I took this deck and went 2/2 at a local tournament and was really happy with that for my first tournament. I then made a few minor improvments/modifications myself. I made some of his first recommendations like upgrading the sweepers and adding rest in piece and stony silence to the side deck. I also added a rewind in place of the 3rd glimmer of genius.
He also recommended adding serum visions. Do I even really need to add Visions if I am running 4 spreading seas and 4 wall of omens? Its seems many of the pricey builds have forgone spreading seas or just have 1. Spreading seas one be several games by itself at my recent tournament Im not sure I should take that out to add visions.
I am hoping for some friendly suggestions to get the best results out of this budget build without adding significant cost.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
2x Gideon of Trials
1x Gideon Jura
1x Torrential Gearhulk
4 Wall of Omens
4x Path to Exile
2x Detention Sphere
1x Mana Leak
1x Disallow
1x Remand
1x Negate
2x Glimmer of Genius
2x Rewind
1x Terminus
1x Wrath of God
2x Supreme Verdict
4x Spreading Seas
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Timely Reinforcements
1x Oust
Uw control doesn't have a fast enough clock where the land hate is actually relevant. Replace all 4 with visions and you'll hardly ever have to Mulligan.
I wouldn't compare your current build to any recent top performing lists. The hard part about UW control right now is that there are really two versions (if not more). There's UW miracles and then a more classic UW control build. Your deck is currently looking a lot more like the classic version of UW control so any miracles version will look strange to yours.
I'm going to break your deck up into groups and discuss each individually so we can work in chunks.
I think this is a good start. We can scale back on Irrigated Farmlands. I wouldn't play more than 2. The big thing you are sacrificing here are the Celestial Colonnades (and for good reasons since it's budget). You have Faeries but still, keep in mind we will need more win conditions than other UW decks because of this. You have 26 total lands and not an unreasonably high curve. I think we can cut this down to 25 or even 24.
Threats:
2x Gideon of Trials
1x Gideon Jura
1x Torrential Gearhulk
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
Looking at other UW control decks your threat base seems pretty weak. Most decks will play 4 creature lands, 5 planeswalkers, and 1 or 2 Vendillion Cliques, not to mention a couple Snapcaster Mages. You need to make up for a lot of these lost cards. So you will want to play about 7 or 8 threats if you can fit them.
There's no particular card here that screams core threat. Maybe pick your favorite planeswalker and play a couple extra so you have a more clear goal of how you win. Gideons are good but there's also Gideon Ally of Zendikar and Elspeth Sun's Champion, both of which will help you close the game a bit faster than this group.
I personally would change this to:
>>>>>Threats:
>>>>>1x Gideon Jura
>>>>>1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
>>>>>2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
>>>>>2x Torrential Gearhulk
>>>>>1x Jace, Architect of Thought
With this version you are certainly winning through combat damage, just after a long game of taking out opposing threats.
Board Wipes:
1x Terminus
1x Wrath of God
2x Supreme Verdict
You have no instant speed draw besides Glimmer so Terminus is not a good card in your deck. Miracles are bad unless you completely build your deck around them. So I would cut Terminus for another 4 cmc wipe like Wrath or you could try Hallowed Burial if graveyard recursion is an issue. I think 4 is a fine number
I don't love the idea of playing so many different counterspells with no real synergy. I think Disallow is much better than Rewind. You really don't play many instants. I would also suggest exactly 1 Logic Knot over one of these cards.
Other:
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Spreading Seas
4x Wall of Omens
2x Glimmer of Genius
1x Timely Reinforcements
All of these are great cards and are good in different situations. Crucible is not necessary, especially mainboard but if you keep it I would cut Tectonic Edge for Ghost Quarter because Ghost Quarter works better with Crucible. But Tec Edge is also fine. 4 Wall of Omens is probably pushing it when you have 4 board wipes. Maybe cut this back to 2 walls.
OK, so now lets look at what we're changing:
We are taking out 2 Walls, Probably 1 Counterspell, 2 lands, 1 Crucible and adding 2 threats.
To give you some options if you feel like some of these cards are more necessary than I am giving them credit for, I think cutting a glimmer is fine. Glimmer is good but your card advantage lies in your planeswalkers too. Plus, you will have 10 cantrips after we fill the last four slots of your deck:
These changes leave us with 4 open slots for Serum Visions.
