Hi everyone. After a bit of a break I’ve been playing a lot online recently. I got a 5-0 finish last week, which got posted a couple of days ago with the new posting schedule [List here]. I got another 5-0 this weekend, and feel the deck has a decent position in the new Jace/Bloodbraid meta.
As you can see in the 5-0 list I experimented with a copy of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Despite doing well in the league, and a series of matches before I’m not convinced he’s right for the deck. In total my Jace testing resulted in going 17-11, though only two to three games throughout allowed Jace to work as intended. In the vast majority of situations he functioned as a cycler with a few life stapled on, was unnecessary to progress our plans, or the mana cost was hard to manage. Double blue really is harder to manage when the total cost is 4 rather than 6 for the Torrential Gearhulk. In the early game it’s hard to find double blue, and in the late it would leave colorless lands wasted. As I said over direct message, Jace really feels like oiling the machine, but he’s only available when we want to have the machine running. The closest analogue I could think of for Jace is Snapcaster Mage recasting a Thirst for Knowledge. It’s a one-time thing, as opposed to every single turn, but the flexibility is far greater. That style is probably more suited for a tron deck too. We want to assemble tron, and when we do assemble tron we’ve gotten what we want. Investing extra resources in a card that could find tronland four five and six doesn’t have that much value to us.
That said, I’m happy he’s unbanned. Our good matchups is becoming more common, and I haven’t seen any of the matchups becoming worse for us. Though it’s worth mentioning that the value of Commit might have gone up slightly relative to Repeal. Repealing a Jace (probably) feels very bad, while Committing him is fine. I had one fun game where I got very close to winning through a Jace ult by casting Memory, but dealing with a Liliana ult at the same time was just a bit too hard.
Lately there’s been some discussion regarding Think Twice and Anticipate style of cards. I recently looked specifically on those cards and after testing over a bunch of matches came to the conclusion that they all share a common problem. They’re cheap and flexible, and the upside is immediately obvious. Their big problem is that they don’t actually do enough per mana spent. They put a lot of pressure on other spells making up for their low impact on the boardstate. The need to find an Oblivion Stone or an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon increases. They help you find the last land you need to complete tron, but since you spent mana on looking instead of affecting the board you really really need to complete tron right now. Finding tron quickly like that is what the green tron variants does, and they do it better. There might be cards of that kind good enough to play, but I’m starting to doubt that even Impulse would be good enough for us. Ancient Stirrings from G Tron is a whole mana cheaper, and looks five cards deep. That’s the kind of efficiency we need to approach for these cards to be good. This reasoning led me to thinking of Mishra’s Bauble, but that deserves its own section.
I’ve seen a lot of lists running Tolaria West, River of Tears, or worse, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Every single list I can find running one or more of those three are running 24 or more lands. I wonder why you feel you need more space for Islands. Might it be because you feel you can’t rely on playing untapped blue the first turn you need it? I typically play my tron lands first, and generally play islands when I have a use for them. This sets up for topdecking more tronlands, and comes with no downsides I can think of. I’m not really convinced the upsides of those three cards are all that big anyway. The main argument for Urborg and River of Tears' access to black, but how relevant is that really? We don’t play that many copies of Dismember, and the main thing that makes Dismember good is that it’s cheap. If you want to spend more mana to do the same thing we’re nearing Psionic Blast territory (art and card). At that point it’s better to just counter or Repeal the threat. I don’t see much advantage in having black for Engineered Explosives either. The situation where you want to spend 4 mana to destroy cmc 2 permanents are admittedly relevant against humans, but not many others. But the lands slots you’re spending to make that possible will affect you in most games you play. The lands can prevent playing Treasure Mage at convenient times, which you might have observed. And other edge cases like mainphase Thirst for knowledge is also affected. As for newer cards Search for Azcanta is negatively impacted, since it becomes a way worse topdeck on turn two or three. And I’ll have to say good luck if any of you are planning on casting Jaces off of Rivers of Tears.
Someone mentioned the power of Chalice of the Void, and I feel that it has become a worse card recently. A lot of decks have good ways of making it irrelevant. The rise of Humans as a deck, and the relative decrease of Death’s Shadow lead me to question the mainboard inclusion. It’s good in many situations, but the number of decks where it’s almost dead is close to the tipping point. I’ve gone down to a single copy myself, with another two in the sideboard.
For those questioning the need for Platinum Angel I have some perspective to offer. I believe the need for cards like Platinum Angel is directly tied to the number of cards you play similar to those in paragraph 4. That is, the more you play Anticipates, Think Twice and other draw spells the more you need your big threat at the end to be super relevant. Some play more than one Mindslaver, and that’s one way of doing it, but be aware that the reason you’re doing it is because you have a need for impactful top-end. Personally I find playing one copy of Angel and one of Mindslaver is plenty, as well as increasing the tutoring power of the Treasure Mages. It’s important not to run too few expensive artifacts, or they become useless. Though you could theoretically just skip out on the 6+ theme of our deck if you want. Maybe by playing a Matter Reshaper or something in the same spot. I don’t think it’s worth going that direction though. Would help our need for blue mana for sure though.
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My most recent round of testing is with Mishra's Bauble, I’ve seen it gotten played in a lot of other decks, but have always skipped over it when thinking about Blue tron. The discussion about Think Twice and Anticipate triggered the thought for blue tron though. And I played a number of matches with it (14-9). The neat thing about Mishra’s Bauble is that it practically just deck thinning. While also being an artifact for Thirst for Knowledge. It’s interaction with thirst means that if you get it on your opening hand you’ll have drawn the fresh card before you actually do anything meaningful, while also offering several smaller sequencing benefits.
For instance I was in the following situation while testing. I had three lands in my opening hand, two of them tron-lands, an Island, a Map and a Mishra's Bauble. I played the Map and Bauble turn one. On turn two I cracked the Bauble looking at my own deck before playing my land. I saw a Wurmcoil on top. This allowed me to make the choice of playing my second tron-land instead of my Island for the counterspell I drew that turn. Had it been an irrelevant card I could have “scryed” it away by cracking Expedition Map in before drawing from Bauble. The Bauble gave a surprising amount of deck manipulation for only costing zero mana.
