After reading all the information from Bilbao and the articles on it and then all the new cards that came out I am thinking about running the main deck below.
After watching some streams with people like Gabriel Nassif Teferi, Time Raveler & Narset, Parter of Veils seem very strong.
I took out the Ghost Quarter and added in the Blast Zone, Ghost Quarter never seemed overly strong with me, but Blast Zone seems like it could be a lot stronger. Last new card being Dovin's Veto witch seems just straight up way better over Negate.
How come you don't need to bounce pool? If you play a spell with the pool on the table it will exile the spell you're playing and trigger the second ability. If you want to resolve another spell you can't have the pool on the table.
Every spell that gets exiled by pool goes into the pool. So let's say you have a Jace in hand you want to cast - you cast it, have it get exiled and replace it with something else from the pool. Then you cast any other card from hand, have pool exile it and replace it with the Jace that was just exiled.
How come you don't need to bounce pool? If you play a spell with the pool on the table it will exile the spell you're playing and trigger the second ability. If you want to resolve another spell you can't have the pool on the table.
Every spell that gets exiled by pool goes into the pool. So let's say you have a Jace in hand you want to cast - you cast it, have it get exiled and replace it with something else from the pool. Then you cast any other card from hand, have pool exile it and replace it with the Jace that was just exiled.
You're right. For some reason my brain read it as if you only got to play the imprinted cards. Sorry for that.
Technically the lock is similar but you save the unnecessary bounce back to the hand.
Yes, so it's a 1 sided hard lock. It's pretty interesting to me. I read the guys tournament report and he doesn't seem all to familiar with the deck, and some of his card choices for a combo-control deck seem subpar. Given those two things, I would say that with some tuning and more experience the deck could be a real contender. My only caveat would be that a lot of his success might have also been to his fortunate pairings and the fact that his opponents likely didn't know what was going on. Not sure if a better build and more experience can overcome those two other aspects, but I intend to give it a try.
I would look to cut the non 3cmc walkers and the absorbs for remands and look to include opt over Serum; the ability to opt in response to your opponent trying to get the best card out of the pool is invaluable. This will allow you to play knowledge pool earlier. It could also be the case that you want to cut cards like detention sphere so that slamming a pool on 6 is less likely to lead to a blow out in desperate times if you flip your own sphere to it. Hero of Dominaria is similar.
Do you people like Ashiok, Dream Render over rest in peace in the side along with surgical extractions?
Yes I like it, because both are more flexible cards than RiP and you can still use your Snaps and Knots for full value. For what its worth that also leaves their Natures Claims dead in hand.
I like Ashioks static ability especially vs Amulet. Put some Damping Spheres in the mix and lean back.
How good to do we think Blast Zone is in UW Control?
Conceptually it seemed good and in practice it's been even better. I played a few matches with 26 land, 4 Field 2 blast zone and it performs pretty well. Mind you I stay away from cards like absorb and I might be more inclined to lean towards negate over veto running 6 colorless sources.
I will be testing it out some more, but I'm having fun running the Teferi Pool version currently. Fun is about all though, I'm not winning very much with it.
As long as you still run 14 white sources, running 26 lands with 6 colorless sources does not make Dovin's Veto any harder to cast than if you had 25 lands with 5 colorless sources
There's been a bunch of UW lists popping up running Narset, Parter of Veils and Teferi, Time Raveler. I'm excited to see stuff pop up from WAR that isn't just the Neoform atrocity.
As long as you still run 14 white sources, running 26 lands with 6 colorless sources does not make Dovin's Veto any harder to cast than if you had 25 lands with 5 colorless sources
This math only accounts for paying a specific Mana cost on a specific turn;it doesn't account for wanting to play multiple spells in a turn cycle. Whenever you open on 2x colorless lands and a veto/absorb/logic knot you're going to have a hard time casting on curve or trying to double-spell.
You also didn't account for celestial colonnade and glacial fortress; those numbers assume X untapped sources, which is not the case in a 4x colonnade deck - most lists run around 7-9 untapped white sources, not 14.
As long as you still run 14 white sources, running 26 lands with 6 colorless sources does not make Dovin's Veto any harder to cast than if you had 25 lands with 5 colorless sources
This math only accounts for paying a specific Mana cost on a specific turn;it doesn't account for wanting to play multiple spells in a turn cycle. Whenever you open on 2x colorless lands and a veto/absorb/logic knot you're going to have a hard time casting on curve or trying to double-spell.
