Totally agree! That's kind of my thought process on white sideboard hate cards also.. like if you are going to sideboard in a Stony Silence - chances are they are already bringing in artifact/enchantment hate anyhow..
So I started testing UB a little more also, I think with that I like to run more counter magic.. The list I have been practicing for that actually goes up to 3 Cryptic Command, 4 Gigadrowse, 2 Fatal Push, 1 Collective Brutality mainboard and it has been nice.
I was thinking that after I graduate in a couple weeks I may get a microsoft since i currently have a mac and might stream UW Taking Turns.. would be cool if we could get all three variants covered on youtube to test in the meta more! This is hands down my favorite deck and it's a shame it doesn't see as much screen time as like Humans and Mardu and all that boring stuff lol
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Hey Rodebo! We have actually been having this conversation. Mono blue is definitely more efficient in reliably keeping the combo going but it lacks the resources to deal with the current format which is all over the place. So a color splash is definitely where you want to be if able
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Totally agree! That's kind of my thought process on white sideboard hate cards also.. like if you are going to sideboard in a Stony Silence - chances are they are already bringing in artifact/enchantment hate anyhow..
So I started testing UB a little more also, I think with that I like to run more counter magic.. The list I have been practicing for that actually goes up to 3 Cryptic Command, 4 Gigadrowse, 2 Fatal Push, 1 Collective Brutality mainboard and it has been nice.
I was thinking that after I graduate in a couple weeks I may get a microsoft since i currently have a mac and might stream UW Taking Turns.. would be cool if we could get all three variants covered on youtube to test in the meta more! This is hands down my favorite deck and it's a shame it doesn't see as much screen time as like Humans and Mardu and all that boring stuff lol
I see what you mean about Stony Silence-esque cards. And awesome, more content creators would be amazing! I just want to comment that I know it's possible to run Windows on a Mac, with a virtual machine or with Boot Camp. I don't know the technical details of what kind of hardware you'd need to both do that and stream at the same time, but just want to make sure you're aware of options that don't require buying a new computer.
Hi Daniel, are you sure again abour UR Turns? It's my favourite version, but isn't better mono u again? Thank you
I'm not sure I 100% understand what you're saying. Are you saying that mono-U is better than UR? I think that UR is better because it has better tools to fight the deck's weakness to disruptive aggro decks like Humans or Spirits in the form of interactive spells like Lightning Bolt, Abrade, and Anger of the Gods. Those matchups still aren't great for us, but they're much more winnable when you have access to hard removal like that.
For what it's worth, the deck still feels very blue! Blue-red is much more tempo-y than other builds though (at least the way that I built it), so you do need to assess if you're the beatdown more often than with more controlling builds.
Oh, without doubt. The soul and core of the deck is still as blue as they come. Speaking of which, your build is very cool. Gelectrode is spice.
I had a chance to watch your debut video. Great work! Your voice suits the job very well, and you’re top class when it comes to explaining the less than obvious lines in a thorough but coherent manner. The amount of these that you saw over the course of the league was very impressive, and your talent as a pilot is obvious. That said, it almost seemed as though you were the victim of your own next-level insights in places, with one or two misclicks which surely would not have happened if you weren’t trying to explain complex lines while playing. No worries here; these will surely lessen with time as live commentating becomes second nature. (I’m a replay guy so I’m fortunate enough to not have this issue, otherwise you’d probably see 10x as many brain farts and misclicks from me!)
It must also be said that fortune was truly not with you over the league as a whole. After basically every match I was thinking “damn, pretty rough beats there, unlucky”. Not much you can do about that! But your build’s potential is clearly huge. Did this league make you rethink any slots, or was this just one among many testing sessions?
@zcowan: I do hope to return to cranking out Turns content in the not-too-distant future; but truthfully, at the moment, Golgari is where it’s at in terms of where my channel growth and Patreon support is coming from, and the variety of Rock builds is the subject of as much contention as splash colors and 75s here! Lots to still figure out as far as optimization goes.
I absolutely encourage you to give streaming/recording a shot if you think it’s something you’ll enjoy! You’ve got a subscriber in me.
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GB Golgari Midrange GB YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
You guys are awesome! I have been enjoying your golgari content every week! Helps supplement my lack of being able to play
That being said I went to a super FNM tonight and played UR... couple of notes
I tried the single blood moon in the maindeck and it over performed. I played two matches against two different spirit players (one UW and one Bant) and won both rounds because of it. I may have gotten lucky but they were really low on basic lands and had mostly caverns and unclaimed territories..