Picture of my decklist attached, because I’m lazy. The list will likely be up on Wizard’s site when they post next.
I think I got another big post in me regarding the “rethinking blue tron” discussion, but that will have to be another day.
Edit: Speeeeling
I have no prepared sideboard plan for exact card counts in each matchup, but make them up as I go.
For instance vs the new humans deck I might remove all my countermagic and go:
-1 Chalice of the Void
-3 Remand
-4 Condescend
-1 Spell Burst
+3 Spatial Contortion
+2 Dismember
+1 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon
+2 Nimble Obstructionist
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
Against eldrazi tron I suppose I go something like this:
-2 Chalice of the Void
-1 Ugin, the spirit Dragon
-1 Expedition Map
-2 Treasure Mage
-1 Spell Burst
-1 Telling Time
-1 Sundering Titan
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Dismember
+2 Nimble Obstructionist
+2 Squelch (depending on if I expect relics)
+2 Spreading Seas
UR Storm:
-1 Platinum Angel
-1 Sundering Titan
-1 Oblivion Stone
-1 Wurmcoil Engine
-1 Search for Azcanta
-1 Remand
-1 Treasure Mage
-1 Crucible of worlds
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
+2 Nimble Obstructionist
+2 Dismember
+2 Chalice of the void
+3 Spatial Contortion
Even without a plan for each matchup I think I side pretty much the same every time for each deck. However since there there is so much variation between decks of the same archetype I never really sat down and wrote a sideboard guide.
Edit: Commit is one of those magical cards that does something in every matchup, and can act as flexible cards when I need to make larger adjustments from the sideboard.
Torrential Gearhulk is an awesome card, but it requires some changes to the deck that most people aren't willing to make. For it to shine we need a manabase conductive to getting double blue somewhere from turn 5 and onwards. This puts pressure away from cards like Gemstone Caverns and Tolaria West, both great card with a lot of recent fans. The deck also needs to be filled with instants that does something when cast using the Gearhulk. Condescend, Spell Burst and Repeal does almost nothing when cast via Gearhulk, but are all awesome when cast using Snapcaster Mage.
Therefore, to get full value out of Torrential Gearhulk the deck needs more instants to cast using it. In my version I've moved away from Repeal, and over to Commit//Memory, as well as using Search for Azcanta. With these changes there are virtually no situation where casting a Gearhulk isn't awesome.
With dropping repeal do you find your draw power go down or does supreme will and Gifts make up for it?
It's a bit hard to judge if it has gone down, because so much of the draw power comes on flexible cards now. If I need cards I have the option of just recasting a Thirst for Knowledge with a Torrential Gearhulk. Or maybe just changing the mode on Supreme Will However it definitively feels I have enough with this configuration. I believe there is a sweet-spot for dedicated card drawing spells at around 5 cards (thirsts and gifts) due to the risk of having drawing too many. So any other card draw has to come from flexible spells like Supreme Will.
I'm not entirely convinced of Supreme Will yet. much because of the CMC of 3, the deck already runs a lot of CMC 3 spells so it may be hard to find a good spot to cast it. It's possible the slot should have a Snapcaster Mage in that slot instead.
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My 5-0 in the competitive leagues from yesterday didn't get posted
So I've haven't posted much in a while, even though I've been playing the deck quite a lot lately. I mostly play in the competitive leagues on MTGO, but also in local paper tournaments. Since my decklist has over time deviated significantly from what's currently the 'stock' list I figured I'd give you guys my thoughts on the changes.
Advantages 1) 16 Artifacts. With so many artifacts in the list the power of Thirst for Knowledge goes up a lot. The increase in card selection you get from going from zero to one artifact, and from one to two or more is immense. The stock lists seems to have corrected itself somewhat, but for a long while it was common to run as few as 12-13 artifacts. The artifact count was so low in some of the lists that I kinda believe it warped the conversation regarding specific cards, since it being/replacing an artifact in the list being tested had a far bigger effect on the card's playability than we gave it credit for.
2) More Board-whipes. By replacing Cyclonic Rift with another copy of Oblivion Stone we both increase our artifact count and move from a tempo card, to a card that goes X for 1 without changing the required mana too much. The Cyclonic Rift does have the utility of working as a one-time bounce spell for two mana, but I find the value of that deceptive. Sure, we solve the immediate problem the permanent in question, but we're actually down cards relative to our opponent. Since our game-plan leads to either casting a big threat, or create a low-pressure boardstate, that one card is often the difference between running them out of threats and not. The need to Cyclonic Rift random non-creature permanents is alleviated by point 3.
3)Improved t3-t4 sequencing. Done by committing to moving over to Commit//Memory from Repeal.Repeal is a fine card, and our deck really needs the effect. Some permanents just needs to stay off the table. Repeal is quite an expensive spell though. Before we complete tron we're always going to be tapping more lands than our opponent. Once we've completed tron we can cast it off of fewer lands, but we're working on less information than we'd like. We only know which card we're drawing after we've resolved it. This again leads to being locked into one of two situations. If we cast it main phase, our opponent will just recast it immediately on their turn. If we cast it in our opponent's turn, leftover mana or drawn lands can't be used well. This is especially annoying against cards like Blood Moon, Rest in Peace or Relic of Progenitus. Regardless of the cast timing Repeal leads to our opponent having an increased percentage of available spells in hand than you. This is because we will sometimes draw lands, but they will always get a spell in hand. These situations are less than ideal. what we really want to do is to spend less mana than our opponent, and deal with their card. This is the realm of counterspells, and we have a lot of them. However counterspells all have very strict timing requirements. We need to have the mana ready when they cast the spell. This problem is the whole point of Repeal in the first place. To deal with cards we couldn't stop on the stack. So what we want is a card that costs about the same, and deals with the same permanents Repeal does, but doesn't have the problems related to lacking the information to find the right play. Commit//Memory Fills a lot of these requirements. It bounces the same cards at similar costs, but you get to draw a card at the start of your turn before you have to deal with the bounced card again. You then get the ability to sequence around the problem card when you have the option to cast sorcery speed spells. I've heard people comment that Commit is bad because it improves your opponent's draws, but so does Repeal, but the effect of Commit is only felt one or two turns later.