Serum Visions is a card you need 4 of because it helps set up the rest of your game. You also aren't doing anything turn 1 anyway (besides playing a tap land). Serum Visions is also great late game when you need to put lands on the bottom of your deck rather than the top.
Thank you so much for such an elaborate response!!!
My thoughts on the win cons has been the same. I need like 2 more. I'm thinking Gideon Ally an Elspeth. Also thought about Ojatai as people like that one too.
I've been reading about classic UW which is more tappout, the Gideon version seems to benefit from tappout according to my reading. Do you have any thoughts on how spreading seas fits in too all of this in Sept 2018 given that we have 4 field of ruin? My personal experience has been that crucible has been a dead weight a lot, but one game I kept bringing back faeries for a kill. Also I could see cutting back on tech edge to drop to 25 lands along side a -1 crucible. To be honest, I love farmlands because I can cycle in later when it's draw Garbage. I know flooded strand would be better here. I'm thinking based on feel that less counters and more targeted removal (tappout) has been working. Have any thoughts on ratios between targeted removal and counters in classic UW without colonnade? I happy with field wipes at 4, Perfect! I'm thinking going down to 4 Counters and bring back in condemn for an 8th targeted removal. Perhaps I feel this way because I don't have cryptic command and I need to get rid of problematic creatures. This is the way Gabriel Nassif set up the deck originally in the article.
Ojutai is best if you also play Minamo, School at Water's Edge. That land is pretty free to include in the deck and it protects your Ojutai. But I don't think that card's budget. You could also play Lyra Dawnbringer in the sideboard.
You're right that Gideon is better in tap out decks and not as good in the Miracles deck.
Spreading Seas is good, depending on your expected meta. It actually gets better with Field of Ruin, they work as a team to do a lot of damage to your opponent's mana base. I'm not sure about September 2018 but over the summer and spring I played a lot of Spreading Seas and they were great. The meta hasn't changed much since then and I think Speading Seas is still a good card. It helps against Control decks, Tron, Valakut, 3+ color Midrange decks, and can help a little bit against 5 color humans. And in October people will start playing more 3 color midrange decks when the new set comes out which makes Spreading Seas even better. You'll have to cut back on Wall of Omen's if you want to include Seas. Having too many do-nothing 2 drops can be a death sentence against some decks.
I don't think you need crucible. Maybe in the sideboard but there aren't too many match ups it's very good in.
Without Cryptic it's hard to say. The general play pattern after a turn 4 for classic UW control is either a cryptic (tapping creatures and drawing a card) or a board wipe. Replacing Cryptic with counterspells means you have fewer ways to fight lots of creatures. I think 3 Cryptic and 4-5 other counterspells is normal for these decks. 7 targeted removal is more than usual but may be necessary without cryptic.
I think the most important upgrades will be getting a few collonades and a few cryptic commands. You don't need to get 4x collonade right away, 2 will help with your closing speed. Same with Cryptic. Don't worry about getting Jace and Teferi unless they are more accessible price-wise than the other cards. They are the two best planeswalkers for your deck but they are only slightly better than the walkers we've mentioned already.
What do you think about trying the miracles build in this deck with the Gideons and Elspeth as my primary win cons? I'd add 4 Opt, 2 Search for Azcanta maybe, and 2 telling time. It would add cost yes. I guess would it work without 2 Teferi and 2-3 Jace the Mind Sculptor?
Here is an updated deck list:
Next step for me would be replacing Oust and Condemn with 2 Cryptics
1 Elspeth Sun Champion
1 Gideon Jura
2 Gideon of Trials
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Wall of Omens
4 Path to Exile
2 Detention Sphere
1 Oust
1 Condemn
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgement
1 Logic Knot
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
1 Remand
4 Serum Visions
4 Spreading Seas
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Glimmer of Genius
4 Irrigated Farmlands
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Mystic Gate
6 Plains
4 Island
I'm not a miracles player so I can't really give you a good answer. But My guess is that Jace is core to the miracles game plan. If you don't have at least 2 Jace I wouldn't attempt miracles.
Search for Azcanta is a card you will want in any form of UW control in the long run so if you can afford them or if you have a way to access them I would go for it. You said the next step is to get a couple cryptic and I think that's a good idea and better than getting SfA, to give you an idea of how to order your upgrades, especially with how many cantrips you already have.