Also.. I tried crackling drake and agree that it is really strong.. but I sort of want to experiment with young pyromancer sideboard.. my thought is that he puts a very fast clock into play that goes wide so it isn't necessarily weak to spot removal that they may have left in.. And also, since it goes wide with tokens, if you fizzle and pass back to a creature matchup you can easily just chump block... Just a thought (will let you know once I have tested it some)
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For what it's worth, the deck still feels very blue! Blue-red is much more tempo-y than other builds though (at least the way that I built it), so you do need to assess if you're the beatdown more often than with more controlling builds.
Oh, without doubt. The soul and core of the deck is still as blue as they come. Speaking of which, your build is very cool. Gelectrode is spice.
I had a chance to watch your debut video. Great work! Your voice suits the job very well, and you’re top class when it comes to explaining the less than obvious lines in a thorough but coherent manner. The amount of these that you saw over the course of the league was very impressive, and your talent as a pilot is obvious. That said, it almost seemed as though you were the victim of your own next-level insights in places, with one or two misclicks which surely would not have happened if you weren’t trying to explain complex lines while playing. No worries here; these will surely lessen with time as live commentating becomes second nature. (I’m a replay guy so I’m fortunate enough to not have this issue, otherwise you’d probably see 10x as many brain farts and misclicks from me!)
It must also be said that fortune was truly not with you over the league as a whole. After basically every match I was thinking “damn, pretty rough beats there, unlucky”. Not much you can do about that! But your build’s potential is clearly huge. Did this league make you rethink any slots, or was this just one among many testing sessions?
Thanks! Yeah, that league didn't go exactly how I wanted, but that's Magic for you sometimes. The upside is that I felt like I had a shot in every match, which is usually how this deck feels! I think the Izzet Staticaster in the sideboard was unnecessary, so she'll come out in favor of some other interaction. Maybe Pyroclasm, maybe a third Gelectrode, not quite sure.
You guys are awesome! I have been enjoying your golgari content every week! Helps supplement my lack of being able to play
That being said I went to a super FNM tonight and played UR... couple of notes
I tried the single blood moon in the maindeck and it over performed. I played two matches against two different spirit players (one UW and one Bant) and won both rounds because of it. I may have gotten lucky but they were really low on basic lands and had mostly caverns and unclaimed territories..
Also.. I tried crackling drake and agree that it is really strong.. but I sort of want to experiment with young pyromancer sideboard.. my thought is that he puts a very fast clock into play that goes wide so it isn't necessarily weak to spot removal that they may have left in.. And also, since it goes wide with tokens, if you fizzle and pass back to a creature matchup you can easily just chump block... Just a thought (will let you know once I have tested it some)
Young Pyromancer has a lot of potential to be fantastic. Looking forward to hearing back on how testing him goes! And our experience with Blood Moon must have been very different. It underperformed for me, and it strikes me as particularly bad against a deck with Noble Heirarch and Aether Vial. It also creates an awkward tension in our own manabase of needing a lot of blue mana for Gigadrowse, Cryptic, Snapcaster, etc.
Just posted a new video testing out maindeck Blood Moon, Nexus of Fate, and Mission Briefing, with a sideboard Madcap Experiment / Platinum Emperion combo! Spoiler alert: I wasn't very impressed by the new cards. Blood Moon and Nexus of Fate both underperformed for me, and I think I played against decks where Platinum Emperion isn't actually impressive (Grishoalbrand, Scapeshift, and Storm all have combos that can kill the Platinum Emperion followed by killing you) so it just didn't do it for me. Also, six sideboard slots is a lot, and I had a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what to take out. I'm sure I didn't execute perfectly, but based on this experience I have my doubts that these cards are worth it.
As for Mission Briefing, it was about as good as Snapcaster most of the time. I'm still not 100% convinced that the first Mission Briefing is better than the fourth Snapcaster, but I think if you want 5 or more copies of that effect in your deck, Mission Briefing is great. Thanks zcowan for the suggestion!
As for Mission Briefing, it was about as good as Snapcaster most of the time. I'm still not 100% convinced that the first Mission Briefing is better than the fourth Snapcaster, but I think if you want 5 or more copies of that effect in your deck, Mission Briefing is great. Thanks zcowan for the suggestion!
