@Stickymitten
Thanks for report!
haven't played much against Saheeli but it's definetely not a pure combo deck. I tend to bring in Natural State against white decks that don't rely on their graveyard very much. I wish we could have a card of the caliber of Abrupt Decay or Kolaghan's Command to deal with hate like that.
The Spirits match seems like it was winnable. But that's how it is, this deck is hard to play. Just try to learn from your mistakes. I recently punted game two against Grixis Shadow by bolting their Snapcaster which didn't actually increase their clock on me (he also had a shadow out) and then missing that Bolt to deal lethal with a topdecked Witness. Happens.
Your win against Grixis Death Shadow supports my opinion that the MU is actually good for us. Not super good but like 60-40 in our favor. Do others agree with this?
@Raven
Sadly I don't know the player. Shouta Yasooka ran only 2 SVs in his original list but I think it's clear by now that that one wasn't optimal (he also ran 3x Goyfs). Not running 4x SVs seems suboptimal to me.
@Existenz
You can find my opinion on AV in part 1 of the new primer I wrote for the deck.
I finished the first half of the new primer (the old one is terribly outdated) including History, Decklists and Card Choices. Next part will have SB cards and and overview and some tips for common MUs.
Please take your time and give it a little read, some tips on how to improve it would be very welcome!
I would like to add another decklist but don't really know what to take that is a solid list that also has some finishes to make it qualified for the primer. There's this one winning a 5k last year: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=12564&d=272545&f=M
Introduction:
Eternal Command is a deck with heavy tempo elements that can play a midrange/control back up plan. Aether Vial, Tarmogoyf, Remand and Lightning Bolt are superb tempo cards and recursion with Snapcaster Mage or Eternal Witness and Cryptic Command make sure we can 'get there' while enabling a powerful lategame softlock by casting Cryptic Command over and over. This recursion can either lock the opponent out of the attack step, or prevent them from resolving one spell per turn.
How the softlock works:
It requires an Eternal Witness in play, and a Cryptic in hand. With the Cryptic you return Witness to your hand and use the other 3 modes on Cryptic to your benefit. Then you can vial/recast Eternal Witness returning Cryptic to your hand and can repeat this process again. Snapcaster Mage can do the same thing albeit not indefinitely. With that loop, you can see how the deck got its name.
History:
This deck was first popularized by Shouta Yasooka at the 2012 Player’s Championship. He played it to a 5-1 record in the swiss, made it to the finals of the tournament, but lost in the finals against Jund, a deck he beat twice in the swiss.
Shortly after Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman were printed, Jund took over the modern metagame and Eternal Command faded into obscurity.
Since then, the deck popped up here and there but Splinter Twin was notably just the better Tempo/Control/Combo deck.
The latest big finish was in February 2017 at a 180 man Face to Face Open in Toronto.
Card choices:
Overall you should know that this deck includes two cards that want different deckbuilding decisions. Aether Vial obviously wants you to play lots of creatures while Snapcaster Mage wants lots of spells. It's an ambivalence that the deck tries to get around by playing lots of cantripping spells and the tendency to bounce own creatures for value, thereby virtually upping the creature count for Vial, which leads to us getting away with less creatures than common for a Vial deck. A split of 13-16 creatures and 20-22 spells is the norm.
Aether Vial
Essential for the strategy. It enables the Eternal Command soft lock and helps us to play mostly at instant speed. Also solidly helps out tempo game. Play 4.
Creatures Tarmogoyf
Essential for the deck. Let’s us play the tempo game while being solid defense against fast decks like Burn. It’s also one of the best answers to opposing Goyfs we have. Play 4.
Eternal Witness
One of the namesake cards of the deck that enables the softlock. While Shouta played the full 4, the card can be a little clunky and you don't really want multiples in your starting hand. More recent lists tend to play 3.
Snapcaster Mage
In a format as fast as Modern often actually the better card over E-Wit. Everybody knows how good Bolt/Snap/Bolt is but he has a lot more nice synergies in this deck (Familiar's Ruse, Cryptic Command, turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Remand, turn 3 Vial in Snap and recast Remand etc.). I would advise to play 4x, but sometimes you get stranded with multiple Snaps and E-Wits in your hand without anything relevant to get back, so an argument for only playing 3x can be made.
Vendilion Clique
Flash, helps you to time your counters correctly, solid tempo threat. The card is very good and stuffs some wholes in our strategy (getting through chumpblockers on the ground, being able to play it at instant speed when you don’t have a Vial out, additional threats to the 4x Goyf). Play 1-3, 2 is usually the standard choice.
Scavenging Ooze
Another card that rounds up some issues the deck has. Especially spicy if vialed in in response to opposing Snaps, Lingering Souls etc. The card helps to stabilize against aggressive decks, is very solid in many attrition based MUs and can help against big butted creatures like Goyf and Tasigur.
Play 0-2.
Huntmaster of the Fells
Value topend with a very nice Vial synergy (vialing him in can directly flip him the next turn). Ticking Vial up to 4 makes it unable to be used for the soft lock though. As Huntmaster can win games against certain MUs by itself (any attrition MU, especially against small creature strategies) but tends to be clunky in others (Modern is fast) he is often used in the SB and not MB. In certain fields MD inclusion can make sense though. Play 0-2.
Card Draw Serum Visions
The best blue cantrip in Modern. Helps you dig for the right cards when you need them. There are actually lists that only play 2x. I think that's wrong and would advise you to play 4x all the time.
Thirst For Knowledge
Shouta played 2x to ditch unnecessary Vials and get rid of the wrong answer at the wrong time (an answer in the grave can still be easily recast later with Snap/E-Wit when necessary). People have moved away from the card though. EC usually only runs 4 artifacts in Vials and drawing a second one isn't really that bad since you actually want a Vial on 2 and on 3. Given these circumstances Thirst tends to be clunky. Run 0-1.
Ancestral Vision
Now Modern's premiere blue draw spell wasn't legal when Shouta invented the deck and I'm not aware of any list that did well running it. The reason for that is twofold:
Between Cryptic Command, Eternal Witness, Snapcaster Mage and more this deck already has plenty potential to grind and by running 4x Aether Vial we already got ourselves 4x cards that are awesome on turn 1 but get worse and worse throughout the game. Adding another 4x is just ruining your topdecks later on.
Counterspells Cryptic Command
Namesake card of the deck and one of Modern's most powerful and versatile counterspells.
This deck is optimized to abuse this card. A point can be made for it being expensive and multiples in your starting hand can prove clunky though. Play 3-4. Remand
Very good tempo card that draws us through our deck while delaying the opponent, buys time until Cryptic gets online but isn’t very good against fast aggressive decks. Depending on the meta play 2-4. Mana Leak
Modern go to 2cmc 'hard' counter. Generally synergizes worse with the deck than Remand, which is why it sees less play. Can obviously be good in the right meta though. Play 0-2. Familiar’s Ruse
Spicy mana leak alternative and 'little' Cryptic Command. While it's usually not online until turn 3 or later the value this card can provide with Snapcaster and even more so E-Wit should not be underestimated. Without a creature on board it's dead in hand though. Play 0-2. Spell Snare
With the amount of strong 2-drops in Modern this card has been solid for years but recently dropped in popularity since Death's Shadow took over the meta. Play 1-3.
Removal Lightning Bolt
The reason to be in RUG. While it’s at an all time low right now, Bolt is a huge enabler for our tempo plan and with adds a lot of reach to the deck with Snaps and E-Wits. Play 4. Electrolyze
3cmc is a lot in the format but this card really helps against go wide and attrition strategies. Play 0-1. Vapor Snag
Buys time against big butted threats and can safe your own ones or just simply let you reuse your Snap/E-Wit, very flexible. Play 0-1. Dismember.
A way to get rid of Eldrazis, Tasigur, Anglers, Rhinos and small Goyfs. The phyrexian mana makes it very tough to recast and a pretty bad card against aggressive MUs though. Play 0-1. Roast
Similar to Dismember but can only kill at sorcery speed. With Shadows and Goyfs bigger than x/5 running rampant currently, Vapor Snag has become the go to 1x removal. Play 0-1. Tarfire/ Burst Lightning/ Forked Bolt
Some metas make a 5th Bolt effect useful and these three generally do the best job at that. Play 0-1.
Lands
Thanks to Vial this deck gets to play a pretty low land count of 20-21.It’s primarily a blue deck, then green and only a red splash. We start with Modern's 'standard' 3-colour-manabase of fetches, shocks and basics. Misty Rainforest
Play 4. Scalding Tarn
Play 4. Basic Island, Forest, Mountain
Being mainly blue 3x Islands are recommended, usually accompanied by 1x Forest and 1x Mountain. Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool, Steam Vents
Play at least one of each, maybe 2x Breeding Pool.
This basis for our landbase should then be supplemented by a combination of fastlands, Filterlands and sometimes manlands or utility lands. Eternal Command is a very colour intensive deck, so lands that only produce colourless should only be played as a singleton unless you play with more than 21 lands. Spirebluff Canal
The perfect fastland for this strategy, painfree Bolt or SV on turn 1 is great. Playing too many fastlands can lead to not having Cryptic up on turn 4 though. Play 2-3. Flooded Grove
Very good fixer for Eternal Witness, Cryptic Command and Scavenging Ooze that can even cast Vials on turn one. Can be awkward if you want to play multiple spells in the early game though and drawing 2 in your starting hand is a mull 99% of the times. Play 1-2. Lumbering Falls
The go to manland for the strategy. Since we usually want to hold up counters, manlands aren't as good in this strategy as in other midrange decks. Sometimes it just wins you the game though. Unless your meta is very grindy, playing a maximum of 1x manland is recommended. Raging Ravine
Slightly better than Lumbering Falls in a vacuum, the card sadly doesn't produce blue mana and we really want to keep the count of lands that don't produce blue mana as low as we can (maximum of 3x) to not run into problems casting Cryptic Command. Ghost Quarter
Modern's go to land destruction land. Having an out to random utility lands in the maindeck is nice and it's obviously solid against Tron and the likes. Producing only colourless is a real drawback in this deck though. As told above, play 0-1.
