Wow lot of thought into this Charileguide! Awesome!
...
So with Mission Briefing.. i think my biggest argument for it (or snapcaster) is that it allows for additional time warps specifically... it also allows for 5 exhaustion when you only run 3. These are the key cards and it smooths things out a lot. I don't think that snapcaster or mission briefing is 100% necessary, but I think over time playing either you notice that the progression of time warp into part the water veil into snap/mission briefing + time warp is a lot better then not having it...
And the only reason I don't run snapcaster and go for the mission briefing is because it allows for a quicker flip of Thing in the Ice
That being said, with timewalkinonsunshine's UR list, you can see how aggressive the bolt snap bolt was.. and in that one match he was able to bounce his snapcaster with jace to end the game.. so I think if you are running a second color splash of any sort, snapcaster becomes a lot better in that circumstance
As for the sideboard, I think it would be better to run Dispel over spell pierce. Generally if you are playing against a control matchup, they'll have the 2 extra mana. And there aren't many matchups where spell pierce is that strong.. Same applies with storm/other matchups where spell pierce would be sided in - dispel is usually better... especially when it is dispel and negates being sided in together... other than that I like the sideboard tech! I really should make a spreadsheet like that! so organized haha
...
OHHHH.... also,
I just noticed that against some matchups since you aren't running Jace; without him and in cutting all 3x thing in the ice it makes your only win condition Part the Waterveil.. that seems risky given the rise in surgical extraction...
It may be useful to keep at least 1 if not 2 and only trim on them. Generally most decks will remove their answers to creatures anyhow against us since they win more so by disrupting the extra turns then by killing the land/thing
Thanks for the feedback, zcowan!
It sounds like we both see Snapcaster Mage & Mission Briefing the same way, just have different preferences. I have considered that the latter might help transform Thing in the Ice faster, but on the other hand, if it was a Remand, you'd have already cast it, right? I'll give them a try in testing.
Regarding Spell Pierce & Dispel, and I meant to address it above, my previous version ran both in the SB. I included the former because Ponza is a very common matchup in my meta, and I want to increase my odds of disrupting an early land-destruction spell, or even Utopia Sprawl. Similarly, vs Mardu and Rock variants, I'd like a chance to counter early hand-disruptionspells. It's also solid against burn, where they'll likely tap out aggressively. Against Storm, I want the ability to counter whatever they do first, whether it's a ritual or a search/sift. I cut Dispel when the spreadsheet revealed it was one of the least-used cards overall, and while Spell Pierce isn't always better, it's more versatile. (Maybe my opinion was swayed when I died twice to red Sorceries while holding a Dispel in my hand.)
Great point on the wincons, especially vs a deck like Grixis that runs Surgical Extraction. I'll take your advice on this, and either take out less Things or sneak another option into the sideboard.
@charlieguide, thanks for the writeup, especially the sideboard guide! This is a pretty cool take on mono-U. I agree with @zcowan that the idea of sideboarding out all Thing in the Ice and leaving Part the Waterveil as the only wincon leaves me kind of uneasy. I also think that Thing is good against Storm because it lets you deal with Empty the Warrens tokens by bouncing them. Keep testing and let us know how your list evolves!
I look forward to seeing that report, @timewalkinonsunshine!
Thanks for reinforcing the wincon idea. I'll take a look.
Excellent point about Storm, too. Sideboard for their sideboard ...
I don't think that Trickbind or Disallow do much of anything against Spirits. You'd much rather kill something than just counter a Mausoleum Wanderer activation or a Spell Queller trigger, and counterspells are generally bad against low to the ground decks with Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial.
I agree 100% with this response. Trickbind is one of my old favorites. If you're going to counter a trigger, though, it had better be game-breaking.
Back when Time Spiral was in Standard ("everybody listen up, an old man is talking!"), we'd Trickbind Suspendtriggers, but that mechanic isn't seen much in Modern; we'd Trickbind Stormtriggers -- that was backbreaking -- but in Modern, they'll just Remand the Grapeshot, thank you for adding to the Storm count, and play it again; we even had our own version of Trickbinding a fetch land. The point is, even the best things you can do with Trickbind are probably not going to be good enough and/or come up often enough to warrant a place in the 75.
Oh, I completely forgot to mention Shadow of Doubt in my notes! (And I'm surprised it didn't garner any comments. LOL)
Two weeks ago, I was feeling great about the final matchup of the evening vs Scapeshift. My opponent is a very solid player, who at one time in his pre-offspring days was on the pro tour. The game went long, and I didn't have a mine effect out -- don't remember if I didn't find one, or if he destroyed it. I had just Gigadrowsed most of his G sources on his upkeep, so he could only cast Scapeshift once (I suspected he had two), and I still had four mana up with Remand and Cryptic in hand. He takes a deep breath, fetches a Temple Garden (I thought, "what is that for?") and plays Silence. No, not Stony Silence. Yeah. Just SILENCE. My only play was to Remand and hope to draw another one. I didn't. He won. Because of Silence. SILENCE. Yeah, it's a magic card. In Modern. I remember that now. Cute. Well done, Doug; a third-place finish well-deserved. Sometimes all you can do is shake your head, smile, and offer your hand.
That's what led me to Shadow of Doubt. If I'd had that in hand, I could have one-upped his outside-the-box-tech with some of my own. It's one of those cards I often consider putting in my first 60, but somehow end up cutting completely. Think how often it's relevant. Nearly everyone runs 4-8 fetches, and Tron runs 8 search effects; Sinkhole and draw a card seems good. But how often would the timing line up? It seems at its best in a few matchups like Scapeshift and Eldritch Evolution, which are common enough in my meta to give it a try. I'll let you all know how it goes.
And I sure as heck won't lose to effing Silence again!
And I sure as heck won't lose to effing Silence again!
I'm gonna have to apologize in advance for my negativity, but I don't think that's a healthy mindset for making sideboard decisions. There are a lot of "gotcha" cards in Magic like Silence that are incredibly narrow and incredibly powerful in those narrow situations. You should NOT be preparing for your opponents to play those cards unless it's actually realistic (like Rest in Peace when you're on Dredge, for example). As a personal example, in GP Atlanta one of my opponents cast Choke against me in both sideboard games. Yes, I could have boarded Hibernation or Annul to beat that particular card in that particular situation. But at what cost? Sideboard slots are incredibly valuable, and I have better things to board against the rest of the field than those ridiculously narrow answers to answers (unless the field is tons of Elves and Bogles or something, but it's not). I'm not going to do anything to change that situation, because if I have to lose one match every 2+ years or so to Choke, so be it.
