MTG Salvation

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It's been a long, long time since black blue and green were in the same deck and even longer still since they were in a competitive deck. With the rotation and printing of Assassin's Trophy that seems to have changed. This will be my opening salvo at attempting to find the best control deck for the format. With trophy making things difficult for the traditional UW builds, sultai is my pick for best control deck moving forward and beginning with the best removal spells available seems like a great starting point to build.


Why Sultai?
Assassin's Trophy. That's the reason. Glad we had this conversation.

Ok. Why not UW, Jeskai, or Grixis?
Assassin's Trophy. Yes that is the entire reason to avoid other color combinations and dive in head first with the bugs. Both because we can play it and because we aren't soft to it. We aren't reliant on Ixalan's Binding to deal with walkers (trophy gets them right back) or enchantments like Seal Away to answer creatures and our finishers are spells and hexproof threats. Going BUG gives you the best removal spells in trophy and contempt, you get the best finisher and mirror breaker combo with carnage tyrant all wrapped up in a sweet inevitability engine with gaea's blessing and The Mirari Conjecture.

One less obvious, but especially important reason to go with sultai is the manabase and a clean mana base is facilitated by, you guessed it, the trophy. Having access to "BG - Kill A Thing" means we don't need to run field of ruin to handle utility lands like azcanta or the flip side of Legion's Landing. That combined with two immediately supported guilds gives us all the duals we need. Furthermore we have a reusable draw engine from gaea's blessing which means we don't have to run a copious number of arch of orazca to help keep the cards flowing for when our recursive draw elements get turned into basic lands. We end up not needing a single colorless land and the ability to run a good amount of basics to take advantage of any opposing trophies and to easily cast our own.

As we learned in the previous format, UW control struggled against decks that started with 4xVraska's Contempt or were aggressive enough to clear Teferi easily. Not relying on a walker that gives us a completely random card off the top before dying gives us a leg up on decks who plan to employ this strategy. With a pile of divination effects, better live top decks, and a draw engine that always gives us a good spell makes for a clear advantage.

We do give up the purity of Teferi as a win condition and lack a hard sweeper like cleansing nova, but we are well set up to play the point and click removal game. Should tokens become a thing to make the infinite kill spell plan difficult, we do have Ritual of Soot available to cleanly answer that strategy. Simply put, BUG checks all the boxes you want checked with a control deck. Power. Versatility. Clean answers to literally everything and absolute inevitability.

Let's start with a pair initial deck lists.

Sample List 1


Sample List 2


As you can see we have answers to all the major players of the format. Seven ways to eat a troublesome walker, six counterspells, and a play set of trophy lets us eat annoying artifacts or enchantments. Ritual of Soot to answer super go-wide plans, Vona's Hunger for hexproof threats, and thought erasure to answer anything else before it comes down. We are able to stop something in hand, on the stack, or on the battlefield. We are not relying on Azcanta or walkers as hard as previous control decks which makes Assassin's Trophy much less effective against us if Teferi was our primary source of card advantage. With The Mirari Conjecture plus Gaea's Blessing engine, we are also well equipped to use the extra mana that we could get from the trophy as well and never losing access to our long term advantage.

The lack of Search for Azcanta might put off some players, but it is a way for us to reduce the effectiveness of trophy as much as possible. All of our draw engines happen immediately with our divination effects or give us value before being transformed into a basic island. Relying on something to stick around on the battlefield in a world of trophies and contempts is a rather dubious plan. Focusing on spell based card advantage is the best way to ensure that you're never cut off from maintaining a material advantage.

Our primary way to actually end the game is simply decking them with their draw step while we sit around reshuffling answers with gaea's blessing indefinitely. The first blessing puts back three counters or kill spells and the second blessing gets back two draw spells and the first blessing and we can repeat this until the end of the game. While not as clean as doing the same thing with a teferi emblem hanging around, it does the trick just as well. The sample list includes the single carnage tyrant as a concession to our opponents not giving us the concession and will kill through anything quite fast. It also allows us to win game one against any deck playing Nexus of Fate as that card's mere existence prevents the use of decking as the sole win condition.

The overarching game plan of the deck past the traditional control strategy is to eventually recycle our entire deck. Gaea's blessing ensures that the top of our deck is going to be more live than our opponent's and prevents us from not only running out of cards in our library, but also prevents us from running out of the right answers. If we have to spend our edicts early to stay alive we can still find them again and again if hexproof threats start rolling off the top. Because of this infinite recursion aspect the only things that we are truly afraid of are dedicated hate for our blessing engine like Unmoored Ego and banefire.

With Banefire being in the format it may be correct to run Pelakka Wurm as the dedicated win condition. The wurm gains a huge amount of life when it enters and some extra value on the way out. The only real downside of this swap is that a hard exile effect like contempt sends us to the dedicated mill plan. One potential consideration is going down to only one copy of blessing as you can still recur it indefinitely with the mirari conjecture which gives you an extra main deck spot for another answer or hard win con. Only time will tell which is correct.