Hey, I've been playing around with Eternal Command in Legacy and came upon the interaction of Thing in the Ice+AEther Vial+ETB triggers. Has anyone tried making a modern TITI Command list? Looking through this topic yields no results. The list might be more synergistic in the older format because of format-specific spells like Divert, Brainstorm, Force of Will, etc, but, the interaction might still work well in modern. I could maybe see TITI being a replacement for Tarmogoyf, which may also ease up the mana requirements.
Cards that work well with TITI's bounce effect that this deck plays or has played in the past:
Eternal Witness
Kitchen Finks
Vendilion Clique
Snapcaster Mage
Restoration Angel
Renegade Rallier
Reclamation Sage
Cards that work worse are basically Huntmaster, Scavenging Ooze, 'goyf, and Pia and Kiran. Additionally, Ethersworn Canonist is incredible in combo matchups (in modern) and, incidentally, a literal hard lock with the Eternal Command engine online.
Here's what a hypothetical Bant TITI Command list might look like after some goldfishing & number tweaking:
I don't think needing 1 green for goyf is a tough mana requirement, eternal witness + cryptic is what warps the mana base.
Those are all good value cards, but I don't believe bant has had any notable success. Have you tried playing a Bant variant against opponents? For how many games against what etc. So many games I win are because of bolt-snap bolt, bolt witness bolt, with some cryptic tapping action - giving that up seems like a bad idea. White offers more reliable removal, and some value dudes like fink/resto, however, this deck is a tempo deck, and those arent particularly appealing options for this type of deck.
@rayo
Primer looks good, first sentence in the first paragraph under 'card choices' is a bit awkward, seems like there is a word missing?
As many others, I have tried TiTi as soon as it came out because it was a very promising card.
Yes it has nice synergy with Snaps and the like but it needs quite a while until it actually gets online. Time your opponents can use to dig for and sandbag removal for it or just sculp the perfect combo hand because you don't put him on a clock.
It's simply worse than Tarmogoyf.
Tarmogoyf isn't as great in Bant than he is in RUG though, so maybe it's worth trying that out.
I've tried numerous Bant versions and couldn't figure out why they performed worse than RUG all the time. On paper trading Bolt for Path and getting sweet stuff like Resto, Spell Queller and Blessed Alliance always seemed solid.
The thing is with a worse Goyf (pretty much only exile effects instead of binning opposing creatures) and no Bolt, Bant just gets a lot worse in the tempo game. It's a lot harder to just 'get there'.
@stickymitten
Not sure what exactly you mean to be honest, but I re-wrote some lines. Is it better likes this?
New to the deck and was reading through the forum and someone said they wanted another creature that could draw and work well with ruse/command well turning to kaladesh what about rogue refiner or whirler virtuoso? 1 of targets for the traverse is needed, 3 drops on color and vial already is on 2/3 and with whirler you get 2 bodies making their 1 for 1 removal worse and over time could make more than that
Too low impact, IMO.
Getting 1/1 thopters in addition to the virtuoso is nice, but it being a 2/3 is just too small.
Rogue refiner could be alright, if we had something to use the energy on that really worked well, but playing both of them together just feels too mediocre.
On a similar note, what do yall think about the new gods?
Both kefnet and rhonas are reasonable to turn on in this deck (we need a goyf, or a snap/e with pumped once for rhonas, and with the lock not costing us cards, once kefnet turns on, he stays on)). They're both 5/5s that can be vialed in on three.
They're also both immune to push/bolt/decay/etc.
I suspect they're too inconsistent, but its worth a shot if you feel like the deck needs something new.
We could also consider playing trinket mage (finds vial, as well as things like EE, cage, tormod's crypt/relic, pithing needle, mishra's bauble, etc.) It would let us up the artifact count for thirst as well.
A third idea would be to just go UG, cutting a third color entirely. You'd gain some consistency and less lifeloss from the mana, and right now, bolt is a pretty weak removal spell. Its major upside is going to the face, which is certainly alright, but its somewhat lackluster.
Sideboard is obviously a pile, and if kefnet turns out to be unplayable, he would probably be swapped with one of the creatures from the board.
Playing something like:
First of all thanks for your feedback on part 1 of the Primer, helped me a lot to adjust some things!
On proposed new cards: Rogue Refiner seems like a worse Coiling Oracle most of the time. Yes it's bigger but the difference between cmc 2 and 3 is huge. As Cody pointed out the card just doesn't have enough impact since we can't use the energy. Whirler Virtuoso two bodies for 3 mana isn't bad but since we don't have any excess energy Kitchen Finks seems like the straight up better card in most situations.
Playing both for the energy synergy seems inefficient and clunky when we don't happen to have a Vial on 3.
I don't really like the new gods either. We rarely end up with 7 cards in hand and if, the I'm either mana screwed (meaning I'm terribly behind and probbly loose the game anyway) or I'm comfortably in control of the game. Rhonas gets only turned on naturally by Goyf and sadly Goyf dies easier than anything these dies thanks to everyone packing cheap removal for the DS MU.
I have seen RUG Delver using a singleton Narnam Renegade as another early beater and pseudo removal.
I have long thought that with Vial we should be able to capitalize on deathtouch creature better than many decks in modern but the simply weren't good enough cards with deathtouch in our colours. While I would actually rather have a 2 drop with deathtouch (as the window for vialing in a one-drop is commonly only one turn with this deck) I can see this being not bad, especially in a meta with DS and Eldrazi decks. Bonus points for getting Familiar's Ruse online on turn 2
Opinions?
I'm sadly pretty busy currently so I don't know when I get part 2 of the primer ready but I'll do the best I can!
Where do you see that Raven?
I gotta admit I haven't tried out Logic Knot yet, I don't really like another card that relies on and taxes our graveyard. But I'm happy to hear how you like it, if you try it out!
I finally finished part 2 of the primer!
This one includes SB choices and a MU overview, please help me out if you have different opinions on certain MUs or think I forgot important ones or SB cards!
SB Choices
With Snapcaster and E-Wit, Eternal Command can profit a lot from only playing 1-2x answers in the deck because chances are good you can recast it a little later on. Playing lots of cantrip effect helps to find the answers.
That's why it's very common to play less copies of SB-cards but rather similar cards with slightly different effects covering more ground.
Sweepers
Anger of the Gods
Go to 'classic' sweeper for the deck. While being solid against go wide strategies like Elves or Merfolk the card pulls double duty against Dredge and Collected Company decks. Sometimes rr can be tricky on turn 3 though. Pyroclasm
Faster than Anger and easier to cast but less good against Company decks and a lot less good against Dredge. Kozilek's Return
Just like Pyroclasm the card is easier to cast than Anger but useless against Dredge. Gets bonus points for being good against Affinity though. Izzet Staticaster
Different kind of 'sweeper' that is obviously amazing against (Lingering Souls) tokens but also pulls it's weight against Affinity and Elves. Engineered Explosives
Very different from the other sweepers this one can deal with noncreature permanents as well and generally very versatile. Good against tokens, Elves, Bogles, Lantern and Merfolk.
Land Destruction
Spreading Seas
The fastest 'land destruction'-spell we have access to. Deals with annoying utility lands, manlands, buys time against Tron and even draws us a card on top of that! Fulminator Mage
Modern's go to 'Stone Rain'-effect profits from the ability to be vialed in, but can only be used repeatedly with E-Wit. RR can be an issue. Molten Rain
Usually just as good as Fulminators and can be played again with Snapcaster for that double LD on turn 3 and turn 4 (with Vial). RR can be an issue. Stone Rain
Molten Rain that is easier to cast but doesn't shock your opponent. If your landbase is light on red, playing these over Molten Rain is often actually the better choice.
Counterspells
Dispel
Good against other decks with counterspells, good against burn, good against Ad Nauseam, very solid card. It's rarely wrong to play at least 1x. Negate
More expensive than Dispel but with broader applications. Ceremonious Rejection
Between Eldrazi Tron, Gx Tron, Affinity and Lantern Control there are lots of decks with tons of colourless card that often even tend to be expensive. Solid card as the latest GPs have shown. Counterflux
With Storm running rampant on MODO the card is a neat trump. Also very solid against Ad Nauseam and generally decks that play counterspells.
Haymakers
Huntermaster of the Fells
Pretty much the go to Haymaker for this deck. We can flip him back and forth quite easily and even vial him in so that he flips directly and can just win games by himself. Especially good against value creature decks, the card shines in attrition MUs and is a solid way to stabilize against Burn. Keranos, God of Storms
Pretty expensive with 5 mana, he will often just win you the game if he resolves in attrition MUs. Only run him in a very grindy meta though. Thragtusk
Another great value card that can get absurd if bounced to hand again. Again Huntmaster is usually the better choice unless you expect a very grindy meta.
Artifact/Enchantment Hate
Ancient Grudge
Probably the second best hate against Affinity (after Stony Silene). Play at least 1. Natural State
efficient answer to many SB cards that are boarded in against us, especially Rest in Peace. Hits every enchantments that relevant against us except Leyline of the Void. Destructive Revelry
Hits even Leylines but costs double as much as Natural State. Vandalblast
Another very solid card of Affinity hate and the one you choose if you really hate Lantern Control. Usually keeping your Grudge Ancient is better though.
Graveyard Hate
Scavenging Ooze
Solid card against Snapcaster decks, Abzan Company, Reanimator stragegies, opposing Tarmogoyfs and Delirium cards and other stuff, especially sweet if vialed in. Can be too slow for decks like Dredge though. Tormod's Crypt
Since Relic of Progenitus exiles both graveyards and we usually try to avoid that this is an option against decks that fill the yard faster than Scavenging Ooze can keep up with. Relic of Progenitus
Exiles our own yard but cantrips. Rarely sees play in EC. Surgical Extraction
Found it's way into a lot of Modern's SB recently, strong card but synergizes a lot better with targeted discard than counterspells. Grafdigger's Cage
Shuts down our own Snapcasters but hurts Dredge a lot more. Valid choice if the meta demands it.
