The last time I did a tournament, I went 3-1-1 at an FNM with this deck, losing to Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp and mana screw. With being mana screwed in that loss, I decided to remove a Declaration In Stone for another Island. When I tell you that having 25 lands in this deck does wonders, it does.
Saturday, August 13th:
We went to an early prerelease nearby. There was only 14 of us at this prerelease and I was getting excited because I wanted that Liliana playmat. Pairings got underway and my first match was:
Vs R/W Humans 2-1
Game one: He got me down to 4 life and had five creatures on the board. On turn 5 I used Planar Outburst to reset the board. He had 2 cards in hand and I had 4. Next turn he played two more creatures. On my next turn I played a land and passed. He swung in for "game" but I casted Ojutai's Command to gain 4 life and to return Curious Homunculus from the graveyard to the battlefield. Next turn, Voracious Reader showed his face and I casted Anticipate to find another Ojutai's Command. Passed. He played another creature and passed, so I did the same commands as last time. Next turn, I casted Part the Waterveil for 7 and animated a plains. I swung out and forced him to chump block. Next turn, I played DiS on the creature he didn't block with and swung for 14. I had 2 Summary Dismissal ready to go even though I had 8 life at this point.
Game two: He overran me with creatures and I never found a Planar Outburst.
Game three: Turn 5 Planar Outburst blew him out again. He couldn't recover. Got me down to 2 with that three drop burn spell that does 4 and can't be countered. Voracious Reader is a disgusting card in this deck and beat him down.
First game: a Voracious Reader allowed all of my counterspells to cost two and after awakening Part The Waterveil and swinging for 19 in two turns did the job.
Third game: two Voracious Reader and Summary Dismissal allowed me to completely dictate and control the board and what spells resolved and didn't. For the spells that I allowed to resolve, which was mostly creatures, I would use either DiS or Reflector Mage to keep my tempo up.
Game one: I Void Shatter his first two Crush of Tentacles, used Reflector Mage and Declaration In Stone on his 4Den Protector and when he resolved a third Crush with surge, he bounced back Reflector Mage. His deck plays at the tempo of a control deck without counter spells so I enjoyed being able to have six cards in hand at the end of this game.
Game two: More of the same. Instead, Invasive Surgery was sided in (so close to having Delirium). I countered all four Crush of Tentacles and he was destroyed by flipped Curious Homunculus. Jace, Unraveler of Secrets came down after I countered the second Crush and allowed me to completely control everything I needed; if I needed to draw a card I could. If I needed to bounce a creature, I could. Highlight was him only having one card in hand (Emrakul, the Promised End) and me having two Summary Dismissal ready for anything.
Game one: I made my opponent mad because he couldn't resolve a spell on me and Curious Homunculus destroyed him.
Game two: He got the god-hand of the deck, according to him. I also sideboarded in wrong (Invasive Surgery instead of Negate). He resolved Ulamog and I scooped it up.
The last guy I went against decided he would rather not embarrass himself again so he gave me the win if I could beat him game one. I crushed him game one with the same aspects from the above description. My buddy was going against the G/U Crush individual and lost to him in three. When that player saw that I was the person keeping him from getting the playmat, he just said "I'm not going to embarrass myself. I can't beat control with this deck." So I went 6-0, won the playmat and then bought one pack to treat myself and pulled...Liliana, the Last Hope. It was absolutely ridiculous of a day.
I'll put the deck list up when I get home; I'm typing this at work currently in between calls.
This deck loses Ojutai's Command from the mainboard and Cleric and Tragic from the sideboard in October. That's all it loses. I also have to make sure this is the right deck. I did it off the top of my head.
I really like your deck, as I'm a huuuuuuuuuuge fan of draw-go. I have most of the card sin MTGO so I'll give it a spin. However, I feel you are light on card draw. Fortune's favor is a card that I had great experience with. Also, a 3-1 split between FF and scour the laboratory is pretty great, because FF helps you enable delirium; instant speed draw 3 at 4 cost is great (much better than the comparative analysis deal). Your deck has lands (I'd add some evolving wilds), instants, creatures and enchantments. If you added a sorcery (take inventory works great with loot effects) or planeswalker, the FF and the loot from GRS might help you get delirium for a late game StL.
