Hi guys. Just split top 2 of a 30 Man GPT on WRC control
Round 1:2-0 Crushed a UW Erayo, Soratami Ascendant Brew, felt like they would have had good game but never managed to flip it early enough
Round 2:2-0 Sulti Midrange. He conceded to Blood Moon -> Wrath Game 1. Game 2 he conceded to a T2 Bloodmoon.
Round 3:2-1 BW Eldrazi Taxes. He managed to take G2 with a total nut draw of multiple flickerwisps and eldrazi displacers dodging all of my removal. G1 I ground him out with removal/walkers, and G3 he flooded fairly hard.
Round 4:2-1 Lantern Control. He won G2 on top of multiple needles, and exiling my emrakul the 2nd time around. I took G1 and G3 off of Chalice/Blood moon into Chandra Ult.
Round 5:1-1-1 ID. Split into 1st seed.
Top 8:
Ro8: Infect. Chalice on 1 is very strong, and he drew poorly. I won 2-0 in a rather unexciting match. Blood moon came down the turn before inkmoth both games.
Ro4: Abzan Company. Wrath and Anger both shone here, and I managed to dodge strong companies. Fairly easy 2-0, especially as he didn't fetch for basics
Finals: ID split with Burn, as neither of us was going to Vancouver anyhow.
It felt really good.
If I were to play this list again I'd play probably 3 Rugged Prarie as additional C sources.
I think TKS is very strong in this deck, as my one weakness has always been cards-in-hand.
I also want to find room for 2-3 Blessed Alliance in Main/Side, and 2 more Chalice
Prison decks put into place a series of lock pieces that prevent the opponent from doing things. Usually these are static or repeatable effects and they seek advantage by not allowing the opponent to do anything. Control decks use cards from their hand to interact directly with the stack or the battlefield. Because they have to use individual cards for this, it seeks to maintain parity or get ahead through card advantage, recursion, or 2-for-1s. The main difference I see is that one philosophy seeks to maintain a high amount of interactivity by relying on answers, which makes for interesting and dynamic gameplay. The other philosophy seeks to make sure no Magic is actually played at all. I'm sure there are people that find Lantern and RW Prison exciting and fun, but I know I'm not one of them, and I'm sure very few opponents are thrilled to see it.
So by this argument Legacy Miracles is a prison deck?
While I understand the desire to play such a deck, is there ANY non-standard format where a "pure control" style is viable? Certainly not Vintage. Certainly not Legacy. All of the legacy "control" decks have some sort of creature tempo package, or a counter-top style lock.
I just want us to be realistic here, and acnowledge that DEATH AND TAXES is defined as a "control" deck by the legacy community.
So is the consensus that Lantern is NOT a control deck? Because prison =/= control?
I don't understand the people who want a no-wincondition draw-go control deck, but complain about lantern.
Sun/Moon has also started to become a meta deck, and I think it's just a matter of people learning it for it to become a strong deck. Whether you call that midrange or control is up to the player, I guess, but it's certainly not agro/combo.
Bant eldrazi and spirits are also strong emerging decks, and whild spirits could be called an agro deck i'd put both as firmly midrange.
Round 1: Lost in 3 turns to Belcher. Nothing much to report, except that Thalia sucks here. Thoughtseize or Therapy would have given me game G2, which I lost on a mulligan with Thalia in hand.
Round 2: Bye... Lol 2 rounds in and I've played 1 turn.
Round 3: Enchantress. He never finds solitary and I kill him t4 and then t5. Piledriver seemed very important here, and I wished I had warren weirding for enchantress.
Round 4: 12 post eldrazi. Game one went very long and grindy, I was able to pick it up off of triple sharpshooter killing everything (made with Kiki Jiki.) Game 2 wastelanded early and ground the game out. T1 wasteland probably saved this game. Tuktuk is great, being able to copy it with Kiki is so strong.
Top 4 (small event)
Semis- Reanimator. G1 he made T2 Gristlebrand, and when I bounced it drew 7, discarded Elesh Norn, won. G2 Won off T1 Lackey, T2 Grafdiggers, T3 Chalice. G3 he mulled heavily and I played lackey into uncouterable Thalia into quick win. He never found reanimation spell casting 2-mana cantrips.
Finals- Maverick. T1 lackey into tarfire on mana dork is really good. Not much else to say except that Pyrokinesis is very strong.
I really felt the lack of discard this tournament, and think that I'm going to drop Thalia in favor of Thoughtsieze and Therapy. T1 interaction seems more important, as well as actually permanently answering cards. I also think Warren Weirding is going to find 2-3 slots in my 75, as an answer to Reanimator and S+T that also helps my lackeys connect.
I see that most people are playing Skirk Prospector, how do people feel about dropping it?