Seeing as the bounce part of Commit is roughly equal to Repeal we can start looking into the prime advantage of commit. There are very few cards it can't interact with. It's a counterspell in addition to being a bounce spell. Planeswalkers, creatures with ETB triggers, delve mana-cheating, eldrazi-lands, uncounterable spells, none of them get past a Commit. This makes it way safer to spend turn three setting up for other things. Like casting Thirst for Knowledge. It doesn't matter that they resolved a mediocre threat on your turn three if they can never get a second threat on the table before we get to our big stuff.
4) Powerful mid to late-game with Torrential Gearhulk. With the move away from Repeal the issue of not having a bounce/removal spell to target with Torrential Gearhulk goes away, and it becomes a powerful way to set up 2 for 1 situations on most board states. It's tempting to hype the ability to use Torrential Gearhulk to only cast the Memory portion of Commit//Memory, but you'll find yourself wanting Commit more often. However when the situation does come up it's often an instant-win.
5) Land destruction soft-lock with Crucible of Worlds and Field of Ruin + gives space for utility-land. I've found that I can get away with using Field of Ruin as my only land destroying land. Combined with Crucible of Worlds it creates the value engine we've come to love lately, and when topped off with a Sundering Titan there aren't any lands that can't be destroyed using only mainboard cards. Using only a single land destruction land opens up space for an utility land. I'm currently on Buried Ruin, but I've tested with Mirrorpool, Gemstone Caverns or a fetchland as. I'm unsure which utility land offers the most.
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I have a lot more to say about the deck, but I got to go now. Expect to see one or more followup posts the next days! =)
I'm runinng 1 ghost quarter and 1 field at the moment (I've got bunch eldrazi tron decks right there). Field is very good here - it's designed exacly for Our deck the feching island part is really important sometimes.
2 Field of ruins can be a bit greedy (quarter is just faster when opposite tron want to get tron online on turn 3).
I'm currently on 2 Field of Ruin, and it doesn't feel greedy at all. I've found it actually feels like the less greedy choice. Mainly because it functions as another blue source far better than Ghost Quarter. I don't quite buy the argument versus turn 3 tron, since most in most situations like that you'll have access to a counterspell to stop the first big spell.
Commit can be decent at times, but saying that it is more flexible than Summary is just wrong. Summary does so much more. It's like comparing Unsubstantiate to Mana Leak.
More flexible because it can deal with nonland permanents in addition to spells on the stack. I don't believe I said it did everything Summary Dismissal could. Unsubstantiate isn't good because there are a lot of cases where your opponent can just recast it. Commit feels closer to Reflector Mage, it's more expensive, but we're not down on cards by playing it.
[...]storm and ad nauseam where I don't see commit offering much[...]
Commit decent in both of those matchups, but it targets different things than Summary Dismissal does. Against storm we can keep them from having an Electromancer, or flashing back past in flames due to it being a hard counter. It's not perfect, but neither is Summary Dismissal, Grapeshot can be recast, Though Past in flames and Empty is dealt with better by Dismissal. Against Ad Nauseam we can target Phyrexian Unlife,Pentad Prism and even stop the Laboratory Maniac win. All the while being exactly as good as Dismissal in a counter-war.
You also mention they play 1 or 2 copies like they have to get lucky finding them but you only run 1 commit to answer that threat. Whats the logic in the thinking there?
This has the same as when playing Summary Dismissal, we might want more, but it takes up space. In any case I've since gone up to two copies in the mainboard, and Gifts helps with setting up Gearhulk recasts.
And memory, Control is about 2 for 1-ing or making opponent 2 for 1 in our favor, this is called card advantage. When i am up 3 cards late game I feel like I have stabilized, giving my opponent 7 cards and me 7 cards feels very bad when we run more lands than they usually do, meaning we statistically should have more dead cards in our 7 and put them right back into the game. Not sure what match up I would feel comfortable giving them 7 cards and tossing my 3 card advantage.
First off, you don't cast Memory when you're ahead on cards. You cast it when THEY ARE. You don't cast Balance or Living End when you have more creatures than they have. Even so, there are a lot of situations where spinning the wheel become favorable to continuing with the same cards. That said, commit is fine alone. That it also comes with an option to cast a highly costed variant of legacy banned effects (Wheel of Fortune) without investing in a card is not a negative.
Control isn't necessarily about 2 for 1-ing though. Our deck usually isn't. We draw cards and use counterspells to go 1 for 1 until we can resolve a big spell that's hard to deal with. If we resolve that big spell we have a good chance of winning the game even if they are up on cards. I've won a large number of games off of casting Memory and finding enough mana to either cast an Ugin, a Platinum Angel or the Wurmcoil that kept me alive for that one turn i needed to set up protection or a slaver lock.
I am not dedicating sb slots to combat niche cards at all. I am dedicating sb slots to have an extremely wide answer that deals with very different kinds of threats by simply being unconditional. "Exile everything on the stack" is as unconditional as it can get,[...]
"Exile everything on the stack" is indeed as unconditional as you can get. As unconditional as you can get when dealing with the stack. My point is mainly that Commit also deals deals with a lot of situations that relates to the battlefield. Nonland permanents on the battlefield is a way way way more frequent occurrence in games of magic than on-cast triggers.
I may have phrased poorly in my earlier posts, but I never meant to say that Summary Dismissal is a niche card. The situations were you want Summary Dismissal over Commit // Memory are. You mention "Scapeshift/Titan/Nahiri/Ad Nauseam" Commit deals with those just as easy, if not easier due to reduced timing restrictions. Summary Dismissal has a real upside over Commit // Memory, and that's when dealing with cast triggers (storm/expensive eldrazi), and when used to stop triggers from land (fetch/valakut). I'm questioning the use of dedicated sideboard slots for only those situations, when Commit // Memory can be used as a flex card instead. It's even maindeckable.
I think Commit is a decent card and what Commit does is desirable in U Tron even for 3U. The whole problem with that card is Memory which seems utterly useless to me.[...]
A card can only get better by including more options. If Commit is good enough alone, Commit // Memory is also good enough.