But delirium isn't what I'm trying to achieve with it. Yeah, there isn't much card draw but there was never a time where I didn't have more cards in hand than my opponent. Hitting Delirium for Invasive Surgery would be cool but not essential. Being able to counter ramp spells, Crush, Part The Waterveil, Harmless Offering, that tutor with spell mastery, etc for 1 is great.
I would like to see a control shell with Scour The Labratory in it.
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I was actually responding to @Morimacil (not sure why it didn't show that way) but I also like your deck alot. I know you are not trying to get delirium, but given how you made your deck you probably will in the mid/late game (instant sorcery and creature naturally get in the yard as you play, and either a walker or a land will eventually get there, specially if you play evolving wilds which is not terrible). If you make space for fortune's favor as card draw (prhaps instead of big jace? It has the advantage of costing 4 and being instant, so you can keep up overwhelming denial or smumary dismissal, and if there is nothing worth countering, you go for the card draw instead), you not only get card draw, but you make the chances of late game delirium quite high. Late game, when your opponent is topdecking, hitting the bonus on eithe rthe delirium card I mentioned or you mentioned can be great.
In the BUG seasons past thread I posted a BUG control (its tap-out though) that has a late game recursion via SP. Since I had 6 card types naturally in the deck (land, sorcery, instant, creature with Jace, enchantment with oath of Jace, and planeswalker with ObNixilis) it made sense to add a 1-of scour. In that deck I drew sooooooo many cards out of SP that it ended up being a "win more" situation lots of the time, but in a deck without access to the green sphinx's revelation (as Reid Duke called it!), it could be made to work. I'll try a UW draw-go deck w/it and post it here for you guys to comment. However, I feel that black is quite essential to control (ultimate price for the x/5s, grasp for early plays, and disruption for their Eldrazi seems quite necessary), so I'm not sure how far I'll get with a competitive UW deck...
I mean I did pretty well on Saturday. I also play tested against BW control and Bant Coco. It's about knowing what to counter based on the way your opponent is playing and his confidence in playing spells against blue. If you get someone to think they won't resolve a spell, they'll misplay or wait until you tap out. It happened at least 10 times at Game Day.
Yeah. Scour The Labratory is an interesting card indeed. Maybe comparative analysis instead of Ojutai's Command? It could work.
The discount granted by Voracious Reader makes everything much more pleasing to the eye.
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Tried a new deck based on some inspiration i found here. I'm not sure how good it is now, but i'll post later if testing online keeps going well. I'll say this though: that voracious reader + Ojutai Command combo is the bomb! I won a match vs a Green ramp eldrazi deck that got me down to 1 island (thank you Ulamog and World breakers chained together!) but the dicount provided by the little critter (I had 2 of them out) + the prowess pulled me ahead. Casting Confirm suspicions for 1UU was a dream come true! Now, let's see if I can cast it for UU next time
Aoutp: 1.- You are right, red/winnie strats are a pain, the lack of languish really hurts, since planar outburst is far too slow sometimes. As it stands, the best answer I have is this: hope that creature weenie decks (like WW) are pushed out of the format by Bant, and deal with the UR burn deck w/ cheap counters post board (invasive surgery, dispel), enchantment removal (felidar cub + Ojutai's command), some lifegain, and maybe orbs of warding to prevent burn (against WW, again, it's too slow).
2.- The plans I'm working on include: quarantine field, attacking them with flash creatures and/or tokens from the WX instant that puts X 1/1s into play (I'm blanking on the name. The problem with this plan is that many walkers, like liliana, make attacking with a single creature hard because of their shrining effects. Another route is to play an awoken Part the Waterveil: you hit them for 12 total (across two turns) and that should deal with his walker (or even his life total, if he is at less than 12). There is little instant speed removal that can deal with the land (price can't touch it because it has no color, anguished unmaking can't touch it because it's still a land, so you should only be worried by murder or stasis snare, but both cards see very little play so you are mostly safe.)