Others
Spellskite
Very versatile and another card that is especially good if vialed in. The MUs is shines against (Infect, Bogles, etc.) aren't played as much as they have been though. Pulse of Murasa
Goes 'infinite' with E-Wit. Grindy card that's also solid against Burn. Pithing Needle
Very solid allrounder against Planeswalkers, manlands, Affinity and others for just 1 mana.
Matchups
Affinity:
As most for Modern decks, G1 is an uphill battle, but beatable with a good hand (Bolts, Spell Snares, Electrolyze, Snapcaster all do a good job). G2 is a lot better, but still depends on how well prepared your SB is for the MU.
Burn: Depending on your MB configuration (any lifegain?) the MU varies between slightly positive to even. Jund Death's Shadow:
We don't have any meaningful ways to deal with their beaters besides bouncing or tapping them, which is definetely a problem. The MU isn't as bad as that makes it look like though, because of our ability to easily turn from defense to offense. Let them do the work in hurting themselves until their under 10 life and try to set up a turn where you deal 7+ damage on the back of vialed in Goyfs, Cryptic tapdown, E-Wit, Snap and Lightning Bolt. The better the DS pilot is, the harder is the match. Grixis Death's Shadow:
Slightly better than the MU against the Jund version, because Grixis packs less threats, they tend to come down later and our Remands aren't useless against delve threats and Snaps. Very skill intensive, even to slightly favored MU. Eldrazi Tron:
Thanks to less copies of Cavern of Souls a lot better than the MU against the Bant version, but you really need to close the game out fast here. Drop a threat and ride him with your counterspells to victory. Slightly unfavorable MU.
Abzan:
They rip our hand apart and pretty much all the stuff they play is a problem for us (Goyfs, Lingering Souls, Rhinos etc.). Still feels like a cakewalk if our answers line up well, but as soon as they don't...unfavorable MU. Abzan Company:
The deck improved a lot with their new infinite mana combo, but Bolt+Snap have always been a good duo to fight small creature decks and SB cards like Anger of the Gods and Huntmaster are really good in this MU. Slightly favorable. Bant Eldrazi:
This deck's worst MU. We have a problem with dealing with big butted threats and against this deck we can't even counter them. Unless they brick it's pretty assemble the lock or bust. very unfavorable MU. RG Valakut:
Remands and Cryptic Commands are very good against them dropping their key cards. It's important to be able to finish the game quickly (Goyf, Clique) though or they will just get you with Valakut triggers. Favorable MU. Dredge:
As for every fair deck in Modern, beating them game 1 is very tough, but the Cryptic Lock is a valid out, just be aware of Conflagrate. Game 2 and 3 obviously depend on how well you are prepared to face the deck. Slightly unfavorable to unfavorable MU. Ad Nauseam:
We like to play the tempo game and tempo is pretty good against linear combo. Drop a threat and keep counters up. Just be aware of Pact of Negation and try not to only have one counter up when they are about to combo. Favorable MU. UWx Control:
Between Snaps, E-Wits and Commands we have lots of grinding potential and Vial is a big trump card for us. Depending on the opponents build, even to slightly favorable MU.
Nice work on the primer Rayo, however I am unsure about the Valakut matchup being favorable, I do not have enough experience to say but it does not feel clearly favourable.
Narnam Renegade looks nice actually, I will try him when I next play modern as a 2 of I think
Just to give an explanation to everybody why I post the Primer again:
This is the whole thing and the mods advised me to post it so it can replace the old one.
@Stickymitten
Did you have the time to try out Narnam Renegade?
I'm pretty busy with exams and stuff currently so sadly I don't have much time to play.
Introduction:
Eternal Command is a deck with heavy tempo elements that can play a midrange/control back up plan. Aether Vial, Tarmogoyf, Remand and Lightning Bolt are superb tempo cards and recursion with Snapcaster Mage or Eternal Witness and Cryptic Command make sure we can 'get there' while enabling a powerful lategame softlock by casting Cryptic Command over and over. This recursion can either lock the opponent out of the attack step, or prevent them from resolving one spell per turn.
How the softlock works:
It requires an Eternal Witness in play, and a Cryptic in hand. With the Cryptic you return Witness to your hand and use the other 3 modes on Cryptic to your benefit. Then you can vial/recast Eternal Witness returning Cryptic to your hand and can repeat this process again. Snapcaster Mage can do the same thing albeit not indefinitely. With that loop, you can see how the deck got its name.
History:
This deck was first popularized by Shouta Yasooka at the 2012 Player’s Championship. He played it to a 5-1 record in the swiss, made it to the finals of the tournament, but lost in the finals against Jund, a deck he beat twice in the swiss.
Shortly after Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman were printed, Jund took over the modern metagame and Eternal Command faded into obscurity.
Since then, the deck popped up here and there but Splinter Twin was notably just the better Tempo/Control/Combo deck.
The latest big finish was in February 2017 at a 180 man Face to Face Open in Toronto.
This is an updated Primer. The old one can be found here.
Card choices:
Overall you should know that this deck includes two cards that want different deckbuilding decisions. Aether Vial obviously wants you to play lots of creatures while Snapcaster Mage wants lots of spells. It's an ambivalence that the deck tries to get around by playing lots of cantripping spells and the tendency to bounce own creatures for value, thereby virtually upping the creature count for Vial, which leads to us getting away with less creatures than common for a Vial deck. A split of 13-16 creatures and 20-22 spells is the norm.
Aether Vial
Essential for the strategy. It enables the Eternal Command soft lock and helps us to play mostly at instant speed. Also solidly helps out tempo game. Play 4.
Creatures Tarmogoyf
Essential for the deck. Let’s us play the tempo game while being solid defense against fast decks like Burn. It’s also one of the best answers to opposing Goyfs we have. Play 4.
Eternal Witness
One of the namesake cards of the deck that enables the softlock. While Shouta played the full 4, the card can be a little clunky and you don't really want multiples in your starting hand. More recent lists tend to play 3.
Snapcaster Mage
In a format as fast as Modern often actually the better card over E-Wit. Everybody knows how good Bolt/Snap/Bolt is but he has a lot more nice synergies in this deck (Familiar's Ruse, Cryptic Command, turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Remand, turn 3 Vial in Snap and recast Remand etc.). I would advise to play 4x, but sometimes you get stranded with multiple Snaps and E-Wits in your hand without anything relevant to get back, so an argument for only playing 3x can be made.
Vendilion Clique
Flash, helps you to time your counters correctly, solid tempo threat. The card is very good and stuffs some wholes in our strategy (getting through chumpblockers on the ground, being able to play it at instant speed when you don’t have a Vial out, additional threats to the 4x Goyf). Play 1-3, 2 is usually the standard choice.
Scavenging Ooze
Another card that rounds up some issues the deck has. Especially spicy if vialed in in response to opposing Snaps, Lingering Souls etc. The card helps to stabilize against aggressive decks, is very solid in many attrition based MUs and can help against big butted creatures like Goyf and Tasigur.
Play 0-2.
Huntmaster of the Fells
Value topend with a very nice Vial synergy (vialing him in can directly flip him the next turn). Ticking Vial up to 4 makes it unable to be used for the soft lock though. As Huntmaster can win games against certain MUs by itself (any attrition MU, especially against small creature strategies) but tends to be clunky in others (Modern is fast) he is often used in the SB and not MB. In certain fields MD inclusion can make sense though. Play 0-2.
Card Draw Serum Visions
The best blue cantrip in Modern. Helps you dig for the right cards when you need them. There are actually lists that only play 2x. I think that's wrong and would advise you to play 4x all the time.
Thirst For Knowledge
Shouta played 2x to ditch unnecessary Vials and get rid of the wrong answer at the wrong time (an answer in the grave can still be easily recast later with Snap/E-Wit when necessary). People have moved away from the card though. EC usually only runs 4 artifacts in Vials and drawing a second one isn't really that bad since you actually want a Vial on 2 and on 3. Given these circumstances Thirst tends to be clunky. Run 0-1.
Ancestral Vision
Now Modern's premiere blue draw spell wasn't legal when Shouta invented the deck and I'm not aware of any list that did well running it. The reason for that is twofold:
Between Cryptic Command, Eternal Witness, Snapcaster Mage and more this deck already has plenty potential to grind and by running 4x Aether Vial we already got ourselves 4x cards that are awesome on turn 1 but get worse and worse throughout the game. Adding another 4x is just ruining your topdecks later on.
Counterspells Cryptic Command
Namesake card of the deck and one of Modern's most powerful and versatile counterspells.
This deck is optimized to abuse this card. A point can be made for it being expensive and multiples in your starting hand can prove clunky though. Play 3-4. Remand
Very good tempo card that draws us through our deck while delaying the opponent, buys time until Cryptic gets online but isn’t very good against fast aggressive decks. Depending on the meta play 2-4. Mana Leak
Modern go to 2cmc 'hard' counter. Generally synergizes worse with the deck than Remand, which is why it sees less play. Can obviously be good in the right meta though. Play 0-2. Familiar’s Ruse
Spicy mana leak alternative and 'little' Cryptic Command. While it's usually not online until turn 3 or later the value this card can provide with Snapcaster and even more so E-Wit should not be underestimated. Without a creature on board it's dead in hand though. Play 0-2. Spell Snare
With the amount of strong 2-drops in Modern this card has been solid for years but recently dropped in popularity since Death's Shadow took over the meta. Play 1-3.
Removal Lightning Bolt
The reason to be in RUG. While it’s at an all time low right now, Bolt is a huge enabler for our tempo plan and with adds a lot of reach to the deck with Snaps and E-Wits. Play 4. Electrolyze
3cmc is a lot in the format but this card really helps against go wide and attrition strategies. Play 0-1. Vapor Snag
Buys time against big butted threats and can safe your own ones or just simply let you reuse your Snap/E-Wit, very flexible. Play 0-1. Dismember.
A way to get rid of Eldrazis, Tasigur, Anglers, Rhinos and small Goyfs. The phyrexian mana makes it very tough to recast and a pretty bad card against aggressive MUs though. Play 0-1. Roast
Similar to Dismember but can only kill at sorcery speed. With Shadows and Goyfs bigger than x/5 running rampant currently, Vapor Snag has become the go to 1x removal. Play 0-1. Tarfire/ Burst Lightning/ Forked Bolt
Some metas make a 5th Bolt effect useful and these three generally do the best job at that. Play 0-1.