[...]While I like the effect Commit offers it suffers from a similiar problem like many of our other answers like Remand and Repeal and even Condescend at times... it's conditional.[...]
The problem with Remand and Repeal is that sometimes you really need one when you have the other. Commit doesn't have that problem. It has the ability to solve BOTH situations, that's flexibility.
The only situations I can think of right now where Commit would be dead is when the board is flooded with permanents, or it will be flooded before you can reach four mana. All other situations are situations where you can get decent value out of casting it.
[...]If you don't have enough mana your condescend won't do much. If you remand you might die next turn. If you commit you might die in two turns (or one if they cantrip). Summary Dismissal just deals with it and even exiles so they cannot get it back ever. That is worth a lot to me.
How long are the games of magic you're playing usually? Two turns is an eternity in games I play. That's enough turns to play a a threat of your own, maybe play card draw spell. If you're in a good mood maybe set up a slaver lock as well. A problem card being pushed two turns into the future is almost the same as dealing with it permanently in our deck. If we can get time for our payoff spells we win.
But then again most Eldrazi Tron decks run none of those cards, but even if they play one or two copies they have very few ways to finding them. You simply can't dedicate a lot of sideboard cards specifically for dealing with singletons in opponents' decks. The primary effect we're worried about from Eldrazi Tron is uncounterability, which they have somewhat often with their 4 Expedition Maps. Uncounterability is dealt with by either Commit or Summary Dismissal equally well, and I'm favoring Commit due to its far greater flexibility.
Commit isn't dead against the cards from other decks you mentioned either. Against storm it stalls the combo by either stopping Past in Flames, or by removing an electromancer.
If you want to dedicate sideboard slots against niche cards that's up to you. I'm saying I haven't found the targeted hate cards in blue to be better than running general answers, and gaining advantage by tuning the deck after sideboarding.
Quick question, why is everyone saying Elrazi Tron is a good matchup?
I'm at about 60% against them, and the strategy I've gone for is three Dismember in the sideboard. Other than that I'm not dedicating cards exclusively for the matchup. The mainboard Commit // Memory does the job of dealing with uncounterable spells far better than cards like Summary Dismissal ever could.
Like the talisman the bauble does have a tendency to get sided out slightly more than the average card in the deck. However much of this is in anticipation of artifact destruction or or other hate, leading them to be slightly better before sideboarding. This is not a big problem though, since the way I've built my sideboard I usually have more cards we want to take in from the sideboard than we want to take out from the mainboard. Post sideboard we also know better which kind of ramp we want in any particular matchup. Against decks that flood the board like elves we need to reach a lot of mana ASAP, but against decks like Eldrazi Tron or midrange decks we want access to the blue mana, and to get to just 6 mana for wurmcoil.
Is the bauble still working for you? I'm considering it. I'd have to cut the 3rd repeal or anticipate. I notice you don't run Anticipate, do you find bauble ramp more helpful than card digging?
Yes, but I have an indirect reasoning for it being right.
As you see in the list I'm running 5 card draw spells, those being 4 Thirsts and 1 Gifts. I feel that is close to the upper limit on how many cards you can exclusively dedicate to drawing cards. Our ideal start hand, in a vacuum, has exactly one or zero card drawing spells up until the turn you can cast them. If we have more than this the hand gets clogged with cards that doesn't interact. However if we have a high total density of card drawing spells we get cascading effects where one card drawing spell can draw a second, which draws a third and so on. We want access to the cascading effect, but don't want our hands clogged with card drawing spells.
The way I'm achieving the cascading effect in my deck is to run the Gearhulks, they are super flexible in that they enable the cascading effect when I need it, but can target interaction spells as well. The Gearhulks costing double blue isn't ideal, but comes at a relatively low deckbuilding cost that could be covered by talismans, which were already close to being the optimal choice for our deck. The amount of blue sources needed locks me into two or three spells that create blue mana that isn't from my lands. This is because simply playing islands becomes too slow when we also want use use the same lands plays to be tron lands to play tron lands.
As you know, using Talismans for blue extensively will hurt a lot. Which means that every talisman added is worse than the previous since the life loss becomes increasingly relevant as your life total goes lower. In addition hands with multiple Talismans have weird sequencing slowing us down. As I reasoned back when I originally talked about Wayfarer's Bauble it is way more flexible on the curve than the talismans are, at the cost of requiring a greater amount of total mana investment. Some of this mana is End of Turn mana, which aren't super well spent currently when we aren't casting card drawing spells. It could be said that this somewhat leads to Anticipate and the bauble being direct competitors for using the limited resource of EOT mana. Especially the turn two EOT mana.
The inclusion of spells that helps reach 4 mana on turn three in turn makes Solemn Simulacrum better, which in turn allow us to cast Gearhulks and Wurmcoils on turn four.
When adding blue sources to the deck under these requirements it leads me to assign the following ranking for ability to add blue sources to the deck.
1) Talisman #1
2) Wayfarer's Bauble #1
2) Talisman #2
3) Solemn Simulacrum #1
4) More blue lands
We only need two bonus blue sources, so one of each of the Talisman and Bauble. However the Solemn serves more purposes than just fetching a blue source, so it's included independent of this ranking.
This is all just a roundabout way of saying the following:
I play Wayfarer's Bauble because I want better access to the kind of effect offered by Anticipate.
I'm using it primarily as any other card draw spell. The thing that sets Gifts Ungiven apart from other card draw spells is that it will always draw you two cards of the card type you want. For instance, if you need to hit land drops for a bunch of turns it will let you do that. If you need to find a pair of counterspells, it will do that. If you need to find something big to stabilize or answer the board, it will help you do that. When it comes to card drawing spells it's just a very efficient way of getting to the cards you want. You only net one card when you cast it, but the cards 'drawn' will have an impact on your current boardstate far more often than a spell that draws three random cards. The way to use it quite direct. Identify what kind of card you want in your hand, and grab several of them using Gifts.
The thing that makes Gifts great though is its ability to create 'oops, I win' situations because it's a very effective tutor. Even though your opponent gets to chose which cards go to the graveyard we have ways of interacting with the graveyard. I often find myself just casting it to put Mindslaver or Oblivion Stone in the graveyard, and win from there. It can be hard to see those lines if you aren't familiar with the deck though.