The main issue I'm having is man-lands. The lack of instant speed removal (besides stasis snare), and the lack of out own manlands, really hurts.
Bottom line: at this point, I'm still unconvinced UW is better than variants using B (Epser, UB, WB). I love the draw-go aspect of this, so I'm still testing, and its fine FNM material, but if I had a big tournament (a GP or a big cash tournament) and I wanted to play control, I'd probably sleeve up a tap-out black variant (once you go black, transgress the mind, ruinous path, liliana, languish... they all sort of force a more tap-out direction)
I beat R/W Humans handily. The point is to not become worried about always countering. Using Curious Homunculus to block a 2/1 creature and then bring it back with Ojutai's Command (and draw) is a solid move against them. I did that in my matches. Oh Always Watching? Counter it. If you misplay with this deck you will lose. I wish I could've recorded my matches to show how it works in play and not through this forum.
I should make a list of cards that shouldn't resolve or that you should get rid of when they resolve. As far as hands that I keep, I keep two land hands if I have Anticipate or Curious Homunculus. Three land hands otherwise.
Summary Dismissal can counter planeswalker ultimates and abilities. You shouldn't be tapping out more than twice on your turn with my deck (Curious Homunculus and one planeswalker). What is there to worry about? Lily getting to 7 then the look on your opponent's face when you counter its ultimate is priceless. Once they have less cards than you in hand, you're winning.
There's a reason why BW Control won the last Pro Tour. They didn't need the blue because that puts a constraint on the deck in general.
I found that while he was a good finisher, it just is not needed in this standard currently. I'll change the thread title if I can to UW Homunculus Control if the name bothers individuals.
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I agree that in weenie matchups knowing what to counter and what not makes a difference. Plus, a deck with homunculous, spell queller, and gideon tokens will put up a relatively healthy wall of blokcers. And out of the board the clerics sure must help.
To be honest, the trick of summary dismissal PW ultimates only works against some matchups. Most players that realize you play draw-go control will milk their walkers for value, not just race to the ultimate. For example, GB delirium would minus lilli, plus, plus, minus, plus, plus, .... this basically generates half an extra card per turn, for however many turns there are. Since the game sgo long, it can be lots of cards. Similarly with Jace; rather than race to the ultimate, players would re-cast spells and use those spells (not the ultimate) to kill you. Sure, some players would race to the ultimate and they will get blown out, but I guess @Aoutp was wondering how you deal with the value they get along the way (specially if they don't go for the ultimate).
But there's the thing: game 1 NO-ONE (and I mean no-one) will expect a Summary Dismissal on their Liliana or Planeswalker. Game 2, you side in Negate and if they're creature light, side out two Reflector Mage. That way, you can trick them to playing a value based game. When that happens, swing at her with a Voracious Reader (there may not look like a lot of card draw but you'll be surprised at how often you find two or three of him) and you'll have enough mana for two counterspells each turn. To keep the pressure on, I anticipate during my turn with Voracious Reader to find the next counterspell and swing for 2 (in Lily case) or 4.
I'll do some tests on Cockatrice (if it ever works) and put the results here.
Ok, here is where I'm at with the deck. I don't think it's the best version, and it's hard to pilot, but it's fun. I've been pushing the draw-go aspect, and perhaps that is just a fools errand and leaning on the walkers and creatures like AnimAr does is the best way to push the archetype. I've had wins and losses vs the major decks (zombies, GBx delirium, Temur, bant) so it's not bad, but not great either. Lots of losses I could trace back to playing errors though, so maybe it's not the fault of the deck but of the pilot
Some card choices: secure the wastes + westvale seemed like a good way to win "on the spot", but it did not come up very often. By the time I could wastes for 5+, and flip the abbey relatively risk free, I was either way ahead (as in, bashing their heads in with homunculus) or way behind. ALso, played a couple of distended mindbenders online, so some number of nephalia academys might be in order if the meta shifts that way. The delirium on descend isn't that big of a deal, but the exile is: zombies and grapple decks can really punish you for simply destroying a creature. I like having 3 wraths, and a 2-1 split seems reasonable, specially if your wraths cost 4-5 courtesy of the voracious reader. Talking about zombies: using summary dismissal after they discarded two cards (specially if the cards have madness) to bring back haunted dead is nasty, all you control sadists should try it Its better than moonlight, because a madness voldaren pariah is still technically 'cast', so moonlight does not stop that part of the 'combo', though dismissal does, because madness is an ability.