Lands
Thanks to Vial this deck gets to play a pretty low land count of 20-21.It’s primarily a blue deck, then green and only a red splash. We start with Modern's 'standard' 3-colour-manabase of fetches, shocks and basics. Misty Rainforest
Play 4. Scalding Tarn
Play 4. Basic Island, Forest, Mountain
Being mainly blue 3x Islands are recommended, usually accompanied by 1x Forest and 1x Mountain. Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool, Steam Vents
Play at least one of each, maybe 2x Breeding Pool.
This basis for our landbase should then be supplemented by a combination of fastlands, Filterlands and sometimes manlands or utility lands. Eternal Command is a very colour intensive deck, so lands that only produce colourless should only be played as a singleton unless you play with more than 21 lands. Spirebluff Canal
The perfect fastland for this strategy, painfree Bolt or SV on turn 1 is great. Playing too many fastlands can lead to not having Cryptic up on turn 4 though. Play 2-3. Flooded Grove
Very good fixer for Eternal Witness, Cryptic Command and Scavenging Ooze that can even cast Vials on turn one. Can be awkward if you want to play multiple spells in the early game though and drawing 2 in your starting hand is a mull 99% of the times. Play 1-2. Lumbering Falls
The go to manland for the strategy. Since we usually want to hold up counters, manlands aren't as good in this strategy as in other midrange decks. Sometimes it just wins you the game though. Unless your meta is very grindy, playing a maximum of 1x manland is recommended. Raging Ravine
Slightly better than Lumbering Falls in a vacuum, the card sadly doesn't produce blue mana and we really want to keep the count of lands that don't produce blue mana as low as we can (maximum of 3x) to not run into problems casting Cryptic Command. Ghost Quarter
Modern's go to land destruction land. Having an out to random utility lands in the maindeck is nice and it's obviously solid against Tron and the likes. Producing only colourless is a real drawback in this deck though. As told above, play 0-1.[/spoiler]
SB Choices
With Snapcaster and E-Wit, Eternal Command can profit a lot from only playing 1-2x answers in the deck because chances are good you can recast it a little later on. Playing lots of cantrip effect helps to find the answers.
That's why it's very common to play less copies of SB-cards but rather similar cards with slightly different effects covering more ground.
Sweepers Anger of the Gods
Go to 'classic' sweeper for the deck. While being solid against go wide strategies like Elves or Merfolk the card pulls double duty against Dredge and Collected Company decks. Sometimes rr can be tricky on turn 3 though. Pyroclasm
Faster than Anger and easier to cast but less good against Company decks and a lot less good against Dredge. Kozilek's Return
Just like Pyroclasm the card is easier to cast than Anger but useless against Dredge. Gets bonus points for being good against Affinity though. Izzet Staticaster
Different kind of 'sweeper' that is obviously amazing against (Lingering Souls) tokens but also pulls it's weight against Affinity and Elves. Engineered Explosives
Very different from the other sweepers this one can deal with noncreature permanents as well and generally very versatile. Good against tokens, Elves, Bogles, Lantern and Merfolk.
Land Destruction Spreading Seas
The fastest 'land destruction'-spell we have access to. Deals with annoying utility lands, manlands, buys time against Tron and even draws us a card on top of that! Fulminator Mage
Modern's go to 'Stone Rain'-effect profits from the ability to be vialed in, but can only be used repeatedly with E-Wit. RR can be an issue. Molten Rain
Usually just as good as Fulminators and can be played again with Snapcaster for that double LD on turn 3 and turn 4 (with Vial). RR can be an issue. Stone Rain
Molten Rain that is easier to cast but doesn't shock your opponent. If your landbase is light on red, playing these over Molten Rain is often actually the better choice.
Counterspells Dispel
Good against other decks with counterspells, good against burn, good against Ad Nauseam, very solid card. It's rarely wrong to play at least 1x. Negate
More expensive than Dispel but with broader applications. Ceremonious Rejection
Between Eldrazi Tron, Gx Tron, Affinity and Lantern Control there are lots of decks with tons of colourless card that often even tend to be expensive. Solid card as the latest GPs have shown. Counterflux
With Storm running rampant on MODO the card is a neat trump. Also very solid against Ad Nauseam and generally decks that play counterspells.
Haymakers Huntermaster of the Fells
Pretty much the go to Haymaker for this deck. We can flip him back and forth quite easily and even vial him in so that he flips directly and can just win games by himself. Especially good against value creature decks, the card shines in attrition MUs and is a solid way to stabilize against Burn. Keranos, God of Storms
Pretty expensive with 5 mana, he will often just win you the game if he resolves in attrition MUs. Only run him in a very grindy meta though. Thragtusk
Another great value card that can get absurd if bounced to hand again. Again Huntmaster is usually the better choice unless you expect a very grindy meta.
Artifact/Enchantment Hate Ancient Grudge
Probably the second best hate against Affinity (after Stony Silene). Play at least 1. Natural State
efficient answer to many SB cards that are boarded in against us, especially Rest in Peace. Hits every enchantments that relevant against us except Leyline of the Void. Destructive Revelry
Hits even Leylines but costs double as much as Natural State. Vandalblast
Another very solid card of Affinity hate and the one you choose if you really hate Lantern Control. Usually keeping your Grudge Ancient is better though.
Graveyard Hate Scavenging Ooze
Solid card against Snapcaster decks, Abzan Company, Reanimator stragegies, opposing Tarmogoyfs and Delirium cards and other stuff, especially sweet if vialed in. Can be too slow for decks like Dredge though. Tormod's Crypt
Since Relic of Progenitus exiles both graveyards and we usually try to avoid that this is an option against decks that fill the yard faster than Scavenging Ooze can keep up with. Relic of Progenitus
Exiles our own yard but cantrips. Rarely sees play in EC. Surgical Extraction
Found it's way into a lot of Modern's SB recently, strong card but synergizes a lot better with targeted discard than counterspells. Grafdigger's Cage
Shuts down our own Snapcasters but hurts Dredge a lot more. Valid choice if the meta demands it.
Others Spellskite
Very versatile and another card that is especially good if vialed in. The MUs is shines against (Infect, Bogles, etc.) aren't played as much as they have been though. Pulse of Murasa
Goes 'infinite' with E-Wit. Grindy card that's also solid against Burn. Pithing Needle
Very solid allrounder against Planeswalkers, manlands, Affinity and others for just 1 mana.
Matchups
Affinity:
As most for Modern decks, G1 is an uphill battle, but beatable with a good hand (Bolts, Spell Snares, Electrolyze, Snapcaster all do a good job). G2 is a lot better, but still depends on how well prepared your SB is for the MU.
Burn: Depending on your MB configuration (any lifegain?) the MU varies between slightly positive to even. Jund Death's Shadow:
We don't have any meaningful ways to deal with their beaters besides bouncing or tapping them, which is definetely a problem. The MU isn't as bad as that makes it look like though, because of our ability to easily turn from defense to offense. Let them do the work in hurting themselves until their under 10 life and try to set up a turn where you deal 7+ damage on the back of vialed in Goyfs, Cryptic tapdown, E-Wit, Snap and Lightning Bolt. The better the DS pilot is, the harder is the match. Grixis Death's Shadow:
Slightly better than the MU against the Jund version, because Grixis packs less threats, they tend to come down later and our Remands aren't useless against delve threats and Snaps. Very skill intensive, even to slightly favored MU. Eldrazi Tron:
Thanks to less copies of Cavern of Souls a lot better than the MU against the Bant version, but you really need to close the game out fast here. Drop a threat and ride him with your counterspells to victory. Slightly unfavorable MU.
Abzan:
They rip our hand apart and pretty much all the stuff they play is a problem for us (Goyfs, Lingering Souls, Rhinos etc.). Still feels like a cakewalk if our answers line up well, but as soon as they don't...unfavorable MU. Abzan Company:
The deck improved a lot with their new infinite mana combo, but Bolt+Snap have always been a good duo to fight small creature decks and SB cards like Anger of the Gods and Huntmaster are really good in this MU. Slightly favorable. Bant Eldrazi:
This deck's worst MU. We have a problem with dealing with big butted threats and against this deck we can't even counter them. Unless they brick it's pretty assemble the lock or bust. very unfavorable MU. RG Valakut:
Remands and Cryptic Commands are very good against them dropping their key cards. It's important to be able to finish the game quickly (Goyf, Clique) though or they will just get you with Valakut triggers. Favorable MU. Dredge:
As for every fair deck in Modern, beating them game 1 is very tough, but the Cryptic Lock is a valid out, just be aware of Conflagrate. Game 2 and 3 obviously depend on how well you are prepared to face the deck. Slightly unfavorable to unfavorable MU. Ad Nauseam:
We like to play the tempo game and tempo is pretty good against linear combo. Drop a threat and keep counters up. Just be aware of Pact of Negation and try not to only have one counter up when they are about to combo. Favorable MU. UWx Control:
Between Snaps, E-Wits and Commands we have lots of grinding potential and Vial is a big trump card for us. Depending on the opponents build, even to slightly favorable MU.
I assume he/she decided to split the diff - 2serum/2thirst vs 4 serum. Seems ok, but a little clunky for my liking.
Roast seems good atm, kills all delve threats, DS more reliably, goyfs and drazi.
sideboard looks heavily configured for midrange/control.
Thanks for report!
haven't played much against Saheeli but it's definetely not a pure combo deck. I tend to bring in Natural State against white decks that don't rely on their graveyard very much. I wish we could have a card of the caliber of Abrupt Decay or Kolaghan's Command to deal with hate like that.
The Spirits match seems like it was winnable. But that's how it is, this deck is hard to play. Just try to learn from your mistakes. I recently punted game two against Grixis Shadow by bolting their Snapcaster which didn't actually increase their clock on me (he also had a shadow out) and then missing that Bolt to deal lethal with a topdecked Witness. Happens.
Your win against Grixis Death Shadow supports my opinion that the MU is actually good for us. Not super good but like 60-40 in our favor. Do others agree with this?