Modeled after the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea, which I thought would be appropriate given the setting. A young man from a small island, gifted with Magery, but lacking in skill or traning. What skill he currently has is mostly weather-magic, with a dabbling of witchcraft (may turn B later. The kind of thing you'd learn in a small farm/fishing village.
Deceiving Mist1U
Enchantment
Players cast spells face down, without declaring targets. (Players must still declare the Mana Cost and/or other costs of the spell they are casting.)
When a spell resolves, turn it face up and declare targets as part of the resolution of the spell.
If a spell is targeted, turn it face up to determine it's legality as a target.
We need a way to keep the guard from knowing what we're doing. I'll summon up a mist to confuse him, so he won't know what we're doing until it's already happened.
If control players could play more than just Lantern as a prison strategy, would that make them happy?
I've been playing around Magus of the Tabernacle strategies, and if anyone has a good idea of how to get around my Trinisphere/Goblin Dark Dwellers non-bo I'd be ecstatic.
I think that part of people's struggle with control is that many players want a control deck that wins on power level, not outplay. That's a problem because if the control deck is substantitively more powerful, it's too good. Decks like Miracles are fair because the control shell has a strong factor of outplay on both sides, each player makes decisions each turn that matter. "Ideal" Miracles play might be oppressive, but isn't functionally attainable.
What modern control players need to accept is the inclusion of high skill-cap cards that they can abuse their familiarity with over opponents. Decks like Lantern Control are prime examples of this: the lantern control player is leveraging a knowledge of each deck, and often needs to take educated risks, or bluff out opponents.
I am fully confident that cards like Trinisphere, and Gifts Ungiven, or decks like Enchantress Prison or Ascendancy Control/combo have a lot of viable design space, but that the tendency to pick up a netdeck, and succeed without several weeks of trial and tweaking to fit personal style and local metagame hurts their percieved viability.
This is a variant on the UW Quest for the Holy Relic archetype. I'm making a new thread because the UW Quest threads are all fairly old, and I think that this variant turns our mission in a slightly new direction.
I know that 15 mana sources seems incredibly light, but I've found it to be fairly forgiving. I haven't had to mull past 6 cards yet in testing, although some of those keeps were certainly 1-landers.
The core idea of the deck is that both Quest and Erayo want us to play a lot of spells quickly, and then significantly disrupt our opponent. We use the Ornithoper-Glint Hawk-Ornithoptor trick here, as well as spells like Bauble, Git. Probe, and Mox Opal. T2 is often possible with Erayo, while turn 3 is a more reasonable goal for attacking with Argentum Armor.
One of my favorite synergies in the deck is the Combo between Erayo and Ethersworn Cannonist, locking non-artifact decks out of spells completely.
The primary reason I think this deck has real potential (as a strong tier-two alternative to T1 mainstays) is that it fits all of my criteria for a good brew.
1) It's fast, establishing a clearly dominant position usually as early as turn 3.
2) It has a decent backup plan, beating down with a few 2/2 flyers and a signal pest looks a lot like playing delver.
3) It's consistent. We can "combo" with either Erayo or Quest, and essentially the entire deck combos with both.
I'd love thoughts and feedback, especially on sideboard.
Tournament Results so far
4-0 FNM w/24 People. (infect, boggles, Grixis Delver, G/r Tron)
Hi All, I posted this in it's own thread a few weeks ago, but then found this one. I piloted almost this exact list to 5th of 50 at NH states last week, and it's performed well at smaller 8-15 person events as well. I really want to push this forward toward Developing Competitive, and I'm looking for advice and playtesting help. It's a fun balance between being aggressively competitive and still having people laugh when you cast your Hardened Scales.
The strength of the deck is overpowering other creature decks in combat, while simultaneously outracing many strategies. The +1/+1 counter abilities make pseudo-lords out of virtually all of our creatures, making our first plays quickly reach the 4/4 to 6/6 range, outpacing any other 1 mana plays. When combined with hardened scales, the math gets even more gross.
Vial lets us play a quick tempo style, as well as synergizing with Mayor, and freeing up mana to play scales and removal.
The cards I'm most on the fence about are Experiment One and Eternal Witness. Witness is so powerful in slow games, but doesn't help the blitzkreig plan at all, while Experiment can be powerful in the fast games, but almost never grows past 3/3 in longer games.
The strength of the deck is overpowering other creature decks in combat, while simultaneously outracing many strategies. The +1/+1 counter abilities make pseudo-lords out of virtually all of our creatures, making our first plays quickly reach the 4/4 to 6/6 range, outpacing any other 1 mana plays. When combined with hardened scales, the math gets even more gross.
Vial lets us play a quick tempo style, as well as synergizing with Mayor, and freeing up mana to play scales and removal.
The cards I'm most on the fence about are Experiment One and Eternal Witness. Witness is so powerful in slow games, but doesn't help the blitzkreig plan at all, while Experiment can be powerful in the fast games, but almost never grows past 3/3 in longer games.
The infect matchup is the only one that feels really unwinnable, and I'm thinking about having some number of Melira in the sideboard, but it seems so narrow.
Round 1:2-0 Crushed a UW Erayo, Soratami Ascendant Brew, felt like they would have had good game but never managed to flip it early enough
Round 2:2-0 Sulti Midrange. He conceded to Blood Moon -> Wrath Game 1. Game 2 he conceded to a T2 Bloodmoon.
Round 3:2-1 BW Eldrazi Taxes. He managed to take G2 with a total nut draw of multiple flickerwisps and eldrazi displacers dodging all of my removal. G1 I ground him out with removal/walkers, and G3 he flooded fairly hard.
Round 4:2-1 Lantern Control. He won G2 on top of multiple needles, and exiling my emrakul the 2nd time around. I took G1 and G3 off of Chalice/Blood moon into Chandra Ult.
Round 5:1-1-1 ID. Split into 1st seed.
Top 8:
Ro8: Infect. Chalice on 1 is very strong, and he drew poorly. I won 2-0 in a rather unexciting match. Blood moon came down the turn before inkmoth both games.
Ro4: Abzan Company. Wrath and Anger both shone here, and I managed to dodge strong companies. Fairly easy 2-0, especially as he didn't fetch for basics
Finals: ID split with Burn, as neither of us was going to Vancouver anyhow.
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Ajani Vengeant
2 Gideon Jura
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
3 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Mind Stone
2 Wrath of God
4 Lightning Helix
3 Blood Moon
2 Oblivion Ring
5 Plains
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Flooded Strand
2 Temple of Triumph
3 Inspiring Vantage
2 Needle Spires
1 Anger of the Gods
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Eternal Scourge
1 Spellskite
1 Vandalblast
1 Pyroclasm
4 I forget
It felt really good.
If I were to play this list again I'd play probably 3 Rugged Prarie as additional C sources.
I think TKS is very strong in this deck, as my one weakness has always been cards-in-hand.
I also want to find room for 2-3 Blessed Alliance in Main/Side, and 2 more Chalice
So by this argument Legacy Miracles is a prison deck?
While I understand the desire to play such a deck, is there ANY non-standard format where a "pure control" style is viable? Certainly not Vintage. Certainly not Legacy. All of the legacy "control" decks have some sort of creature tempo package, or a counter-top style lock.
I just want us to be realistic here, and acnowledge that DEATH AND TAXES is defined as a "control" deck by the legacy community.
I don't understand the people who want a no-wincondition draw-go control deck, but complain about lantern.
Sun/Moon has also started to become a meta deck, and I think it's just a matter of people learning it for it to become a strong deck. Whether you call that midrange or control is up to the player, I guess, but it's certainly not agro/combo.
Bant eldrazi and spirits are also strong emerging decks, and whild spirits could be called an agro deck i'd put both as firmly midrange.
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Incinerator
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Stingscourger
1 Tarfire
1 Pyrokinesis
4 Wasteland
3 Rishaden Port
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Plateau
1 Badlands
4 Mountain
7 Fetchlands
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
Round 1: Lost in 3 turns to Belcher. Nothing much to report, except that Thalia sucks here. Thoughtseize or Therapy would have given me game G2, which I lost on a mulligan with Thalia in hand.
Round 2: Bye... Lol 2 rounds in and I've played 1 turn.
Round 3: Enchantress. He never finds solitary and I kill him t4 and then t5. Piledriver seemed very important here, and I wished I had warren weirding for enchantress.
Round 4: 12 post eldrazi. Game one went very long and grindy, I was able to pick it up off of triple sharpshooter killing everything (made with Kiki Jiki.) Game 2 wastelanded early and ground the game out. T1 wasteland probably saved this game. Tuktuk is great, being able to copy it with Kiki is so strong.
Top 4 (small event)
Semis- Reanimator. G1 he made T2 Gristlebrand, and when I bounced it drew 7, discarded Elesh Norn, won. G2 Won off T1 Lackey, T2 Grafdiggers, T3 Chalice. G3 he mulled heavily and I played lackey into uncouterable Thalia into quick win. He never found reanimation spell casting 2-mana cantrips.
Finals- Maverick. T1 lackey into tarfire on mana dork is really good. Not much else to say except that Pyrokinesis is very strong.
I really felt the lack of discard this tournament, and think that I'm going to drop Thalia in favor of Thoughtsieze and Therapy. T1 interaction seems more important, as well as actually permanently answering cards. I also think Warren Weirding is going to find 2-3 slots in my 75, as an answer to Reanimator and S+T that also helps my lackeys connect.
I see that most people are playing Skirk Prospector, how do people feel about dropping it?