Thoughts on Removal
Our removal suite is going to be changing from week to week, which is typical in standard control decks. The only spot removal spells that will always be in the deck are the contempts and trophies. After that we will have to decide if we want to lean towards hard removal like Cast Down and Vona's Hunger to fight green stompy and their hexproof threats. After that is the red aggro decks where we'll want to shy away from edicts and focus more on Ritual of Soot and moment of craving.

Should control variants become equally as popular as the midrange and control decks then we may want to cut our additional removal entirely. Without gear hulks in the format, essence scatter loses all of its value against control so this will be an extremely delicate balance. Because of all of this, there really is no point in suggesting a "this is what you should do" set up for spot removal outside of the two base inclusions with the caveat that we want something in addition to assassin's trophy for early game kill spells.


Card Advantage Options
There are no shortage of great options to get ahead on raw card count in standard and choosing the best one depends on several factors. First of all is how much red aggro are you expecting to face? How often will you find yourself in a control mirror? These questions must be answered before you select your draw spells. Here are a few suggestions of which spell might fit best in a particular meta.



Finishers
In the bug colors there isn't a perfectly pure and clean win condition such as Approach from the previous format or looping Teferi with an emblem. Furthermore, relying on walkers to get the job done is a bit risky due to the Trophy + Contempt combo making them exceptionally hard to stick around long enough. Luckily there are a few other options for us that are a bit more likely to go the distance.



Sideboard Options
In our sideboards we do have a large amount of respectable directions to attack any given meta. First and foremost you have to decide which plan of attack you want for the control mirror because that will require the most dedicated slots. After that you must look closely at the aggro and midrange decks of the format and decide how many of what effects you will need. For ease of reading I will split up this section into Control Options and Aggro as there is very little overlap in utility.


As you can see there are answers to everything that we could be facing down. From token swarms to walkers to hexproof threats, everything can be neatly answered with a single card. With a properly constructed 75, we could easily end up being favored against anything we want to be. It all comes down to having the correct configuration of removal and draw spells which won't be too difficult. Let's get the discussion started by posting our initial testing experiences and deck lists.



EDIT: Added a second, more "expected" looking deck list to the start.

Even though this card looks unplayable on the surface lets be fair. This is easily the coolest card spoiled so far. Again, I realize it's likely just bad, but reading it was really exciting and the flavor is off the charts. Yes connecting with her 3 times is likely no different than (insert favorite wincon here) but come on, this is like, triple the style points. Also, don't be surprised if this does show up in standard in a BUG midrange deck. Those colors have a lot of powerful threats that you have to get rid of or avoid and this one can end up as just a fine 2-of that can might win it all sometimes.

Hey hey! I ended up running grixis control in the recent scg modern classic and ended up with a very close miss on the top 8 that I'd like to talk about. As per usual, here's the list I registered for you to reference and I'll go over the oddities in my list towards the end.




Now that the list is out of the way here is how the rounds shook out for me.

R1: Lantern 0-2

R2: Abzan Counters Company 2-0

R3: Burn 2-1

R4: RG Ponza 2-1

R5: Mardu Pyro 2-0

R6: GW Value Town 2-0

R7: Hallow One 0-2

Had I not been gibbed by hollow one and managed to win that round instead, I could have ID'd the last round into the top 8 which was a big letdown considering how much of a nongame it was. After that depressing loss I decided to drop from the event to try and beat rush hour traffic on the highway I was taking home to shorten my drive by two hours. Found out when I got home there was a wreck on the road that happened shortly before I got back so I sure dodged a bullet with that decision. In any case, here are some thoughts for you to mull over with the non-standard choices I've made and how they preformed both in the event itself and in testing.



Moving forward I'm going to be running the following list and trying to find room for an extra think twice to total 2 copies in the deck or consider a third search for azcanta over the one think twice I currently have. Here is what I am currently fiddling with:



I absolutely want 2 cliques in the 75 somewhere and prefer some in the main because of their perpetual usefulness and flexibility. I'm also happy with the total number of draw spells, but the configuration does determine the amount that I want. I'm back on 3 tasigur because the games where you have one before the late game and when you don't are like night and day when you compare how easily you can leverage your commands and close out the game. He also fills the role of a draw engine which the deck wants, especially with knots to help curate the yard.

I have played a number of games with Nicol Bolas, the Ravager and I have been impressed with him, especially with a pair of IoK in the deck. He really helps you do a number on your opponents hand and whittle them down to nothing. It is also a late game "I Win" card that also helps by blocking early beats in fair matches and brick walls lingering souls tokens. Unfortunately I don't own any and the price tag is why I haven't tried them in a competitive setting. I'll be fooling around more with him in the list and I am hopeful, but I really can't say for sure if he is a worthy inclusion or not. What I can say on that subject however is that it is a strong enough card that it is worth thoroughly testing as opposed to just speculating on paper without a good amount of games being played.