It helps to "dig" more with surveil 2. Sometimes you just need a card to stablise that is currently not in your GY but on the top 2 cards of your library. But the other times, a 2/1 ambush viper is just what you need.
For a monno U turn deck, I'm favouring mission briefing over a 3rd/4th snapcaster currently.
For a monno U turn deck, I'm favoring mission briefing over a 3rd/4th snapcaster currently.
So from your play testing, how has mono blue been going? Do you see a wide range of decks, and do you feel like your sideboard has enough answers? I had to give up on mono blue and go to a color splash. I didn't feel like I could properly answer everything going on
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So from your play testing, how has mono blue been going? Do you see a wide range of decks, and do you feel like your sideboard has enough answers? I had to give up on mono blue and go to a color splash. I didn't feel like I could properly answer everything going on
Mono U got a good match-up against big mana, midrange and control decks. Any non Dredge/phoenix aggro decks are problematic. We have to draw our sideboard cards and hope our opponent stumbles when we are facing mass creatures.
I define a good match-up with more than 60% win rate. Dredge is an outlier with a WR greater than 80% ever since chill got printed. Spirits and other tribal decks are almost impossible. You got to hit a Titi and letting it survive long enough to flip.
What mono U lacks is a dearth of hard removal. Bouncing creatures is soso when they have active vials on the battlefield.
Thinking about attempting an Esper list to benefit from Thoughtseize/Inquisition as well as the strength of path to exile and the strong white sideboard hate cards... Timewalkinonsunshine, any chance you could assist in creating a mana base that reduces the damage of shocks and whatnot? That definitely is your specialty with that article about colored mana based on turn percentage..
Thinking about attempting an Esper list to benefit from Thoughtseize/Inquisition as well as the strength of path to exile and the strong white sideboard hate cards... Timewalkinonsunshine, any chance you could assist in creating a mana base that reduces the damage of shocks and whatnot? That definitely is your specialty with that article about colored mana based on turn percentage..
I like playing around with the deck and want to see if three colors is viable... it would be that or grixis..
Sure, let's get mathy! Before we start, it's important to keep in mind that adding a second splash color isn't free, and that with the power of additional cards comes the cost of a more painful, slightly less consistent manabase (and potentially more vulnerability to Blood Moon). There's just no way around that. That said, let's do our best to minimize the pain and maximize the consistency.
Let's start by figuring out exactly what we're trying to cast. Thoughtseize and Inquisition are most often played on turn one, but in my experience trying to optimize for that is too difficult. It means that cards like Drowned Catacomb or Sunken Hollow don't count towards your ability to play Thoughtseize or Inquisition because they can't produce black mana on turn 1, and therefore your manabase would need an absurd number of shocks and fetches. Instead, it's better to treat hand disruption as a turn 2 play, which opens up our turn 3 for Dictate or Snapcaster-Thoughtseize or whatever, so we'll treat Thoughtseize and Inquisition as if they cost 1B for the purposes of manabase calculations. For white sideboard cards Rest in Peace and Stony Silence, they more or less need to be cast on turn 2 to be effective, since Dredge or Hardened Scales opponents can really take advantage of every turn they have without hate cards in play. Therefore, we want to support both 1B and 1W on turn 2.
According to Frank Karsten's article, it takes 13 colored mana sources to reliably (92.4%) cast a 1C spell on turn 2. However, we have several cantrips in our deck, which I'm assuming are 4 Serum Visions, that can help us draw into a colored mana source for turn 2. Karsten specifically mentions that in a deck with 15 or 16 colored sources, each Serum Visions counts as 0.55 colored sources. Since we're going to run slightly fewer than 15 sources, our Serum Visions will count less. Perhaps 0.4 sources each, or 1.6 sources between the four of them. This means that we can run about 11 or 12 colored sources and somewhat reliably have 1W or 1B available on turn 2. It'll be much easier to target 11 sources, so even though we lose some consistency relative to 12 sources, let's aim for that.