EDIT: the mana base seems off though. I have Turn 2 U and W spells, and also turn 3 WW and UU. For this reason I wanted to make the mana base symmetrical, but many games I got white flooded. Seems odd to make the mana base asymmetrical given the symmetricla cost of the cards, but maybe it needs to be that way.
EDIT2: the 3-1 split between shatter and scatter is becasue exile is very relevant, but i wanted awaken as an alternative win con. It didn't come up (again, the reader was the main head-basher most games) so 4-0 might be best.
Update: I swapped descend upon the sinful with a quarantine field. I wanted to keep Descend because it gets pumped by homunculus/voraciour reader, but field makes facing walkers so much better. If you are casting field to get rid of two permanents you are paying 6 mana and a card for 2 permanents; that's a better deal than double banishing light or oblivion ring (which, while nothing to write home about, have seen competitive play).
This deck loses Ojutai's Command from the mainboard and Cleric and Tragic from the sideboard in October. That's all it loses. I also have to make sure this is the right deck. I did it off the top of my head.
Hello,
I just saw your decklist and I'm kinda impressed. It looks like something that might work nicely in current meta. Bud I have a few questions, if you're willing to ask them.
2)Why not to play more copies of Ojutai's Command? I don't like neither Epiphany and Overwhelming Denial at all, I'd rather played something different in a deck with four copies of Summary Dismissal.
4)I don't like Declaration in this kind of deck. It's not bad, but it gives your opponent card advantage and it's sorcery speed. What are your thoughts on other removals like Stasis Snare, Immolating Glare and Blessed Alliance?
5)Among the big guys I love Jace here. But I'm not that sure about Gideon and Part of Waterveil.How do they perform? Have you considered playng Avacyn, Linvala, Thing in the Ice or Descend upon the Sinful (of course might be played instead of one or two copies of Planar Outburst)? Why are this cards bad?
7)Sideboard: Why do you run four copies of Dispel there? What are you aiming at? I would rather play more universal counterspells against contols and Negates are better against burn decks. And I would add some kind of enchantment hate, probably Felidar Cub - he works with Command and is good against both humans and Fevered Visions decks. And I would also run Giselas in sideboard. Your opponents will probably side out removal and she's great against agressive decks anyway. Maybe even with one copy of Bruna against slower decks?
Thank you for reply.
1) I play Void Shatter because of Kozilek's Return, Grapple With The Past and decks that rely on having particular spells in the graveyard. With Delirium decks, they can just get back everything they need at a moment's whim. Void Shatter avoids that issue. I cast Scatter to the Winds with awaken fairly often. I usually hold it until a spell comes up that does not have a "when you cast" trigger then awaken it. Clash of Wills is great early game but late game, tapping out to counter one spell is useless when you can just tap three (or two).
2) Ojutai's Command is at two is because the commands aren't always useful and you don't want to see a bunch of these when your opponent plays 10 creatures.
5) Gideon performs extremely well as a one-of and casting Part The Waterveil main phase 2 is backbreaking. I have considered Archangel Avacyn but no testing has been done. Linvala will go in the sideboard instead of 2 Dispel. Thing In The Ice got replaced by Curious Homunculus because it is significantly much easier to flip than casting four spells PER TiTi. Descend Upon the Sinful doesn't do anything to advance your board state and achieving delirium rarely happens; why not pay 1 less for the same effect?
6) What do those lands do to add to our advantage? Geier Reach Sanitarium just helps most of this standard to find what they're looking for. We aren't needing to ramp with this deck (Mage-Ring Network).