Note that my context is very open metas like Grand Prixs. For a local store meta, you might run into Doug again and Shadow of Doubt will be great. Or maybe you just have tons of Scapeshift and Tron in the meta, so it just makes sense to have Shadow of Doubt regardless of whether or not people are playing Silence. But if you plan on taking your deck to a large event like a Grand Prix or SCG Open, I promise you the chances of ever seeing a Silence are tiny. You should prepare for what you're likely to face in the future, not what you happened to face once in the past.
You are 100% right. In an open meta, especially where players have paid big money like GPs, it would be foolish to sideboard like that.
I think he's talking more about a local meta.
*I had success many years ago sideboarding mostly with my friend (yes, 1 person) in mind. I knew out of the 30 something players, he had the best chance of beating me, so I made sure it would be tougher. I realize it's incorrect sideboarding, but it worked!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I probably should have included at least one emoji to convey the exaggeration of my feelings. I was going for a bit of comedy, there.
You're both right; we should not make any deckbuilding decisions based on emotion, especially frustration. (Fun, on the other hand ... )
That said, I'm still very interested in Shadow of Doubt. It does provide a unique out to some fringe situations, but more importantly, it is relevant in a surprising number of matchups.
Storm players will sometimes try an EOT Gifts Ungiven, especially if they think they'll draw out a Remand, and simply repeat on their own turn as part of the storm. We might even push them into it with Gigadrowse on the Upkeep.
Scapeshift players have little choice -- except for Silence or Vexing Shusher, LOL -- but to try to jam the card and dare us to have the counterspell. Given the opportunity (perhaps we "only left two mana open" after a "desperate" Serum Visions), they will try to get under our Cryptic Command, again having seen Remand already.
We're already so good against Tron, and Boomerang is essentially Time Walk, here, but they do employ at least eight "searchspells" that are almost, if not quite, vital to their plans.
A less common matchup, Eldritch Evolution decks are scary-good at abusing their namesake card, and I don't know, but I heard Gaddock Teeg is sort of a problem for us, especially when they play him by "sacrificing" a creature that comes back bigger than before. (OK, fine, I see why you like Lightning Bolt. )
A less likely fit, but still interesting, is the aggressive nature by which Death's Shadow decks activate their numerous fetch lands. Again, Sinkhole and draw a card looks so delicious that it has to at least be worth considering.
All of these decks may acknowledge that we might sideboard in a Negate or two, but can they afford to try and play around it? They'll likely see a risky exchange as, at worst, a one-for-one that steals one of our counterspells and paves the way for their "real" plan. Adding a cantrip to that exchange helps us continue advancing our gameplan.
Also, yes, local meta. But wouldn't you expect to face any of these decks at any given tournament?
TL;DR: funny situations aside, I think this card is worth a serious look. It can set the opponent back a turn or two and hose some plans entirely, all while drawing a card, and at the very least cycle and take a chip off of Thing in the Ice. I'm going to try to get some testing in with it this week. Has anyone else tried it?
I'm still not convinced that Shadow of Doubt is strong enough to justify inclusion. In particular, I'm worried that it's too narrow, even in the matchups that you'd bring it in.
For example, Storm can easily have a sequence of turn 1 cantrip, turn 2 cantrip, turn 3 cost reducer, 2x Ritual, Empty the Warrens for 8 tokens, or many other ways to go off that don't involve Gifts Ungiven or fetchlands and therefore don't care about Shadow of Doubt. Scapeshift can easily use Primeval Titan instead of Scapeshift, and even though you stop one of the triggers "for free", you still have to deal with a 6/6 Trampler that will trigger again when it attacks. Tron can use Ancient Stirrings to assemble Tron and not care about Shadow of Doubt at all, or cast Sylvan Scrying on turn 2 on the play before Shadow of Doubt is online. Eldritch Evolution decks can play a value midrange game and win without Evolution. Death's Shadow will probably see your hand with an Inquisition or Thoughtseize before Shadow of Doubt comes online, and they'll know to play around it.
I realize that all of these examples are cherry-picked ways to play around Shadow of Doubt, and anyone can construct similar arguments to argue against any card's conclusion. But I think the two main issues are that these examples are realistic ways that games play out, and that even in situations where you do "get 'em" with Shadow of Doubt, I don't think it's actual powerful enough to change what would have been a loss into a win. It's certainly possible that I'm just not recognizing the upside enough, but I'm not convinced that Shadow of Doubt can justify its place in the sideboard over all of the other options we have available. Of course, testing is 100% a better way to draw conclusions than just speculating like I'm doing, so if you want to try it out then definitely go for it.
I agree with timewalkinonsunshine with his analysis on shadow of doubt.. Cards like that, that are a "gotcha" have to be game breakingly good since you only get their effect most likely once in a match, since the person will be on defense and play around it. That's why cards like Choke/Worship especially are not seen in even deck that plays those colors. Yes they will win you one game hands down but they are easy to combat after you know about them. Shadow definitely isn't at the same level..
And while I have you timewalkinonshine; I really want to try UR now. I had it set up but didn't use it and went back to UW for some tournament a while back.. but watching it perform on camera was pretty awesome.. Just have a couple questions if you don't mind:
-I think you mentioned not liking the drake in the sideboard really? Was wondering what you would recommend for a replacement in that spot? I was thinking something like counter flux might be nice as a one of against storm matchups?
-I see you run Abrade, Pyroclasm, and Anger of the Gods in the sideboard. Was wondering your rationale for the diversity of mass removal? Is it to get around Meddling Mage naming one of them?
-Do you think cutting to 3 snapcaster or 2 in place of Mission briefing would be appropriate or viable? It gives the same flashback utility to bolt but improves on flipping thing when you sideboard them in.. Plus I have been finding that the surveil effect is super useful in this deck.
-Have you tried Chandra, Torch of Defiance? She seems useful in this meta right now. If you are going for creature removal/fast clocks she seems useful as her minus can also kill creatures of 4 toughness and her ultimate is far quicker to reach then Jace.. (I understand he is infinitely better in his drawing and top of deck manipulation) but I could see a 1/1.. Just wondering if you have had any thought on her
Thank you for everything! love when our deck gets screen time haha
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
-I think you mentioned not liking the drake in the sideboard really? Was wondering what you would recommend for a replacement in that spot? I was thinking something like counter flux might be nice as a one of against storm matchups?
I was actually more disappointed that I didn't draw it enough! Crackling Drake is best against Jund-style decks because games against those decks tend to go long (they basically need both sufficient disruption and a Tarmogoyf to kill you fast enough), and topdecking a 10+ power flier that draws you a card is fantastic. Even in one of the worst case scenarios where the Drake gets Liliana -2'd, you still drew a card and bought yourself more time until the Lili ult, which is still a good deal in my book. Of course, it's not great in every matchup, such as against Devoted Druid combo where blocking doesn't do much and the games don't go long enough for Drake to get swole. If your meta is full of decks where you'd want to block or attack with a giant flier, Crackling Drake is a great choice. On the other hand, if your meta is full of things like Ad Nauseam, KCI, or Devoted Druid where blocking just doesn't matter, then having more access to interaction on the stack in the form of counterspells is probably better than Crackly Drackly. Just be aware that Counterflux isn't always a slam dunk against Storm, since if they have enough mana, they can just Remand their spell that you're trying to counter, then cast it again with a higher storm count.
-I see you run Abrade, Pyroclasm, and Anger of the Gods in the sideboard. Was wondering your rationale for the diversity of mass removal? Is it to get around Meddling Mage naming one of them?
Meddling Mage was one consideration. Another was that I wanted a split between artifact destruction, a very cheap sweeper in Pyroclasm, and a more powerful but harder to cast sweeper in Anger of the Gods. Given the presence of Dredge, I wanted to favor Anger of the Gods over Pyroclasm since Pyro does almost nothing against them (I don't even bring it in) whereas Anger can be potentially game-winning if they've committed too many Prized Amalgams and Bloodghasts to the board. Given the Aether Vial decks like Humans and Spirits, Abrade is great because it gives you the flexibility to kill the creatures if they have a normal-looking hand, or the Vial if they've kept a risky one-land Aether Vial hand. Abrade is also a great way to kill Cranial Plating, but those are seeing less play with the rise of Hardened Scales.
-Do you think cutting to 3 snapcaster or 2 in place of Mission briefing would be appropriate or viable? It gives the same flashback utility to bolt but improves on flipping thing when you sideboard them in.. Plus I have been finding that the surveil effect is super useful in this deck.
Not with this build. This build leans hard on Snapcaster's 2/1 body to win the game over many attack steps, and having access to the full 4 is important. On the other hand, previous builds I've played that relied on Part the Waterveil more than Snapcaster can afford to Surveil 2 instead of get a 2/1 body. Just be aware that in the worst case, I'd rather have a 2/1 than Surveil 2, since at least Snapcaster can chump block in a pinch (or trade with Goblin Guide and the like, a play I've certainly made many times).
-Have you tried Chandra, Torch of Defiance? She seems useful in this meta right now. If you are going for creature removal/fast clocks she seems useful as her minus can also kill creatures of 4 toughness and her ultimate is far quicker to reach then Jace.. (I understand he is infinitely better in his drawing and top of deck manipulation) but I could see a 1/1.. Just wondering if you have had any thought on her
I haven't really thought about Chandra, Torch, but I can see why she's powerful. I think to make the best use of her, you really need to leverage both her +1 RR ability and her +1 exile ability well. With how mana hungry this deck is, an extra two red mana is very helpful, and many of our cards interact well with her +1 exile ability. It's kind of a shame that Cryptic Command and Gigadrowse are bad cards to exile, but you'd be pretty happy to cast basically every other spell in the deck. The biggest downside, though, is I think one that she shares with Jace. If you're behind on board on turn 4, which happens often with this deck, it's not always wise to slam a planeswalker since it will probably die to your opponent's creatures, even when you use your walker's minus ability to take one of the creatures out. I'm also not sure that her upsides outweigh Jace's interaction with Temporal Mastery, which is incredibly powerful in this deck. My intuition is that Jace is more powerful, but Chandra, Torch of Defiance's upsides are real enough that she's worth trying out.
That's awesome! not enough tournaments out our way (i'm from Connecticut).. and I don't really like to travel
I will say that although I was having fun with the raw mono blue.. a color splash is definitely necessary for competitive play in my opinion. Mono blue doesn't have enough reliable resources in the sideboard to combat the diversity of the format
I do think that with the amount of creature centered fast decks currently in the top portions of the meta, a red or black splash is far better then white at the moment. White provides good resources in like Stony Silence and Terminus but I think bolt is a lot better; and path to exile mainboard was good for a bit but now giving them an extra land in the early game just sets you so far behind!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
Hey all! Checking back in with this thread and it’s going to be a long post ahead—so, fair warning, lol.
Firstly, I must admit that I haven’t been tweaking and refining my Turns list at all; since SCG ‘Cuse, I’ve been all-in on Golgari. That said, I was very confident in my Turns list just a month or two ago, but nowadays, when I pick it back up for a change of pace, I’m having significantly worse results than I used to. It seems like the meta has become a lot more hostile, with Infect a significant presence again and decks like Tron and UWC having taken a minor downturn, to name just two factors. While Dredge is not a bad matchup in and of itself, its influence on the meta does not seem to have worked to our benefit. It’s been discouraging to say the least, particularly in contrast to my results on Golgari, which have been consistently stellar.
I was thinking about trying out some of the maindeck Thing builds—perhaps with Mission Briefing—that I saw a few pages back, but the most recent posts ITT have me wondering whether splashing a color has become obligatory. I sure hope not, but at the same time I don’t wish to deny reality. Any thoughts?
On a related note, I have no intentions of selling out of this deck or anything, but I maayyyy have been a little overzealous in aggressively beginning to foil it out. I simply don’t get to play paper often enough to justify having two decks filled with shiny cards, and with UMA about to bring us those BGx borderless reprints...well, I think the time has come to part with my foil copies of Turns cards. I mention this here just because I wouldn’t mind giving anyone here who’s interested in foiling their deck a decent hookup. My list can be found here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/combo/768745-taking-turns?page=109#c2186 . Just about everything there is foiled, with a few exceptions (Time Warps, Gigadrowses, Exhaustions, Chalices). PM me if you’re interested! I’ll hold off for a week on listing them elsewhere to give people ITT a chance to get at me.
Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.
Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.
Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
Mono U turns are pretty stock. My mono U list has 68/75 cards with your list. Maybe trying out a splash with cards that you currently have be better?
My SB has grafdiggers and relic. Mainly to stop coco and vizer decks. I'm looking for ways to stop spirits with Mono U but its pretty atrocious currently. I'm on a 2-11 losing streak against both UW and bant spirits currently.
@Grim Flayer, if that is a wall of text for you.. then you are going soft haha
I haven't been playing as much lately (maybe 2 to 3 times a month with the deck) but have noticed that the format is getting to a point of diversity that is hard to answer in one color.
I think in pervious metas there was a dominant type like control where there were a lot of top tier decks but jeskai/UW/Death Shadow stood out. Or aggro/creature based decks were the leaders of the format. During those times I think mono blue shined better because you could kind of get away with hedging the sideboard to favor in those matchups. I think now there is too much diversity with a lot of decks all being really good.
Adding a color splash definitely feels right from my testing, but I totally understand not wanting to invest money into it at the moment.
I actually had a friend over and I had sleeved black/white/red variants and play tested them against proxied matchups and found red and black to be about even in the games we played. White was a little less favored in specific matchups (especially in UW control/Jeskai where the sideboard lacked strong resources other than additional counter magic) I think in those matchups red was more favored just because bolt adds a faster clock.
I think I liked the UB variant a little more and it suited my play style though because fatal push is an incredibly reliable creature removal spell and having access to thought seize and inquisition as well as surgical extraction seems to be a useful strategy right now. That along with Bontu's last reckoning kind of worked as a strong sideboard that hit all of the bases.
These are my opinions as of recently, but I am always up for debate! Like I said, these come from two days of playing magic to get away from the constant studying of nursing school lol so it isn't like it is a month of playing or anything like that by any means
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
I was thinking about trying out some of the maindeck Thing builds—perhaps with Mission Briefing—that I saw a few pages back, but the most recent posts ITT have me wondering whether splashing a color has become obligatory. I sure hope not, but at the same time I don’t wish to deny reality. Any thoughts?
Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.
Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
Hey Grim_Flayer! In my opinion, the splashes are stronger in an open meta than any mono-blue list. Like you said, there's a lot of hostile decks like Infect or Hardened Scales, and mono-U doesn't have great tools to deal with them. Of course, mono-U is still powerful to do well in a local meta that has more favorable matchups, but I don't think it's the best choice for taking into Magic Online.
That said, your post and your channel inspired me to start making some content, so here's a Competitive Modern League with UR Turns. I'm open to suggestions on improvement (both in terms of deck construction or gameplay, and in terms of video creation), so let me know any feedback!
OMG it's the dream come true haha! Awesome to have more MTGO content creators on youtube for taking turns!
So I am off for school break and spent the last couple days with a friend doing some more heavy play testing..
If you guys would like, I have a pretty detailed breakdown for color splashes that him and I have been working on that I could share here..
Just been working on UB/UR/UW variants with different sideboard options.. Luckly I have a lot of cards in paper so it was easy to do a lot of testing
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
OMG it's the dream come true haha! Awesome to have more MTGO content creators on youtube for taking turns!
So I am off for school break and spent the last couple days with a friend doing some more heavy play testing..
If you guys would like, I have a pretty detailed breakdown for color splashes that him and I have been working on that I could share here..
Just been working on UB/UR/UW variants with different sideboard options.. Luckly I have a lot of cards in paper so it was easy to do a lot of testing
That's awesome! Go ahead and post what you have, I think it'll be super helpful
Alright so in testing I played each variant against: Elves, Burn, Humans, UW, Jeskai, Storm, and Mardu.. sadly I don't own Spirits completely yet..
In that I would rate UR as being the best version currently as Bolt makes the deck a lot more aggro as you have mentioned. You are definitely able to close the game out quickly when you start chaining snapcaster mages and lightning bolts. I only had 3 snapcaster because my fourth is lost in an EDH deck somewhere so I used a 3/1 split with mission briefing and it actually worked really nicely. The surveil mechanic is definitely powerful, and being able to dig for things is always good in this deck. My only concerns with this version are: 1) Red lacks a guaranteed creature removal similar to path or fatal push. Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods/Bolt all rely on the creatures having 3 toughness or less; and 2) You can't run Chalice of the Void anymore really.. I think that card is so good in this deck
In second place I would put UB. Fatal push is really strong and I like having Thoughtseize/Inquisition as sideboard options. A lot of the decks in the format right now are easily crippled by hand removal which is proven by the success of GB Rock (@GrimFlayer)
Lastly, White splash has the best sideboard options but that doesn't make it good right now. From testing path is really bad.
That's kind of what I have going right now.. Working on an excel spreadsheet of sideboard options. Tried experimenting with Geist and there seems to be some promise there
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.
Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
Mono U turns are pretty stock. My mono U list has 68/75 cards with your list. Maybe trying out a splash with cards that you currently have be better?
My SB has grafdiggers and relic. Mainly to stop coco and vizer decks. I'm looking for ways to stop spirits with Mono U but its pretty atrocious currently. I'm on a 2-11 losing streak against both UW and bant spirits currently.
Yeah, Spirits seem to be a real hurdle, especially for monoU. Unfortunately, I don't happen to own much in the way of anything splashable...the consequences of too much wheeling and dealing with spare cards!
@Grim Flayer, if that is a wall of text for you.. then you are going soft haha
Ha! True enough.
I haven't been playing as much lately (maybe 2 to 3 times a month with the deck) but have noticed that the format is getting to a point of diversity that is hard to answer in one color.
I think in pervious metas there was a dominant type like control where there were a lot of top tier decks but jeskai/UW/Death Shadow stood out. Or aggro/creature based decks were the leaders of the format. During those times I think mono blue shined better because you could kind of get away with hedging the sideboard to favor in those matchups. I think now there is too much diversity with a lot of decks all being really good.
Adding a color splash definitely feels right from my testing, but I totally understand not wanting to invest money into it at the moment.
I actually had a friend over and I had sleeved black/white/red variants and play tested them against proxied matchups and found red and black to be about even in the games we played. White was a little less favored in specific matchups (especially in UW control/Jeskai where the sideboard lacked strong resources other than additional counter magic) I think in those matchups red was more favored just because bolt adds a faster clock.
I think I liked the UB variant a little more and it suited my play style though because fatal push is an incredibly reliable creature removal spell and having access to thought seize and inquisition as well as surgical extraction seems to be a useful strategy right now. That along with Bontu's last reckoning kind of worked as a strong sideboard that hit all of the bases.
These are my opinions as of recently, but I am always up for debate! Like I said, these come from two days of playing magic to get away from the constant studying of nursing school lol so it isn't like it is a month of playing or anything like that by any means
You might be right, Z. A combination of speed, linearity, and diversity in the format is doing monoU no favors.
I was thinking about trying out some of the maindeck Thing builds—perhaps with Mission Briefing—that I saw a few pages back, but the most recent posts ITT have me wondering whether splashing a color has become obligatory. I sure hope not, but at the same time I don’t wish to deny reality. Any thoughts?
Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.
Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
Hey Grim_Flayer! In my opinion, the splashes are stronger in an open meta than any mono-blue list. Like you said, there's a lot of hostile decks like Infect or Hardened Scales, and mono-U doesn't have great tools to deal with them. Of course, mono-U is still powerful to do well in a local meta that has more favorable matchups, but I don't think it's the best choice for taking into Magic Online.
That said, your post and your channel inspired me to start making some content, so here's a Competitive Modern League with UR Turns. I'm open to suggestions on improvement (both in terms of deck construction or gameplay, and in terms of video creation), so let me know any feedback!
Wow, man, this is exiting stuff! I was feeling a little guilty lately, having started off my channel playing Golgari and Turns about equally, and then not releasing any Turns content for a long while...but now the burden has been lifted. I withdraw in the presence of the master. But for real, when I get the time to watch the league I'll be certain to give you my thoughts! Very happy to see our archetype's most recognizable player establish a presence on youtube.
Alright so in testing I played each variant against: Elves, Burn, Humans, UW, Jeskai, Storm, and Mardu.. sadly I don't own Spirits completely yet..
In that I would rate UR as being the best version currently as Bolt makes the deck a lot more aggro as you have mentioned. You are definitely able to close the game out quickly when you start chaining snapcaster mages and lightning bolts. I only had 3 snapcaster because my fourth is lost in an EDH deck somewhere so I used a 3/1 split with mission briefing and it actually worked really nicely. The surveil mechanic is definitely powerful, and being able to dig for things is always good in this deck. My only concerns with this version are: 1) Red lacks a guaranteed creature removal similar to path or fatal push. Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods/Bolt all rely on the creatures having 3 toughness or less; and 2) You can't run Chalice of the Void anymore really.. I think that card is so good in this deck
In second place I would put UB. Fatal push is really strong and I like having Thoughtseize/Inquisition as sideboard options. A lot of the decks in the format right now are easily crippled by hand removal which is proven by the success of GB Rock (@GrimFlayer)
Lastly, White splash has the best sideboard options but that doesn't make it good right now. From testing path is really bad.
That's kind of what I have going right now.. Working on an excel spreadsheet of sideboard options. Tried experimenting with Geist and there seems to be some promise there
That's a pretty rough collection of matchups in general, so the fact that you came out feeling optimistic about any variant is a great sign.
Red, eh? A few months back I was pretty convinced UR wasn't where we wanted to be; but times change, and perhaps I was even wrong back then.
If so, that'll be a bitter pill to swallow. I hate red.
(Last call on foils, btw! Tomorrow I'll begin listing them.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
GB Golgari Midrange GB YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
Alright so in testing I played each variant against: Elves, Burn, Humans, UW, Jeskai, Storm, and Mardu.. sadly I don't own Spirits completely yet..
In that I would rate UR as being the best version currently as Bolt makes the deck a lot more aggro as you have mentioned. You are definitely able to close the game out quickly when you start chaining snapcaster mages and lightning bolts. I only had 3 snapcaster because my fourth is lost in an EDH deck somewhere so I used a 3/1 split with mission briefing and it actually worked really nicely. The surveil mechanic is definitely powerful, and being able to dig for things is always good in this deck. My only concerns with this version are: 1) Red lacks a guaranteed creature removal similar to path or fatal push. Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods/Bolt all rely on the creatures having 3 toughness or less; and 2) You can't run Chalice of the Void anymore really.. I think that card is so good in this deck
In second place I would put UB. Fatal push is really strong and I like having Thoughtseize/Inquisition as sideboard options. A lot of the decks in the format right now are easily crippled by hand removal which is proven by the success of GB Rock (@GrimFlayer)
Lastly, White splash has the best sideboard options but that doesn't make it good right now. From testing path is really bad.
That's kind of what I have going right now.. Working on an excel spreadsheet of sideboard options. Tried experimenting with Geist and there seems to be some promise there
Thanks for posting! Definitely some good insights here. I agree that Chalice was super strong in non-red builds, but I've found that playing with Bolt makes us much more of a combo-tempo deck than a combo-control deck like we used to be. So even though we're losing a powerful card, its effect of locking the opponent out of their best spells isn't as necessary anymore, since we can just use our Bolts to kill the opponent.i
That's a pretty rough collection of matchups in general, so the fact that you came out feeling optimistic about any variant is a great sign.
Red, eh? A few months back I was pretty convinced UR wasn't where we wanted to be; but times change, and perhaps I was even wrong back then.
If so, that'll be a bitter pill to swallow. I hate red.
For what it's worth, the deck still feels very blue! Blue-red is much more tempo-y than other builds though (at least the way that I built it), so you do need to assess if you're the beatdown more often than with more controlling builds.
@Timewalkinonsunshine I didn't notice at first that you are absent Remand.. I definitely see what you mean now about the deck being far less control-based in the early turns.. I'll have to try that out..
You should definitely test adding 1-2 Mission Briefing though! From what i've played so far, reducing to 3 Snapcaster doesn't take away from having that added pressure; but mission briefing is good because it digs for flashback. In one of my games I played against elves I was able to cast Mission briefing - surveil a bolt - and then bolt their creature.. I can see that sort of interaction happening often and being extremely useful.
Also, side note - not sure if you saw but apparently someone just placed well in a smaller Starcity tournament running a similar UR list to yours but added one mainboard Blood Moon and one in the side.. Not sure if you tried it yet. I was on the fence at first but it is a card that can just win games on the spot as people have mentioned.
Thanks again to you guys for always keeping the conversation going! Hope to see more on the youtube soon! (FROM BOTH OF YOU.... Grim Flayer *cough cough*) lol jk
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
@Timewalkinonsunshine I didn't notice at first that you are absent Remand.. I definitely see what you mean now about the deck being far less control-based in the early turns.. I'll have to try that out..
You should definitely test adding 1-2 Mission Briefing though! From what i've played so far, reducing to 3 Snapcaster doesn't take away from having that added pressure; but mission briefing is good because it digs for flashback. In one of my games I played against elves I was able to cast Mission briefing - surveil a bolt - and then bolt their creature.. I can see that sort of interaction happening often and being extremely useful.
Also, side note - not sure if you saw but apparently someone just placed well in a smaller Starcity tournament running a similar UR list to yours but added one mainboard Blood Moon and one in the side.. Not sure if you tried it yet. I was on the fence at first but it is a card that can just win games on the spot as people have mentioned.
Thanks again to you guys for always keeping the conversation going! Hope to see more on the youtube soon! (FROM BOTH OF YOU.... Grim Flayer *cough cough*) lol jk
Thanks! My feelings on Remand haven't changed much. I don't think it's well positioned right now because of its ineffectiveness against cards that cost 0-2 mana, and specifically the cards Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial. If more people were tapping 3+ lands at sorcery speed like Tron does, then I'd add it back for sure, but as it stands I think the format is too fast for Remand.
I have a few concerns about Mission Briefing, but they're relatively mild. Mainly, I'm not convinced that Surveil 2 is better than a 2/1 body often enough to fully justify running Briefing over the 4th Snapcaster. It's great in the scenario you described, but I feel like in a worst-case scenario where your opponent is presenting a fast clock, have a 2/1 available to chump block (or sometimes trade) seems better. This could definitely be a case of me overestimating the downsides and underestimating the upsides, so I'll give it a shot in testing.
Jeffrey Fernandes' UR turns, 6th place at an SCG IQ. The list is really interesting, and definitely super similar to my build from GP Atlanta. Maindeck changes look like -1 Steam Vents / -1 Gemstone Caverns / -1 Gigadrowse / -1 Commandeer ; +1 Island / +1 Field of Ruin / +1 Blood Moon / +1 Opt ; sideboard changes are -1 Abrade / -1 Pyroclasm / +1 Blood Moon / +1 Anger of the Gods. I like the idea of maindeck Blood Moon, which is often quite powerful, but I don't actually like it out of the sideboard. Most opponents bring in cards like Nature's Claim for our Mines and Dictates, so our opponents are often set up to destroy a Moon post-board. It's also kind of strange to me to have both Field of Ruin and Blood Moon in the same list (Field gives your opponent a basic that makes your Blood Moon much less effective), though I guess it's only one of each so you probably won't have both at the same time. You also don't need to Field if Blood Moon is coming down, so it's less of a nonbo than something like Path to Exile and Blood Moon. I might try testing out a single Blood Moon main, but I don't think I'll add any sideboard. Thanks for the heads up about this list, and thanks to Jeffrey Fernandes for taking a whole lot of turns!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It sounds like we both see Snapcaster Mage & Mission Briefing the same way, just have different preferences. I have considered that the latter might help transform Thing in the Ice faster, but on the other hand, if it was a Remand, you'd have already cast it, right? I'll give them a try in testing.
Regarding Spell Pierce & Dispel, and I meant to address it above, my previous version ran both in the SB. I included the former because Ponza is a very common matchup in my meta, and I want to increase my odds of disrupting an early land-destruction spell, or even Utopia Sprawl. Similarly, vs Mardu and Rock variants, I'd like a chance to counter early hand-disruption spells. It's also solid against burn, where they'll likely tap out aggressively. Against Storm, I want the ability to counter whatever they do first, whether it's a ritual or a search/sift. I cut Dispel when the spreadsheet revealed it was one of the least-used cards overall, and while Spell Pierce isn't always better, it's more versatile. (Maybe my opinion was swayed when I died twice to red Sorceries while holding a Dispel in my hand.)
Great point on the wincons, especially vs a deck like Grixis that runs Surgical Extraction. I'll take your advice on this, and either take out less Things or sneak another option into the sideboard.
I look forward to seeing that report, @timewalkinonsunshine!
Thanks for reinforcing the wincon idea. I'll take a look.
Excellent point about Storm, too. Sideboard for their sideboard ...
I agree 100% with this response. Trickbind is one of my old favorites. If you're going to counter a trigger, though, it had better be game-breaking.
Back when Time Spiral was in Standard ("everybody listen up, an old man is talking!"), we'd Trickbind Suspend triggers, but that mechanic isn't seen much in Modern; we'd Trickbind Storm triggers -- that was backbreaking -- but in Modern, they'll just Remand the Grapeshot, thank you for adding to the Storm count, and play it again; we even had our own version of Trickbinding a fetch land. The point is, even the best things you can do with Trickbind are probably not going to be good enough and/or come up often enough to warrant a place in the 75.
Two weeks ago, I was feeling great about the final matchup of the evening vs Scapeshift. My opponent is a very solid player, who at one time in his pre-offspring days was on the pro tour. The game went long, and I didn't have a mine effect out -- don't remember if I didn't find one, or if he destroyed it. I had just Gigadrowsed most of his G sources on his upkeep, so he could only cast Scapeshift once (I suspected he had two), and I still had four mana up with Remand and Cryptic in hand. He takes a deep breath, fetches a Temple Garden (I thought, "what is that for?") and plays Silence. No, not Stony Silence. Yeah. Just SILENCE. My only play was to Remand and hope to draw another one. I didn't. He won. Because of Silence. SILENCE. Yeah, it's a magic card. In Modern. I remember that now. Cute. Well done, Doug; a third-place finish well-deserved. Sometimes all you can do is shake your head, smile, and offer your hand.
That's what led me to Shadow of Doubt. If I'd had that in hand, I could have one-upped his outside-the-box-tech with some of my own. It's one of those cards I often consider putting in my first 60, but somehow end up cutting completely. Think how often it's relevant. Nearly everyone runs 4-8 fetches, and Tron runs 8 search effects; Sinkhole and draw a card seems good. But how often would the timing line up? It seems at its best in a few matchups like Scapeshift and Eldritch Evolution, which are common enough in my meta to give it a try. I'll let you all know how it goes.
And I sure as heck won't lose to effing Silence again!
Note that my context is very open metas like Grand Prixs. For a local store meta, you might run into Doug again and Shadow of Doubt will be great. Or maybe you just have tons of Scapeshift and Tron in the meta, so it just makes sense to have Shadow of Doubt regardless of whether or not people are playing Silence. But if you plan on taking your deck to a large event like a Grand Prix or SCG Open, I promise you the chances of ever seeing a Silence are tiny. You should prepare for what you're likely to face in the future, not what you happened to face once in the past.
I think he's talking more about a local meta.
*I had success many years ago sideboarding mostly with my friend (yes, 1 person) in mind. I knew out of the 30 something players, he had the best chance of beating me, so I made sure it would be tougher. I realize it's incorrect sideboarding, but it worked!
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I probably should have included at least one emoji to convey the exaggeration of my feelings. I was going for a bit of comedy, there.
You're both right; we should not make any deckbuilding decisions based on emotion, especially frustration. (Fun, on the other hand ... )
That said, I'm still very interested in Shadow of Doubt. It does provide a unique out to some fringe situations, but more importantly, it is relevant in a surprising number of matchups.
Storm players will sometimes try an EOT Gifts Ungiven, especially if they think they'll draw out a Remand, and simply repeat on their own turn as part of the storm. We might even push them into it with Gigadrowse on the Upkeep.
Scapeshift players have little choice -- except for Silence or Vexing Shusher, LOL -- but to try to jam the card and dare us to have the counterspell. Given the opportunity (perhaps we "only left two mana open" after a "desperate" Serum Visions), they will try to get under our Cryptic Command, again having seen Remand already.
We're already so good against Tron, and Boomerang is essentially Time Walk, here, but they do employ at least eight "search spells" that are almost, if not quite, vital to their plans.
A less common matchup, Eldritch Evolution decks are scary-good at abusing their namesake card, and I don't know, but I heard Gaddock Teeg is sort of a problem for us, especially when they play him by "sacrificing" a creature that comes back bigger than before. (OK, fine, I see why you like Lightning Bolt. )
A less likely fit, but still interesting, is the aggressive nature by which Death's Shadow decks activate their numerous fetch lands. Again, Sinkhole and draw a card looks so delicious that it has to at least be worth considering.
All of these decks may acknowledge that we might sideboard in a Negate or two, but can they afford to try and play around it? They'll likely see a risky exchange as, at worst, a one-for-one that steals one of our counterspells and paves the way for their "real" plan. Adding a cantrip to that exchange helps us continue advancing our gameplan.
Also, yes, local meta. But wouldn't you expect to face any of these decks at any given tournament?
TL;DR: funny situations aside, I think this card is worth a serious look. It can set the opponent back a turn or two and hose some plans entirely, all while drawing a card, and at the very least cycle and take a chip off of Thing in the Ice. I'm going to try to get some testing in with it this week. Has anyone else tried it?
For example, Storm can easily have a sequence of turn 1 cantrip, turn 2 cantrip, turn 3 cost reducer, 2x Ritual, Empty the Warrens for 8 tokens, or many other ways to go off that don't involve Gifts Ungiven or fetchlands and therefore don't care about Shadow of Doubt. Scapeshift can easily use Primeval Titan instead of Scapeshift, and even though you stop one of the triggers "for free", you still have to deal with a 6/6 Trampler that will trigger again when it attacks. Tron can use Ancient Stirrings to assemble Tron and not care about Shadow of Doubt at all, or cast Sylvan Scrying on turn 2 on the play before Shadow of Doubt is online. Eldritch Evolution decks can play a value midrange game and win without Evolution. Death's Shadow will probably see your hand with an Inquisition or Thoughtseize before Shadow of Doubt comes online, and they'll know to play around it.
I realize that all of these examples are cherry-picked ways to play around Shadow of Doubt, and anyone can construct similar arguments to argue against any card's conclusion. But I think the two main issues are that these examples are realistic ways that games play out, and that even in situations where you do "get 'em" with Shadow of Doubt, I don't think it's actual powerful enough to change what would have been a loss into a win. It's certainly possible that I'm just not recognizing the upside enough, but I'm not convinced that Shadow of Doubt can justify its place in the sideboard over all of the other options we have available. Of course, testing is 100% a better way to draw conclusions than just speculating like I'm doing, so if you want to try it out then definitely go for it.
And while I have you timewalkinonshine; I really want to try UR now. I had it set up but didn't use it and went back to UW for some tournament a while back.. but watching it perform on camera was pretty awesome.. Just have a couple questions if you don't mind:
-I think you mentioned not liking the drake in the sideboard really? Was wondering what you would recommend for a replacement in that spot? I was thinking something like counter flux might be nice as a one of against storm matchups?
-I see you run Abrade, Pyroclasm, and Anger of the Gods in the sideboard. Was wondering your rationale for the diversity of mass removal? Is it to get around Meddling Mage naming one of them?
-Do you think cutting to 3 snapcaster or 2 in place of Mission briefing would be appropriate or viable? It gives the same flashback utility to bolt but improves on flipping thing when you sideboard them in.. Plus I have been finding that the surveil effect is super useful in this deck.
-Have you tried Chandra, Torch of Defiance? She seems useful in this meta right now. If you are going for creature removal/fast clocks she seems useful as her minus can also kill creatures of 4 toughness and her ultimate is far quicker to reach then Jace.. (I understand he is infinitely better in his drawing and top of deck manipulation) but I could see a 1/1.. Just wondering if you have had any thought on her
Thank you for everything! love when our deck gets screen time haha
Meddling Mage was one consideration. Another was that I wanted a split between artifact destruction, a very cheap sweeper in Pyroclasm, and a more powerful but harder to cast sweeper in Anger of the Gods. Given the presence of Dredge, I wanted to favor Anger of the Gods over Pyroclasm since Pyro does almost nothing against them (I don't even bring it in) whereas Anger can be potentially game-winning if they've committed too many Prized Amalgams and Bloodghasts to the board. Given the Aether Vial decks like Humans and Spirits, Abrade is great because it gives you the flexibility to kill the creatures if they have a normal-looking hand, or the Vial if they've kept a risky one-land Aether Vial hand. Abrade is also a great way to kill Cranial Plating, but those are seeing less play with the rise of Hardened Scales.
Not with this build. This build leans hard on Snapcaster's 2/1 body to win the game over many attack steps, and having access to the full 4 is important. On the other hand, previous builds I've played that relied on Part the Waterveil more than Snapcaster can afford to Surveil 2 instead of get a 2/1 body. Just be aware that in the worst case, I'd rather have a 2/1 than Surveil 2, since at least Snapcaster can chump block in a pinch (or trade with Goblin Guide and the like, a play I've certainly made many times).
I haven't really thought about Chandra, Torch, but I can see why she's powerful. I think to make the best use of her, you really need to leverage both her +1 RR ability and her +1 exile ability well. With how mana hungry this deck is, an extra two red mana is very helpful, and many of our cards interact well with her +1 exile ability. It's kind of a shame that Cryptic Command and Gigadrowse are bad cards to exile, but you'd be pretty happy to cast basically every other spell in the deck. The biggest downside, though, is I think one that she shares with Jace. If you're behind on board on turn 4, which happens often with this deck, it's not always wise to slam a planeswalker since it will probably die to your opponent's creatures, even when you use your walker's minus ability to take one of the creatures out. I'm also not sure that her upsides outweigh Jace's interaction with Temporal Mastery, which is incredibly powerful in this deck. My intuition is that Jace is more powerful, but Chandra, Torch of Defiance's upsides are real enough that she's worth trying out.
Happy to help! Hopefully I'll be able to give Turns a spotlight again at GP Portland
I will say that although I was having fun with the raw mono blue.. a color splash is definitely necessary for competitive play in my opinion. Mono blue doesn't have enough reliable resources in the sideboard to combat the diversity of the format
I do think that with the amount of creature centered fast decks currently in the top portions of the meta, a red or black splash is far better then white at the moment. White provides good resources in like Stony Silence and Terminus but I think bolt is a lot better; and path to exile mainboard was good for a bit but now giving them an extra land in the early game just sets you so far behind!
Firstly, I must admit that I haven’t been tweaking and refining my Turns list at all; since SCG ‘Cuse, I’ve been all-in on Golgari. That said, I was very confident in my Turns list just a month or two ago, but nowadays, when I pick it back up for a change of pace, I’m having significantly worse results than I used to. It seems like the meta has become a lot more hostile, with Infect a significant presence again and decks like Tron and UWC having taken a minor downturn, to name just two factors. While Dredge is not a bad matchup in and of itself, its influence on the meta does not seem to have worked to our benefit. It’s been discouraging to say the least, particularly in contrast to my results on Golgari, which have been consistently stellar.
I was thinking about trying out some of the maindeck Thing builds—perhaps with Mission Briefing—that I saw a few pages back, but the most recent posts ITT have me wondering whether splashing a color has become obligatory. I sure hope not, but at the same time I don’t wish to deny reality. Any thoughts?