The creature split that I am most interested in testing to include bloas is as follows:

• 4 Snapcaster Mage
  
• 2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
  
• 2 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
  
• 1 Vendilion Clique

I hope you enjoyed reading through my thoughts on the archetype and am curious what your thoughts are on bolas for those who have actually played a number of games with him. How does everyone feel about the heavy cantrip versions of grixis against the field? Do you just yolo against blood moon decks and hope to dodge it resolving? Has anybody else enjoyed some amount of discard in the main deck? Are there any players that have liked Alpine Moon as a sideboard card that have in game experience with it?

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The Soul of Monoblack
Monoblack has a long history in the game that dates all the way back to the Ice Age of Dominaria. In the beginning there was Necropotence, a deck that used the powerful namesake draw engine alongside a lengthy list of discard and disruptive spells with cheap creatures to dump your mana into each and every turn. Threats such as Order of the Ebon Hand and Hypnotic Specter were used to disrupt the opponent and present a dangerous clock that got more frightening with each swamp added to the battlefield with the game often being decided by a massive Drain Life.

More recently there was Theros block standard where another monoblack deck rose to the top. Instead of a single overpowered card, it had its own discard with the newly reprinted Thoughtseize and powerful creatures like Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Nightveil Specter that greatly rewarded you for having a pile of swamps in front of you. The late game engine of Underworld Connections with Pack Rat meant that you always had extra material to work with and a game winning threat that was hard to answer cleanly.

But whenever you hear the term "monoblack," the deck that most likely comes to mind is from Odyssey era standard. Like each format's monoblack, this deck was also built to take advantage of pumping copious amounts of black mana symbols into either a single massive spell or multiple 3 and 4 drops each turn. The mana generated by Cabal Coffers gave the player access to a two turn clock with Nantuko Shade or simply let them gain an overwhelming advantage by combining Mirari with Spells while the old school Diabolic Tutor gave the deck incredible redundancy.

Today we don't have such busted cards as The Skull, but we do have the hallmarks of monoblack decks that have seen dominant success in the past. The printing of Cabal Stronghold and Dread Shade gives us a massive threat in the midgame along with a powerful mana generation engine and incredible versatility and redundancy through Mastermind's Acquisition. It is our job to both find the best shell for these new additions and the best way to exploit the inevitable mana advantage the stronghold provides. Before laying out potential decklists and evaluating card choices, first we must cover the ground rules for building around these cards.


Getting Started.
First are the requirements of your manabase. You need to run about 20 basic swamps (plus or minus 1) to ensure that the stronghold turns each swamp into a black double land starting on turn 6. This is a legitimate cost as there are a whole host of utility lands in standard that are all very strong. Second is the triple black on dread shade which, according to the timeless Dr. Frank Karsten article, stipulates that we have 22 black sources in the deck. This is only the recommended amount for 90% certainty and it is still safe to fudge the numbers a tad and go one or two below when the additional power is worth it.

Next we need to take advantage of the number 7 which is the flash point of the deck. Having 5 swamps and one stronghold is the first point where we start to turn a profit with the stronghold. This means either casting a 7 CMC spell or being able to cast multiple spells totaling 7 mana should be our goal. Lastly, we must ensure that we live long enough to take advantage of the mana engine the deck is designed to exploit.

With that out of the way, let's start off with a few initial lists and examine how each of them play out.


Toolbox midrange. This list aims to clear a path with discard and removal for its potent three drops of Dreamstealer and Dread Shade. You can either empty your opponents hand in short order and win at your leisure or threaten to repeatedly 7 their face until they run out of chump blockers for the black fireball. This list gives you a strong proactive curve while having the marquee versatility that every midrange decks boasts, all while not giving up on the late game.


This next list eschews the versatility of the wish package for threat density and a more straightforward control game plan.

Of course there are several other directions you can take the archetype as well. While I won't write out 8 additional deck lists for the sake of conserving space, here are a few seeds to plant for future ideas. A more ramp oriented approach with Gilded Lotus, more 6 drop monsters and 3 drop threats to cast immediately following a fresh lotus, and a stronger focus on Torment of Hailfire to burn your opponent out. Perhaps a vampire subtheme utilizing Champion of Dusk and Twilight Prophet to provide a threat base that also generates card advantage while also giving the deck a slightly more aggressive touch. There might even be potential for a version to exist that uses a very heavy attrition based gameplan that is heavy on removal and discard using Torment of Scarabs as a difficult to interact with win condition.


Fighting In the Shade.
At its heart, monoblack control is less of a control deck and more of a disruptive midrange deck that has a very powerful late game engine. The idea has always been leveraging your mana in some way to a far greater effect either through lands that produce 9 mana, the raw efficiency of threats and disruption, or having the ability to sink every mana symbol into something each turn while keeping the cards flowing at all times.

Even though your primary advantage is the gratuitous black mana you create, you are not a ramp deck in the traditional sense. You aren't playing a dozen individually weak enablers that let you shut the door with one or two bombs that you hope are too hard for the opponent to overcome. Instead of doing one big, powerful thing once you get set up, your goal is to do multiple strong plays each turn.

