I love this deck but it has some very rough matchups. In my local meta many people have started playing Thrun, the last Troll to hose me and the other 2 UWR players at our shop. Is there any way we can deal with Thrun? Also Loxodon Smiter gives me some trouble with only 4 Path to deal with him. My deck has had a lot of trouble dealing with decks that go over the top with big creatures.
This is what I have been doing and it works pretty well even without sideboarding. It can be simply said as just a change of focus, a change of plan, a change of role or whatever you want to call it. Focus no more on the board state, and turn your eyes to look at your opponent's life total, start your mental calculation, and then go all out for his/her face like playing RDW/Burn combined with aerial attacks and finally steal the game away. This versatility that allows one to so conveniently switch modes is what makes this deck so special (yet challenging to master), and the ability of the pilot to recognize when a change of gameplan is necessary and be able to switch his/her role without hesitation comes from practice and more practice.
Thanks for your suggestions. As you can see from my list above, my plan is to complitely cut Revelation for the full set of Remand and going -1 Cryptic, +1 PtE, so I agree with you since my build is clearly on the tempo plan. I hope to to better with those tweaks. I've really liked Cryptic Command so I still want to have it in the deck, but as a 3x since on the first turns I want to have cheap counters in my hand.
About Isochron Scepter I agree, but I think it won't last so long on the field.
I agree. I have all along stayed away from command and sphinx, and adopted a legacy rug tempo kind of approach to play this deck (this is also mentioned in a standard version of the deck as shown here http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=462457). Truly no spell can blow out for a win, but when played well with a low mana curve, it is often always efficient and the more you play, the more you sharpen your skills with the deck as you time and try to generate as much value as possible from each small spell.
As people said before, i dont know about modo, but IRL its expensive, so i would guess its the same online?
About tweaking, i firmly believe this is one of the most flexible decks, together with jund. The fact that there are 3 versions of the deck (pure control, midrange and tempo) says a lot about its flexibility, all you need to do is swap about 10~12 cards, and you have a totally different deck, and by running white we get access to some of the best SB cards modern has.
On the matter of colonnades, no, it doesnt happen all that often.
The most common win (at least for me) goes something like get 1~2 hits with geist, then burn them to death.
Sometimes the match will get more grindy, and your snapcasters will have to play defense (counters instead of more burn), usually those games will go longer than what we actually want, and for those matches we typically run one or two extra finishers to the colonnades, in the form of Ajani, Batterskull, thundermaw, baneslayer, etc.
What i really like about it is that basically the deck has no bad match ups, has MB answers for almost anything, can play offense and defense without trouble (one of junds greatest merits before elf ban) and, while being a tempo/midrange deck, its not afraid to go into the late game, sure its not what we want, but it doesnt mean we cant play that game, i have my fair share of long wins against control.
But most importantly, i feel the deck rewards tight play and resource managment.
You have a TON of removal, card advantage, some of the best creatures modern has, and one of the best 3 walkers in the format, the other 2 being liliana and elspeth (and we can play elspeth too, if we want)
Agreed. Versatility and doing your best to get as much value as possible from every play you make is the essence of this deck's playstyle. You don't really have any very bad matchups but neither do you have an overwhelming advantage over most decks. You have a mainboard that can almost handle most things and can play at any pace that you perceive to be advantageous, and you have a flexible sideboard that you can easily customize to fit your meta and can conveniently switch into your main without being too concerned about diluting any synergies.
I like thada in a rafiq deck, she just cripples artifact players (ie. sharuum). I agree with oracle, with top, it is an awesome accel.
I also prefer Prime Speaker Zegana over sphinx uthun, lower but more restrictive cost, much more card draw.
I agree with grafted exoskel too, it's a good equipment to deal infect damage. What else do you think could be fit in? Putrefax? Plague Myr acts as an infector and a mana dork? Viral Drake to infect and proliferate? Viridian Corrupter an ETB artifact hater that infects? Rot Wolf an infector that may help draw? But of course, the big question is what cuts should be made to fit in these cards, or there can be better choices
I am not so sure about far away, how is it going for you? Thoughtseize is definitely IMO a must play, especially when you are playing discard spells, it is good to have at least 6 of such spells in your deck, that gives a good chance for you to cast it T1. Zealous Persecution is very interesting indeed.