I'm glad people finally see what Curious Homunculus can do in this deck. It's a time bomb by itself. The more I see Archangel Avacyn the more I like her. Descend Upon The Sinful does nothing for us here. Planar Outburst should be the choice.
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Yeah, I agree with LeFantak: though I have been seeing less and less bant, it's still pretty much a tier 1 deck, and getting around spirit is important. Also, UB zombies with prized amalgam + haunted dead are showing up more and more, so exiling is important. Actually, I think that it is quite possible to have UW be an "exile-only" deck, which hurts decks rellying to get creature sin the yard (for emrakul or other purposes).
Talking about that, using learn from the past on an opponent after (s)he casts Ishkanah or Traverse the ulvenwal (or when they have 6 land and 6 card types in the yard) is good. I like it better than days undoing because you don't draw them cards and you can do it at instant speed.
On Awaken vs Delirium, I actually like the delirum better, but only if it does not imply deckbuilding costs. Most decks are going to include 4-6 of at least 4 card types anyway (instant, sorcery and land are the easy ones... if you go homunculus and maybe add two more creatures, like avacyn, then you already have the creature type). Then the delirium is much better because you don't expose yourself to losing a land or having to pay more mana for your spell. True, awaken has haste, but in reality we are a control deck, so haste is not such a big plus. Flying, on the other hand...
Ive been playing this in the magic online 2 man ques at about a 75% win rate so far. It still needs some work but it is playing pretty well. Take inventory is actually really good and everytime I cast jace I feel like its very hard to lose the game at that point. I need something to make my bant coco matchup better. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.
Well, Dispel and Negate is how I crush the Bant Coco matchup. I also play Reflector Mage mainboard and with this build, I can assume you're not trying to use Curious Homunculus. Its just a lot of ideas within your deck that aren't melding together well ( ). It seems like G/U Crush mixed with U/W Control. If you're going for this kind of build, Dragonlord Ojutai is your guy.
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6-0-0.
The last time I did a tournament, I went 3-1-1 at an FNM with this deck, losing to Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp and mana screw. With being mana screwed in that loss, I decided to remove a Declaration In Stone for another Island. When I tell you that having 25 lands in this deck does wonders, it does.
Saturday, August 13th:
We went to an early prerelease nearby. There was only 14 of us at this prerelease and I was getting excited because I wanted that Liliana playmat. Pairings got underway and my first match was:
Vs R/W Humans 2-1
Game one: He got me down to 4 life and had five creatures on the board. On turn 5 I used Planar Outburst to reset the board. He had 2 cards in hand and I had 4. Next turn he played two more creatures. On my next turn I played a land and passed. He swung in for "game" but I casted Ojutai's Command to gain 4 life and to return Curious Homunculus from the graveyard to the battlefield. Next turn, Voracious Reader showed his face and I casted Anticipate to find another Ojutai's Command. Passed. He played another creature and passed, so I did the same commands as last time. Next turn, I casted Part the Waterveil for 7 and animated a plains. I swung out and forced him to chump block. Next turn, I played DiS on the creature he didn't block with and swung for 14. I had 2 Summary Dismissal ready to go even though I had 8 life at this point.
Game two: He overran me with creatures and I never found a Planar Outburst.
Game three: Turn 5 Planar Outburst blew him out again. He couldn't recover. Got me down to 2 with that three drop burn spell that does 4 and can't be countered. Voracious Reader is a disgusting card in this deck and beat him down.
Sideboarded: 2 Horribly Awry for 2 Scatter to the Winds, 2 Cleric of the Forward Order for 2 Reflector Mage.
Match two:
Vs R/G Ramp/Stompy 2-1
First game: a Voracious Reader allowed all of my counterspells to cost two and after awakening Part The Waterveil and swinging for 19 in two turns did the job.
Second game: a resolved Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger removed both of my white sources and I needed a white source to use Declaration In Stone. I drew...and didn't get it.
Third game: two Voracious Reader and Summary Dismissal allowed me to completely dictate and control the board and what spells resolved and didn't. For the spells that I allowed to resolve, which was mostly creatures, I would use either DiS or Reflector Mage to keep my tempo up.
