I like Gonti a lot, and I'd also say take a look at Angrath.
Mana is the number 1 issue with this deck. I tend to favor land heavy hands vs land light ones. In your early turns, you will be more defensive, removing your opponents creatures or setting up blockers like Whirler. You don't really start to turn the corner until you can start dropping your larger threats. This build is a little less controlling, and a little more pro-active, so hopefully you can start to shift gears quicker than with some of the other builds I've seen.
I've been having a lot of success lately with my Grixis Energy deck, going undefeated in several FNMs and Standard Showdowns and taking 3rd place in a 48 person PPTQ. My version is trying to be proactive, with a higher creature count than I've been seeing in most other versions. In particular, I love the removal-on-a-stick creatures like Ravenous Chupacabra and my favorite win condition, Glorybringer. These put you up +2 on creatures vs your opponents and allows you to free up removal slots for blue counters and card draw.
I've had good results in mirror matches and against Gift, Constrictor, UB Control, among others. I've been less successful against Hazoret aggro decks like mono-red and Mardu. The biggest issue I've had with aggro decks is not hitting land drops on curve, and especially not having double red for Chandra and Glorybringer. To help fix this I moved one Gearhulk and on Glimmer to the sideboard, increased my land count to 26, adding more red producing lands, adding Magma Spray. I also added Hour of Devestation to the sideboard as an emergency reset against creature-heavy decks. I'm strongly considering adding 1 or 2 more Sprays instead of Fatal Push, which seems weak in the current meta. I may also add one more Hour if Crested Sunmare starts showing up more, as it is the perfect answer. Lastly, I may try one Angrath, the Flame-Chained, just to see how it goes.
Notes:
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner: usually eats removal, you pretty much win if it goes unchecked. Sometimes cut one or two against more aggressive decks as it's a poor blocker, and you want to preserve your life total more than you want to draw cards. Whirler Virtuouso: Fantastic against mono-red and other small creature decks. Sometime cut 2 for Dreamstealer vs midrange and control decks where you want to attack their hand. Ravenous Chupacabra: Fantastic at building a board advantage, comes out vs Control. Glorybringer: my favorite Standard card, I never take this out. I prefer it over Phoenix because it has an immediate impact. The Scarab God: the single strongest card in Standard, but sometimes overvalued. I often shave one copy vs decks with lots of exile effects. It's too expensive to have it exiled with no activation. I often hold it back until the late game when I have counter back ups, have run down my opponents removal or have enough lands to immediately activate. Chandra, Torch of Defiance: often comes out on the draw vs creature decks Torrential Gearhulk and [Card]Glimmer of Genius]: Comes out vs aggro decks, add in the extra copies vs Control. Deadeye Tracker: I think this is the absolute best card vs Gift decks. You can target all their relevant spells while gaining card advantage and filtering. Also good vs Control.
To answer the questions in the previous post, Profane Procession is an absolute beating vs our deck. The only real answers are to hold up counters vs BW decks, especially post sideboard. Enchantments in general are pretty hard to deal with. I would also be very wary of Ixalan's Binding out of white decks. Carnage Tyrant is best answered with big blockers: Gearhulk, God, God tokens. If you run into it a lot, you could also consider Gifted Aetherborn.
Oh, as far as mana goes, not really an issue. This is basically a U/R deck with a light white splash and one black card, so after tweaking the mana base a bit, I feel good about it.
Played against a couple zombies, a couple God-Pharoah, GB energy, a couple brews, and several rounds against R/G Ramp. The ramp deck was the only rough matchup for me, I'm considering adding Summary Dismissal to the sideboard to help against Ulamog. Everything else was very one-sided. Lots of cheap removal for the early game, card draw for mid, which snowballs into a wide array of powerful threats. The planeswalkers are great, Nicol Bolas is pretty much an auto-win if it comes down. I tend to side out Jace and sometimes Nicol Bolas against aggro because they can be a bit slow. Glorybringer and Thing in the Ice were also fantastic out of the sideboard. Crook of Condemnation was also fun tech against Zombies, God-Pharoah, etc.