The key word here is multiple. For example casting a tutor one turn and a Plague Wind on the next turn is "fine," but doing it in the same turn with a 6/6 left over is impressive. Attacking with an 8/8 shade is pretty good, but doing that and further developing your board all at once is frightening indeed. When working on a list, don't try to focus on casting 8 drops. Instead you want to be casting two 4 drops at the same time so that you're never stuck with uncastable cards early on and still have that mid game balance of mana efficiency and power.


The Key Cards.
Here are the core cards of the archetype and how they fit into your game plan from a high level perspective and some details on how they fit into specific game states.

Dread Shade - It has been over a decade since a "shade" was seen in high level constructed play and this is half the reason to be monoblack. Starting in the mid game the shade turns into a one sided copy of The Abyss, forcing your opponent to chump block it every turn or be destroyed by a walking black fireball. Being cast on turn 3 gives you a single threat that is a 3 turn clock which devours everything that gets in the way. Even though you often won't tap down on the third turn in the face of damage based removal, if your hand is a little slow it may be worth doing so. Your opponent will know that this is likely their only chance to kill it a Harnessed Lightning or Abrade and will spend their turn dealing with it. This bit of time you bought then allows you to untap and cast a 4 drop like Karn or a wish without falling far behind.

Kitesail Freebooter - A duress effect that doesn't leave you down a card if it misses. This annoying little pirate serves two functions: clearing a path for the shade or dreamstealers and informing your tutor/wish targets. Stealing a planeswalker tends to force them to have an ineffecient turn before they are able to unlock it which then gives you the time to be prepared to either answer it immediately or assemble a threat base that completely ignores it. It is also essential to having a fair match against dedicated control decks in game one as you are light on actual threats. Being able to both draw fire away from your actual win conditions while simultaneously helping them resolve gives this flying frustration their spot in the deck.

Dreamstealer - Another powerful 3 drop that is able to run away with a game on their own. While this one won't kill your opponent effectively, being able to force it through a couple times will send them so far behind that you won't need a 10 power monstrosity to close the deal. Being able to curve Kitesail > Dreamstealer > Chupacabra > double kill spell is a very attractive play pattern to have at your disposal. Lastly is the built in 2-for-1 advantage that you get from the eternalize effect which gives you a creature that you opponent is actually afraid of even letting you use to chump block.

Fatal Push, Ravenous Chupacabra, and Vraska's Contempt - Kill spells. Lots of kill spells. Not even including potential wish targets, you have a lot ways to kill everything in your way. The majority of these are versatile spells that do more than just "point and click" by either gaining life or leaving behind a body. The exact configuration will be changing week to week as is the typical case in standard, but the current set up is what I recommend as the starting point.

Karn, Scion of Urza - Daddy's home! The karn father provides you with a card every turn with some implied "selection." Dropping him into play on the fourth turn makes his 6 loyalty a difficult problem to solve without a clean answer like Vraska's Contempt. Even though the initial +1 will end with your opponent just giving you a basic swamp, this deck actually wants swamps in large quantities. Even if all you get from the plus are lands, you're still making your land drop each turn without having to spend any resources to do so while building up to a game ending series of spells. The -2 ability will rarely get used and is mostly just trinket text, but don't forget that it's there. You can occasionally find yourself in game states where you're desperate to have literally anything with power and toughness on the battlefield, so don't forget that the option is there.

A final point to keep in mind with Karn is that he doesn't function well as a one of, you really need to play at least two copies. This is to take advantage of the fact that his -1 ability gets back any card exiled with a silver counter. That means that if you play one Karn, exile a good card and he immediately dies, you can play a second Karn on a future turn to get back the exiled card right away.


Swamps, swamps, and a lot more basic swamps!
While I have done a good amount of testing with the deck, a single person cannot feasibly compile a large enough data set on something so subtle as a manabase to be taken as truth. With that disclaimer out of the way, here are some initial impressions on the addition of non-swamp lands.

The cost is absolutely not free as even going with 22 swamps and 4 strongholds can make life difficult for you. However things like Memorial to Folly, Ifnir Deadlands, Arch of Orazca, and Field of Ruin are strong enough that I do feel it is correct to include some number. So far I have tried between 1 and 4 value lands in place of some number of swamps and strongholds and have found that even 2 can be a stretch. I strongly believe that 4x Cabal Stronghold is correct as you always want to draw the first one to let you explode onto the battlefield and make the shades lethal in a single hit. Even though they provide colorless mana and be awkward in multiples early on, they can still be used to activate one another and "filter" themselves into black mana.

If the cities blessing were easier to achieve then I would gladly include two copies of the arch, but colored mana is still an issue to consider. Currently the limit I've found is between two memorials/deadlands (because they provide black mana) or a single colorless land of which I've found the arch to perform the best.