You also didn't account for celestial colonnade and glacial fortress; those numbers assume X untapped sources, which is not the case in a 4x colonnade deck - most lists run around 7-9 untapped white sources, not 14.
The math of doublecasting also stays the same, your untapped sources ALSO stay the same. Keeping a hand with too many colorless sources would be a bad hand with a spell in that 26th land slot just as well.
You have a jar with 20 red marbles, 5 green ones and 35 blue ones. If you replace a blue marble with a green marble your odds of taking out a red marble stay the same.
Unless the blue marble does something other than be a blue marble, like say draw a card or scry, or that not all the blue marbles are the same and exist outside of a hypergeometric vacuum.
If you read back a little further you'll see that I suggested that in order to play a 26 land version I would cut all Serum/Opt in favor of Heiroglyphs. Losing out on the scry absolutely does hinder your ability to cast colored spells.
You're also not considering how many hands with a fetch (or any dual) plus a colourless land are keepable, of which there are many. Every time you add a colorless source, those combinations go up. So while adding a single colorless source in place of a spell doesn't change the odds in a hypergeometric vacuum, the game of magic isn't played in such a vacuum.
After reading all the information from Bilbao and the articles on it and then all the new cards that came out I am thinking about running the main deck below.
After watching some streams with people like Gabriel Nassif Teferi, Time Raveler & Narset, Parter of Veils seem very strong.
I took out the Ghost Quarter and added in the Blast Zone, Ghost Quarter never seemed overly strong with me, but Blast Zone seems like it could be a lot stronger. Last new card being Dovin's Veto witch seems just straight up way better over Negate.
My observations so far is that the combo of Teferi, Time Raveler and Narset, Parter of Veils locks down most games for you. Narset, Parter of Veils So far has been a better Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. It can be played on T3 and immediately activated for at least one search trigger and is immune to LD/land-hate. Her static ability shuts down a lot of the unfair decks that currently are over represented in modern (Dredge, Phoenix, storm). I am debating going up to a 3rd main deck for this reason alone.
Similarly Teferi, Time Raveler Straight up shuts down a lot of the game play for modern decks. Most decks want instant speed interaction and the static on Teferi is amazing. The plus is a great ability as well allowing for instant speed wrath effects etc. The real under appreciated gem though is it's minus ability. It takes care of some of the biggest issues UW has bouncing Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge or any of a number of scary creatures really and on top of bouncing them it draws you a card!!!
Lastly I recently went up to 2x Dovin's Veto main just because I found myself always side-boarding in the extra one in almost all of my matches. Mostly because it does a great job of protecting my walkers from the majority of hate/kill cards.
Anyways, I would like to know what other peoples experiences have been so far. I think that UW is poised to take the spotlight especially if we get some good cards in Modern Horizons (praying for Counterspell). If I had to guess the meta will shift in the near future with Tron taking most played followed by humans and UW control.
Haven't used either new Teferi or Narset however I am using 2x Ashiok (sideboard) and Veto in my UW midrange list. I feel like 3 of new Teferi or Narset is both way to much for this archetype as they simply don't do enough on their own to create impact. Perhaps a 1 of each in CA spots wouldn't hurt.
Unless the blue marble does something other than be a blue marble, like say draw a card or scry, or that not all the blue marbles are the same and exist outside of a hypergeometric vacuum.
If you read back a little further you'll see that I suggested that in order to play a 26 land version I would cut all Serum/Opt in favor of Heiroglyphs. Losing out on the scry absolutely does hinder your ability to cast colored spells.
You're also not considering how many hands with a fetch (or any dual) plus a colourless land are keepable, of which there are many. Every time you add a colorless source, those combinations go up. So while adding a single colorless source in place of a spell doesn't change the odds in a hypergeometric vacuum, the game of magic isn't played in such a vacuum.
Last post I'll commit to this because I'm pretty sure neither of us can convince the other
Out of the billions and billions of possible openers the amount of keepable hands that break down on the last card being a cantrip or a colorless land is insignificant for your mana calculation. Furthermore for every opener you can come up with that needs a cantrip over a colorless land I can give you a hand where the reverse would be true. Running a 26th land does not suddenly make you have to play Negate over Dovin's Veto if you still play 14 white sources. Unless you actually pull out the hypergeometric calculator, stick to the Holy Scriptures of Saint Frank Karsten and you will be set to cast your spells on curve.