I've been working on a 4-color version of this recently, and I've gotten it to a point that I'm really happy with. Took 1st at FNM and then went 6-1-1 at Game Day, with my only loss being in the finals vs. an R/G Eldrazi Ramp deck that I beat in the swiss. The shell I started with was the 4-color deck that won the SCG open a few weeks ago. My aim has been to lower the curve a bit, and make it more effective against aggro decks. This means (among other things) removing slower cards like Dovin Baan and Fumigate, and replacing them with Declaration in Stone and Radiant Flames. Sadly, I haven't been able to adequately test against mono-red, which was one of my main targets, so I can't say for sure how that matchup is, but I think this deck should be able to address it better than straight U/R, which doesn't have clean answers for Hazoret. Outside of the one ramp matchup, all of my other rounds have felt extremely lopsided in favor of control.
This was a really interesting deck, combining the vehicles + Colossus package with some eldrazi like Bearer of Silence and Herald of Kozilek. I managed to grind out a win in game 1, got crushed by Copter and Skysovereign in game 2. Some slow play from my opponent plus a late Linvala in game 3 meant that we ended in a tie. I don't know that I would have won if we had been able to play it out, but it was close.
Getting a tie in Round 1 was a bit of a downer because the event wasn't going to have a cut to top 8 or 4, so whoever won the swiss would win overall. I thought that the tie would put me out of the running, and yet...
Round 2 vs. Jeskai Control 2-1
Game 1 he got me with a Torrential Gearhulk I couldn't answer. Post sideboard, I was in a much better position with threats plus countermagic able to deal with pretty much anything he threw at me.
Round 3 vs. R/G Energy 2-0
I had to take a lot of hits from a bunch of big ground dudes until I could establish enough of a presence to turn it around. Multiform Wonder gave me fits because it was able to block my flyers, gain life, and attack. I eventually was able to overpower it with multiple Avacyns.
Round 4 vs. Bant 2-0
As mentioned above, Unsubstantiate > Tireless Tracker into Spell Queller > Tireless Tracker is a nasty tempo start that really disrupts the bant strategy. Again, I took some hits before stabilizing with a strong airforce. In game 2, my opponent got Copter flooded without enough pilots. Toward the end, he got close to a Westvale Abbey flip, but was off by a turn vs. Avacyn flip to close it out.
Round 5 vs. Bant 2-0
Going into the finals, I felt a bit bad for my opponent because he was the only 4-0 left, while I was 3-0-1, but he still had to play me to close out the event. I'll take what I can get though! His deck was very much the pre-rotation deck minus Collected Company, which made all the difference for me. Game 1 I was able to jam continuous spirit threats plus 2 Stasis Snare to maintain firm control, despite never getting above 3 lands. Game 2 my opponent got off to a good start, giving me a dose of my own medicine by hitting 2 Nebelgast Herald in a row with two of his own Spell Queller. He beat me down to 3 life, but the third Nebalgast finally landed and helped me finally lock him out with an unbeatable spirit airforce.
A few notes on the deck. I like the direction people have been going with the midrange version, but I think this build is a bit better in a few ways. Nebelgast Herald does a lot more than Reflector Mage. You get spirit synergies, which means you can get lots of taps out of a single Herald. It has evasion. It has flash. All of this plays much better into our gameplan than mage. Plus, so many cards you might bounce have strong ETB effects that you just don't want to trigger over and over again.
I also think Rattlechains is currently undervalued. Giving additional flash and hexproof are both very powerful effects that help you build out your board while getting around lots of interaction from your opponent.
I like the shift to Thraben Inspector. Mausoleum Wanderer hasn't been doing much for me lately. I'd rather have the extra card advantage than maybe counter something every once in a while.
I don't like this change. I think they should have given it a bit more time. The way they are rolling this out seems rushed and panicked. I personally have been thankful at each rotation to see oppressive cards move out of the format. I would have preferred if they'd at least given it another year before changing.
I ended up 4-2, in the top 3rd of standings, but well enough out of top 8 due to pretty bad tiebreakers. The deck dismantled a string of energy combo decks, but got utterly crushed by Grixis Emerge. I'm not really sure how to manage that matchup.