As for tricks. I've on occasion waited with activating my Mindslaver half a turn so that I can set up a Gifts Ungiven on their controlled turn. This is pretty much always allows for a Mindslaver lock, since you can get whatever you're missing directly to hand. This becomes slightly more reliable if you're playing with two Mindslavers, since you can then tutor for the second one as well as an Academy Ruins.
It also works nicely with Torrential Gearhulk. Either by putting the gearhulk into the grave for retrieval with Academy Ruins, or by casting it off of the Gearhulk itself. Casting high cmc spells off of gearhulk feels like cheating.
There's the ability to put Memory in the grave as well, but that's usually a desperation move. Though that does work more often than it has any right to.
No one else likes aetherize? It is my primary wrath.
I haven't played with Aetherize in a while, though I'm suspecting it's not too great. It has the same mana cost as Commit, but it has none of Commit's flexibility. If they are attacking with a lot of creatures their deck is also likely to have a way to get them back on the table quickly. If they are attacking with one creature, commit is better in every way, and finally if, they are attacking with two, they are about on par with each other since you're not down a card after casting commit.
If you're looking for an instant speed boardwhipe against attacking creatures I'm far more favorable to Ætherspouts. If you cast it you're far more likely to have solved the creature problem in the medium to long term.
How has spell burst performed for you? I really like the card but haven't had much experience with it.
There was a period where Spell Burst wasn't too good. However now that Grixis Death's shadow has become a significant part of the meta I'm liking it a lot again. I can't seem to reliably stop them casting the Death's Shadow using Condescend and similar countermagic. So using two mana on spell burst to stop a Death's shadow is pretty good. The big thing about the spell is that the upside of having it in the right situation is extremely high. Especially now that so many decks runs cheap spells. It's well worth the slot. If there wasn't so many other spells fighting for spots in the deck I'd be tempted to run two.
Most of the time you go 1 for 1 with it, but when countering high impact cmc 1 spells that doesn't feel bad. And any time you get to buy it back you get far ahead.
I've found it particularly useful whenever I've been up against Living End and I don't recall any matchup in particular where its inclusion felt worse than any other counterspell.
As you can see in the 5-0 list I experimented with a copy of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Despite doing well in the league, and a series of matches before I’m not convinced he’s right for the deck. In total my Jace testing resulted in going 17-11, though only two to three games throughout allowed Jace to work as intended. In the vast majority of situations he functioned as a cycler with a few life stapled on, was unnecessary to progress our plans, or the mana cost was hard to manage. Double blue really is harder to manage when the total cost is 4 rather than 6 for the Torrential Gearhulk. In the early game it’s hard to find double blue, and in the late it would leave colorless lands wasted. As I said over direct message, Jace really feels like oiling the machine, but he’s only available when we want to have the machine running. The closest analogue I could think of for Jace is Snapcaster Mage recasting a Thirst for Knowledge. It’s a one-time thing, as opposed to every single turn, but the flexibility is far greater. That style is probably more suited for a tron deck too. We want to assemble tron, and when we do assemble tron we’ve gotten what we want. Investing extra resources in a card that could find tronland four five and six doesn’t have that much value to us.
That said, I’m happy he’s unbanned. Our good matchups is becoming more common, and I haven’t seen any of the matchups becoming worse for us. Though it’s worth mentioning that the value of Commit might have gone up slightly relative to Repeal. Repealing a Jace (probably) feels very bad, while Committing him is fine. I had one fun game where I got very close to winning through a Jace ult by casting Memory, but dealing with a Liliana ult at the same time was just a bit too hard.
Lately there’s been some discussion regarding Think Twice and Anticipate style of cards. I recently looked specifically on those cards and after testing over a bunch of matches came to the conclusion that they all share a common problem. They’re cheap and flexible, and the upside is immediately obvious. Their big problem is that they don’t actually do enough per mana spent. They put a lot of pressure on other spells making up for their low impact on the boardstate. The need to find an Oblivion Stone or an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon increases. They help you find the last land you need to complete tron, but since you spent mana on looking instead of affecting the board you really really need to complete tron right now. Finding tron quickly like that is what the green tron variants does, and they do it better. There might be cards of that kind good enough to play, but I’m starting to doubt that even Impulse would be good enough for us. Ancient Stirrings from G Tron is a whole mana cheaper, and looks five cards deep. That’s the kind of efficiency we need to approach for these cards to be good. This reasoning led me to thinking of Mishra’s Bauble, but that deserves its own section.
I’ve seen a lot of lists running Tolaria West, River of Tears, or worse, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Every single list I can find running one or more of those three are running 24 or more lands. I wonder why you feel you need more space for Islands. Might it be because you feel you can’t rely on playing untapped blue the first turn you need it? I typically play my tron lands first, and generally play islands when I have a use for them. This sets up for topdecking more tronlands, and comes with no downsides I can think of. I’m not really convinced the upsides of those three cards are all that big anyway. The main argument for Urborg and River of Tears' access to black, but how relevant is that really? We don’t play that many copies of Dismember, and the main thing that makes Dismember good is that it’s cheap. If you want to spend more mana to do the same thing we’re nearing Psionic Blast territory (art and card). At that point it’s better to just counter or Repeal the threat. I don’t see much advantage in having black for Engineered Explosives either. The situation where you want to spend 4 mana to destroy cmc 2 permanents are admittedly relevant against humans, but not many others. But the lands slots you’re spending to make that possible will affect you in most games you play. The lands can prevent playing Treasure Mage at convenient times, which you might have observed. And other edge cases like mainphase Thirst for knowledge is also affected. As for newer cards Search for Azcanta is negatively impacted, since it becomes a way worse topdeck on turn two or three. And I’ll have to say good luck if any of you are planning on casting Jaces off of Rivers of Tears.
Someone mentioned the power of Chalice of the Void, and I feel that it has become a worse card recently. A lot of decks have good ways of making it irrelevant. The rise of Humans as a deck, and the relative decrease of Death’s Shadow lead me to question the mainboard inclusion. It’s good in many situations, but the number of decks where it’s almost dead is close to the tipping point. I’ve gone down to a single copy myself, with another two in the sideboard.