I think Rhinne's personal taste was for the Mana Leak and Spell Snare, both of which I like btw. He seemed to really hate 4 Cryptics in that he dies a little inside when he sees it and is basically telling everyone to stop doing it. I do agree that 4 is a lot, but like I said, I like to see one every game, so I like 3. I really think having 1 in the deck is way too little, but I guess that's just preference.
Again, I'm just stating from personal experience that Cryptic has been good for me. I asked about the 3U cost earlier in the thread and people recommended Mystic Gate which has helped. Cryptic has basically helped me win games that I had no business winning. Usually tapping all someone's dudes (and getting a card) allows me to get in that extra damage I need to burn them out the rest of the way.
I was one of those who spoke out earlier that it would be better to adjust the mana base for cryptics and filter lands are definitely an effective way. And like I said and said again, it's all about preference.
Cryptics are really very powerful, but also very costly (triple U). Guess it is all up to you, how greedy are you? How risk adverse are you? Or how do you wanna curve out the cmc of your spells? Perhaps you may even need to play many many games and record the effectiveness of Cryptics vs how much it may screw you up, after all this is a game with significant randomness involved. Besides, Rhinne did mentioned that was his personal taste.
Perhaps until someone really bother to do some formal testing with some statistical backup, then it would be a more reliable guide to tell what is the ideal number of commands you should play in this deck, otherwise I guess for now, it is really all up to your own preference. To each, his own then.
In a format where that are so many fetches and shocks being played, I kept telling some people at my LGS that bolt is the best spell in modern, some grin at me as if I said something foolish. Glad to see that the community here understands
I'm currently also working on a version of this deck. When I started with T1.M I first played UR Gifts Storm and Robots. After the ban of Seething Song, I started playing WUR Delver and then turned into a more UWR Control like version.
Playing UWR Control I found myself really grinding out my matchups. Games took really long time because of stare down situations between threads while keeping mana open for counter spells. Well counter magic in modern can't really prevent unfair things from happening. UWR IMHO is a more reactive Deck that is good at staying in the game but has a problem finishing the game in a reasonable amount of time.
Playing Esper Midrange and therefore having access to black I find myself having quicker and more favorable matchups. Using discard, especially Inquisition of Kozilek, which is ridiculously good in Modern, and black removal, it's much easier to setup a situation in which a flipped Delver of Secrets, Geist of Saint Traft or Vendilion Clique wins the game unrivaled.
I'm really excited about Night's Whisper as a one off. In the early games it's a really cost effective way to refill your hand and with Snapcaster Mage in the late game it's even more ridiculous card advantage. I'm also using Serum Visions. On the one hand because I play Delver and on the other it helps to seal the game when setting up your draws.
A Member of my playtest team suggested Spellstutter Sprite instead of Delver but I'm not convinced because it does not really represent a quick clock.
Im not really happy with Spell Snare right now. I also want to ask you about your expieriences with Lingering Souls because I think they are not that good in the offense without Swords or anything to equip them with.
Greets /zen
*while(true);
Thanks for joining in our work in building an esper deck. If I am not wrong, I see your version as more tempo-oriented, so I would recommend Remand perhaps pover mana leaks. Yup I wouldn't suggest spellstutter sprite either, but what was your team mate's reasoning for suggesting that card? Indeed lingering souls would very much benefit from equipment but in modern, being able to summon up to 4 flying bodies with just 1 card is something that most people find it very hard to deal with other than using sweepers. Plus, it is a sorcery type of threat, which adds to your threat count and adds to the sorcery instant density that you need to flip delver
Thank you for coming back to me with these suggestions, I really appreciate the help I am liking mystic remora, Mirri's Guile, Shadow Rift, Shelter and lightning greaves. I believe I want to to keep the mana curve as low as possible so that I can carry out very explosive killing blows
Hmm at my LGS, my usual playgroup size is 4 players a game, they rarely want to go beyond that since it may take too long. I guess if I were to take on 3 opponents, according to your advice, I would hardly need to make any changes to the list
Of the various rafiq decks, I have taken up a keen interest in the infect version (becos I am bored of being the nice guy and wanna try what it feels like to kill fast in EDH). I don't see many infect rafiq lists going around, and yours, I must say after goldfishing a few games, is very fast, I like it very much. Thank you for sharing.