At least we can agree on one thing, Karsten is a saint for the game of magic lol
I think you are misunderstanding me somewhere because by saying "for every hand you can come up with that needs a cantrip over a colorless land I can give you a hand where the reverse is true" it implies I value those cantrips when it's exactly the opposite; I think there are far more hands that want the colorless source over the cantrip, and I don't think it's close. It's especially not close if you change out veto/knot for cards like negate. It's actually my entire argument.
You are also grossly underestimating how often keeping a hand based on your second land being either a colorless source or a cantrip matters. So much so that it makes me think you're either being dishonest or you're new to UW; you can't afford to spend your first few turns digging for lands and there are many keepable hands with a dual-source and a colorless-source where there are nearly zero keepable hands with only 1 land. This possibility is not reflected properly by your billions and billions statement; we're talking nearly 12% of the time you're going to see that 1/60 card difference by your second turn (when you could reasonably expect to cast a veto/knot) and about 7% of the time that colorless/cantrip is going to be accompanied by no other lands in the opener. Those are not numbers that should be ignored.
That being said, I think that Veto might be enough stronger than negate that this risk may be worthwhile.
I think we're talking past eachother now so let's drop it. Lands are boring, I want to talk about planeswalkers!
Ashiok, Narset and Teferi from WAR have all really impressed me in this deck, especially considering they fit in the 3drop slot which I feel is often the "weak spot" in UWx's curve. Especially Ashiok and Narset being good tech versus Looting decks without looking absolutely embarassing vs non-looting decks has been very exciting. The challenge now is to find the right mix.
Something I'm considering is trying to run a singleton Ignite the Beacon. Even though it's a bit too cute, we now have a whole bunch of mainboardable planeswalkers that can either provide a surprisingly nice lock versus a bunch of decks as well as just being a really powerful value play versus fair decks. It also helps that, being a turn 5 play, it curves nicely into a bunch of things. Imagine playing vs UR Phoenix, casting Ignite for Ashiok and Narset, uptap and playing both in the same turn to wipe their yard and kill their cantrips. As long as you don't go too big brain on your planeswalker package (No mainboard Karn the Great Creator just to get Stony Silence) I feel it's worth exploring.
I wanted to share something here. After 2 years I was able to foil out Blue White control.
I cant post a video here, so here is a link to my twitter showing the video of it.
Ashiok, Narset and Teferi from WAR have all really impressed me in this deck, especially considering they fit in the 3drop slot which I feel is often the "weak spot" in UWx's curve. Especially Ashiok and Narset being good tech versus Looting decks without looking absolutely embarassing vs non-looting decks has been very exciting. The challenge now is to find the right mix.
I'm curious about the right mix of these as well.
Looting decks usually also have plenty of fetchlands and care about yards, so Ashiok annoys them to a certain degree. Although I have the opinion that Ashiok is more of a sideboard card, while Narset can be main deck as a single.
Something I'm considering is trying to run a singleton Ignite the Beacon. Even though it's a bit too cute, we now have a whole bunch of mainboardable planeswalkers that can either provide a surprisingly nice lock versus a bunch of decks as well as just being a really powerful value play versus fair decks. It also helps that, being a turn 5 play, it curves nicely into a bunch of things. Imagine playing vs UR Phoenix, casting Ignite for Ashiok and Narset, uptap and playing both in the same turn to wipe their yard and kill their cantrips. As long as you don't go too big brain on your planeswalker package (No mainboard Karn the Great Creator just to get Stony Silence) I feel it's worth exploring.
How about Call the Gatewatch instead of Ignite the Beacon? It's less mana intensive at 3 mana.
I am not sold that the new Ashiok is actually that good.
I did play a bit with Narset and Teferi, I think they are both quite strong for 3 mana. I think I was initially testing with low expectations of Teferi, and he ended up exceeding my expectations as a MB candidate. Narest, I may likely drop a SFA for and run a 1/1 split in the main with a 2nd Narset in the board.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/white-blue-ctrl-c-v/
Lots of interesting information from one of the largest Modern events with 65 Blue/White control decks playing in it.