I like the Joey Manner deck quite a bit. I'm going to try to split the difference by dropping the Bishops and some of the extra spells for copters and another Gideon and see how that plays. I feel like Nebelgast Herald is better than Reflector Mage right now, but I could be wrong.
I didn't drop a game all night against R/W Equipment, Mono-Red Aggro, G/W Aggro, and Temur Aetherworks.
I really didn't love them prior to rotation, but Nebelgast Herald and Unsubstantiate are really good right now. So many decks are trying to pump their creatures through various means and also crew vehicles, and it can be absolutely devastating for an opponent to plug a lot of resources into their creatures just to have them tapped or bounced. Also, leaning hard on flash and instant speed spells is quite good now too, when very few other decks are doing much at instant speed. Finally, Spell Queller pretty much stops Aetherworks in its tracks.
I'm still not sold on Revolutionary Rebuff since it loses value so quickly and can't get artifacts, and Gideon may move to the sideboard because he often felt too slow. I could see these being replaced by some combination of more Stasis Snare, Unsubstantiate, Nebelgast Herald, or Negate. I'll probably also drop the sideboard Fumigate, I don't think I really want to do board wipes when I'm leaning so heavily on my air force.
Had lots of fun with the deck, and ended up 3-1. This was my first time playing many of these cards, so I felt like I spent a lot of the early rounds trying learn exactly what they do.
Round 1 vs. Mono-Red Aggro 0-2
A fairly grindy match, I think I actual have a decent match up, but felt like I wasn't drawing too well in either game. Both games pretty much came down to seeing who could land lethal damage. Exquisite Firecraft with spell mastery ended up being the game breaker although I was able to fend it off a bit with Spell Queller and Unsubstantiate.
Round 2 vs. G/B Midrange 2-0
My opponent had a tough time getting his deck off the ground with some pretty bad draws. This spirits deck really punishes opponents who stumble, if it gets ahead early it can pretty much lock them out.
Round 3 vs. R/G Zada/Silverfur/Cryptolith Combo 2-1
Game 1 my opponent utterly crushed me. I didn't really know what his deck was trying to do and he was able to go nuts, making a million hasty, giant wolves.
Once I understood the matchup, I focused my plan on keeping Silverfur and Zada off the board and had a much easier time of it. Declaration in Stone was really good here. If you have a clear idea of your opponents win conditions, Spirits really allows you to sit back and punish them when they go for it.
Round 4 vs. G/B Delirium 2-0
Again focused on opponents win condition, making sure Ishkanah didn't hit the battlefield, and punished him for stumbling on mana.
A few thoughts:
Avacyn and Deep-Fiend didn't see much play and felt a bit win-more. I'll probably keep Avacyn, but either drop Deep-Fiend or move to the sideboard.
Anticipate was the card I sided out most often as it is the one main deck card that doesn't impact the board. It may also need to move to the sideboard. Will probably consider starting Declaration In Stone and Negate instead of Anticipate and Elder Deep-Fiend.
Unsubstantiate was indeed very good, especially with helping me to catch up or get control of the board when I was on the draw. A common sequence for me was Unsubstantiate my opponent's turn 3 play and then Spell Queller when they try to re-cast.
I didn't have a lot situations where I wanted to play Essence Flux. Doesn't mean it's bad here, just wasn't relevant in my particular match ups.
I haven't been able to play against Humans or Bant so far, so I don't really know what to expect there.
I had a pretty nice run at game day with a W/B Eldrazi deck I've been working on for the past few weeks. It's pretty close to where I want it, but getting the last few cards locked down has proven tricky. I'd love it if you could check it out and let me know what adjustments I might make.
The plan is to use a high volume of removal plus creature spells that double as removal (Bearer, Strangler, Displacer) to control the opponents board while adding to my own board. The most powerful sequence, which I hit many times, is turn 2 Transgress/Silkwrap > turn 3 Strangler > turn 4 Bearer/Thought-Knot.