@Raven
Sadly I don't know the player. Shouta Yasooka ran only 2 SVs in his original list but I think it's clear by now that that one wasn't optimal (he also ran 3x Goyfs). Not running 4x SVs seems suboptimal to me.
@Existenz
You can find my opinion on AV in part 1 of the new primer I wrote for the deck.
I finished the first half of the new primer (the old one is terribly outdated) including History, Decklists and Card Choices. Next part will have SB cards and and overview and some tips for common MUs.
Please take your time and give it a little read, some tips on how to improve it would be very welcome!
I would like to add another decklist but don't really know what to take that is a solid list that also has some finishes to make it qualified for the primer. There's this one winning a 5k last year: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=12564&d=272545&f=M
Introduction:
Eternal Command is a deck with heavy tempo elements that can play a midrange/control back up plan. Aether Vial, Tarmogoyf, Remand and Lightning Bolt are superb tempo cards and recursion with Snapcaster Mage or Eternal Witness and Cryptic Command make sure we can 'get there' while enabling a powerful lategame softlock by casting Cryptic Command over and over. This recursion can either lock the opponent out of the attack step, or prevent them from resolving one spell per turn.
How the softlock works:
It requires an Eternal Witness in play, and a Cryptic in hand. With the Cryptic you return Witness to your hand and use the other 3 modes on Cryptic to your benefit. Then you can vial/recast Eternal Witness returning Cryptic to your hand and can repeat this process again. Snapcaster Mage can do the same thing albeit not indefinitely. With that loop, you can see how the deck got its name.
History:
This deck was first popularized by Shouta Yasooka at the 2012 Player’s Championship. He played it to a 5-1 record in the swiss, made it to the finals of the tournament, but lost in the finals against Jund, a deck he beat twice in the swiss.
Shortly after Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman were printed, Jund took over the modern metagame and Eternal Command faded into obscurity.
Since then, the deck popped up here and there but Splinter Twin was notably just the better Tempo/Control/Combo deck.
The latest big finish was in February 2017 at a 180 man Face to Face Open in Toronto.
Decklists:
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Grove
1 Forest
3 Island
1 Lumbering Falls
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Spirebluff Canal
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
Creatures 14
3 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
4 Serum Visions
3 Spell Snare
1 Vapor Snag
4 Aether Vial
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Dispel
1 Flame Slash
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Negate
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Thragtusk
August 31st, 2012Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Breeding Pool
2 Copperline Gorge
3 Flooded Grove
1 Forest
4 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
Creatures 13
3 Eternal Witness
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Aether Vial
Spells 26
4 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
2 Remand
2 Serum Visions
3 Spell Snare
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Vapor Snag
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Combust
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Spell Pierce
2 Threads of Disloyalty
Card choices:
Overall you should know that this deck includes two cards that want different deckbuilding decisions. Aether Vial obviously wants you to play lots of creatures while Snapcaster Mage wants lots of spells. It's an ambivalence that the deck tries to get around by playing lots of cantripping spells and the tendency to bounce own creatures for value, thereby virtually upping the creature count for Vial, which leads to us getting away with less creatures than common for a Vial deck. A split of 13-16 creatures and 20-22 spells is the norm.
Aether Vial
Essential for the strategy. It enables the Eternal Command soft lock and helps us to play mostly at instant speed. Also solidly helps out tempo game. Play 4.
Creatures
Tarmogoyf
Essential for the deck. Let’s us play the tempo game while being solid defense against fast decks like Burn. It’s also one of the best answers to opposing Goyfs we have. Play 4.
Eternal Witness
One of the namesake cards of the deck that enables the softlock. While Shouta played the full 4, the card can be a little clunky and you don't really want multiples in your starting hand. More recent lists tend to play 3.
Snapcaster Mage
In a format as fast as Modern often actually the better card over E-Wit. Everybody knows how good Bolt/Snap/Bolt is but he has a lot more nice synergies in this deck (Familiar's Ruse, Cryptic Command, turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Remand, turn 3 Vial in Snap and recast Remand etc.). I would advise to play 4x, but sometimes you get stranded with multiple Snaps and E-Wits in your hand without anything relevant to get back, so an argument for only playing 3x can be made.
Vendilion Clique
Flash, helps you to time your counters correctly, solid tempo threat. The card is very good and stuffs some wholes in our strategy (getting through chumpblockers on the ground, being able to play it at instant speed when you don’t have a Vial out, additional threats to the 4x Goyf). Play 1-3, 2 is usually the standard choice.
Scavenging Ooze
Another card that rounds up some issues the deck has. Especially spicy if vialed in in response to opposing Snaps, Lingering Souls etc. The card helps to stabilize against aggressive decks, is very solid in many attrition based MUs and can help against big butted creatures like Goyf and Tasigur.
Play 0-2.
Huntmaster of the Fells
Value topend with a very nice Vial synergy (vialing him in can directly flip him the next turn). Ticking Vial up to 4 makes it unable to be used for the soft lock though. As Huntmaster can win games against certain MUs by itself (any attrition MU, especially against small creature strategies) but tends to be clunky in others (Modern is fast) he is often used in the SB and not MB. In certain fields MD inclusion can make sense though. Play 0-2.
Card Draw
Serum Visions
The best blue cantrip in Modern. Helps you dig for the right cards when you need them. There are actually lists that only play 2x. I think that's wrong and would advise you to play 4x all the time.
Thirst For Knowledge
Shouta played 2x to ditch unnecessary Vials and get rid of the wrong answer at the wrong time (an answer in the grave can still be easily recast later with Snap/E-Wit when necessary). People have moved away from the card though. EC usually only runs 4 artifacts in Vials and drawing a second one isn't really that bad since you actually want a Vial on 2 and on 3. Given these circumstances Thirst tends to be clunky. Run 0-1.
Ancestral Vision
Now Modern's premiere blue draw spell wasn't legal when Shouta invented the deck and I'm not aware of any list that did well running it. The reason for that is twofold:
Between Cryptic Command, Eternal Witness, Snapcaster Mage and more this deck already has plenty potential to grind and by running 4x Aether Vial we already got ourselves 4x cards that are awesome on turn 1 but get worse and worse throughout the game. Adding another 4x is just ruining your topdecks later on.
Counterspells
Cryptic Command
Namesake card of the deck and one of Modern's most powerful and versatile counterspells.
This deck is optimized to abuse this card. A point can be made for it being expensive and multiples in your starting hand can prove clunky though. Play 3-4.
Remand
Very good tempo card that draws us through our deck while delaying the opponent, buys time until Cryptic gets online but isn’t very good against fast aggressive decks. Depending on the meta play 2-4.
Mana Leak
Modern go to 2cmc 'hard' counter. Generally synergizes worse with the deck than Remand, which is why it sees less play. Can obviously be good in the right meta though. Play 0-2.
Familiar’s Ruse
Spicy mana leak alternative and 'little' Cryptic Command. While it's usually not online until turn 3 or later the value this card can provide with Snapcaster and even more so E-Wit should not be underestimated. Without a creature on board it's dead in hand though. Play 0-2.
Spell Snare
With the amount of strong 2-drops in Modern this card has been solid for years but recently dropped in popularity since Death's Shadow took over the meta. Play 1-3.
Removal
Lightning Bolt
The reason to be in RUG. While it’s at an all time low right now, Bolt is a huge enabler for our tempo plan and with adds a lot of reach to the deck with Snaps and E-Wits. Play 4.
Electrolyze
3cmc is a lot in the format but this card really helps against go wide and attrition strategies. Play 0-1.
Vapor Snag
Buys time against big butted threats and can safe your own ones or just simply let you reuse your Snap/E-Wit, very flexible. Play 0-1.
Dismember.
A way to get rid of Eldrazis, Tasigur, Anglers, Rhinos and small Goyfs. The phyrexian mana makes it very tough to recast and a pretty bad card against aggressive MUs though. Play 0-1.
Roast
Similar to Dismember but can only kill at sorcery speed. With Shadows and Goyfs bigger than x/5 running rampant currently, Vapor Snag has become the go to 1x removal. Play 0-1.
Tarfire/ Burst Lightning/ Forked Bolt
Some metas make a 5th Bolt effect useful and these three generally do the best job at that. Play 0-1.
Lands
Thanks to Vial this deck gets to play a pretty low land count of 20-21.It’s primarily a blue deck, then green and only a red splash. We start with Modern's 'standard' 3-colour-manabase of fetches, shocks and basics.
Misty Rainforest
Play 4.
Scalding Tarn
Play 4.
Basic Island, Forest, Mountain
Being mainly blue 3x Islands are recommended, usually accompanied by 1x Forest and 1x Mountain.
Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool, Steam Vents
Play at least one of each, maybe 2x Breeding Pool.
This basis for our landbase should then be supplemented by a combination of fastlands, Filterlands and sometimes manlands or utility lands. Eternal Command is a very colour intensive deck, so lands that only produce colourless should only be played as a singleton unless you play with more than 21 lands.
Spirebluff Canal
The perfect fastland for this strategy, painfree Bolt or SV on turn 1 is great. Playing too many fastlands can lead to not having Cryptic up on turn 4 though. Play 2-3.
Flooded Grove
Very good fixer for Eternal Witness, Cryptic Command and Scavenging Ooze that can even cast Vials on turn one. Can be awkward if you want to play multiple spells in the early game though and drawing 2 in your starting hand is a mull 99% of the times. Play 1-2.
Lumbering Falls
The go to manland for the strategy. Since we usually want to hold up counters, manlands aren't as good in this strategy as in other midrange decks. Sometimes it just wins you the game though. Unless your meta is very grindy, playing a maximum of 1x manland is recommended.
Raging Ravine
Slightly better than Lumbering Falls in a vacuum, the card sadly doesn't produce blue mana and we really want to keep the count of lands that don't produce blue mana as low as we can (maximum of 3x) to not run into problems casting Cryptic Command.
Ghost Quarter
Modern's go to land destruction land. Having an out to random utility lands in the maindeck is nice and it's obviously solid against Tron and the likes. Producing only colourless is a real drawback in this deck though. As told above, play 0-1.