One odd choice that you could make for a non-swamp land is the very boring Evolving Wilds. Merely an ETB tapped basic swamp, it does allow us to activate revolt for Fatal Push on demand which does make it worth considering. The extra deck thinning may or may not be a benefit, but is still something worth mentioning. If it's wrong to include some number of wilds it won't be wrong by much so feel free to sleeve up a couple.

Never forget that your goal is to have 5 or more basic swamps and a stronghold in play to take advantage of being monoblack. This puts a lot of stress on your justifications for each land you add in place of a swamp. While you can go beyond 26 in order to include extra utility lands, you really have to be certain that the effect is needed more than an actual spell.



Tarnished Silver Bullets
The large mana generation of cabal stronghold lets us take full advantage of Mastermind's Acquisition which is normally far too clunky to be effective in constructed. Being able to overcome this drawback allows us several utility pieces and game ending spells that you only want when it's actually time to end the game.

The tutor/wish package gives you access to several haymakers which slide right into the 7 mana flash point while giving you the potential for a few "whoops I win" moments along the way. The emphasis on 7 and 9 mana is because that is the amount you have available the turn that cabal stronghold generates a profit and the turn following. The entire 75 is built to take advantage of this point of the "curve" which means that narrow and powerful 3-4 mana spells are very desirable. This section will describe the numerous tutor and wish sequences that you have access to.



Other cards for your consideration.
There is actually a very large amount of quality black and colorless spells to put into your personal list. Here are a bunch of extras that might do what you're looking to get done along with some reasons on why they might or might not be a good fit.


Greed Is...Possible?
What if I put in just a single Island? Maybe I could use one mountain as a colorless land to splash an extra color? Is it just crazy enough to work?
Once again I refer you to the Dr. Frank Karsten article to help you gauge whether or not casting a splashed card on turn 10 is reliable, possible, or even worthwhile. I know this thought is going to come up towards the end of your own deck tuning process so I'm saved it for the end and the simple answer is...kinda? It's fine to have a low count of colored sources for a splash card that you won't be needing until the mid to late game, but you still have to get it to mix with a manabase dedicated to basic swamps. The way you can get this to work is the same way that 3 color decks in modern do. You cheat.

For an example from current standard we can look at the manabase of the BWg tokens deck. This deck only runs a single forest to give them access to Vraska, Relic Seeker. This is done by playing 4 copies each of Evolving Wilds and Renegade Map next to a single basic of their chosen splash color which adds up to 9 total "sources" for their splash while keeping their deceptively demanding BW manabase intact. This is a possible direction that you can take a "mono" black deck without giving up too much on paper. Naturally this is a significant increase in the potential options for both main deck and sideboard considerations. There are far too many cards for consideration and description so I will just give a brief list and go over the pros and cons of their inclusion.


All of the listed cards are fine to cast on curve but are typically just as effective several turns later. According to Karsten's article, you have a 90% chance of having your splash color on turn 6 with only 9 colored sources. However, simply having it available doesn't mean that you haven't stumbled on the previous turns, invalidating the power gained by the additional color. We want to have at least 5 swamps and a stronghold in play to really have our engines humming which means any maps or wilds will need to get us swamps beforehand, thus subtracting from potential splashed color sources to draw into. This means that we likely have several fewer sources than the expected 9 as they only get basic lands instead of "proper" duals, not to mention that spending 4 mana to tutor for a land on turn 7 feels so very mopey.

The other thing to bear in mind when considering this route is that your splash colors will almost always come into play tapped outside of the singleton basic which further delays casting your off color cards. Furthermore, even if a card has only a single colored mana requirement they might not play out as such. For example, The Scarab God only costs a single blue to cast and single blue to activate. To fully take advantage of this dominant threat you need to be able to either activate it multiple times in a turn or on the same turn that it is cast, both of which require a second blue to access. Try to keep in mind the full cost of adding additional colors to your deck by paying close attention to how they actually get played.

Of these options, white and blue seem to add the most with effects that you cannot replicate in monoblack. White gives you access to additional exile effects that can also remove artifacts and enchantments, both of which increases your versatility. White also lets you run the powerful Profane Procession which is a card that is nearly unbeatable for a lot of decks. Meanwhile blue opens up the potential for counter magic which is incredibly potent alongside your stock discard. Should permission heavy control decks flood the metagame, adding a touch of blue for some negates of your own might be a tempting consideration.

All in all, my initial impression is that the splash is not currently worth it. Certainly there are metagame considerations to be made and perhaps the next set will make it more attractive. But right now I think we should all be happy with a large spread of basic swamps on the battlefield.

I'm likely to try and just go super narrow on my sideboard spots this week. Something like 4 Brutality, 3 Negate, 1 Dispel, 3 Crumble, 2 Disdainful stroke, 2 Damnation along with 3 fields in the main and just expect to see no other decks in the room. One thing that has helped me a little in casual games against them was going back to ancestral vision (zero jace and one search) purely for the sake of mana efficiency.