The manabase you proposed has 10 white sources (1 Temple of Enlightenment, 4 Flooded Strand, 2 Polluted Delta, 2 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Glacial Fortress) and 10 black sources (4 Flooded Strand, 2 Polluted Delta, 1 Watery Grave, 3 Drowned Catacomb). An easy way to up this to 11 each is just adding one more fetchland, either cutting an Island, or just going up to 23 lands. Personally I'd recommend 23 lands, as hitting land drops is generally quite important. As for other changes to the manabase, I think that having a Prairie Stream and a Sunken Hollow over the second Hallowed Fountain and the first Drowned Catacomb is a good idea. While the Battle for Zendikar lands do come into play tapped on turns 1 and 2 and make it harder to cast a turn 2 Thoughtseize or Rest in Peace, I think the upside of having a late-game colored source on a fetchland that doesn't hurt you (beyond the 1 life from the fetchland) is quite helpful. I also think it's important to have more than one fetchable splash land of each color in the event of Field of Ruin or Ghost Quarter or other land destruction. The rest of the manabase seems pretty reasonable, and it does look like 7 is the fewest number of fetchlands we can have to still consistently have our colored sources by turn 2. We also need to keep in mind our number of fetchable lands, since we do tend to play a ton of lands and we are more likely to run out of fetchable lands in typical gameplay than your average deck. Our ratio is 7 fetchlands to 11 fetchables, which should be fine since drawing an unusable fetchland will mean that we have seen all 11 fetchables. So in the end, our manabase looks something like this:
This manabase is more painful than I'm especially happy with, but it'll do a good job of supporting the two splash colors while still not being too painful or inconsistent. Also worth noting is that if budget or other concerns are not an issue, I think it's better to do a 2-2-2-1 split on blue fetchlands rather than 4-3 just because you can get caught in a rough spot if your Whir of Invention opponent triple or quadruple Stone Rains you with a Sorcerous Spyglass or Pithing Needle.
@Timewalkinonsunshine! I knew you would be the one who could figure that puzzle out lol..
My overall opinion on UR right now is that bolt is incredible but red lacks a lot of hard counters to decks..
I think three color could provide an interesting way for this deck to compete.
That being said I don't know which would be better. Part of me almost thinks that Jeskai could be the way to go. I remember Seba playing a Jeskai list a while back on Twitch and it looked awesome. Having access to white's hard counter answers like Stony Silence and Terminus/Supreme Verdict/Path to Exile as well as using bolt to speed up our clock could work!
Thank you for the help on the mana base! I think if you were to go three colors the important part would be minimizing damage taken from shocks and whatnot and I think what you came up with looks right.
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I'm confused.. lol
Do you mean like Bant turns with fog effects similar to the standard nexus of fate deck? The main problem with that would be you couldn't realistically have a draw engine like dictate/howling mine and also fit in fog effects and whatnot as well.. That being said I am a huge fan of narset so if you find a decklist that works definitely post it!
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Figured I'd post my current status on Jeskai turns! I'm loving it so far. It plays the same as UR in the first game but has the strength of white after side boarding..
If you don't mind @Timewalkinonsunshine.. how does this land base look?
Figured I'd post my current status on Jeskai turns! I'm loving it so far. It plays the same as UR in the first game but has the strength of white after side boarding..
If you don't mind @Timewalkinonsunshine.. how does this land base look?
This manabase looks pretty good, but I have a few suggestions. I'd recommend another UW source (perhaps Glacial Fortress) as a 23rd land, both to up the white source count to 11 and to up the total number of lands to 23. As-is, the manabase has 11 red sources (7 fetches, 2 Steam Vents, 1 Temple of Epiphany, 1 Sulfur Falls) and 10 white sources (7 fetches, 1 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Prairie Stream, 1 Glacial Fortress). As discussed before, 11 is an ideal target to aim for to cast your Rest in Peace and Stony Silence on time in this deck, which is why I think one more UW source is ideal.
This is something easy to miss but pretty important: Scalding Tarn, Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, and Flooded Strand are all better than Arid Mesa in this deck. This is because all of your fetchable lands are blue, so any blue fetchland gets all your fetchable lands (basic Island, Hallowed Fountain, Prairie Stream, Steam Vents), but Arid Mesa does not get basic Island! A better split might be 2 Scalding Tarn, 1 Misty Rainforest, 2 Polluted Delta, 2 Flooded Strand.
Unrelated to the other discussions, I posted a new UR Turns video! This is the list I played at GP Portland, where I finished at an extremely disappointing 4-3 drop. At the GP, I definitely attribute at least two of my losses to my own misplays, while the third was mostly some rough draws. It's unfortunate to make match-losing mistakes at a high-level tournament, but that's all part of being human. I'm hoping to play something very similar at GP Oakland in a few weeks with much tighter play!
One of our number managed to top-4 a 1k event yesterday, or the day before.
I'll find out more details on lists, but they had a pretty good run, going 4-1 in the Swiss, and 1-1 in the top 8 finally ending their run in the semis.