Legendary Creature- Human Mage
Modeled after the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea, which I thought would be appropriate given the setting. A young man from a small island, gifted with Magery, but lacking in skill or traning. What skill he currently has is mostly weather-magic, with a dabbling of witchcraft (may turn B later. The kind of thing you'd learn in a small farm/fishing village.
Deceiving Mist1U
Enchantment
Players cast spells face down, without declaring targets. (Players must still declare the Mana Cost and/or other costs of the spell they are casting.)
When a spell resolves, turn it face up and declare targets as part of the resolution of the spell.
If a spell is targeted, turn it face up to determine it's legality as a target.
We need a way to keep the guard from knowing what we're doing. I'll summon up a mist to confuse him, so he won't know what we're doing until it's already happened.
I've been playing around Magus of the Tabernacle strategies, and if anyone has a good idea of how to get around my Trinisphere/Goblin Dark Dwellers non-bo I'd be ecstatic.
What modern control players need to accept is the inclusion of high skill-cap cards that they can abuse their familiarity with over opponents. Decks like Lantern Control are prime examples of this: the lantern control player is leveraging a knowledge of each deck, and often needs to take educated risks, or bluff out opponents.
I am fully confident that cards like Trinisphere, and Gifts Ungiven, or decks like Enchantress Prison or Ascendancy Control/combo have a lot of viable design space, but that the tendency to pick up a netdeck, and succeed without several weeks of trial and tweaking to fit personal style and local metagame hurts their percieved viability.
4 Quest for the Holy Relic
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Argentum Armor
4 Springleaf Drum
3 Mox Opal
3 Mishra's Bauble
2 Serum Powder
4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Signal Pest
4 Glint Hawk
4 Faerie Imposter
4 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
2 Ethersworn Cannonist
2 Plains
2 Island
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
3 Sunlance
3 Path to Exile
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Etched Champion
2 Welding Jar
2 Spell Pierce
1 Batterskull
I know that 15 mana sources seems incredibly light, but I've found it to be fairly forgiving. I haven't had to mull past 6 cards yet in testing, although some of those keeps were certainly 1-landers.
The core idea of the deck is that both Quest and Erayo want us to play a lot of spells quickly, and then significantly disrupt our opponent. We use the Ornithoper-Glint Hawk-Ornithoptor trick here, as well as spells like Bauble, Git. Probe, and Mox Opal. T2 is often possible with Erayo, while turn 3 is a more reasonable goal for attacking with Argentum Armor.
One of my favorite synergies in the deck is the Combo between Erayo and Ethersworn Cannonist, locking non-artifact decks out of spells completely.
The primary reason I think this deck has real potential (as a strong tier-two alternative to T1 mainstays) is that it fits all of my criteria for a good brew.
1) It's fast, establishing a clearly dominant position usually as early as turn 3.
2) It has a decent backup plan, beating down with a few 2/2 flyers and a signal pest looks a lot like playing delver.
3) It's consistent. We can "combo" with either Erayo or Quest, and essentially the entire deck combos with both.
I'd love thoughts and feedback, especially on sideboard.
Tournament Results so far
4-0 FNM w/24 People. (infect, boggles, Grixis Delver, G/r Tron)
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Hada Freeblade
3 Experiment One
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Eternal Witness
4 AEther Vial
4 Hardened Scales
4 Path to Exile
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Windswept Heath
1 Sunpetal Grove
2 Temple Garden
2 Gavony Township
3 Plains
1 Forest
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Rest in Peace
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Dismember
2 Stony Silence
2 Spellskite
1 Hero of Bladehold
The strength of the deck is overpowering other creature decks in combat, while simultaneously outracing many strategies. The +1/+1 counter abilities make pseudo-lords out of virtually all of our creatures, making our first plays quickly reach the 4/4 to 6/6 range, outpacing any other 1 mana plays. When combined with hardened scales, the math gets even more gross.
Vial lets us play a quick tempo style, as well as synergizing with Mayor, and freeing up mana to play scales and removal.
The cards I'm most on the fence about are Experiment One and Eternal Witness. Witness is so powerful in slow games, but doesn't help the blitzkreig plan at all, while Experiment can be powerful in the fast games, but almost never grows past 3/3 in longer games.
The infect matchup is the only one that feels really unwinnable, and I'm thinking about having some number of Melira in the sideboard, but it seems so narrow.
THOUGHTS? SUGGESTIONS?
Regarding Deck Size... Maybe we say players may only have one card of any given converted mana cost?
Let's address a few of these: Time Stop removes triggered abilities from the stack... so this should not be a legal card.
Saying that "decks without instant speed interaction are going to lose" is a bad arguement... play instants.
Panglacial Wurm does seem silly, but remember that if you shuffle your library you get the worst possible order (from a random event) at the end.
Regarding Panglacial, see bit about one card of each CMC