For those questioning the need for Platinum Angel I have some perspective to offer. I believe the need for cards like Platinum Angel is directly tied to the number of cards you play similar to those in paragraph 4. That is, the more you play Anticipates, Think Twice and other draw spells the more you need your big threat at the end to be super relevant. Some play more than one Mindslaver, and that’s one way of doing it, but be aware that the reason you’re doing it is because you have a need for impactful top-end. Personally I find playing one copy of Angel and one of Mindslaver is plenty, as well as increasing the tutoring power of the Treasure Mages. It’s important not to run too few expensive artifacts, or they become useless. Though you could theoretically just skip out on the 6+ theme of our deck if you want. Maybe by playing a Matter Reshaper or something in the same spot. I don’t think it’s worth going that direction though. Would help our need for blue mana for sure though.
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My most recent round of testing is with Mishra's Bauble, I’ve seen it gotten played in a lot of other decks, but have always skipped over it when thinking about Blue tron. The discussion about Think Twice and Anticipate triggered the thought for blue tron though. And I played a number of matches with it (14-9). The neat thing about Mishra’s Bauble is that it practically just deck thinning. While also being an artifact for Thirst for Knowledge. It’s interaction with thirst means that if you get it on your opening hand you’ll have drawn the fresh card before you actually do anything meaningful, while also offering several smaller sequencing benefits.
For instance I was in the following situation while testing. I had three lands in my opening hand, two of them tron-lands, an Island, a Map and a Mishra's Bauble. I played the Map and Bauble turn one. On turn two I cracked the Bauble looking at my own deck before playing my land. I saw a Wurmcoil on top. This allowed me to make the choice of playing my second tron-land instead of my Island for the counterspell I drew that turn. Had it been an irrelevant card I could have “scryed” it away by cracking Expedition Map in before drawing from Bauble. The Bauble gave a surprising amount of deck manipulation for only costing zero mana.
Picture of my decklist attached, because I’m lazy. The list will likely be up on Wizard’s site when they post next.
I think I got another big post in me regarding the “rethinking blue tron” discussion, but that will have to be another day.
Edit: Speeeeling
4 Condescend
3 Commit//Memory
3 Remand
1 Telling Time
1 Spell Burst
Selection
4 Expedition Map
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Treasure Mage
2 Search for Azcanta
Silver-Bullets
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Walking Ballista
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Mindslaver
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Platinum Angel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sundering Titan
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Crucible of Worlds
Lands
7 Island
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
1 Academy Ruins
1 Field of Ruin
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Buried Ruin
2 Dismember
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Spatial Contortion
2 Spreading Seas
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Squelch
I have no prepared sideboard plan for exact card counts in each matchup, but make them up as I go.
For instance vs the new humans deck I might remove all my countermagic and go:
-1 Chalice of the Void
-3 Remand
-4 Condescend
-1 Spell Burst
+3 Spatial Contortion
+2 Dismember
+1 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon
+2 Nimble Obstructionist
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
Against eldrazi tron I suppose I go something like this:
-2 Chalice of the Void
-1 Ugin, the spirit Dragon
-1 Expedition Map
-2 Treasure Mage
-1 Spell Burst
-1 Telling Time
-1 Sundering Titan
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Dismember
+2 Nimble Obstructionist
+2 Squelch (depending on if I expect relics)
+2 Spreading Seas
UR Storm:
-1 Platinum Angel
-1 Sundering Titan
-1 Oblivion Stone
-1 Wurmcoil Engine
-1 Search for Azcanta
-1 Remand
-1 Treasure Mage
-1 Crucible of worlds
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
+2 Nimble Obstructionist
+2 Dismember
+2 Chalice of the void
+3 Spatial Contortion
Even without a plan for each matchup I think I side pretty much the same every time for each deck. However since there there is so much variation between decks of the same archetype I never really sat down and wrote a sideboard guide.
Edit: Commit is one of those magical cards that does something in every matchup, and can act as flexible cards when I need to make larger adjustments from the sideboard.
Therefore, to get full value out of Torrential Gearhulk the deck needs more instants to cast using it. In my version I've moved away from Repeal, and over to Commit//Memory, as well as using Search for Azcanta. With these changes there are virtually no situation where casting a Gearhulk isn't awesome.
It's a bit hard to judge if it has gone down, because so much of the draw power comes on flexible cards now. If I need cards I have the option of just recasting a Thirst for Knowledge with a Torrential Gearhulk. Or maybe just changing the mode on Supreme Will However it definitively feels I have enough with this configuration. I believe there is a sweet-spot for dedicated card drawing spells at around 5 cards (thirsts and gifts) due to the risk of having drawing too many. So any other card draw has to come from flexible spells like Supreme Will.
I'm not entirely convinced of Supreme Will yet. much because of the CMC of 3, the deck already runs a lot of CMC 3 spells so it may be hard to find a good spot to cast it. It's possible the slot should have a Snapcaster Mage in that slot instead.
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My 5-0 in the competitive leagues from yesterday didn't get posted
4 Condescend
3 Commit//Memory
3 Remand
1 Supreme Will
1 Spell Burst
Selection
4 Expedition Map
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Treasure Mage
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Search for Azcanta
Silver-Bullets
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Walking Ballista
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Mindslaver
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Platinum Angel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sundering Titan
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Crucible of Worlds
Lands
7 Island
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
1 Academy Ruins
1 Field of Ruin
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Buried Ruin
2 Dismember
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Spatial Contortion
2 Spreading Seas
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Squelch
Advantages
1) 16 Artifacts. With so many artifacts in the list the power of Thirst for Knowledge goes up a lot. The increase in card selection you get from going from zero to one artifact, and from one to two or more is immense. The stock lists seems to have corrected itself somewhat, but for a long while it was common to run as few as 12-13 artifacts. The artifact count was so low in some of the lists that I kinda believe it warped the conversation regarding specific cards, since it being/replacing an artifact in the list being tested had a far bigger effect on the card's playability than we gave it credit for.