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Blast Zone
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
6 Island
2 Plains
3 Snapcaster Mage
Planeswalkers
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
Spells
3 Cryptic Command
1 Detention Sphere
1 Hieroglyphic Illumination
1 Mana Leak
1 Oust
4 Path to Exile
1 Logic Knot
2 Dovin's Veto
1 Runed Halo
1 Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin
1 Settle the Wreckage
2 Supreme Verdict
4 Opt
After watching some streams with people like Gabriel Nassif Teferi, Time Raveler & Narset, Parter of Veils seem very strong.
I took out the Ghost Quarter and added in the Blast Zone, Ghost Quarter never seemed overly strong with me, but Blast Zone seems like it could be a lot stronger. Last new card being Dovin's Veto witch seems just straight up way better over Negate.
Every spell that gets exiled by pool goes into the pool. So let's say you have a Jace in hand you want to cast - you cast it, have it get exiled and replace it with something else from the pool. Then you cast any other card from hand, have pool exile it and replace it with the Jace that was just exiled.
Technically the lock is similar but you save the unnecessary bounce back to the hand.
WUMiracles ControlUW
RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
I would look to cut the non 3cmc walkers and the absorbs for remands and look to include opt over Serum; the ability to opt in response to your opponent trying to get the best card out of the pool is invaluable. This will allow you to play knowledge pool earlier. It could also be the case that you want to cut cards like detention sphere so that slamming a pool on 6 is less likely to lead to a blow out in desperate times if you flip your own sphere to it. Hero of Dominaria is similar.
Yes I like it, because both are more flexible cards than RiP and you can still use your Snaps and Knots for full value. For what its worth that also leaves their Natures Claims dead in hand.
I like Ashioks static ability especially vs Amulet. Put some Damping Spheres in the mix and lean back.
Conceptually it seemed good and in practice it's been even better. I played a few matches with 26 land, 4 Field 2 blast zone and it performs pretty well. Mind you I stay away from cards like absorb and I might be more inclined to lean towards negate over veto running 6 colorless sources.
I will be testing it out some more, but I'm having fun running the Teferi Pool version currently. Fun is about all though, I'm not winning very much with it.
There's been a bunch of UW lists popping up running Narset, Parter of Veils and Teferi, Time Raveler. I'm excited to see stuff pop up from WAR that isn't just the Neoform atrocity.
This math only accounts for paying a specific Mana cost on a specific turn;it doesn't account for wanting to play multiple spells in a turn cycle. Whenever you open on 2x colorless lands and a veto/absorb/logic knot you're going to have a hard time casting on curve or trying to double-spell.
You also didn't account for celestial colonnade and glacial fortress; those numbers assume X untapped sources, which is not the case in a 4x colonnade deck - most lists run around 7-9 untapped white sources, not 14.
The math of doublecasting also stays the same, your untapped sources ALSO stay the same. Keeping a hand with too many colorless sources would be a bad hand with a spell in that 26th land slot just as well.
You have a jar with 20 red marbles, 5 green ones and 35 blue ones. If you replace a blue marble with a green marble your odds of taking out a red marble stay the same.
If you read back a little further you'll see that I suggested that in order to play a 26 land version I would cut all Serum/Opt in favor of Heiroglyphs. Losing out on the scry absolutely does hinder your ability to cast colored spells.
You're also not considering how many hands with a fetch (or any dual) plus a colourless land are keepable, of which there are many. Every time you add a colorless source, those combinations go up. So while adding a single colorless source in place of a spell doesn't change the odds in a hypergeometric vacuum, the game of magic isn't played in such a vacuum.
I've bee running a very similar list (Deck: http://decks.deckedbuilder.com/d/2019-05-10/CEG1RsdBw0OKt1Z10EtEZg== )
My observations so far is that the combo of Teferi, Time Raveler and Narset, Parter of Veils locks down most games for you. Narset, Parter of Veils So far has been a better Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. It can be played on T3 and immediately activated for at least one search trigger and is immune to LD/land-hate. Her static ability shuts down a lot of the unfair decks that currently are over represented in modern (Dredge, Phoenix, storm). I am debating going up to a 3rd main deck for this reason alone.