The main things I'm trying to sort out is whether I have the right number and mix of lands, and whether I need to smooth out the mana curve a bit. I have a lot of 2-mana spells and perhaps not enough 1s (Duress???) or 3s (Stasis Snare???). I want to make sure that I can hit an early exile spell, but perhaps I have 1 or 2 too many? Also considering dropping the 1 Matter Reshaper for another Strangler, but I'm trying to stay away from too many 4-ofs except for spells that I'm always happy to see. Having multiples of a creature on the battlefield is becoming a real liability with so many Decalarations running around in the meta.
Round 1 vs. B/R Vampires 2-0
Not the most solid build of Vampires, needed a higher density of creatures. I'd love to see a good version of this deck, somewhat sad that this hasn't materialized so far.
Round 2 vs. B/G Aristocrats 0-2
This deck is really tricky for me to beat. I have lots of sideboard answers (maybe too many?) but I don't have a good feel on the best way to attack it. They dump out creatures so quickly, that it's hard to keep up. I definitely need to practice this one more.
Round 3 vs. Esper Dragons 2-0
Managed to battle through a horde Ojutais and Silumgars for the win.
Round 4 vs. B/W Control 2-1
An interesting deck with various token generators plus Mindwrack Demon. He blew up both my board and hand in game 2, but otherwise my creature control plan was able to manage things pretty well.
Quarterfinals vs. W/G Humans 2-0
Pretty straightforward match, containing his board while I grew mine. Was helped by a punt in game 2 that allowed me to blow up his board with an Avacyn flip.
Semifinals vs. mono-White Humans 2-0
A similar match where I was able to keep him from hitting critical mass on board and then outclassing him with my finishers.
Finals vs. mono-White Humans 1-2
The other semifinals match was between mono-White and the Aristocrats deck that I lost to earlier on. Since I had just come off two wins vs. Humans, I was really hoping the White deck would win, and it did! I was feeling pretty good going in to this match. Game 1 I executed my same plan once again, but then I got completely wrecked in the last two games, facing down an overwhelming mass of enchantments: Gryff's Boon, Always Watching, Silkwrap, and Stasis Snare. It was a heartbreaking loss, but he had a great version of this deck and an excellent sideboard plan.
Mana is the number 1 issue with this deck. I tend to favor land heavy hands vs land light ones. In your early turns, you will be more defensive, removing your opponents creatures or setting up blockers like Whirler. You don't really start to turn the corner until you can start dropping your larger threats. This build is a little less controlling, and a little more pro-active, so hopefully you can start to shift gears quicker than with some of the other builds I've seen.
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Whirler Virtuoso
2 Ravenous Chupacabra
3 Glorybringer
2 The Scarab God
1 Torrential Gearhulk
Spells (17)
1 Magma Spray
2 Fatal Push
3 Harnessed Lightning
2 Abrade
1 Search for Azcanta
2 Essence Scatter
2 Supreme Will
1 Glimmer of Genius
3 Vraska's Contempt
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Lands (26)
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Drowned Catacomb
3 Fetid Pools
4 Dragonskull Summit
3 Canyon Slough
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Aether Hub
1 Field of Ruin
2 Dreamstealer
2 Negate
2 Duress
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Glimmer of Genius
2 Deadeye Tracker
1 Moment of Craving
1 Chandra's Defeat
1 Abrade
1 Magma Spray
1 Hour of Devastation
I've had good results in mirror matches and against Gift, Constrictor, UB Control, among others. I've been less successful against Hazoret aggro decks like mono-red and Mardu. The biggest issue I've had with aggro decks is not hitting land drops on curve, and especially not having double red for Chandra and Glorybringer. To help fix this I moved one Gearhulk and on Glimmer to the sideboard, increased my land count to 26, adding more red producing lands, adding Magma Spray. I also added Hour of Devestation to the sideboard as an emergency reset against creature-heavy decks. I'm strongly considering adding 1 or 2 more Sprays instead of Fatal Push, which seems weak in the current meta. I may also add one more Hour if Crested Sunmare starts showing up more, as it is the perfect answer. Lastly, I may try one Angrath, the Flame-Chained, just to see how it goes.
Notes:
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner: usually eats removal, you pretty much win if it goes unchecked. Sometimes cut one or two against more aggressive decks as it's a poor blocker, and you want to preserve your life total more than you want to draw cards.
Whirler Virtuouso: Fantastic against mono-red and other small creature decks. Sometime cut 2 for Dreamstealer vs midrange and control decks where you want to attack their hand.
Ravenous Chupacabra: Fantastic at building a board advantage, comes out vs Control.
Glorybringer: my favorite Standard card, I never take this out. I prefer it over Phoenix because it has an immediate impact.
The Scarab God: the single strongest card in Standard, but sometimes overvalued. I often shave one copy vs decks with lots of exile effects. It's too expensive to have it exiled with no activation. I often hold it back until the late game when I have counter back ups, have run down my opponents removal or have enough lands to immediately activate.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance: often comes out on the draw vs creature decks
Torrential Gearhulk and [Card]Glimmer of Genius]: Comes out vs aggro decks, add in the extra copies vs Control.
Deadeye Tracker: I think this is the absolute best card vs Gift decks. You can target all their relevant spells while gaining card advantage and filtering. Also good vs Control.
To answer the questions in the previous post, Profane Procession is an absolute beating vs our deck. The only real answers are to hold up counters vs BW decks, especially post sideboard. Enchantments in general are pretty hard to deal with. I would also be very wary of Ixalan's Binding out of white decks. Carnage Tyrant is best answered with big blockers: Gearhulk, God, God tokens. If you run into it a lot, you could also consider Gifted Aetherborn.
2 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Linvala, the Preserver
Planeswalkers (3)
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
Removal (13)
2 Magma Spray
2 Abrade
3 Harnessed Lightning
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Radiant Flames
2 Cast Out
Counters/Card Draw (14)
2 Censor
2 Essence Scatter
2 Disallow
2 Supreme Will
4 Glimmer of Genius
1 Hieroglyphic Illumination
1 Pull from Tomorrow
4 Wandering Fumarole
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Inspiring Vantage
3 Irrigated Farmland
2 Port Town
1 Fetid Pools
4 Aether Hub
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Dispel
2 Negate
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Magma Spray
1 Chandra's Defeat
2 Glorybringer
3 Thing in the Ice
2 Fumigate
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Crook of Condemnation
3 Thraben Inspector
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Nebelgast Herald
4 Spell Queller
3 Archangel Avacyn
Spells (14)
4 Smuggler's Copter
2 Unsubstantiate
1 Revolutionary Rebuff
1 Negate
3 Stasis Snare
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
8 Plains
7 Island
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
2 Westvale Abbey
1 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Stasis Snare
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Fragmentize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Revolutionary Rebuff
1 Negate
1 Void Shatter
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Round 1 vs. 4-Color Aggro 1-1-1
This was a really interesting deck, combining the vehicles + Colossus package with some eldrazi like Bearer of Silence and Herald of Kozilek. I managed to grind out a win in game 1, got crushed by Copter and Skysovereign in game 2. Some slow play from my opponent plus a late Linvala in game 3 meant that we ended in a tie. I don't know that I would have won if we had been able to play it out, but it was close.
Getting a tie in Round 1 was a bit of a downer because the event wasn't going to have a cut to top 8 or 4, so whoever won the swiss would win overall. I thought that the tie would put me out of the running, and yet...
Round 2 vs. Jeskai Control 2-1
Game 1 he got me with a Torrential Gearhulk I couldn't answer. Post sideboard, I was in a much better position with threats plus countermagic able to deal with pretty much anything he threw at me.
Round 3 vs. R/G Energy 2-0
I had to take a lot of hits from a bunch of big ground dudes until I could establish enough of a presence to turn it around. Multiform Wonder gave me fits because it was able to block my flyers, gain life, and attack. I eventually was able to overpower it with multiple Avacyns.
Round 4 vs. Bant 2-0
As mentioned above, Unsubstantiate > Tireless Tracker into Spell Queller > Tireless Tracker is a nasty tempo start that really disrupts the bant strategy. Again, I took some hits before stabilizing with a strong airforce. In game 2, my opponent got Copter flooded without enough pilots. Toward the end, he got close to a Westvale Abbey flip, but was off by a turn vs. Avacyn flip to close it out.