Hope y'all are having a good Christmas season.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
@Timewalkinonsunshine yeah I totally caught that with Arid Mesa after posting my mana base on here.. I did add another glacial fortress but I haven't been sold on Prairie Stream yet. With three colors I feel like you never want to fetch for basic islands if you can help it. It might just be that im not used to that land restriction and will have to fetch for it more often.
And just watched the video btw! Another awesome league full of useful commentary. I swear I always play Jace at the wrong time. I watch your matches and you always get so much utility out of him and mine just dies immediately usually lol
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UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
So I started testing UB a little more also, I think with that I like to run more counter magic.. The list I have been practicing for that actually goes up to 3 Cryptic Command, 4 Gigadrowse, 2 Fatal Push, 1 Collective Brutality mainboard and it has been nice.
I was thinking that after I graduate in a couple weeks I may get a microsoft since i currently have a mac and might stream UW Taking Turns.. would be cool if we could get all three variants covered on youtube to test in the meta more! This is hands down my favorite deck and it's a shame it doesn't see as much screen time as like Humans and Mardu and all that boring stuff lol
I'm not sure I 100% understand what you're saying. Are you saying that mono-U is better than UR? I think that UR is better because it has better tools to fight the deck's weakness to disruptive aggro decks like Humans or Spirits in the form of interactive spells like Lightning Bolt, Abrade, and Anger of the Gods. Those matchups still aren't great for us, but they're much more winnable when you have access to hard removal like that.
Oh, without doubt. The soul and core of the deck is still as blue as they come. Speaking of which, your build is very cool. Gelectrode is spice.
I had a chance to watch your debut video. Great work! Your voice suits the job very well, and you’re top class when it comes to explaining the less than obvious lines in a thorough but coherent manner. The amount of these that you saw over the course of the league was very impressive, and your talent as a pilot is obvious. That said, it almost seemed as though you were the victim of your own next-level insights in places, with one or two misclicks which surely would not have happened if you weren’t trying to explain complex lines while playing. No worries here; these will surely lessen with time as live commentating becomes second nature. (I’m a replay guy so I’m fortunate enough to not have this issue, otherwise you’d probably see 10x as many brain farts and misclicks from me!)
It must also be said that fortune was truly not with you over the league as a whole. After basically every match I was thinking “damn, pretty rough beats there, unlucky”. Not much you can do about that! But your build’s potential is clearly huge. Did this league make you rethink any slots, or was this just one among many testing sessions?
@zcowan: I do hope to return to cranking out Turns content in the not-too-distant future; but truthfully, at the moment, Golgari is where it’s at in terms of where my channel growth and Patreon support is coming from, and the variety of Rock builds is the subject of as much contention as splash colors and 75s here! Lots to still figure out as far as optimization goes.
I absolutely encourage you to give streaming/recording a shot if you think it’s something you’ll enjoy! You’ve got a subscriber in me.
YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
That being said I went to a super FNM tonight and played UR... couple of notes
I tried the single blood moon in the maindeck and it over performed. I played two matches against two different spirit players (one UW and one Bant) and won both rounds because of it. I may have gotten lucky but they were really low on basic lands and had mostly caverns and unclaimed territories..
Also.. I tried crackling drake and agree that it is really strong.. but I sort of want to experiment with young pyromancer sideboard.. my thought is that he puts a very fast clock into play that goes wide so it isn't necessarily weak to spot removal that they may have left in.. And also, since it goes wide with tokens, if you fizzle and pass back to a creature matchup you can easily just chump block... Just a thought (will let you know once I have tested it some)
Young Pyromancer has a lot of potential to be fantastic. Looking forward to hearing back on how testing him goes! And our experience with Blood Moon must have been very different. It underperformed for me, and it strikes me as particularly bad against a deck with Noble Heirarch and Aether Vial. It also creates an awkward tension in our own manabase of needing a lot of blue mana for Gigadrowse, Cryptic, Snapcaster, etc.
Just posted a new video testing out maindeck Blood Moon, Nexus of Fate, and Mission Briefing, with a sideboard Madcap Experiment / Platinum Emperion combo! Spoiler alert: I wasn't very impressed by the new cards. Blood Moon and Nexus of Fate both underperformed for me, and I think I played against decks where Platinum Emperion isn't actually impressive (Grishoalbrand, Scapeshift, and Storm all have combos that can kill the Platinum Emperion followed by killing you) so it just didn't do it for me. Also, six sideboard slots is a lot, and I had a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what to take out. I'm sure I didn't execute perfectly, but based on this experience I have my doubts that these cards are worth it.