Jace really helps a ton if you can walk into an empty board against those matches but you don't typically have the ability to tap out so early and expect to survive. At least with AV you can cross your fingers that you can interact enough to get there and keep the ball rolling so to speak.

Speaking of the upcoming hate artifact in dominaria I wonder if it will become correct to side them in along side of dispels to stop their nature's claims? Being able to shut them down even if you're on the draw if great and if you're on the play you can stop T3 tron with protection. /Speculation

Quote from Stille_Nacht »

SFM would at the very least be a huge buff to jeskai. It's better than Geist of St. Traft in almost every way except deck slots. It comes down on turn 2 (huge), it casts out Bskull or SoFaF or SoFaI at instant speed on like turn 4 when you can hold up countermagic and basically wins your midrange and aggro matchups on the spot. I think it's probably OK, but I really dislike this notion that rushing t3 batterskull during my main phase is all that it does.

And if you do go for the turn 3 vial in a batterskull you get savaged by your opponent's turn 3 kolaghan's command which is completely ok and makes for a nice balancing act. The real issue with SFM isn't power level, even though it certainly is way up there. The problem is that so, so many decks will be splashing for it making a significant majority of fair decks Wxx stoneforge decks with their own flavors, but still a sfm based deck none the less. Lets be honest, splashing for a card that only costs 1W is absolutely trivial and the pay off for it would be huge. This would dramatically lower diversity amoung fair decks which may be the real thing keeping her banned. Whether or not this is true is of course up for debate, but the likelihood is so high that I expect her to be gone for a while still.

Quote from marlboro92 »

Hi everyone! I have a technical question, whats the mathematical way to calculate if a mana base is able to play x double cost? Lets say i have this mana base
scalding
4 polluted
2 bloodstained mire
1 steam vents
2 watery grave
1 blood crypt
2 island
1 mountain
1 swamp
2 darkslick shore

Do you think 2 double black and 2 double blue is too greedy in the main? And then, adding 1 double red, or a third double black from the sideboard..?

A minor note on this question for the modern format. This question also comes with the follow-up question of "how much are you willing to fetch+shock yourself" as the more you're comfortable with that the lower the amount goes. BB and UU can be easily done if you don't mind starting at 11 life when you need them on curve.

I decided to compile a list of all the situations and threats that causes pendelhaven to go from a cute 1-of to something that really impacts the game. When you can give your 1/1 tokens and sprites +1/+2 at instant speed you can do quite a lot, here's some examples:

Most importantly, it reduces your naked Bitterblossom clock by an entire turn, going from 7 turns down to 6 for a kill.

Creatures that you can now gobble up instead of trading with or chumping:
Everything from the Elves deck
Snapcaster mage
Dark confidant
Silvergil adept
Memnite
Ink(blink)moth nexus
Grim lavamancer
ornithopter
Eternal witness
Vizier of remedies
Delver of secrets
Young pyromancer and friends
Matter reshaper
Eldrazi skyspawner
Monistary swiftspear
Eidolon of the great revel
Thalia, guardian of thraben
leonin arbiter
Wasteland strangler
Opposing faeries
Geist of saint traft
Mutavault
Grim flayer without delirium
Lingering souls
Goblin electromancer
Thraben inspector
Kitchen finks
Noble or Birds with a +1/+1 counter

Creatures that you can now bounce off in combat without either dying:
Spell Queller
Baral
Shambling vent

Cards that get worse against you:
electrolyze
Walking balista
Izzet staticaster
Collective brutality
Liliana, the last hope

After many days/weeks of tuning and testing I'm back with my current list of Ancestral Vision faeries. After losing multiple win-and-in matches of local pptq's due to losing on turn 2 or mulls to Four I think the list is finished, or at least as "finished" as a modern deck can be. First, here is where I'm currently at:



Utility and dual lands
Faerie conclave is great, still haven't been sad to have it. The only aspect of the manabase I'm not happy with is a lack of pendelhaven and the river of tears. River is just there to facilitate turn 1 discard and push without cutting into my cryptic mana. I wish I had a better option, but the deck can't afford any more turn 1 tap lands (which does include drowned catacomb) and secluded glen just isn't reliable enough to be considered a turn 1 colored source. I have yet to try a third copy of watery grave, but it seems so wrong that I haven't put much consideration into it.

Mana leak & permission
Mana leak has remained amazing and is almost essential in many matches. It fills the same role of extra discard sometimes, but they work against the top of the deck and still gets the mana from your opponent. Right now I like a mix of discard and permission to survive in modern currently. The main use of them is to bridge the gap between SSS and cryptics coming online, especially against eldrazi and prime time. When you're against any tron variant they may seem like hot garbage, but are required to allow you to keep playing magic when they drop a karn or wurmcoil on turn 3.