Just a question, I understand this is your 1v1 rafiq deck, but I am sure it should also have the potential to be viable in multiplayer since I play in a multiplayer environment, what adjustments would you advise that can be made to this deck list of yours without compromising the speed? I don't mind being the arch enemy if I would play this deck IRL (in fact, with this deck, I want to be the villain), in fact, I would even wanna get some arch enemy schemes after building this deck
I feel like you guys are getting a little too caught up in trying to define the deck's archetype and adhere to it. This is a midrange deck. It has control elements, it has aggro elements, it has tempo elements. But what really matters is what cards improve your win ratios in your particular meta, not what cards fit the archetype. At the end of the day, you're not playing an archetype, you're playing a deck, and what cards you need are going to depend on the meta, the matchup, even the specific board state, not on wether or not something is a "tempo card."
This just says it all. IMO this deck is not "meant to be" slow (as some argue) nor fast. This is simply just midrange. I would say the resulting versatility is one of the key factors that make this deck effective.
This is what I have been doing and it works pretty well even without sideboarding. It can be simply said as just a change of focus, a change of plan, a change of role or whatever you want to call it. Focus no more on the board state, and turn your eyes to look at your opponent's life total, start your mental calculation, and then go all out for his/her face like playing RDW/Burn combined with aerial attacks and finally steal the game away. This versatility that allows one to so conveniently switch modes is what makes this deck so special (yet challenging to master), and the ability of the pilot to recognize when a change of gameplan is necessary and be able to switch his/her role without hesitation comes from practice and more practice.
I agree. I have all along stayed away from command and sphinx, and adopted a legacy rug tempo kind of approach to play this deck (this is also mentioned in a standard version of the deck as shown here http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=462457). Truly no spell can blow out for a win, but when played well with a low mana curve, it is often always efficient and the more you play, the more you sharpen your skills with the deck as you time and try to generate as much value as possible from each small spell.
Agreed. Versatility and doing your best to get as much value as possible from every play you make is the essence of this deck's playstyle. You don't really have any very bad matchups but neither do you have an overwhelming advantage over most decks. You have a mainboard that can almost handle most things and can play at any pace that you perceive to be advantageous, and you have a flexible sideboard that you can easily customize to fit your meta and can conveniently switch into your main without being too concerned about diluting any synergies.
I also prefer Prime Speaker Zegana over sphinx uthun, lower but more restrictive cost, much more card draw.
I agree with grafted exoskel too, it's a good equipment to deal infect damage. What else do you think could be fit in? Putrefax? Plague Myr acts as an infector and a mana dork? Viral Drake to infect and proliferate? Viridian Corrupter an ETB artifact hater that infects? Rot Wolf an infector that may help draw? But of course, the big question is what cuts should be made to fit in these cards, or there can be better choices
I was one of those who spoke out earlier that it would be better to adjust the mana base for cryptics and filter lands are definitely an effective way. And like I said and said again, it's all about preference.
Perhaps until someone really bother to do some formal testing with some statistical backup, then it would be a more reliable guide to tell what is the ideal number of commands you should play in this deck, otherwise I guess for now, it is really all up to your own preference. To each, his own then.
Oh yes, anyway what do you think about sublime archangel in this deck?
Thanks for joining in our work in building an esper deck. If I am not wrong, I see your version as more tempo-oriented, so I would recommend Remand perhaps pover mana leaks. Yup I wouldn't suggest spellstutter sprite either, but what was your team mate's reasoning for suggesting that card? Indeed lingering souls would very much benefit from equipment but in modern, being able to summon up to 4 flying bodies with just 1 card is something that most people find it very hard to deal with other than using sweepers. Plus, it is a sorcery type of threat, which adds to your threat count and adds to the sorcery instant density that you need to flip delver
Hmm at my LGS, my usual playgroup size is 4 players a game, they rarely want to go beyond that since it may take too long. I guess if I were to take on 3 opponents, according to your advice, I would hardly need to make any changes to the list
Just a question, I understand this is your 1v1 rafiq deck, but I am sure it should also have the potential to be viable in multiplayer
This just says it all. IMO this deck is not "meant to be" slow (as some argue) nor fast. This is simply just midrange. I would say the resulting versatility is one of the key factors that make this deck effective.