2) More Board-whipes. By replacing Cyclonic Rift with another copy of Oblivion Stone we both increase our artifact count and move from a tempo card, to a card that goes X for 1 without changing the required mana too much. The Cyclonic Rift does have the utility of working as a one-time bounce spell for two mana, but I find the value of that deceptive. Sure, we solve the immediate problem the permanent in question, but we're actually down cards relative to our opponent. Since our game-plan leads to either casting a big threat, or create a low-pressure boardstate, that one card is often the difference between running them out of threats and not. The need to Cyclonic Rift random non-creature permanents is alleviated by point 3.
3)Improved t3-t4 sequencing. Done by committing to moving over to Commit//Memory from Repeal.Repeal is a fine card, and our deck really needs the effect. Some permanents just needs to stay off the table. Repeal is quite an expensive spell though. Before we complete tron we're always going to be tapping more lands than our opponent. Once we've completed tron we can cast it off of fewer lands, but we're working on less information than we'd like. We only know which card we're drawing after we've resolved it. This again leads to being locked into one of two situations. If we cast it main phase, our opponent will just recast it immediately on their turn. If we cast it in our opponent's turn, leftover mana or drawn lands can't be used well. This is especially annoying against cards like Blood Moon, Rest in Peace or Relic of Progenitus. Regardless of the cast timing Repeal leads to our opponent having an increased percentage of available spells in hand than you. This is because we will sometimes draw lands, but they will always get a spell in hand. These situations are less than ideal. what we really want to do is to spend less mana than our opponent, and deal with their card. This is the realm of counterspells, and we have a lot of them. However counterspells all have very strict timing requirements. We need to have the mana ready when they cast the spell. This problem is the whole point of Repeal in the first place. To deal with cards we couldn't stop on the stack. So what we want is a card that costs about the same, and deals with the same permanents Repeal does, but doesn't have the problems related to lacking the information to find the right play.
Commit//Memory Fills a lot of these requirements. It bounces the same cards at similar costs, but you get to draw a card at the start of your turn before you have to deal with the bounced card again. You then get the ability to sequence around the problem card when you have the option to cast sorcery speed spells. I've heard people comment that Commit is bad because it improves your opponent's draws, but so does Repeal, but the effect of Commit is only felt one or two turns later.
Seeing as the bounce part of Commit is roughly equal to Repeal we can start looking into the prime advantage of commit. There are very few cards it can't interact with. It's a counterspell in addition to being a bounce spell. Planeswalkers, creatures with ETB triggers, delve mana-cheating, eldrazi-lands, uncounterable spells, none of them get past a Commit. This makes it way safer to spend turn three setting up for other things. Like casting Thirst for Knowledge. It doesn't matter that they resolved a mediocre threat on your turn three if they can never get a second threat on the table before we get to our big stuff.
4) Powerful mid to late-game with Torrential Gearhulk. With the move away from Repeal the issue of not having a bounce/removal spell to target with Torrential Gearhulk goes away, and it becomes a powerful way to set up 2 for 1 situations on most board states. It's tempting to hype the ability to use Torrential Gearhulk to only cast the Memory portion of Commit//Memory, but you'll find yourself wanting Commit more often. However when the situation does come up it's often an instant-win.
5) Land destruction soft-lock with Crucible of Worlds and Field of Ruin + gives space for utility-land. I've found that I can get away with using Field of Ruin as my only land destroying land. Combined with Crucible of Worlds it creates the value engine we've come to love lately, and when topped off with a Sundering Titan there aren't any lands that can't be destroyed using only mainboard cards. Using only a single land destruction land opens up space for an utility land. I'm currently on Buried Ruin, but I've tested with Mirrorpool, Gemstone Caverns or a fetchland as. I'm unsure which utility land offers the most.
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I have a lot more to say about the deck, but I got to go now. Expect to see one or more followup posts the next days! =)
I'm currently on 2 Field of Ruin, and it doesn't feel greedy at all. I've found it actually feels like the less greedy choice. Mainly because it functions as another blue source far better than Ghost Quarter. I don't quite buy the argument versus turn 3 tron, since most in most situations like that you'll have access to a counterspell to stop the first big spell.
More flexible because it can deal with nonland permanents in addition to spells on the stack. I don't believe I said it did everything Summary Dismissal could. Unsubstantiate isn't good because there are a lot of cases where your opponent can just recast it. Commit feels closer to Reflector Mage, it's more expensive, but we're not down on cards by playing it. I don't see your point. Gearhulk makes our Wheel of Fortune instant speed, therefore it's bad?
Once you cast Memory you either win the next turn, or have reset the game to a situation where both players have similar amounts of resources in hand.
This has the same as when playing Summary Dismissal, we might want more, but it takes up space. In any case I've since gone up to two copies in the mainboard, and Gifts helps with setting up Gearhulk recasts.
First off, you don't cast Memory when you're ahead on cards. You cast it when THEY ARE. You don't cast Balance or Living End when you have more creatures than they have. Even so, there are a lot of situations where spinning the wheel become favorable to continuing with the same cards. That said, commit is fine alone. That it also comes with an option to cast a highly costed variant of legacy banned effects (Wheel of Fortune) without investing in a card is not a negative.
Control isn't necessarily about 2 for 1-ing though. Our deck usually isn't. We draw cards and use counterspells to go 1 for 1 until we can resolve a big spell that's hard to deal with. If we resolve that big spell we have a good chance of winning the game even if they are up on cards. I've won a large number of games off of casting Memory and finding enough mana to either cast an Ugin, a Platinum Angel or the Wurmcoil that kept me alive for that one turn i needed to set up protection or a slaver lock.
"Exile everything on the stack" is indeed as unconditional as you can get. As unconditional as you can get when dealing with the stack. My point is mainly that Commit also deals deals with a lot of situations that relates to the battlefield. Nonland permanents on the battlefield is a way way way more frequent occurrence in games of magic than on-cast triggers.