Sideboarded: 2 Invasive Surgery for 2 Void Shatter
Match three vs:
G/U Crush 2-0
Game one: I Void Shatter his first two Crush of Tentacles, used Reflector Mage and Declaration In Stone on his 4Den Protector and when he resolved a third Crush with surge, he bounced back Reflector Mage. His deck plays at the tempo of a control deck without counter spells so I enjoyed being able to have six cards in hand at the end of this game.
Game two: More of the same. Instead, Invasive Surgery was sided in (so close to having Delirium). I countered all four Crush of Tentacles and he was destroyed by flipped Curious Homunculus. Jace, Unraveler of Secrets came down after I countered the second Crush and allowed me to completely control everything I needed; if I needed to draw a card I could. If I needed to bounce a creature, I could. Highlight was him only having one card in hand (Emrakul, the Promised End) and me having two Summary Dismissal ready for anything.
Sideboarded: two Invasive Surgery for two Scatter to the Winds.
Match four
Vs Jund Delirium 2-1
Game one: I made my opponent mad because he couldn't resolve a spell on me and Curious Homunculus destroyed him.
Game two: He got the god-hand of the deck, according to him. I also sideboarded in wrong (Invasive Surgery instead of Negate). He resolved Ulamog and I scooped it up.
Game three: I negated two of his Vessel of Nascency and he hit nothing but land and big creatures. He tried resolving Distended Mindbender and bringing back Kozilek's Return but I used Summary Dismissal. I was able to dig out Part The Waterveil and casted it with Awaken while having a Voracious Reader on the board; swung for 19 and beat him in two turns.
Sideboarded: 2 Negate for 2 Scatter to the Winds.
4-0 at this point.
The last guy I went against decided he would rather not embarrass himself again so he gave me the win if I could beat him game one. I crushed him game one with the same aspects from the above description. My buddy was going against the G/U Crush individual and lost to him in three. When that player saw that I was the person keeping him from getting the playmat, he just said "I'm not going to embarrass myself. I can't beat control with this deck." So I went 6-0, won the playmat and then bought one pack to treat myself and pulled...Liliana, the Last Hope. It was absolutely ridiculous of a day.
I'll put the deck list up when I get home; I'm typing this at work currently in between calls.
4 Reflector Mage
4 Curious Homunculus
Instants
4 Anticipate
4 Summary Dismissal
3 Void Shatter
2 Scatter to the Winds
2 Ojutai's Command
1 Epiphany at the Drownyard
1 Overwhelming Denial
3 Declaration In Stone
3 Planar Outburst
1 Part the Waterveil
Planeswalkers
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Lands
13 Island
6 Plains
4 Prairie Stream
2 Port Town
4 Dispel
3 Cleric of the Forward Order
2 Negate
2 Invasive Surgery
2 Horribly Awry
2 Tragic Arrogance
This deck loses Ojutai's Command from the mainboard and Cleric and Tragic from the sideboard in October. That's all it loses. I also have to make sure this is the right deck. I did it off the top of my head.
I would like to see a control shell with Scour The Labratory in it.
In the BUG seasons past thread I posted a BUG control (its tap-out though) that has a late game recursion via SP. Since I had 6 card types naturally in the deck (land, sorcery, instant, creature with Jace, enchantment with oath of Jace, and planeswalker with ObNixilis) it made sense to add a 1-of scour. In that deck I drew sooooooo many cards out of SP that it ended up being a "win more" situation lots of the time, but in a deck without access to the green sphinx's revelation (as Reid Duke called it!), it could be made to work. I'll try a UW draw-go deck w/it and post it here for you guys to comment. However, I feel that black is quite essential to control (ultimate price for the x/5s, grasp for early plays, and disruption for their Eldrazi seems quite necessary), so I'm not sure how far I'll get with a competitive UW deck...
Yeah. Scour The Labratory is an interesting card indeed. Maybe comparative analysis instead of Ojutai's Command? It could work.
The discount granted by Voracious Reader makes everything much more pleasing to the eye.