As for Mission Briefing, it was about as good as Snapcaster most of the time. I'm still not 100% convinced that the first Mission Briefing is better than the fourth Snapcaster, but I think if you want 5 or more copies of that effect in your deck, Mission Briefing is great. Thanks zcowan for the suggestion!
It helps to "dig" more with surveil 2. Sometimes you just need a card to stablise that is currently not in your GY but on the top 2 cards of your library. But the other times, a 2/1 ambush viper is just what you need.
For a monno U turn deck, I'm favouring mission briefing over a 3rd/4th snapcaster currently.
So from your play testing, how has mono blue been going? Do you see a wide range of decks, and do you feel like your sideboard has enough answers? I had to give up on mono blue and go to a color splash. I didn't feel like I could properly answer everything going on
Mono U got a good match-up against big mana, midrange and control decks. Any non Dredge/phoenix aggro decks are problematic. We have to draw our sideboard cards and hope our opponent stumbles when we are facing mass creatures.
I define a good match-up with more than 60% win rate. Dredge is an outlier with a WR greater than 80% ever since chill got printed. Spirits and other tribal decks are almost impossible. You got to hit a Titi and letting it survive long enough to flip.
What mono U lacks is a dearth of hard removal. Bouncing creatures is soso when they have active vials on the battlefield.
Was thinking something along the lines of:
7 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Temple of Enlightenment
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
3 Drowned Catacomb
1 Glacial Fortress
I like playing around with the deck and want to see if three colors is viable... it would be that or grixis..
Let's start by figuring out exactly what we're trying to cast. Thoughtseize and Inquisition are most often played on turn one, but in my experience trying to optimize for that is too difficult. It means that cards like Drowned Catacomb or Sunken Hollow don't count towards your ability to play Thoughtseize or Inquisition because they can't produce black mana on turn 1, and therefore your manabase would need an absurd number of shocks and fetches. Instead, it's better to treat hand disruption as a turn 2 play, which opens up our turn 3 for Dictate or Snapcaster-Thoughtseize or whatever, so we'll treat Thoughtseize and Inquisition as if they cost 1B for the purposes of manabase calculations. For white sideboard cards Rest in Peace and Stony Silence, they more or less need to be cast on turn 2 to be effective, since Dredge or Hardened Scales opponents can really take advantage of every turn they have without hate cards in play. Therefore, we want to support both 1B and 1W on turn 2.
According to Frank Karsten's article, it takes 13 colored mana sources to reliably (92.4%) cast a 1C spell on turn 2. However, we have several cantrips in our deck, which I'm assuming are 4 Serum Visions, that can help us draw into a colored mana source for turn 2. Karsten specifically mentions that in a deck with 15 or 16 colored sources, each Serum Visions counts as 0.55 colored sources. Since we're going to run slightly fewer than 15 sources, our Serum Visions will count less. Perhaps 0.4 sources each, or 1.6 sources between the four of them. This means that we can run about 11 or 12 colored sources and somewhat reliably have 1W or 1B available on turn 2. It'll be much easier to target 11 sources, so even though we lose some consistency relative to 12 sources, let's aim for that.
The manabase you proposed has 10 white sources (1 Temple of Enlightenment, 4 Flooded Strand, 2 Polluted Delta, 2 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Glacial Fortress) and 10 black sources (4 Flooded Strand, 2 Polluted Delta, 1 Watery Grave, 3 Drowned Catacomb). An easy way to up this to 11 each is just adding one more fetchland, either cutting an Island, or just going up to 23 lands. Personally I'd recommend 23 lands, as hitting land drops is generally quite important. As for other changes to the manabase, I think that having a Prairie Stream and a Sunken Hollow over the second Hallowed Fountain and the first Drowned Catacomb is a good idea. While the Battle for Zendikar lands do come into play tapped on turns 1 and 2 and make it harder to cast a turn 2 Thoughtseize or Rest in Peace, I think the upside of having a late-game colored source on a fetchland that doesn't hurt you (beyond the 1 life from the fetchland) is quite helpful. I also think it's important to have more than one fetchable splash land of each color in the event of Field of Ruin or Ghost Quarter or other land destruction. The rest of the manabase seems pretty reasonable, and it does look like 7 is the fewest number of fetchlands we can have to still consistently have our colored sources by turn 2. We also need to keep in mind our number of fetchable lands, since we do tend to play a ton of lands and we are more likely to run out of fetchable lands in typical gameplay than your average deck. Our ratio is 7 fetchlands to 11 fetchables, which should be fine since drawing an unusable fetchland will mean that we have seen all 11 fetchables. So in the end, our manabase looks something like this:
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Watery Grave
1 Sunken Hollow
2 Drowned Catacomb
My overall opinion on UR right now is that bolt is incredible but red lacks a lot of hard counters to decks..