I may have phrased poorly in my earlier posts, but I never meant to say that Summary Dismissal is a niche card. The situations were you want Summary Dismissal over Commit // Memory are. You mention "Scapeshift/Titan/Nahiri/Ad Nauseam" Commit deals with those just as easy, if not easier due to reduced timing restrictions. Summary Dismissal has a real upside over Commit // Memory, and that's when dealing with cast triggers (storm/expensive eldrazi), and when used to stop triggers from land (fetch/valakut). I'm questioning the use of dedicated sideboard slots for only those situations, when Commit // Memory can be used as a flex card instead. It's even maindeckable.
A card can only get better by including more options. If Commit is good enough alone, Commit // Memory is also good enough.
The problem with Remand and Repeal is that sometimes you really need one when you have the other. Commit doesn't have that problem. It has the ability to solve BOTH situations, that's flexibility.
The only situations I can think of right now where Commit would be dead is when the board is flooded with permanents, or it will be flooded before you can reach four mana. All other situations are situations where you can get decent value out of casting it.
How long are the games of magic you're playing usually? Two turns is an eternity in games I play. That's enough turns to play a a threat of your own, maybe play card draw spell. If you're in a good mood maybe set up a slaver lock as well. A problem card being pushed two turns into the future is almost the same as dealing with it permanently in our deck. If we can get time for our payoff spells we win.
Commit isn't dead against the cards from other decks you mentioned either. Against storm it stalls the combo by either stopping Past in Flames, or by removing an electromancer.
If you want to dedicate sideboard slots against niche cards that's up to you. I'm saying I haven't found the targeted hate cards in blue to be better than running general answers, and gaining advantage by tuning the deck after sideboarding.
As you see in the list I'm running 5 card draw spells, those being 4 Thirsts and 1 Gifts. I feel that is close to the upper limit on how many cards you can exclusively dedicate to drawing cards. Our ideal start hand, in a vacuum, has exactly one or zero card drawing spells up until the turn you can cast them. If we have more than this the hand gets clogged with cards that doesn't interact. However if we have a high total density of card drawing spells we get cascading effects where one card drawing spell can draw a second, which draws a third and so on. We want access to the cascading effect, but don't want our hands clogged with card drawing spells.
The way I'm achieving the cascading effect in my deck is to run the Gearhulks, they are super flexible in that they enable the cascading effect when I need it, but can target interaction spells as well. The Gearhulks costing double blue isn't ideal, but comes at a relatively low deckbuilding cost that could be covered by talismans, which were already close to being the optimal choice for our deck. The amount of blue sources needed locks me into two or three spells that create blue mana that isn't from my lands. This is because simply playing islands becomes too slow when we also want use use the same lands plays to be tron lands to play tron lands.
As you know, using Talismans for blue extensively will hurt a lot. Which means that every talisman added is worse than the previous since the life loss becomes increasingly relevant as your life total goes lower. In addition hands with multiple Talismans have weird sequencing slowing us down. As I reasoned back when I originally talked about Wayfarer's Bauble it is way more flexible on the curve than the talismans are, at the cost of requiring a greater amount of total mana investment. Some of this mana is End of Turn mana, which aren't super well spent currently when we aren't casting card drawing spells. It could be said that this somewhat leads to Anticipate and the bauble being direct competitors for using the limited resource of EOT mana. Especially the turn two EOT mana.
The inclusion of spells that helps reach 4 mana on turn three in turn makes Solemn Simulacrum better, which in turn allow us to cast Gearhulks and Wurmcoils on turn four.
When adding blue sources to the deck under these requirements it leads me to assign the following ranking for ability to add blue sources to the deck.
1) Talisman #1
2) Wayfarer's Bauble #1
2) Talisman #2
3) Solemn Simulacrum #1
4) More blue lands
We only need two bonus blue sources, so one of each of the Talisman and Bauble. However the Solemn serves more purposes than just fetching a blue source, so it's included independent of this ranking.
This is all just a roundabout way of saying the following:
I play Wayfarer's Bauble because I want better access to the kind of effect offered by Anticipate.
The thing that makes Gifts great though is its ability to create 'oops, I win' situations because it's a very effective tutor. Even though your opponent gets to chose which cards go to the graveyard we have ways of interacting with the graveyard. I often find myself just casting it to put Mindslaver or Oblivion Stone in the graveyard, and win from there. It can be hard to see those lines if you aren't familiar with the deck though.
As for tricks. I've on occasion waited with activating my Mindslaver half a turn so that I can set up a Gifts Ungiven on their controlled turn. This is pretty much always allows for a Mindslaver lock, since you can get whatever you're missing directly to hand. This becomes slightly more reliable if you're playing with two Mindslavers, since you can then tutor for the second one as well as an Academy Ruins.
It also works nicely with Torrential Gearhulk. Either by putting the gearhulk into the grave for retrieval with Academy Ruins, or by casting it off of the Gearhulk itself. Casting high cmc spells off of gearhulk feels like cheating.
There's the ability to put Memory in the grave as well, but that's usually a desperation move. Though that does work more often than it has any right to.
I haven't played with Aetherize in a while, though I'm suspecting it's not too great. It has the same mana cost as Commit, but it has none of Commit's flexibility. If they are attacking with a lot of creatures their deck is also likely to have a way to get them back on the table quickly. If they are attacking with one creature, commit is better in every way, and finally if, they are attacking with two, they are about on par with each other since you're not down a card after casting commit.
If you're looking for an instant speed boardwhipe against attacking creatures I'm far more favorable to Ætherspouts. If you cast it you're far more likely to have solved the creature problem in the medium to long term.
There was a period where Spell Burst wasn't too good. However now that Grixis Death's shadow has become a significant part of the meta I'm liking it a lot again. I can't seem to reliably stop them casting the Death's Shadow using Condescend and similar countermagic. So using two mana on spell burst to stop a Death's shadow is pretty good. The big thing about the spell is that the upside of having it in the right situation is extremely high. Especially now that so many decks runs cheap spells. It's well worth the slot. If there wasn't so many other spells fighting for spots in the deck I'd be tempted to run two.
Most of the time you go 1 for 1 with it, but when countering high impact cmc 1 spells that doesn't feel bad. And any time you get to buy it back you get far ahead.
I've found it particularly useful whenever I've been up against Living End and I don't recall any matchup in particular where its inclusion felt worse than any other counterspell.