Cards that work well with TITI's bounce effect that this deck plays or has played in the past:
- Eternal Witness
- Kitchen Finks
- Vendilion Clique
- Snapcaster Mage
- Restoration Angel
- Renegade Rallier
- Reclamation Sage
Cards that work worse are basically Huntmaster, Scavenging Ooze, 'goyf, and Pia and Kiran. Additionally, Ethersworn Canonist is incredible in combo matchups (in modern) and, incidentally, a literal hard lock with the Eternal Command engine online.Here's what a hypothetical Bant TITI Command list might look like after some goldfishing & number tweaking:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Hinterland Harbor
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
3 Eternal Witness
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Restoration Angel
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Thing in the Ice
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Bant Charm
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Censor
4 Cryptic Command
1 Familiar's Ruse
1 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
1 Remand
4 Serum Visions
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
I don't think needing 1 green for goyf is a tough mana requirement, eternal witness + cryptic is what warps the mana base.
Those are all good value cards, but I don't believe bant has had any notable success. Have you tried playing a Bant variant against opponents? For how many games against what etc. So many games I win are because of bolt-snap bolt, bolt witness bolt, with some cryptic tapping action - giving that up seems like a bad idea. White offers more reliable removal, and some value dudes like fink/resto, however, this deck is a tempo deck, and those arent particularly appealing options for this type of deck.
@rayo
Primer looks good, first sentence in the first paragraph under 'card choices' is a bit awkward, seems like there is a word missing?
Yes it has nice synergy with Snaps and the like but it needs quite a while until it actually gets online. Time your opponents can use to dig for and sandbag removal for it or just sculp the perfect combo hand because you don't put him on a clock.
It's simply worse than Tarmogoyf.
Tarmogoyf isn't as great in Bant than he is in RUG though, so maybe it's worth trying that out.
I've tried numerous Bant versions and couldn't figure out why they performed worse than RUG all the time. On paper trading Bolt for Path and getting sweet stuff like Resto, Spell Queller and Blessed Alliance always seemed solid.
The thing is with a worse Goyf (pretty much only exile effects instead of binning opposing creatures) and no Bolt, Bant just gets a lot worse in the tempo game. It's a lot harder to just 'get there'.
@stickymitten
Not sure what exactly you mean to be honest, but I re-wrote some lines. Is it better likes this?
Sorry, was referring to this part of the sentence: "Overall it is to say" should 'important' be in there?
Getting 1/1 thopters in addition to the virtuoso is nice, but it being a 2/3 is just too small.
Rogue refiner could be alright, if we had something to use the energy on that really worked well, but playing both of them together just feels too mediocre.
On a similar note, what do yall think about the new gods?
Both kefnet and rhonas are reasonable to turn on in this deck (we need a goyf, or a snap/e with pumped once for rhonas, and with the lock not costing us cards, once kefnet turns on, he stays on)). They're both 5/5s that can be vialed in on three.
They're also both immune to push/bolt/decay/etc.
I suspect they're too inconsistent, but its worth a shot if you feel like the deck needs something new.
We could also consider playing trinket mage (finds vial, as well as things like EE, cage, tormod's crypt/relic, pithing needle, mishra's bauble, etc.) It would let us up the artifact count for thirst as well.
A third idea would be to just go UG, cutting a third color entirely. You'd gain some consistency and less lifeloss from the mana, and right now, bolt is a pretty weak removal spell. Its major upside is going to the face, which is certainly alright, but its somewhat lackluster.
Sideboard is obviously a pile, and if kefnet turns out to be unplayable, he would probably be swapped with one of the creatures from the board.
Playing something like:
4 tarmogoyf
3 eternal witness
3 vendilion clique
3 snapcaster mage
1 scavenging ooze
1 kefnet, the mindful
4 cryptic command
4 remand
1 familiar's ruse
2 spell snare
4 vapor snag
4 serum visions
4 botanical sanctum
1 flooded grove
3 island
2 forest
4 misty rainforest
4 scalding tarn
2 breeding pool
1 lumbering falls
1 nissa, steward of the elements
1 spellskite
1 spreading seas
1 ceremonious rejection
1 negate
1 dispel
1 ee
1 natural state
1 pulse of murasa
1 av
1 mystic snake
1 glen elendra archmage
1 sower of tempation
1 tireless tracker
1 venser, shaper savant
also so many 4 drops in sb wouldnt that dilute the vials a bit.?
First of all thanks for your feedback on part 1 of the Primer, helped me a lot to adjust some things!
On proposed new cards:
Rogue Refiner seems like a worse Coiling Oracle most of the time. Yes it's bigger but the difference between cmc 2 and 3 is huge. As Cody pointed out the card just doesn't have enough impact since we can't use the energy.
Whirler Virtuoso two bodies for 3 mana isn't bad but since we don't have any excess energy Kitchen Finks seems like the straight up better card in most situations.
Playing both for the energy synergy seems inefficient and clunky when we don't happen to have a Vial on 3.
I don't really like the new gods either. We rarely end up with 7 cards in hand and if, the I'm either mana screwed (meaning I'm terribly behind and probbly loose the game anyway) or I'm comfortably in control of the game. Rhonas gets only turned on naturally by Goyf and sadly Goyf dies easier than anything these dies thanks to everyone packing cheap removal for the DS MU.
I have seen RUG Delver using a singleton Narnam Renegade as another early beater and pseudo removal.
I have long thought that with Vial we should be able to capitalize on deathtouch creature better than many decks in modern but the simply weren't good enough cards with deathtouch in our colours. While I would actually rather have a 2 drop with deathtouch (as the window for vialing in a one-drop is commonly only one turn with this deck) I can see this being not bad, especially in a meta with DS and Eldrazi decks. Bonus points for getting Familiar's Ruse online on turn 2
Opinions?
I'm sadly pretty busy currently so I don't know when I get part 2 of the primer ready but I'll do the best I can!
I gotta admit I haven't tried out Logic Knot yet, I don't really like another card that relies on and taxes our graveyard. But I'm happy to hear how you like it, if you try it out!
No opinions on Narnam Renegade?
I finally finished part 2 of the primer!
This one includes SB choices and a MU overview, please help me out if you have different opinions on certain MUs or think I forgot important ones or SB cards!
With Snapcaster and E-Wit, Eternal Command can profit a lot from only playing 1-2x answers in the deck because chances are good you can recast it a little later on. Playing lots of cantrip effect helps to find the answers.
That's why it's very common to play less copies of SB-cards but rather similar cards with slightly different effects covering more ground.
Sweepers
Anger of the Gods
Go to 'classic' sweeper for the deck. While being solid against go wide strategies like Elves or Merfolk the card pulls double duty against Dredge and Collected Company decks. Sometimes rr can be tricky on turn 3 though.
Pyroclasm
Faster than Anger and easier to cast but less good against Company decks and a lot less good against Dredge.
Kozilek's Return
Just like Pyroclasm the card is easier to cast than Anger but useless against Dredge. Gets bonus points for being good against Affinity though.
Izzet Staticaster
Different kind of 'sweeper' that is obviously amazing against (Lingering Souls) tokens but also pulls it's weight against Affinity and Elves.
Engineered Explosives
Very different from the other sweepers this one can deal with noncreature permanents as well and generally very versatile. Good against tokens, Elves, Bogles, Lantern and Merfolk.
Land Destruction
Spreading Seas
The fastest 'land destruction'-spell we have access to. Deals with annoying utility lands, manlands, buys time against Tron and even draws us a card on top of that!
Fulminator Mage
Modern's go to 'Stone Rain'-effect profits from the ability to be vialed in, but can only be used repeatedly with E-Wit. RR can be an issue.
Molten Rain
Usually just as good as Fulminators and can be played again with Snapcaster for that double LD on turn 3 and turn 4 (with Vial). RR can be an issue.
Stone Rain
Molten Rain that is easier to cast but doesn't shock your opponent. If your landbase is light on red, playing these over Molten Rain is often actually the better choice.
Counterspells
Dispel
Good against other decks with counterspells, good against burn, good against Ad Nauseam, very solid card. It's rarely wrong to play at least 1x.
Negate
More expensive than Dispel but with broader applications.
Ceremonious Rejection
Between Eldrazi Tron, Gx Tron, Affinity and Lantern Control there are lots of decks with tons of colourless card that often even tend to be expensive. Solid card as the latest GPs have shown.
Counterflux
With Storm running rampant on MODO the card is a neat trump. Also very solid against Ad Nauseam and generally decks that play counterspells.
Haymakers
Huntermaster of the Fells
Pretty much the go to Haymaker for this deck. We can flip him back and forth quite easily and even vial him in so that he flips directly and can just win games by himself. Especially good against value creature decks, the card shines in attrition MUs and is a solid way to stabilize against Burn.
Keranos, God of Storms
Pretty expensive with 5 mana, he will often just win you the game if he resolves in attrition MUs. Only run him in a very grindy meta though.
Thragtusk
Another great value card that can get absurd if bounced to hand again. Again Huntmaster is usually the better choice unless you expect a very grindy meta.
Artifact/Enchantment Hate
Ancient Grudge
Probably the second best hate against Affinity (after Stony Silene). Play at least 1.
Natural State
efficient answer to many SB cards that are boarded in against us, especially Rest in Peace. Hits every enchantments that relevant against us except Leyline of the Void.
Destructive Revelry
Hits even Leylines but costs double as much as Natural State.
Vandalblast
Another very solid card of Affinity hate and the one you choose if you really hate Lantern Control. Usually keeping your Grudge Ancient is better though.
Graveyard Hate
Scavenging Ooze
Solid card against Snapcaster decks, Abzan Company, Reanimator stragegies, opposing Tarmogoyfs and Delirium cards and other stuff, especially sweet if vialed in. Can be too slow for decks like Dredge though.
Tormod's Crypt
Since Relic of Progenitus exiles both graveyards and we usually try to avoid that this is an option against decks that fill the yard faster than Scavenging Ooze can keep up with.
Relic of Progenitus
Exiles our own yard but cantrips. Rarely sees play in EC.
Surgical Extraction
Found it's way into a lot of Modern's SB recently, strong card but synergizes a lot better with targeted discard than counterspells.