2.- The plans I'm working on include: quarantine field, attacking them with flash creatures and/or tokens from the WX instant that puts X 1/1s into play (I'm blanking on the name. The problem with this plan is that many walkers, like liliana, make attacking with a single creature hard because of their shrining effects. Another route is to play an awoken Part the Waterveil: you hit them for 12 total (across two turns) and that should deal with his walker (or even his life total, if he is at less than 12). There is little instant speed removal that can deal with the land (price can't touch it because it has no color, anguished unmaking can't touch it because it's still a land, so you should only be worried by murder or stasis snare, but both cards see very little play so you are mostly safe.)
The main issue I'm having is man-lands. The lack of instant speed removal (besides stasis snare), and the lack of out own manlands, really hurts.
Bottom line: at this point, I'm still unconvinced UW is better than variants using B (Epser, UB, WB). I love the draw-go aspect of this, so I'm still testing, and its fine FNM material, but if I had a big tournament (a GP or a big cash tournament) and I wanted to play control, I'd probably sleeve up a tap-out black variant (once you go black, transgress the mind, ruinous path, liliana, languish... they all sort of force a more tap-out direction)
I should make a list of cards that shouldn't resolve or that you should get rid of when they resolve. As far as hands that I keep, I keep two land hands if I have Anticipate or Curious Homunculus. Three land hands otherwise.
Summary Dismissal can counter planeswalker ultimates and abilities. You shouldn't be tapping out more than twice on your turn with my deck (Curious Homunculus and one planeswalker). What is there to worry about? Lily getting to 7 then the look on your opponent's face when you counter its ultimate is priceless. Once they have less cards than you in hand, you're winning.
There's a reason why BW Control won the last Pro Tour. They didn't need the blue because that puts a constraint on the deck in general.
To be honest, the trick of summary dismissal PW ultimates only works against some matchups. Most players that realize you play draw-go control will milk their walkers for value, not just race to the ultimate. For example, GB delirium would minus lilli, plus, plus, minus, plus, plus, .... this basically generates half an extra card per turn, for however many turns there are. Since the game sgo long, it can be lots of cards. Similarly with Jace; rather than race to the ultimate, players would re-cast spells and use those spells (not the ultimate) to kill you. Sure, some players would race to the ultimate and they will get blown out, but I guess @Aoutp was wondering how you deal with the value they get along the way (specially if they don't go for the ultimate).
I'll do some tests on Cockatrice (if it ever works) and put the results here.
For reference, here is the list:
3 evolving wilds
6 island
6 plains
4 port town
4 prairie stream
3 westvale abbey
Creatures (4)
4 curious homunculous
Sorceries (7)
4 declaration in stone
2 planar outburst
1 Descend upon the sinful
4 stasis snare
Instant (20)
3 negate
2 anticipate
3 void shatter
1 scatter to the winds
4 fortune's favor
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Ojutai's Command
1 Scour the laboratory
2 secure the wastes
2 felidar cub
2 hallowed moonlight
2 dispel
4 invasive surgery
1 negate
2 summary dismissal
2 ojutai's command
Some card choices: secure the wastes + westvale seemed like a good way to win "on the spot", but it did not come up very often. By the time I could wastes for 5+, and flip the abbey relatively risk free, I was either way ahead (as in, bashing their heads in with homunculus) or way behind. ALso, played a couple of distended mindbenders online, so some number of nephalia academys might be in order if the meta shifts that way. The delirium on descend isn't that big of a deal, but the exile is: zombies and grapple decks can really punish you for simply destroying a creature. I like having 3 wraths, and a 2-1 split seems reasonable, specially if your wraths cost 4-5 courtesy of the voracious reader. Talking about zombies: using summary dismissal after they discarded two cards (specially if the cards have madness) to bring back haunted dead is nasty, all you control sadists should try it Its better than moonlight, because a madness voldaren pariah is still technically 'cast', so moonlight does not stop that part of the 'combo', though dismissal does, because madness is an ability.