I think three color could provide an interesting way for this deck to compete.
That being said I don't know which would be better. Part of me almost thinks that Jeskai could be the way to go. I remember Seba playing a Jeskai list a while back on Twitch and it looked awesome. Having access to white's hard counter answers like Stony Silence and Terminus/Supreme Verdict/Path to Exile as well as using bolt to speed up our clock could work!
Thank you for the help on the mana base! I think if you were to go three colors the important part would be minimizing damage taken from shocks and whatnot and I think what you came up with looks right.
Fog color?
Li8rary manipulation? Nissa possi8le?
Remand/Cryptic#s=4/3?
Thoughts on oath of nissa?
-U control
-any color PW & Turns
-minimal splash green
#magic#5#nojoke
#Fogwalker/Control/Turns
Do you mean like Bant turns with fog effects similar to the standard nexus of fate deck? The main problem with that would be you couldn't realistically have a draw engine like dictate/howling mine and also fit in fog effects and whatnot as well.. That being said I am a huge fan of narset so if you find a decklist that works definitely post it!
If you don't mind @Timewalkinonsunshine.. how does this land base look?
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Prairie Stream
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Glacial Fortress
This manabase looks pretty good, but I have a few suggestions. I'd recommend another UW source (perhaps Glacial Fortress) as a 23rd land, both to up the white source count to 11 and to up the total number of lands to 23. As-is, the manabase has 11 red sources (7 fetches, 2 Steam Vents, 1 Temple of Epiphany, 1 Sulfur Falls) and 10 white sources (7 fetches, 1 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Prairie Stream, 1 Glacial Fortress). As discussed before, 11 is an ideal target to aim for to cast your Rest in Peace and Stony Silence on time in this deck, which is why I think one more UW source is ideal.
This is something easy to miss but pretty important: Scalding Tarn, Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, and Flooded Strand are all better than Arid Mesa in this deck. This is because all of your fetchable lands are blue, so any blue fetchland gets all your fetchable lands (basic Island, Hallowed Fountain, Prairie Stream, Steam Vents), but Arid Mesa does not get basic Island! A better split might be 2 Scalding Tarn, 1 Misty Rainforest, 2 Polluted Delta, 2 Flooded Strand.
Unrelated to the other discussions, I posted a new UR Turns video! This is the list I played at GP Portland, where I finished at an extremely disappointing 4-3 drop. At the GP, I definitely attribute at least two of my losses to my own misplays, while the third was mostly some rough draws. It's unfortunate to make match-losing mistakes at a high-level tournament, but that's all part of being human. I'm hoping to play something very similar at GP Oakland in a few weeks with much tighter play!
I'll find out more details on lists, but they had a pretty good run, going 4-1 in the Swiss, and 1-1 in the top 8 finally ending their run in the semis.
Hope y'all are having a good Christmas season.
And just watched the video btw! Another awesome league full of useful commentary. I swear I always play Jace at the wrong time. I watch your matches and you always get so much utility out of him and mine just dies immediately usually lol
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells:
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Howling Mine
4 Dictate of Kruphix
2 Cryptic Command
2 Remand
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
4 Time Warp
2 Temporal Mastery
3 Part the Waterveil
3 Exhaustion
3 Gigadrowse
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
3 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
7 Island
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Glacial Fortress
1 Prairie Stream
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Temple of Epiphany
3 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Geist of St Traft
1 Crackling Drake
1 Rest in Peace
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Commandeer
My match-ups were:
Swiss Matches
4c deaths shadow 2-0
Grixis control 2-0
Evolution 2-1
Bant spirits 0-2
Tron 2-1
4-1 into the top 8
Played burn and won 2-1
Infect lost 0-2 had me dead on t2
http://blog.magicstronghold.com/stronghold-modern-open-1k-top-8-decklists-december-15th-2018/