Similarly Teferi, Time Raveler Straight up shuts down a lot of the game play for modern decks. Most decks want instant speed interaction and the static on Teferi is amazing. The plus is a great ability as well allowing for instant speed wrath effects etc. The real under appreciated gem though is it's minus ability. It takes care of some of the biggest issues UW has bouncing Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge or any of a number of scary creatures really and on top of bouncing them it draws you a card!!!
I'm honestly debating including 3x Teferi, Time Raveler and 3x Narset, Parter of Veils.
Lastly I recently went up to 2x Dovin's Veto main just because I found myself always side-boarding in the extra one in almost all of my matches. Mostly because it does a great job of protecting my walkers from the majority of hate/kill cards.
Anyways, I would like to know what other peoples experiences have been so far. I think that UW is poised to take the spotlight especially if we get some good cards in Modern Horizons (praying for Counterspell). If I had to guess the meta will shift in the near future with Tron taking most played followed by humans and UW control.
Last post I'll commit to this because I'm pretty sure neither of us can convince the other
Out of the billions and billions of possible openers the amount of keepable hands that break down on the last card being a cantrip or a colorless land is insignificant for your mana calculation. Furthermore for every opener you can come up with that needs a cantrip over a colorless land I can give you a hand where the reverse would be true. Running a 26th land does not suddenly make you have to play Negate over Dovin's Veto if you still play 14 white sources. Unless you actually pull out the hypergeometric calculator, stick to the Holy Scriptures of Saint Frank Karsten and you will be set to cast your spells on curve.
I think you are misunderstanding me somewhere because by saying "for every hand you can come up with that needs a cantrip over a colorless land I can give you a hand where the reverse is true" it implies I value those cantrips when it's exactly the opposite; I think there are far more hands that want the colorless source over the cantrip, and I don't think it's close. It's especially not close if you change out veto/knot for cards like negate. It's actually my entire argument.
You are also grossly underestimating how often keeping a hand based on your second land being either a colorless source or a cantrip matters. So much so that it makes me think you're either being dishonest or you're new to UW; you can't afford to spend your first few turns digging for lands and there are many keepable hands with a dual-source and a colorless-source where there are nearly zero keepable hands with only 1 land. This possibility is not reflected properly by your billions and billions statement; we're talking nearly 12% of the time you're going to see that 1/60 card difference by your second turn (when you could reasonably expect to cast a veto/knot) and about 7% of the time that colorless/cantrip is going to be accompanied by no other lands in the opener. Those are not numbers that should be ignored.
That being said, I think that Veto might be enough stronger than negate that this risk may be worthwhile.
Ashiok, Narset and Teferi from WAR have all really impressed me in this deck, especially considering they fit in the 3drop slot which I feel is often the "weak spot" in UWx's curve. Especially Ashiok and Narset being good tech versus Looting decks without looking absolutely embarassing vs non-looting decks has been very exciting. The challenge now is to find the right mix.
Something I'm considering is trying to run a singleton Ignite the Beacon. Even though it's a bit too cute, we now have a whole bunch of mainboardable planeswalkers that can either provide a surprisingly nice lock versus a bunch of decks as well as just being a really powerful value play versus fair decks. It also helps that, being a turn 5 play, it curves nicely into a bunch of things. Imagine playing vs UR Phoenix, casting Ignite for Ashiok and Narset, uptap and playing both in the same turn to wipe their yard and kill their cantrips. As long as you don't go too big brain on your planeswalker package (No mainboard Karn the Great Creator just to get Stony Silence) I feel it's worth exploring.
I cant post a video here, so here is a link to my twitter showing the video of it.
https://twitter.com/mrdude8/status/1127021604255485953
I'm curious about the right mix of these as well.
Looting decks usually also have plenty of fetchlands and care about yards, so Ashiok annoys them to a certain degree. Although I have the opinion that Ashiok is more of a sideboard card, while Narset can be main deck as a single.
How about Call the Gatewatch instead of Ignite the Beacon? It's less mana intensive at 3 mana.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I did play a bit with Narset and Teferi, I think they are both quite strong for 3 mana. I think I was initially testing with low expectations of Teferi, and he ended up exceeding my expectations as a MB candidate. Narest, I may likely drop a SFA for and run a 1/1 split in the main with a 2nd Narset in the board.
Call the Gatewatch is a sorcery...
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE