Agreed. UW control is nowhere near good enough right now, even with all the new toys. A straight control build pretty much autoloses to RDW. If you go with Dovin's Acuity/Revitalize to stay ahead of them then you lose to something like Grixis which just grinds much more effectively than you. In fact, I don't think a pure UW control deck can reliably beat Grixis no matter how you build it. The New Bolas is the real deal, they have up to 8 hand destruction spells, Thief of Sanity, Angrath's edict (or whatever it's called) for our Teferi's... it's just a whole bucket of nope.
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
And yet there are still some mad lads like Coluche to try and make UW Control works. Here is the list he used to 5-0 a MTGO Competitive Leage: https://aetherhub.com/Deck/Public/107028#
I have not tried that list and to be fair it seems a bit all over the place to me. Nevertheless, it contains a lot of new cards and I think they add something to the deck. I have tried to tune my own list and I have tested a lot of the WAR additions.
Dovin's Veto is a must-have, there is absolutely no reason to keep playing Negate instead of this one. The mana is no obstacle for UW and it just shut down any non-creature spell our opponent tries to cast. It's one of our only answer to planeswaklers so I suggest playing a full set at the moment.
Prison Realm is the new (and only) card given to white for dealing with Planeswalkers. It's far from optimal so I tend to keep it in the sideboard and bring two if I face a PW-heavy deck. I play two Deputy of Detention main deck instead as the card is more flexible.
Gideon's Triumph has left me on the fence. It's instant and it targets the player so ideal if you try to kill a pesky Carnage Tyrant with minimal cost. It's also a good way to remove a blocker if you're using a creature as finisher. But it doesn't kill creatures that stay out of fights and it loses most of its power when the opponent attacks with multiple creatures. Overall, the card doesn't feel better than Seal Away most of the time.
Time Wipe I haven't really had the occasion to cast it but I can see it replacing Cleansing Nova. It has some nice interaction with Deputy of Detention and Elite Guardmage and it can't really be used by our opponent if it get stolen by a Thief of Sanity (getting hit by the alternative mode of your ownCleansing Novais a hard feeling to forget).
Commence the endgame is a goodway to finish your games but it feels like "win-more" card most of the time. Not sold on this one.
Narset, Parter of veils is a good SB card to me and I bring her in every time I face Control or Reclamation decks. She really messes with their gameplan and allow us to retake control of those games.
Teferi, Time Raveler seems very situational to me. Sometime it's great, especially against deck able to cast any type of counter magic but it can also feel mostly useless. I haven't been able to use the +1 ability so far but the -3 can be a lifesaver. I'm thinking about creating a shell suited to this card (wiht sorceries like Tamiyo's Epiphanyand UW Finales for example) but I'm not sure if it's worth it...
Ugin, The Ineffable is great but a bit underwhelming considering his casting cost. You expect a 6 mana card to close the game but it's not what Ugin does. However, he does give you card advantage and board presence with his +1 while the -3 ability can bring an answer to the main threat on the board.
And yet there are still some mad lads like Coluche to try and make UW Control works. Here is the list he used to 5-0 a MTGO Competitive Leage: https://aetherhub.com/Deck/Public/107028#
This list is strictly UW and only has three each of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Absorb??
Yeah I was also surprised by these numbers although I think 3 Teferi HOD is a good number if you try to diversify your threats.
To expand on the new cards I've tested in UW Control so far:
Finale of glory can be an alternative wincon in grindy match-ups. It's also one of the few cards to synergize well with Teferi, Time Raveler's +1.
Blast Zone I really like the card and I've tried hard to make it work with the deck. The biggest problem is that UW removal are mostly permanents (Seal Away, Prison Realm, Deputy of Detention, etc) so you can't always trigger your blast without consequences for you own board. I've tried to build around this card in a deck with less permanents, Crucible of worlds and a set of Field of ruin in order to punish the 3 colored decks but it didn't felt very strong.
Elite Guardmage is a good creature with a perfect ETB for our deck, it survives Shock and Moment Of Craving so that's that. It also has a nice interaction with Time Wipe but it lacks a bit of toughtness to make the cut to my mind. Personnaly I prefer my UW Control deck as creatureless as possible.
Narset's Reversal can go from game-changing to useless depending on who you're facing and when you have it in hand. It can make for some nice plays againt jump-started card notably. I would take it as a side-board card mostly.
The Wanderer is also a side-board card which comes in handy against Burn decks, Izzet and Aristocrats strategy. It almost feels designed to counter Niv-Mizzet, Parun as you won't take damage from your opponent drawing and you'll be able to exile him with the -2 capacity. Against Aristocrat decks it allows us to freely wipe the board without having to worry about the damage caused by Cruel Celebrant for example.
God-Eternal Oketra can be a nice finisher, this card hits hard and is difficult to remove. Nevertheless, the trigger ability doesn't seem suited to UW Control as we won't have many creatures to cast.
Augur of Bolas not really a new card but one who can alway find a place in control-orientated shells. I can't say that it works without the proper build. It has a tendency to whiff most of the time as we don't only play instant or sorceries but also many enchantements and PW.
There are still a few cards to consider in this set: God-Eternal Kefnet of course, Dovin, Hand of Control could be a nice tech but our 3CMC slot is already full, Single Combat could wipe a heavy PW board but it still leave our opponent with his best card and Mobilized District to have a blocker and a creature to pressure our opponent's PW.
All in all, I think UW Control is in a better spot than before War of the Spark but it still feels underpowered when compared to Esper Control. Our answers are way less flexible compared to theirs and we still can't deal with PW at instant speed. If you add the fact that they have access to hand disruption and the best sweeper since a very long time in the form of Kaya's Wrath, I think Esper Control will stay the best deck for a long time. Right now the only upside seems to be the mana-base but it's not much to brag about.
So people have been asking about U/W control for a while and I just didn't see any cool finisher for this deck to go about, and since everyone was dead set on Esper control I gave up on this Azorius combination, until today.
I played against many decks that run all planeswalkers as win conditions both Esper, Grixis or 4 color variant and it gave me an idea of stalling the game while we control our opponent's hand. However, I wanted to run only Azorius as a true U/W control and I wanted to "lock" the opponent from playing many spells.
I remembered a strange Ixalan card that I tried to make work back in Ixalan standard and I tried it in a Dimir deck but the deck couldn't survive long enough to get it to work, but now with so many planeswalkers I believe it's the time for this card to shine since it can stop the opp from playing planeswalkers for good.
So first I will post the deck, which has just been made and I haven't had time to test it yet, I want to take it Standard showdown at my store which is very competitive (30-40 people) and see how it does.
There is a Dimir deck playing induced amnesia but they are going for more discard and of course they also play narset for the lock. On top of that I am going all out with oath of teferi which also helps to exile amnesia and bring it back for more hand exiling shenanigans.
So, the main point is to get narset out then induced amnesia so that your opp can only draw 1 card and they are in top deck mode for the rest of the game.
If for some reason you don't get narset or she dies then I can do many things with induced amnesia because the opp can have their hand back if induced amnesia goes to the graveyard so if I exile it with release to the wind or oath of teferi they don't get their hand back.
If I bounce it with teferi, time raveler, or with blink of an eye then they also don't get their hand back, and when I cast it again they have to exile their new hand and draw more cards, so it becomes a mill deck.
The planeswalkers are there to buy time, Narset will lock the game down, Dovin and Kasmina will buy time, Teferi will help with the combo and Ugin is there as an alt win condition by making spirits or also helping us stay alive. I am also testing one lone karn's bastion to see if it's worth playing in the deck.
I will try to test the deck today and then see what changes I need to make, the sideboard is a mess but against aggro decks of course I'll bring in Cleansing Nova and inspiring cleric as well as the wanderer against mono red decks.
The spyglass is against Bolas, Liliana and Teferi hero of Dominaria because I don't play those in my deck so it's safe to shut them down, also against Sarkhan if people play him.
To make a long story short I got my ass kicked at standard showdown on Saturday going 1-2 out of 3 rounds. The reasons for my loses were not even because of the deck per se but still related to it.
In the first round I played against Selesnya tokens and both games I stalled at 4 lands while my opp was up to 5 lands and so I was not able to cast my sweepers since I only had settle the wreckage in hand but the opp had one or two tithe takers out so I didn't have enough mana to cast it. I probably would've won if I could sweep the board both games.
In the second round I beat a red white aggro deck because the first game took about 35 minutes and I locked him down with my combo and when he was about 8 or 9 cards away from decking he scooped and in the second game we didn't have enough time to finish after time and 5 turns so I won.
In the third round I lost to the W/B knights deck because of....mobilized district. My deck has no way to deal with it except for the 3 settle the wreckage main and he played around settle attacking only with his knights if I had mana open and then with the land if I tapped some mana, he also stripped my hand in game 2 with a turn 1 duress and turn 2 duress.
So first round I lost to mana screw basically drawing 4 lands max in 7-8 turns with a deck that runs 25 lands. The second round I won by outplaying my opponent and the third round I lost to a card I didn't expect to see and against which I had only 3 ways to deal with it
However this was my first ever tourney with this deck so now I will make some changes and post the new deck below:
So basically field of ruin is to deal with mobilized district or other non-basic lands that may be troublesome. Kefnet is another win condition, or the main win condition of decking the opponent doesn't work. Narset is in the side because she is good against control decks mostly so I need another card main to deal with other decks.
And I took out the absorbs to make room for thought collapse since I'm going full mill now and it's easier to cast due to running 5 lands that give colorless mana.
Last but not least Jace and Ashiok are there to help with the mill of the opponent's deck, with oath of teferi I can use their abilities twice in one turn and when Ashiok is at 1 I can bounce it to my hand, or exile it and get it back again with full counters.
As a matter of fact, I have had the exact same idea with Induced Amnesia and Narset / Teferi. The difference is that I started from a mill deck. The good thing with Amnesia is that it can both deprive opponent of cards and be your own super draw engine if you can bounce / flicker it. I will investigate further in the coming days.
As a matter of fact, I have had the exact same idea with Induced Amnesia and Narset / Teferi. The difference is that I started from a mill deck. The good thing with Amnesia is that it can both deprive opponent of cards and be your own super draw engine if you can bounce / flicker it. I will investigate further in the coming days.
You mean if you destroy it, if you bounce it the cards stay exiled. That's how I mill them, keep bouncing it and exiling their cards.
The sick part is ashiok used twice with oath of teferi out, then bounced, cast again and milling more.
I'm not even sure I need Jace, people have been scooping on arena just ashiok recursion.
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"May he who is without mana cast the first spell!"
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https://aetherhub.com/Deck/Public/107028#
I have not tried that list and to be fair it seems a bit all over the place to me. Nevertheless, it contains a lot of new cards and I think they add something to the deck. I have tried to tune my own list and I have tested a lot of the WAR additions.
Dovin's Veto is a must-have, there is absolutely no reason to keep playing Negate instead of this one. The mana is no obstacle for UW and it just shut down any non-creature spell our opponent tries to cast. It's one of our only answer to planeswaklers so I suggest playing a full set at the moment.
Prison Realm is the new (and only) card given to white for dealing with Planeswalkers. It's far from optimal so I tend to keep it in the sideboard and bring two if I face a PW-heavy deck. I play two Deputy of Detention main deck instead as the card is more flexible.
Gideon's Triumph has left me on the fence. It's instant and it targets the player so ideal if you try to kill a pesky Carnage Tyrant with minimal cost. It's also a good way to remove a blocker if you're using a creature as finisher. But it doesn't kill creatures that stay out of fights and it loses most of its power when the opponent attacks with multiple creatures. Overall, the card doesn't feel better than Seal Away most of the time.
Time Wipe I haven't really had the occasion to cast it but I can see it replacing Cleansing Nova. It has some nice interaction with Deputy of Detention and Elite Guardmage and it can't really be used by our opponent if it get stolen by a Thief of Sanity (getting hit by the alternative mode of your ownCleansing Novais a hard feeling to forget).
Commence the endgame is a goodway to finish your games but it feels like "win-more" card most of the time. Not sold on this one.
Narset, Parter of veils is a good SB card to me and I bring her in every time I face Control or Reclamation decks. She really messes with their gameplan and allow us to retake control of those games.
Teferi, Time Raveler seems very situational to me. Sometime it's great, especially against deck able to cast any type of counter magic but it can also feel mostly useless. I haven't been able to use the +1 ability so far but the -3 can be a lifesaver. I'm thinking about creating a shell suited to this card (wiht sorceries like Tamiyo's Epiphanyand UW Finales for example) but I'm not sure if it's worth it...
Ugin, The Ineffable is great but a bit underwhelming considering his casting cost. You expect a 6 mana card to close the game but it's not what Ugin does. However, he does give you card advantage and board presence with his +1 while the -3 ability can bring an answer to the main threat on the board.
I'll continue my review of the new card later.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
To expand on the new cards I've tested in UW Control so far:
Finale of glory can be an alternative wincon in grindy match-ups. It's also one of the few cards to synergize well with Teferi, Time Raveler's +1.
Blast Zone I really like the card and I've tried hard to make it work with the deck. The biggest problem is that UW removal are mostly permanents (Seal Away, Prison Realm, Deputy of Detention, etc) so you can't always trigger your blast without consequences for you own board. I've tried to build around this card in a deck with less permanents, Crucible of worlds and a set of Field of ruin in order to punish the 3 colored decks but it didn't felt very strong.
Elite Guardmage is a good creature with a perfect ETB for our deck, it survives Shock and Moment Of Craving so that's that. It also has a nice interaction with Time Wipe but it lacks a bit of toughtness to make the cut to my mind. Personnaly I prefer my UW Control deck as creatureless as possible.
Narset's Reversal can go from game-changing to useless depending on who you're facing and when you have it in hand. It can make for some nice plays againt jump-started card notably. I would take it as a side-board card mostly.
The Wanderer is also a side-board card which comes in handy against Burn decks, Izzet and Aristocrats strategy. It almost feels designed to counter Niv-Mizzet, Parun as you won't take damage from your opponent drawing and you'll be able to exile him with the -2 capacity. Against Aristocrat decks it allows us to freely wipe the board without having to worry about the damage caused by Cruel Celebrant for example.
God-Eternal Oketra can be a nice finisher, this card hits hard and is difficult to remove. Nevertheless, the trigger ability doesn't seem suited to UW Control as we won't have many creatures to cast.
Augur of Bolas not really a new card but one who can alway find a place in control-orientated shells. I can't say that it works without the proper build. It has a tendency to whiff most of the time as we don't only play instant or sorceries but also many enchantements and PW.
There are still a few cards to consider in this set: God-Eternal Kefnet of course, Dovin, Hand of Control could be a nice tech but our 3CMC slot is already full, Single Combat could wipe a heavy PW board but it still leave our opponent with his best card and Mobilized District to have a blocker and a creature to pressure our opponent's PW.
All in all, I think UW Control is in a better spot than before War of the Spark but it still feels underpowered when compared to Esper Control. Our answers are way less flexible compared to theirs and we still can't deal with PW at instant speed. If you add the fact that they have access to hand disruption and the best sweeper since a very long time in the form of Kaya's Wrath, I think Esper Control will stay the best deck for a long time. Right now the only upside seems to be the mana-base but it's not much to brag about.
So people have been asking about U/W control for a while and I just didn't see any cool finisher for this deck to go about, and since everyone was dead set on Esper control I gave up on this Azorius combination, until today.
I played against many decks that run all planeswalkers as win conditions both Esper, Grixis or 4 color variant and it gave me an idea of stalling the game while we control our opponent's hand. However, I wanted to run only Azorius as a true U/W control and I wanted to "lock" the opponent from playing many spells.
I remembered a strange Ixalan card that I tried to make work back in Ixalan standard and I tried it in a Dimir deck but the deck couldn't survive long enough to get it to work, but now with so many planeswalkers I believe it's the time for this card to shine since it can stop the opp from playing planeswalkers for good.
As you may have guessed the card is induced amnesia!
So first I will post the deck, which has just been made and I haven't had time to test it yet, I want to take it Standard showdown at my store which is very competitive (30-40 people) and see how it does.
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Interplanar Beacon
1 Karn's Bastion
7 Plains
6 Plains
Spells
4 Absorb
3 Dovin's Veto
3 Settle the wreckage
3 Time wipe
2 Blink of an eye
2 Release to the wind
3 Induced Amnesia
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Oath of Teferi
Planeswalkers
3 Teferi, time raveler
2 Ugin, the ineffable
3 narset, parter of veils
1 Kasmina, enigmatic mentor
1 Dovin, hand of control
Creatures
2 Deputy of detention
3 Cleansing Nova
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 River's rebuke
2 Commence the endgame
2 the wanderer
2 Inspiring Cleric
2 Mass manipulation
There is a Dimir deck playing induced amnesia but they are going for more discard and of course they also play narset for the lock. On top of that I am going all out with oath of teferi which also helps to exile amnesia and bring it back for more hand exiling shenanigans.
