorless lands.
i like stonehewer giant but I see a problem in it's speed at 5cc. if we still has gitaxian probe he'd work, you could see its safe for a tap out. I say that since this is a
there are other
@talionis & @eternal_infinity
on the topic of sword carriers, +2/+2 isnt enough to keep them out of lightning bolt range, but going the route of sword of light and shadow you atleast run the opponent out of bolts at worst case senario, as well as have an ability that recovers sword carriers from the graveyard, squadron hawk
against any red deck, sword of war and peace may go a long way maindeck, but add any sword to a creature with protection from
I understand we tap out some, but I am running a lot of Flash Creatures. The Sword I most often get is Sword of Feast and Famine to have open mana on their turn. Batterskull is a mid to late game finisher that is supposed to represent inevitability since it can avoid removal well and it works well in a topdeck war, its also great against burn if you can live that long. I seriously keep Grafted Wargear on my radar because I like not having to use mana to equip it and think it has great synergy with Mausoleum Wanderer, but also with tokens in general.
My version is doing well in attrition matchups where games last to turn 7 and 8+, but I get run over early a lot. I don't think Jace helps me in those board states, where I get behind. Jace is a nice slow grindy card, but I feel like I am already pretty grindy and I might win a good amount of these matchups anyway. To be fair it plays a great role in those grindy control matchups.
I am beginning to think that I need to play Supreme Verdict and Wrath of God maindeck because of Humans and Hollow One and Affinity decks are just so aggressive. I wonder if cards like Path of Exile and Porphory Nodes might help. I just feel like I don't have enough removal.
Jace is a good other angle to attack from out of the sideboard. I like one in the sideboard for now, but its impact on a board to me doesn't seem to solve the problems this deck finds difficult. I'm not seeing the synergy, even though Jace is very powerful.