Grafdigger's Cage
Shuts down our own Snapcasters but hurts Dredge a lot more. Valid choice if the meta demands it.
Others
Spellskite
Very versatile and another card that is especially good if vialed in. The MUs is shines against (Infect, Bogles, etc.) aren't played as much as they have been though.
Pulse of Murasa
Goes 'infinite' with E-Wit. Grindy card that's also solid against Burn.
Pithing Needle
Very solid allrounder against Planeswalkers, manlands, Affinity and others for just 1 mana.
Matchups
Affinity:
As most for Modern decks, G1 is an uphill battle, but beatable with a good hand (Bolts, Spell Snares, Electrolyze, Snapcaster all do a good job). G2 is a lot better, but still depends on how well prepared your SB is for the MU.
Burn: Depending on your MB configuration (any lifegain?) the MU varies between slightly positive to even.
Jund Death's Shadow:
We don't have any meaningful ways to deal with their beaters besides bouncing or tapping them, which is definetely a problem. The MU isn't as bad as that makes it look like though, because of our ability to easily turn from defense to offense. Let them do the work in hurting themselves until their under 10 life and try to set up a turn where you deal 7+ damage on the back of vialed in Goyfs, Cryptic tapdown, E-Wit, Snap and Lightning Bolt. The better the DS pilot is, the harder is the match.
Grixis Death's Shadow:
Slightly better than the MU against the Jund version, because Grixis packs less threats, they tend to come down later and our Remands aren't useless against delve threats and Snaps. Very skill intensive, even to slightly favored MU.
Eldrazi Tron:
Thanks to less copies of Cavern of Souls a lot better than the MU against the Bant version, but you really need to close the game out fast here. Drop a threat and ride him with your counterspells to victory. Slightly unfavorable MU.
Abzan:
They rip our hand apart and pretty much all the stuff they play is a problem for us (Goyfs, Lingering Souls, Rhinos etc.). Still feels like a cakewalk if our answers line up well, but as soon as they don't...unfavorable MU.
Abzan Company:
The deck improved a lot with their new infinite mana combo, but Bolt+Snap have always been a good duo to fight small creature decks and SB cards like Anger of the Gods and Huntmaster are really good in this MU. Slightly favorable.
Bant Eldrazi:
This deck's worst MU. We have a problem with dealing with big butted threats and against this deck we can't even counter them. Unless they brick it's pretty assemble the lock or bust. very unfavorable MU.
RG Valakut:
Remands and Cryptic Commands are very good against them dropping their key cards. It's important to be able to finish the game quickly (Goyf, Clique) though or they will just get you with Valakut triggers. Favorable MU.
Dredge:
As for every fair deck in Modern, beating them game 1 is very tough, but the Cryptic Lock is a valid out, just be aware of Conflagrate. Game 2 and 3 obviously depend on how well you are prepared to face the deck. Slightly unfavorable to unfavorable MU.
Ad Nauseam:
We like to play the tempo game and tempo is pretty good against linear combo. Drop a threat and keep counters up. Just be aware of Pact of Negation and try not to only have one counter up when they are about to combo. Favorable MU.
UWx Control:
Between Snaps, E-Wits and Commands we have lots of grinding potential and Vial is a big trump card for us. Depending on the opponents build, even to slightly favorable MU.
Narnam Renegade looks nice actually, I will try him when I next play modern
This is the whole thing and the mods advised me to post it so it can replace the old one.
@Stickymitten
Did you have the time to try out Narnam Renegade?
I'm pretty busy with exams and stuff currently so sadly I don't have much time to play.
Introduction:
Eternal Command is a deck with heavy tempo elements that can play a midrange/control back up plan. Aether Vial, Tarmogoyf, Remand and Lightning Bolt are superb tempo cards and recursion with Snapcaster Mage or Eternal Witness and Cryptic Command make sure we can 'get there' while enabling a powerful lategame softlock by casting Cryptic Command over and over. This recursion can either lock the opponent out of the attack step, or prevent them from resolving one spell per turn.
How the softlock works:
It requires an Eternal Witness in play, and a Cryptic in hand. With the Cryptic you return Witness to your hand and use the other 3 modes on Cryptic to your benefit. Then you can vial/recast Eternal Witness returning Cryptic to your hand and can repeat this process again. Snapcaster Mage can do the same thing albeit not indefinitely. With that loop, you can see how the deck got its name.
History:
This deck was first popularized by Shouta Yasooka at the 2012 Player’s Championship. He played it to a 5-1 record in the swiss, made it to the finals of the tournament, but lost in the finals against Jund, a deck he beat twice in the swiss.
Shortly after Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman were printed, Jund took over the modern metagame and Eternal Command faded into obscurity.
Since then, the deck popped up here and there but Splinter Twin was notably just the better Tempo/Control/Combo deck.
The latest big finish was in February 2017 at a 180 man Face to Face Open in Toronto.
This is an updated Primer. The old one can be found here.
Decklists:
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Grove
1 Forest
3 Island
1 Lumbering Falls
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Spirebluff Canal
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
Creatures 14
3 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
4 Serum Visions
3 Spell Snare
1 Vapor Snag
4 Aether Vial
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Dispel
1 Flame Slash
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Negate
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Thragtusk
August 31st, 2012Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Breeding Pool
2 Copperline Gorge
3 Flooded Grove
1 Forest
4 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
Creatures 13
3 Eternal Witness
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Aether Vial
Spells 26
4 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
2 Remand
2 Serum Visions
3 Spell Snare
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Vapor Snag
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Combust
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Spell Pierce
2 Threads of Disloyalty
Card choices:
Overall you should know that this deck includes two cards that want different deckbuilding decisions. Aether Vial obviously wants you to play lots of creatures while Snapcaster Mage wants lots of spells. It's an ambivalence that the deck tries to get around by playing lots of cantripping spells and the tendency to bounce own creatures for value, thereby virtually upping the creature count for Vial, which leads to us getting away with less creatures than common for a Vial deck. A split of 13-16 creatures and 20-22 spells is the norm.
Aether Vial
Essential for the strategy. It enables the Eternal Command soft lock and helps us to play mostly at instant speed. Also solidly helps out tempo game. Play 4.
Creatures
Tarmogoyf
Essential for the deck. Let’s us play the tempo game while being solid defense against fast decks like Burn. It’s also one of the best answers to opposing Goyfs we have. Play 4.
Eternal Witness
One of the namesake cards of the deck that enables the softlock. While Shouta played the full 4, the card can be a little clunky and you don't really want multiples in your starting hand. More recent lists tend to play 3.
Snapcaster Mage
In a format as fast as Modern often actually the better card over E-Wit. Everybody knows how good Bolt/Snap/Bolt is but he has a lot more nice synergies in this deck (Familiar's Ruse, Cryptic Command, turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Remand, turn 3 Vial in Snap and recast Remand etc.). I would advise to play 4x, but sometimes you get stranded with multiple Snaps and E-Wits in your hand without anything relevant to get back, so an argument for only playing 3x can be made.
Vendilion Clique
Flash, helps you to time your counters correctly, solid tempo threat. The card is very good and stuffs some wholes in our strategy (getting through chumpblockers on the ground, being able to play it at instant speed when you don’t have a Vial out, additional threats to the 4x Goyf). Play 1-3, 2 is usually the standard choice.
Scavenging Ooze
Another card that rounds up some issues the deck has. Especially spicy if vialed in in response to opposing Snaps, Lingering Souls etc. The card helps to stabilize against aggressive decks, is very solid in many attrition based MUs and can help against big butted creatures like Goyf and Tasigur.
Play 0-2.
Huntmaster of the Fells
Value topend with a very nice Vial synergy (vialing him in can directly flip him the next turn). Ticking Vial up to 4 makes it unable to be used for the soft lock though. As Huntmaster can win games against certain MUs by itself (any attrition MU, especially against small creature strategies) but tends to be clunky in others (Modern is fast) he is often used in the SB and not MB. In certain fields MD inclusion can make sense though. Play 0-2.
Card Draw
Serum Visions
The best blue cantrip in Modern. Helps you dig for the right cards when you need them. There are actually lists that only play 2x. I think that's wrong and would advise you to play 4x all the time.
Thirst For Knowledge
Shouta played 2x to ditch unnecessary Vials and get rid of the wrong answer at the wrong time (an answer in the grave can still be easily recast later with Snap/E-Wit when necessary). People have moved away from the card though. EC usually only runs 4 artifacts in Vials and drawing a second one isn't really that bad since you actually want a Vial on 2 and on 3. Given these circumstances Thirst tends to be clunky. Run 0-1.
Ancestral Vision
Now Modern's premiere blue draw spell wasn't legal when Shouta invented the deck and I'm not aware of any list that did well running it. The reason for that is twofold:
Between Cryptic Command, Eternal Witness, Snapcaster Mage and more this deck already has plenty potential to grind and by running 4x Aether Vial we already got ourselves 4x cards that are awesome on turn 1 but get worse and worse throughout the game. Adding another 4x is just ruining your topdecks later on.
Counterspells
Cryptic Command
Namesake card of the deck and one of Modern's most powerful and versatile counterspells.
This deck is optimized to abuse this card. A point can be made for it being expensive and multiples in your starting hand can prove clunky though. Play 3-4.
Remand
Very good tempo card that draws us through our deck while delaying the opponent, buys time until Cryptic gets online but isn’t very good against fast aggressive decks. Depending on the meta play 2-4.
Mana Leak
Modern go to 2cmc 'hard' counter. Generally synergizes worse with the deck than Remand, which is why it sees less play. Can obviously be good in the right meta though. Play 0-2.
Familiar’s Ruse
Spicy mana leak alternative and 'little' Cryptic Command. While it's usually not online until turn 3 or later the value this card can provide with Snapcaster and even more so E-Wit should not be underestimated. Without a creature on board it's dead in hand though. Play 0-2.
Spell Snare
With the amount of strong 2-drops in Modern this card has been solid for years but recently dropped in popularity since Death's Shadow took over the meta. Play 1-3.