I have tried a mix of logic knot and negates in this spot, but there were too many issues with this. The double blue on logic knot was a big problem surprisingly. Between mutavaults and wanting black early for discard/blossom/push and combined with a low fetch count it became difficult for it to be live. I like that it's a hard counter in the late game, but by then we have cryptic and sprites at the ready if the opponent is still alive in the first place. Negate has simply been too narrow. It's too often that I want to stop a kitchen finks, a wurmcoil, or a tasigur and wishing the negate was anything else.

Threats
Still only 1 snapcaster due to the lack of quality spells that are always live to flash back. A second would be nice for post board games, but I haven't found myself wanting more just yet. The odd one of gurmag angler has remained solid. Granted tasigur looks better on paper, but in practice being able to block or attack through a smasher or other anglers has proven to be much more important. That coupled with the large amount of spells that go bad eventually makes his ability even less of an attractive option. The main reason for the inclusion is to have large threat to play on the cheap that doesn't require a blossom to be good. I liked running two copies and was never straining to cast them, but I'm happy with just one non-mistbind finisher.

Mistbind clique specifically
Speaking of mistbind clique, the card is obscenely powerful. Even when it just dies instantly, the trigger is a BIG deal. Often it allows me to swing in with all of my manlands without fear of a push or bolt and smacking them for half their life total. Once you get that "clear for take off" turn the game is swung so far back in your favor that they need to consider holding up removal and not developing their board which goes right into our game plan. Not to mention that there are still a lot of very good players that don't quite understand the card or even know that it exists. But it is awkward and clunky without a blossom which is why I've kept the count at two copies.

Odd SB choices
I put this board together the ensure that I always have enough cards to bring in to match the amount that I want to take out against a particular deck. The hardest ones to work in were burn and RG tron which, aside from burn, is more of a local thing. At a GP I'd be amazed to play against classic tron, but locally it's a certainty. Regardless, that is why I have a pair of negates instead of something like ceremonious rejection or more strokes. Currently I like stroke more than rejection because of it's applications against titanshift which has been getting more popular week to week. The fact that rejection is a turn 1 hard counter while on the draw vs affinity doesn't escape me, but I feel like having extra cards for titanshift is more important than affinity currently.

Dredge!
There is a lack of direct graveyard hate because I have simply selected dredge as the deck I will scoop to. That's not to say that this configuration doesn't have game against them however. Jace AoT is actually quite good against them and tendrils can clean up a large portion of their dorks with kalitas being a house when you can cast him with protection.

Brutality
The three copies of collective brutality are there primarily as a concession to burn being a problem while still being anywhere from serviceable to amazing in many other matches. Granted this may seem like an excessive amount to run, but I feel that the versatility and power in the matches where they're desired makes it worth three slots. I love them against coco decks and storm, they're still good against merfolk and act as extra discard spells when that is desired. Blah, blah, blah I'm reading the card to you.

The point is that with so many viable decks in modern the versatility is just too important and it is such a massive tempo swing that it easily can bring you from behind to can't possibly lose. If there was a better and low mana cost option to bring in vs burn and still be solid in other matches I'd gladly play them, but this seems to be the best one available.

Doom blade & Downfall
A simple concession to needing more spot removal against eldrazi. The downfall also has the benefit of killing liliana, the last hope which is an obvious nightmare for us. For a while I was considering a second ratchet bomb over the doom blade, but I found that I wanted the kill spell a bit more than the utility piece. I looked at a lot of different options here, but what ultimately made me choose doom blade is that it's a card that can come in against affinity and I don't need the extra help against death's shadow so that lets my SB swaps work out cleanly.

Ratchet bomb
Obviously the card is a little 'meh' but it's still a necessity to me that one is included at the least and I'd still like a second. The main application is against lantern, affinity, RG ponza (I see several copies no matter what city I play in), and merfolk while still being great against liliana decks. It's slow, a bad top deck, but is still the best way we have to deal with "the weird" in the format. We don't have detention sphere so this is our best option. Pithing needle is still a great card, but the fact that it doesn't actually remove anything from play is why I feel bombs are the way to go.


Issues to solve
Dem eldrazi doe! As soon as a cavern comes down if they're not dead or dying the game is essentially over with out a large stroke of luck. I suppose fulminators or spreading seas could be added into the sideboard once again, but that is A LOT of sideboard space and not nearly as many main deck cards to switch around. If somebody could show off their "permission + LD" sideboard plan that would be great. I feel that is the best recipe for success in this match up, but I can't help but wonder if it's worth the equity you're giving up against the rest of the field cramming in that many narrow cards.

Dredge...again
In the same vein as above, this match can be quite rough. Bear in mind I may be a touch biased as two of my win-and-in matches were lost to dredge on turn 2 twice in a row so take the following with a grain of salt. Being able to stick a mist bind is typically enough of a swing that winning is academic, but that's a rarity. Our primary defense and interaciton pieces are permission and discard which all too often come out too late against them. Once their engine is online they basically stop casting spells entirely and no longer have relevant cards in hand so we're forced to race while holding up a cryptic for their lethal conflags.