Went to another tournament and got beat up by UW Sprits and Dredge. First Time playing Dredge. I'm thinking I need to up Stony Silence and Rest in Piece from 2 to 3 each in sideboard so I can ensure I see those cards when I need. I literally drew into all my field wipes and couldn't stop bloodghast lol. Settle the wreckage may be a good choice too.
Also, I can upon this link and wanted to see what you thoughts about doing miracles similar to here without JTMS and using RiverWise Auger instead. Entreat the Angels also serves as a win con. The big issue I see for me is lack of snapcaster, but Mission Briefing from Guilds of Ravnica may be able to fill this and add surveil to set up a miracle.
I like 3x of both Stony and RIP but it may fill up your sideboard too much.
Riverwise Auger is pretty bad imo. He's not really a good replacement for Jace. If you combine it with SfA, Opt and Telling Time like this deck does you can probably make it work and upgrade into Jace later on. But I think you will have more success with a non-miracles list. This list is very inconsistent looking and I think you would be better served by a consistent deck that's a little powered down rather than a powerful deck that is less consistent.
Entreat is also a very swingy win condition and it's awful in your opening hand (so is terminus too!). Planeswalkers are more consistent and they provide value even when you're behind.
Hey! I have updated my Deck with 2 Cryptic Commands, a mission Briefing, and settle the wreckage to the side. I have been doing well with this list. I really regretted taking out the single terminus so I added it back. Looking for thoughs on how to improve my card advantage situation. I'm doing extremely well against burn and midrange, but the control matchup is hard and UW Sprits is tricky. I'm still a learning player, but I'm discovering that my harder matchups are won by card advantage, particularly the control matchup. I guess I'm thinking of working more card advantage back in even though I have quite a few cantripping cards.
I thought about adding Jace AOT and/or heiroglyohic illumination and/or Ancestral Vision to the deck for card advantage. Even stretch for Search for Azcanta. Jace AOT would add card advantage and a threat to the Deck. Though, I don't want to get rid of mission briefing or timely because they have been doing me so much good work, though those cards probably make the most sense to swap unless I want ro try getting rid of spreading seas and see how that goes. What are your thoughts?
Please see deck:
UW Control
Threats (4)
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Gideon Jura
2 Gideon of Trials
Creatures (4)
4 Wall of Omens
Spells/Enchantments (27)
4 Path to Exile
2 Detention Sphere
1 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Terminus
4 Serum Visions
4 Spreading Seas
1 Glimmer of Genius
1 Mission Briefing
1 Timely Reinforcments
25 lands
4 Irrigated Farmland
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Mystic Gate
6 Plains
4 Island
I took this deck and went 2/2 at a local tournament and was really happy with that for my first tournament. I then made a few minor improvments/modifications myself. I made some of his first recommendations like upgrading the sweepers and adding rest in piece and stony silence to the side deck. I also added a rewind in place of the 3rd glimmer of genius.
He also recommended adding serum visions. Do I even really need to add Visions if I am running 4 spreading seas and 4 wall of omens? Its seems many of the pricey builds have forgone spreading seas or just have 1. Spreading seas one be several games by itself at my recent tournament Im not sure I should take that out to add visions.
I am hoping for some friendly suggestions to get the best results out of this budget build without adding significant cost.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
2x Gideon of Trials
1x Gideon Jura
1x Torrential Gearhulk
4 Wall of Omens
4x Path to Exile
2x Detention Sphere
1x Mana Leak
1x Disallow
1x Remand
1x Negate
2x Glimmer of Genius
2x Rewind
1x Terminus
1x Wrath of God
2x Supreme Verdict
4x Spreading Seas
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Timely Reinforcements
1x Oust
4x Irrigated Farmlands
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Field of Ruin
2x Faerie Conclave
1x Mystic gate
1x Tectonic Edge
6 Plains
4 Islands
Side:
2x Baneslayer Angel
1x Elspeth Sun's Champion
2x rest in Piece
2x Stony Silence
2x Negate
2x Celestial Purge
1x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Mana Leak
1x Dispel
1x Timely Reinforcements
I'm going to break your deck up into groups and discuss each individually so we can work in chunks.