Removal
Lightning Bolt
The reason to be in RUG. While it’s at an all time low right now, Bolt is a huge enabler for our tempo plan and with adds a lot of reach to the deck with Snaps and E-Wits. Play 4.
Electrolyze
3cmc is a lot in the format but this card really helps against go wide and attrition strategies. Play 0-1.
Vapor Snag
Buys time against big butted threats and can safe your own ones or just simply let you reuse your Snap/E-Wit, very flexible. Play 0-1.
Dismember.
A way to get rid of Eldrazis, Tasigur, Anglers, Rhinos and small Goyfs. The phyrexian mana makes it very tough to recast and a pretty bad card against aggressive MUs though. Play 0-1.
Roast
Similar to Dismember but can only kill at sorcery speed. With Shadows and Goyfs bigger than x/5 running rampant currently, Vapor Snag has become the go to 1x removal. Play 0-1.
Tarfire/ Burst Lightning/ Forked Bolt
Some metas make a 5th Bolt effect useful and these three generally do the best job at that. Play 0-1.
Lands
Thanks to Vial this deck gets to play a pretty low land count of 20-21.It’s primarily a blue deck, then green and only a red splash. We start with Modern's 'standard' 3-colour-manabase of fetches, shocks and basics.
Misty Rainforest
Play 4.
Scalding Tarn
Play 4.
Basic Island, Forest, Mountain
Being mainly blue 3x Islands are recommended, usually accompanied by 1x Forest and 1x Mountain.
Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool, Steam Vents
Play at least one of each, maybe 2x Breeding Pool.
This basis for our landbase should then be supplemented by a combination of fastlands, Filterlands and sometimes manlands or utility lands. Eternal Command is a very colour intensive deck, so lands that only produce colourless should only be played as a singleton unless you play with more than 21 lands.
Spirebluff Canal
The perfect fastland for this strategy, painfree Bolt or SV on turn 1 is great. Playing too many fastlands can lead to not having Cryptic up on turn 4 though. Play 2-3.
Flooded Grove
Very good fixer for Eternal Witness, Cryptic Command and Scavenging Ooze that can even cast Vials on turn one. Can be awkward if you want to play multiple spells in the early game though and drawing 2 in your starting hand is a mull 99% of the times. Play 1-2.
Lumbering Falls
The go to manland for the strategy. Since we usually want to hold up counters, manlands aren't as good in this strategy as in other midrange decks. Sometimes it just wins you the game though. Unless your meta is very grindy, playing a maximum of 1x manland is recommended.
Raging Ravine
Slightly better than Lumbering Falls in a vacuum, the card sadly doesn't produce blue mana and we really want to keep the count of lands that don't produce blue mana as low as we can (maximum of 3x) to not run into problems casting Cryptic Command.
Ghost Quarter
Modern's go to land destruction land. Having an out to random utility lands in the maindeck is nice and it's obviously solid against Tron and the likes. Producing only colourless is a real drawback in this deck though. As told above, play 0-1.[/spoiler]
SB Choices
With Snapcaster and E-Wit, Eternal Command can profit a lot from only playing 1-2x answers in the deck because chances are good you can recast it a little later on. Playing lots of cantrip effect helps to find the answers.
That's why it's very common to play less copies of SB-cards but rather similar cards with slightly different effects covering more ground.
Sweepers
Anger of the Gods
Go to 'classic' sweeper for the deck. While being solid against go wide strategies like Elves or Merfolk the card pulls double duty against Dredge and Collected Company decks. Sometimes rr can be tricky on turn 3 though.
Pyroclasm
Faster than Anger and easier to cast but less good against Company decks and a lot less good against Dredge.
Kozilek's Return
Just like Pyroclasm the card is easier to cast than Anger but useless against Dredge. Gets bonus points for being good against Affinity though.
Izzet Staticaster
Different kind of 'sweeper' that is obviously amazing against (Lingering Souls) tokens but also pulls it's weight against Affinity and Elves.
Engineered Explosives
Very different from the other sweepers this one can deal with noncreature permanents as well and generally very versatile. Good against tokens, Elves, Bogles, Lantern and Merfolk.
Land Destruction
Spreading Seas
The fastest 'land destruction'-spell we have access to. Deals with annoying utility lands, manlands, buys time against Tron and even draws us a card on top of that!
Fulminator Mage
Modern's go to 'Stone Rain'-effect profits from the ability to be vialed in, but can only be used repeatedly with E-Wit. RR can be an issue.
Molten Rain
Usually just as good as Fulminators and can be played again with Snapcaster for that double LD on turn 3 and turn 4 (with Vial). RR can be an issue.
Stone Rain
Molten Rain that is easier to cast but doesn't shock your opponent. If your landbase is light on red, playing these over Molten Rain is often actually the better choice.
Counterspells
Dispel
Good against other decks with counterspells, good against burn, good against Ad Nauseam, very solid card. It's rarely wrong to play at least 1x.
Negate
More expensive than Dispel but with broader applications.
Ceremonious Rejection
Between Eldrazi Tron, Gx Tron, Affinity and Lantern Control there are lots of decks with tons of colourless card that often even tend to be expensive. Solid card as the latest GPs have shown.
Counterflux
With Storm running rampant on MODO the card is a neat trump. Also very solid against Ad Nauseam and generally decks that play counterspells.
Haymakers
Huntermaster of the Fells
Pretty much the go to Haymaker for this deck. We can flip him back and forth quite easily and even vial him in so that he flips directly and can just win games by himself. Especially good against value creature decks, the card shines in attrition MUs and is a solid way to stabilize against Burn.
Keranos, God of Storms
Pretty expensive with 5 mana, he will often just win you the game if he resolves in attrition MUs. Only run him in a very grindy meta though.
Thragtusk
Another great value card that can get absurd if bounced to hand again. Again Huntmaster is usually the better choice unless you expect a very grindy meta.
Artifact/Enchantment Hate
Ancient Grudge
Probably the second best hate against Affinity (after Stony Silene). Play at least 1.
Natural State
efficient answer to many SB cards that are boarded in against us, especially Rest in Peace. Hits every enchantments that relevant against us except Leyline of the Void.
Destructive Revelry
Hits even Leylines but costs double as much as Natural State.
Vandalblast
Another very solid card of Affinity hate and the one you choose if you really hate Lantern Control. Usually keeping your Grudge Ancient is better though.
Graveyard Hate
Scavenging Ooze
Solid card against Snapcaster decks, Abzan Company, Reanimator stragegies, opposing Tarmogoyfs and Delirium cards and other stuff, especially sweet if vialed in. Can be too slow for decks like Dredge though.
Tormod's Crypt
Since Relic of Progenitus exiles both graveyards and we usually try to avoid that this is an option against decks that fill the yard faster than Scavenging Ooze can keep up with.
Relic of Progenitus
Exiles our own yard but cantrips. Rarely sees play in EC.
Surgical Extraction
Found it's way into a lot of Modern's SB recently, strong card but synergizes a lot better with targeted discard than counterspells.
Grafdigger's Cage
Shuts down our own Snapcasters but hurts Dredge a lot more. Valid choice if the meta demands it.
Others
Spellskite
Very versatile and another card that is especially good if vialed in. The MUs is shines against (Infect, Bogles, etc.) aren't played as much as they have been though.
Pulse of Murasa
Goes 'infinite' with E-Wit. Grindy card that's also solid against Burn.
Pithing Needle
Very solid allrounder against Planeswalkers, manlands, Affinity and others for just 1 mana.
Matchups
Affinity:
As most for Modern decks, G1 is an uphill battle, but beatable with a good hand (Bolts, Spell Snares, Electrolyze, Snapcaster all do a good job). G2 is a lot better, but still depends on how well prepared your SB is for the MU.
Burn: Depending on your MB configuration (any lifegain?) the MU varies between slightly positive to even.
Jund Death's Shadow:
We don't have any meaningful ways to deal with their beaters besides bouncing or tapping them, which is definetely a problem. The MU isn't as bad as that makes it look like though, because of our ability to easily turn from defense to offense. Let them do the work in hurting themselves until their under 10 life and try to set up a turn where you deal 7+ damage on the back of vialed in Goyfs, Cryptic tapdown, E-Wit, Snap and Lightning Bolt. The better the DS pilot is, the harder is the match.
Grixis Death's Shadow:
Slightly better than the MU against the Jund version, because Grixis packs less threats, they tend to come down later and our Remands aren't useless against delve threats and Snaps. Very skill intensive, even to slightly favored MU.
Eldrazi Tron:
Thanks to less copies of Cavern of Souls a lot better than the MU against the Bant version, but you really need to close the game out fast here. Drop a threat and ride him with your counterspells to victory. Slightly unfavorable MU.
Abzan:
They rip our hand apart and pretty much all the stuff they play is a problem for us (Goyfs, Lingering Souls, Rhinos etc.). Still feels like a cakewalk if our answers line up well, but as soon as they don't...unfavorable MU.
Abzan Company:
The deck improved a lot with their new infinite mana combo, but Bolt+Snap have always been a good duo to fight small creature decks and SB cards like Anger of the Gods and Huntmaster are really good in this MU. Slightly favorable.
Bant Eldrazi:
This deck's worst MU. We have a problem with dealing with big butted threats and against this deck we can't even counter them. Unless they brick it's pretty assemble the lock or bust. very unfavorable MU.
RG Valakut:
Remands and Cryptic Commands are very good against them dropping their key cards. It's important to be able to finish the game quickly (Goyf, Clique) though or they will just get you with Valakut triggers. Favorable MU.
Dredge:
As for every fair deck in Modern, beating them game 1 is very tough, but the Cryptic Lock is a valid out, just be aware of Conflagrate. Game 2 and 3 obviously depend on how well you are prepared to face the deck. Slightly unfavorable to unfavorable MU.
Ad Nauseam:
We like to play the tempo game and tempo is pretty good against linear combo. Drop a threat and keep counters up. Just be aware of Pact of Negation and try not to only have one counter up when they are about to combo. Favorable MU.
UWx Control:
Between Snaps, E-Wits and Commands we have lots of grinding potential and Vial is a big trump card for us. Depending on the opponents build, even to slightly favorable MU.