With the only real SB options here being direct graveyard hate to effectively swing the match in your favor I'm still asking if it's worth even considering. Nihil spellbomb is fine against DS, but we don't really need a lot of help against them as they're half the reason to play faeries in the first place. After that there aren't many real options for dredge hate that isn't wasted cardboard in every other match. This is why I've gone to cards like flaying tendrils and Jace AoT as they're solid against dredge and are good to great against many other decks as well.

Didn't know this thread was a thing! I won game day with my pure control UW list, even managing to beat BG and saheeli with two mulls to 5. The efficiency of white removal is so far beyond anything else while still being especially gentle on your mana. Not to mention having many exile sources while still being able to gain life makes for a a very smooth game.

To do what you want, Inkmoth Nexus must be a creature when the rebound delayed triggered ability resolves (C.R. 702.87a), since it's then that you choose to cast Distortion Strike from exile (and, if you do, to target a "creature" with that spell [C.R. 115.1a, 601.2c]) (C.R. 608.2c). And you can, for example, activate Inkmoth Nexus's second ability in response to that ability (C.R. 117.7).

EDIT (Aug. 24, 2020): Edited, including to add a rule citation and because some rules were renumbered in the meantime.

"From anywhere" means what it says: Ravenous Trap cares whether cards went to opponents' graveyards from anywhere this turn, not just from the stack (as is the case for an instant or sorcery spell when it finishes resolving [C.R. 608.2k]), and not just from the battlefield.

EDIT (Dec. 5, 2017; Apr. 7, 2020): Correctness edit.

I assume for the sake of argument that you have activated Bloodstained Mire's ability and it's resolving.

Since you don't have priority while you're searching your library here, you can't declare a shortcut at the moment under the comprehensive rules (C.R. 116.2e, 608.2c, 720.2a; review C.R. 701.18), so announcing that you will put a Swamp card onto the battlefield isn't a shortcut under those rules, so that you are not bound by that announcement the rules on shortcuts don't apply here (in a sanctioned tournament, the contents of your library are generally hidden information and M.T.R. 4.1 requires you to be honest about hidden information only if it is requested by a judge [M.T.R. 4.1]).

EDIT (Jun. 15): Some rules were renumbered with Dominaria.
EDIT (Jun. 17): Correctness edit.

If "[Approach of the Second Sun] was cast from [your opponent's] hand" (a detail not given in your question) "and [he or she has] cast another spell named Approach of the Second Sun this game", he or she would win the game, but can't due to the emblem (C.R. 101.3) — and that spell does nothing further than go to the graveyard (C.R. 608.2k).

The word "[o]therwise" on that spell means "if this spell wasn't cast from your hand, or if you haven't cast another spell named Approach of the Second Sun this game"

EDIT: Correction after comment 3 was posted.
EDIT (Mar. 25, 2019): Edited to conform to changes in Approach of the Second Sun's Oracle text in the meantime.
EDIT (Apr. 27, 2019): Edited note from Mar. 25, 2019.

No. Storm is a casting trigger, so it only triggers during that zone transition. Copying a spell with storm, which is what the storm ability actually does to itself, will not trigger the ability. It can't be allowed to, really, else storm would spiral off into infinity and break the game.

When you copy the spell with this effect (and most spell copy effects) you're not instructed to cast the copy; the spell copy is just put onto the stack without you casting it, which is why storm does not go infinite with, well, itself. Grapeshot will be copied only once.

It ends up being a Deck problem and is covered in the IPG:


The last comment is important to call out as it does show that both players receive a warning for having deck problems.

It is also worth calling out that deck problems potentially have an upgrade path of a game loss to dissuade cheating. One Upgrade path exempts this scenario from an upgrade to a game loss, but it appears that this would still apply:


Basically, what that means is that if you notice it, you need to bring it to the attention of the Judge immediately so they can provide the fix and warning above. Ignoring it can lead to a game loss.

Detection Tower does not change anything about the creatures themselves. They still have Hexproof. Since the effect does not alter the characteristics of any objects, it can apply to anything new. Basically, it just says "hey, stokpile, you get to ignore hexproof until end of turn". This means that when they cast a new one, you still have an effect altering the game rules that says you get to ignore hexproof.

You may transform. The first triggered ability is still resolving when the event causing the Blessing's ability to trigger happens. It is not a replacement effect so it is put on the stack normally and doesn't interrupt any other ability resolving.

Your opponent has improperly resolved Goryo's Vengeance's delayed triggered ability, which indirectly led to several cards being moved to a library. Under C.R. 721.1, actions that moved cards to a library (such as those due to Emrakul's last ability) can't be reversed. Therefore, in a sanctioned tournament at Competitive or Professional rules enforcement level, a judge may simply assess an infraction against your opponent (for example, a Game Rule Violation [I.P.G. 2.5]) (M.T.R. 5.1).

EDIT: Deleted last sentence after comment 4 was posted.
EDIT (Dec. 1): Edited third sentence.
EDIT (Mar. 5): Correctness edit.
EDIT (May 29): One rule was renumbered with Dominaria.