Lands:
4x Irrigated Farmlands
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Field of Ruin
2x Faerie Conclave
1x Mystic gate
1x Tectonic Edge
6x Plains
4x Islands
I think this is a good start. We can scale back on Irrigated Farmlands. I wouldn't play more than 2. The big thing you are sacrificing here are the Celestial Colonnades (and for good reasons since it's budget). You have Faeries but still, keep in mind we will need more win conditions than other UW decks because of this. You have 26 total lands and not an unreasonably high curve. I think we can cut this down to 25 or even 24.
Threats:
2x Gideon of Trials
1x Gideon Jura
1x Torrential Gearhulk
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
Looking at other UW control decks your threat base seems pretty weak. Most decks will play 4 creature lands, 5 planeswalkers, and 1 or 2 Vendillion Cliques, not to mention a couple Snapcaster Mages. You need to make up for a lot of these lost cards. So you will want to play about 7 or 8 threats if you can fit them.
There's no particular card here that screams core threat. Maybe pick your favorite planeswalker and play a couple extra so you have a more clear goal of how you win. Gideons are good but there's also Gideon Ally of Zendikar and Elspeth Sun's Champion, both of which will help you close the game a bit faster than this group.
I personally would change this to:
>>>>>Threats:
>>>>>1x Gideon Jura
>>>>>1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
>>>>>2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
>>>>>2x Torrential Gearhulk
>>>>>1x Jace, Architect of Thought
With this version you are certainly winning through combat damage, just after a long game of taking out opposing threats.
Board Wipes:
1x Terminus
1x Wrath of God
2x Supreme Verdict
You have no instant speed draw besides Glimmer so Terminus is not a good card in your deck. Miracles are bad unless you completely build your deck around them. So I would cut Terminus for another 4 cmc wipe like Wrath or you could try Hallowed Burial if graveyard recursion is an issue. I think 4 is a fine number
Targeted Removal:
4x Path to Exile
1x Oust
2x Detention Sphere
Looks great
Counterspells:
1x Mana Leak
1x Disallow
1x Remand
1x Negate
2x Rewind
I don't love the idea of playing so many different counterspells with no real synergy. I think Disallow is much better than Rewind. You really don't play many instants. I would also suggest exactly 1 Logic Knot over one of these cards.
Other:
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Spreading Seas
4x Wall of Omens
2x Glimmer of Genius
1x Timely Reinforcements
All of these are great cards and are good in different situations. Crucible is not necessary, especially mainboard but if you keep it I would cut Tectonic Edge for Ghost Quarter because Ghost Quarter works better with Crucible. But Tec Edge is also fine. 4 Wall of Omens is probably pushing it when you have 4 board wipes. Maybe cut this back to 2 walls.
OK, so now lets look at what we're changing:
We are taking out 2 Walls, Probably 1 Counterspell, 2 lands, 1 Crucible and adding 2 threats.
To give you some options if you feel like some of these cards are more necessary than I am giving them credit for, I think cutting a glimmer is fine. Glimmer is good but your card advantage lies in your planeswalkers too. Plus, you will have 10 cantrips after we fill the last four slots of your deck:
These changes leave us with 4 open slots for Serum Visions.
Serum Visions is a card you need 4 of because it helps set up the rest of your game. You also aren't doing anything turn 1 anyway (besides playing a tap land). Serum Visions is also great late game when you need to put lands on the bottom of your deck rather than the top.
My thoughts on the win cons has been the same. I need like 2 more. I'm thinking Gideon Ally an Elspeth. Also thought about Ojatai as people like that one too.
I've been reading about classic UW which is more tappout, the Gideon version seems to benefit from tappout according to my reading. Do you have any thoughts on how spreading seas fits in too all of this in Sept 2018 given that we have 4 field of ruin? My personal experience has been that crucible has been a dead weight a lot, but one game I kept bringing back faeries for a kill. Also I could see cutting back on tech edge to drop to 25 lands along side a -1 crucible. To be honest, I love farmlands because I can cycle in later when it's draw Garbage. I know flooded strand would be better here. I'm thinking based on feel that less counters and more targeted removal (tappout) has been working. Have any thoughts on ratios between targeted removal and counters in classic UW without colonnade? I happy with field wipes at 4, Perfect! I'm thinking going down to 4 Counters and bring back in condemn for an 8th targeted removal. Perhaps I feel this way because I don't have cryptic command and I need to get rid of problematic creatures. This is the way Gabriel Nassif set up the deck originally in the article.
You're right that Gideon is better in tap out decks and not as good in the Miracles deck.