On a related note, I have no intentions of selling out of this deck or anything, but I maayyyy have been a little overzealous in aggressively beginning to foil it out. I simply don’t get to play paper often enough to justify having two decks filled with shiny cards, and with UMA about to bring us those BGx borderless reprints...well, I think the time has come to part with my foil copies of Turns cards. I mention this here just because I wouldn’t mind giving anyone here who’s interested in foiling their deck a decent hookup. My list can be found here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/combo/768745-taking-turns?page=109#c2186 . Just about everything there is foiled, with a few exceptions (Time Warps, Gigadrowses, Exhaustions, Chalices). PM me if you’re interested! I’ll hold off for a week on listing them elsewhere to give people ITT a chance to get at me.
Finally, I’d like to get some more Turns content up on the YouTube channel and at this point I wouldn’t mind taking someone else’s list for a spin, or at least using it as a starting point. Anyone been crushing it lately with a monoblue list? Can’t justify buying into a splash color at the moment.
Apologies for the wall of text! Hope you’re all doing well.
YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
Mono U turns are pretty stock. My mono U list has 68/75 cards with your list. Maybe trying out a splash with cards that you currently have be better?
My SB has grafdiggers and relic. Mainly to stop coco and vizer decks. I'm looking for ways to stop spirits with Mono U but its pretty atrocious currently. I'm on a 2-11 losing streak against both UW and bant spirits currently.
I will be testing out Sphinx of the Final Word but I've a feeling it is still too slow
I haven't been playing as much lately (maybe 2 to 3 times a month with the deck) but have noticed that the format is getting to a point of diversity that is hard to answer in one color.
I think in pervious metas there was a dominant type like control where there were a lot of top tier decks but jeskai/UW/Death Shadow stood out. Or aggro/creature based decks were the leaders of the format. During those times I think mono blue shined better because you could kind of get away with hedging the sideboard to favor in those matchups. I think now there is too much diversity with a lot of decks all being really good.
Adding a color splash definitely feels right from my testing, but I totally understand not wanting to invest money into it at the moment.
I actually had a friend over and I had sleeved black/white/red variants and play tested them against proxied matchups and found red and black to be about even in the games we played. White was a little less favored in specific matchups (especially in UW control/Jeskai where the sideboard lacked strong resources other than additional counter magic) I think in those matchups red was more favored just because bolt adds a faster clock.
I think I liked the UB variant a little more and it suited my play style though because fatal push is an incredibly reliable creature removal spell and having access to thought seize and inquisition as well as surgical extraction seems to be a useful strategy right now. That along with Bontu's last reckoning kind of worked as a strong sideboard that hit all of the bases.
These are my opinions as of recently, but I am always up for debate! Like I said, these come from two days of playing magic to get away from the constant studying of nursing school lol so it isn't like it is a month of playing or anything like that by any means
That said, your post and your channel inspired me to start making some content, so here's a Competitive Modern League with UR Turns. I'm open to suggestions on improvement (both in terms of deck construction or gameplay, and in terms of video creation), so let me know any feedback!
So I am off for school break and spent the last couple days with a friend doing some more heavy play testing..
If you guys would like, I have a pretty detailed breakdown for color splashes that him and I have been working on that I could share here..
Just been working on UB/UR/UW variants with different sideboard options.. Luckly I have a lot of cards in paper so it was easy to do a lot of testing
That's kind of what I have going right now.. Working on an excel spreadsheet of sideboard options. Tried experimenting with Geist and there seems to be some promise there
Yeah, Spirits seem to be a real hurdle, especially for monoU. Unfortunately, I don't happen to own much in the way of anything splashable...the consequences of too much wheeling and dealing with spare cards!
Ha! True enough.
You might be right, Z. A combination of speed, linearity, and diversity in the format is doing monoU no favors.
Wow, man, this is exiting stuff! I was feeling a little guilty lately, having started off my channel playing Golgari and Turns about equally, and then not releasing any Turns content for a long while...but now the burden has been lifted. I withdraw in the presence of the master. But for real, when I get the time to watch the league I'll be certain to give you my thoughts! Very happy to see our archetype's most recognizable player establish a presence on youtube.
That's a pretty rough collection of matchups in general, so the fact that you came out feeling optimistic about any variant is a great sign.
Red, eh? A few months back I was pretty convinced UR wasn't where we wanted to be; but times change, and perhaps I was even wrong back then.
If so, that'll be a bitter pill to swallow. I hate red.
(Last call on foils, btw! Tomorrow I'll begin listing them.)
YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
For what it's worth, the deck still feels very blue! Blue-red is much more tempo-y than other builds though (at least the way that I built it), so you do need to assess if you're the beatdown more often than with more controlling builds.
You should definitely test adding 1-2 Mission Briefing though! From what i've played so far, reducing to 3 Snapcaster doesn't take away from having that added pressure; but mission briefing is good because it digs for flashback. In one of my games I played against elves I was able to cast Mission briefing - surveil a bolt - and then bolt their creature.. I can see that sort of interaction happening often and being extremely useful.
Also, side note - not sure if you saw but apparently someone just placed well in a smaller Starcity tournament running a similar UR list to yours but added one mainboard Blood Moon and one in the side.. Not sure if you tried it yet. I was on the fence at first but it is a card that can just win games on the spot as people have mentioned.
Thanks again to you guys for always keeping the conversation going! Hope to see more on the youtube soon! (FROM BOTH OF YOU.... Grim Flayer *cough cough*) lol jk
I have a few concerns about Mission Briefing, but they're relatively mild. Mainly, I'm not convinced that Surveil 2 is better than a 2/1 body often enough to fully justify running Briefing over the 4th Snapcaster. It's great in the scenario you described, but I feel like in a worst-case scenario where your opponent is presenting a fast clock, have a 2/1 available to chump block (or sometimes trade) seems better. This could definitely be a case of me overestimating the downsides and underestimating the upsides, so I'll give it a shot in testing.
Jeffrey Fernandes' UR turns, 6th place at an SCG IQ. The list is really interesting, and definitely super similar to my build from GP Atlanta. Maindeck changes look like -1 Steam Vents / -1 Gemstone Caverns / -1 Gigadrowse / -1 Commandeer ; +1 Island / +1 Field of Ruin / +1 Blood Moon / +1 Opt ; sideboard changes are -1 Abrade / -1 Pyroclasm / +1 Blood Moon / +1 Anger of the Gods. I like the idea of maindeck Blood Moon, which is often quite powerful, but I don't actually like it out of the sideboard. Most opponents bring in cards like Nature's Claim for our Mines and Dictates, so our opponents are often set up to destroy a Moon post-board. It's also kind of strange to me to have both Field of Ruin and Blood Moon in the same list (Field gives your opponent a basic that makes your Blood Moon much less effective), though I guess it's only one of each so you probably won't have both at the same time. You also don't need to Field if Blood Moon is coming down, so it's less of a nonbo than something like Path to Exile and Blood Moon. I might try testing out a single Blood Moon main, but I don't think I'll add any sideboard. Thanks for the heads up about this list, and thanks to Jeffrey Fernandes for taking a whole lot of turns!