So, the main point is to get narset out then induced amnesia so that your opp can only draw 1 card and they are in top deck mode for the rest of the game.
If for some reason you don't get narset or she dies then I can do many things with induced amnesia because the opp can have their hand back if induced amnesia goes to the graveyard so if I exile it with release to the wind or oath of teferi they don't get their hand back.
If I bounce it with teferi, time raveler, or with blink of an eye then they also don't get their hand back, and when I cast it again they have to exile their new hand and draw more cards, so it becomes a mill deck.
During this time the deck tries to survive with deputy of detention and time wipecombo, or with settle the wreckage against aggro decks.
The planeswalkers are there to buy time, Narset will lock the game down, Dovin and Kasmina will buy time, Teferi will help with the combo and Ugin is there as an alt win condition by making spirits or also helping us stay alive. I am also testing one lone karn's bastion to see if it's worth playing in the deck.
I will try to test the deck today and then see what changes I need to make, the sideboard is a mess but against aggro decks of course I'll bring in Cleansing Nova and inspiring cleric as well as the wanderer against mono red decks.
Against control decks I will bring in river's rebuke which can be cast as an instant with teferi, as well as commence the endgame.
And against super friends decks I will bring in sorcerous spyglass as well as mass manipulation..
The spyglass is against Bolas, Liliana and Teferi hero of Dominaria because I don't play those in my deck so it's safe to shut them down, also against Sarkhan if people play him.
Let me know what you think!
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To make a long story short I got my ass kicked at standard showdown on Saturday going 1-2 out of 3 rounds. The reasons for my loses were not even because of the deck per se but still related to it.
In the first round I played against Selesnya tokens and both games I stalled at 4 lands while my opp was up to 5 lands and so I was not able to cast my sweepers since I only had settle the wreckage in hand but the opp had one or two tithe takers out so I didn't have enough mana to cast it. I probably would've won if I could sweep the board both games.
In the second round I beat a red white aggro deck because the first game took about 35 minutes and I locked him down with my combo and when he was about 8 or 9 cards away from decking he scooped and in the second game we didn't have enough time to finish after time and 5 turns so I won.
In the third round I lost to the W/B knights deck because of....mobilized district. My deck has no way to deal with it except for the 3 settle the wreckage main and he played around settle attacking only with his knights if I had mana open and then with the land if I tapped some mana, he also stripped my hand in game 2 with a turn 1 duress and turn 2 duress.
So first round I lost to mana screw basically drawing 4 lands max in 7-8 turns with a deck that runs 25 lands. The second round I won by outplaying my opponent and the third round I lost to a card I didn't expect to see and against which I had only 3 ways to deal with it
However this was my first ever tourney with this deck so now I will make some changes and post the new deck below:
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Interplanar Beacon
2 Field of ruin
7 Islands
5 Plains
Spells
3 Thought Collapse
3 Dovin's Veto
3 Settle the wreckage
3 Time wipe
2 Blink of an eye
3 Release to the wind
2 Induced Amnesia
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Oath of Teferi
Planeswalkers
3 Teferi, time raveler
2 Jace, wielder of mysteries
3 Ashiok, dream render
Creatures
3 Deputy of detention
2 God-Eternal Kefnet
3 Cleansing Nova
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 River's rebuke
2 Commence the endgame
2 the wanderer
3 narset, parter of veils
2 Mass manipulation
So basically field of ruin is to deal with mobilized district or other non-basic lands that may be troublesome. Kefnet is another win condition, or the main win condition of decking the opponent doesn't work. Narset is in the side because she is good against control decks mostly so I need another card main to deal with other decks.
And I took out the absorbs to make room for thought collapse since I'm going full mill now and it's easier to cast due to running 5 lands that give colorless mana.
Last but not least Jace and Ashiok are there to help with the mill of the opponent's deck, with oath of teferi I can use their abilities twice in one turn and when Ashiok is at 1 I can bounce it to my hand, or exile it and get it back again with full counters.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
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You mean if you destroy it, if you bounce it the cards stay exiled. That's how I mill them, keep bouncing it and exiling their cards.
The sick part is ashiok used twice with oath of teferi out, then bounced, cast again and milling more.
I'm not even sure I need Jace, people have been scooping on arena just ashiok recursion.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
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