Spreading Seas is good, depending on your expected meta. It actually gets better with Field of Ruin, they work as a team to do a lot of damage to your opponent's mana base. I'm not sure about September 2018 but over the summer and spring I played a lot of Spreading Seas and they were great. The meta hasn't changed much since then and I think Speading Seas is still a good card. It helps against Control decks, Tron, Valakut, 3+ color Midrange decks, and can help a little bit against 5 color humans. And in October people will start playing more 3 color midrange decks when the new set comes out which makes Spreading Seas even better. You'll have to cut back on Wall of Omen's if you want to include Seas. Having too many do-nothing 2 drops can be a death sentence against some decks.
I don't think you need crucible. Maybe in the sideboard but there aren't too many match ups it's very good in.
Without Cryptic it's hard to say. The general play pattern after a turn 4 for classic UW control is either a cryptic (tapping creatures and drawing a card) or a board wipe. Replacing Cryptic with counterspells means you have fewer ways to fight lots of creatures. I think 3 Cryptic and 4-5 other counterspells is normal for these decks. 7 targeted removal is more than usual but may be necessary without cryptic.
I think the most important upgrades will be getting a few collonades and a few cryptic commands. You don't need to get 4x collonade right away, 2 will help with your closing speed. Same with Cryptic. Don't worry about getting Jace and Teferi unless they are more accessible price-wise than the other cards. They are the two best planeswalkers for your deck but they are only slightly better than the walkers we've mentioned already.
What do you think about trying the miracles build in this deck with the Gideons and Elspeth as my primary win cons? I'd add 4 Opt, 2 Search for Azcanta maybe, and 2 telling time. It would add cost yes. I guess would it work without 2 Teferi and 2-3 Jace the Mind Sculptor?
Here is an updated deck list:
Next step for me would be replacing Oust and Condemn with 2 Cryptics
1 Elspeth Sun Champion
1 Gideon Jura
2 Gideon of Trials
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Wall of Omens
4 Path to Exile
2 Detention Sphere
1 Oust
1 Condemn
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgement
1 Logic Knot
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
1 Remand
4 Serum Visions
4 Spreading Seas
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Glimmer of Genius
4 Irrigated Farmlands
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Mystic Gate
6 Plains
4 Island
I'm not a miracles player so I can't really give you a good answer. But My guess is that Jace is core to the miracles game plan. If you don't have at least 2 Jace I wouldn't attempt miracles.
Search for Azcanta is a card you will want in any form of UW control in the long run so if you can afford them or if you have a way to access them I would go for it. You said the next step is to get a couple cryptic and I think that's a good idea and better than getting SfA, to give you an idea of how to order your upgrades, especially with how many cantrips you already have.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/much-abrew-uw-miracles-modern
Riverwise Auger is pretty bad imo. He's not really a good replacement for Jace. If you combine it with SfA, Opt and Telling Time like this deck does you can probably make it work and upgrade into Jace later on. But I think you will have more success with a non-miracles list. This list is very inconsistent looking and I think you would be better served by a consistent deck that's a little powered down rather than a powerful deck that is less consistent.
Entreat is also a very swingy win condition and it's awful in your opening hand (so is terminus too!). Planeswalkers are more consistent and they provide value even when you're behind.
I thought about adding Jace AOT and/or heiroglyohic illumination and/or Ancestral Vision to the deck for card advantage. Even stretch for Search for Azcanta. Jace AOT would add card advantage and a threat to the Deck. Though, I don't want to get rid of mission briefing or timely because they have been doing me so much good work, though those cards probably make the most sense to swap unless I want ro try getting rid of spreading seas and see how that goes. What are your thoughts?
Please see deck:
UW Control
Threats (4)
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Gideon Jura
2 Gideon of Trials
Creatures (4)
4 Wall of Omens
Spells/Enchantments (27)
4 Path to Exile
2 Detention Sphere
1 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Terminus
4 Serum Visions
4 Spreading Seas
1 Glimmer of Genius
1 Mission Briefing
1 Timely Reinforcments
25 lands
4 Irrigated Farmland
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Field of Ruin
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Mystic Gate
6 Plains
4 Island
Side
1 Elspeth Sun's Champion
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Piece
2 Celestial Purge
2 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Ceremonius Rejection
1 Timely Reinforcments
1 Settle the Wreckage