EDIT: the mana base seems off though. I have Turn 2 U and W spells, and also turn 3 WW and UU. For this reason I wanted to make the mana base symmetrical, but many games I got white flooded. Seems odd to make the mana base asymmetrical given the symmetricla cost of the cards, but maybe it needs to be that way.
EDIT2: the 3-1 split between shatter and scatter is becasue exile is very relevant, but i wanted awaken as an alternative win con. It didn't come up (again, the reader was the main head-basher most games) so 4-0 might be best.
Quarantine Field can be tried if you are lacking a Gideon. Gideon, Part the Waterveil and Epiphany at the Drownyard are cards you don't want more than one of. See how that works for you.
1) I play Void Shatter because of Kozilek's Return, Grapple With The Past and decks that rely on having particular spells in the graveyard. With Delirium decks, they can just get back everything they need at a moment's whim. Void Shatter avoids that issue. I cast Scatter to the Winds with awaken fairly often. I usually hold it until a spell comes up that does not have a "when you cast" trigger then awaken it. Clash of Wills is great early game but late game, tapping out to counter one spell is useless when you can just tap three (or two).
2) Ojutai's Command is at two is because the commands aren't always useful and you don't want to see a bunch of these when your opponent plays 10 creatures.
3) Space in the deck got extremely tight once the instant, creature and land package were considered. I didn't want to use Descend Upon The Sinful because exiling Curious Homunculus/Voracious Reader isn't optimal. Planar Outburst is one mana less with a win condition on top of it.
4) Immolating Glare could be a substitute for Declaration In Stone. Celestial Flare could be considered as well but the double W may be hard to achieve sometimes.
5) Gideon performs extremely well as a one-of and casting Part The Waterveil main phase 2 is backbreaking. I have considered Archangel Avacyn but no testing has been done. Linvala will go in the sideboard instead of 2 Dispel. Thing In The Ice got replaced by Curious Homunculus because it is significantly much easier to flip than casting four spells PER TiTi. Descend Upon the Sinful doesn't do anything to advance your board state and achieving delirium rarely happens; why not pay 1 less for the same effect?
6) What do those lands do to add to our advantage? Geier Reach Sanitarium just helps most of this standard to find what they're looking for. We aren't needing to ramp with this deck (Mage-Ring Network).
7)Linvala, the Preserver is going to replace two Dispel. Felidar Cub is a good move as well.
There's a reason why we make these threads: to help each other. I don't know about Gisela and Bruna though. That just seems too random to be in here.
Talking about that, using learn from the past on an opponent after (s)he casts Ishkanah or Traverse the ulvenwal (or when they have 6 land and 6 card types in the yard) is good. I like it better than days undoing because you don't draw them cards and you can do it at instant speed.
On Awaken vs Delirium, I actually like the delirum better, but only if it does not imply deckbuilding costs. Most decks are going to include 4-6 of at least 4 card types anyway (instant, sorcery and land are the easy ones... if you go homunculus and maybe add two more creatures, like avacyn, then you already have the creature type). Then the delirium is much better because you don't expose yourself to losing a land or having to pay more mana for your spell. True, awaken has haste, but in reality we are a control deck, so haste is not such a big plus. Flying, on the other hand...
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Mage-Ring Network
1 Westvale Abby
4 Prairie Stream
2 Port Town
7 Plains
8 Island
Creatures
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
Spells
4 Take Inventory
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Void Shatter
2 Scatter to the Winds
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Planar Outburst
2 Tragic Arrogance
2 Scour the Laboratory
2 Part the Waterveil
1 Crush of Tentacles
2 Secure the Wastes
2 Clash of Wills
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Enchantments
2 Quarantine Field
3 Surge of Righteousness
3 Stasis Snare
1 Linvala, the Preserver
2 Dispel
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Negate
1 Summary Dismissal
1 Displacement Wave
1 Orbs of Warding
Ive been playing this in the magic online 2 man ques at about a 75% win rate so far. It still needs some work but it is playing pretty well. Take inventory is actually really good and everytime I cast jace I feel like its very hard to lose the game at that point. I need something to make my bant coco matchup better. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.