Round 5 vs. Bant 2-0
Going into the finals, I felt a bit bad for my opponent because he was the only 4-0 left, while I was 3-0-1, but he still had to play me to close out the event. I'll take what I can get though! His deck was very much the pre-rotation deck minus Collected Company, which made all the difference for me. Game 1 I was able to jam continuous spirit threats plus 2 Stasis Snare to maintain firm control, despite never getting above 3 lands. Game 2 my opponent got off to a good start, giving me a dose of my own medicine by hitting 2 Nebelgast Herald in a row with two of his own Spell Queller. He beat me down to 3 life, but the third Nebalgast finally landed and helped me finally lock him out with an unbeatable spirit airforce.
A few notes on the deck. I like the direction people have been going with the midrange version, but I think this build is a bit better in a few ways. Nebelgast Herald does a lot more than Reflector Mage. You get spirit synergies, which means you can get lots of taps out of a single Herald. It has evasion. It has flash. All of this plays much better into our gameplan than mage. Plus, so many cards you might bounce have strong ETB effects that you just don't want to trigger over and over again.
I also think Rattlechains is currently undervalued. Giving additional flash and hexproof are both very powerful effects that help you build out your board while getting around lots of interaction from your opponent.
I like the shift to Thraben Inspector. Mausoleum Wanderer hasn't been doing much for me lately. I'd rather have the extra card advantage than maybe counter something every once in a while.
I ended up 4-2, in the top 3rd of standings, but well enough out of top 8 due to pretty bad tiebreakers. The deck dismantled a string of energy combo decks, but got utterly crushed by Grixis Emerge. I'm not really sure how to manage that matchup.
I like the Joey Manner deck quite a bit. I'm going to try to split the difference by dropping the Bishops and some of the extra spells for copters and another Gideon and see how that plays. I feel like Nebelgast Herald is better than Reflector Mage right now, but I could be wrong.
My deck is pretty stock:
3 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Nebelgast Herald
2 Bygone Bishop
4 Spell Queller
3 Archangel Avacyn
Spells (13)
2 Essence Flux
2 Revolutionary Rebuff
3 Unsubstantiate
1 Negate
3 Stasis Snare
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Prairie Stream
4 Port Town
4 Island
4 Plains
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Fumigate
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Skywhaler's Shot
2 Fragmentize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
2 Summary Dismissal
I didn't drop a game all night against R/W Equipment, Mono-Red Aggro, G/W Aggro, and Temur Aetherworks.
I really didn't love them prior to rotation, but Nebelgast Herald and Unsubstantiate are really good right now. So many decks are trying to pump their creatures through various means and also crew vehicles, and it can be absolutely devastating for an opponent to plug a lot of resources into their creatures just to have them tapped or bounced. Also, leaning hard on flash and instant speed spells is quite good now too, when very few other decks are doing much at instant speed. Finally, Spell Queller pretty much stops Aetherworks in its tracks.
I'm still not sold on Revolutionary Rebuff since it loses value so quickly and can't get artifacts, and Gideon may move to the sideboard because he often felt too slow. I could see these being replaced by some combination of more Stasis Snare, Unsubstantiate, Nebelgast Herald, or Negate. I'll probably also drop the sideboard Fumigate, I don't think I really want to do board wipes when I'm leaning so heavily on my air force.
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Rattlechains
4 Spell Queller
2 Reflector Mage
3 Archangel Avacyn
Spells (15)
2 Essence Flux
4 Smuggler's Copter
1 Negate
2 Revolutionary Rebuff
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Stasis Snare
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
8 Plains
8 Islands
2 Fragmentize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Stasis Snare
2 Imprisoned in the Moon
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Fumigate
1 Negate
2 Anticipate
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Nebelgast Herald
4 Spell Queller
2 Archangel Avacyn
2 Elder Deep-Fiend
Spells (12)
2 Essence Flux
2 Unsubstantiate
2 Anticipate
2 Clash of Wills
2 Stasis Snare
2 Ojutai's Command
4 Prairie Stream
4 Port Town
9 Island
7 Plains
2 Hallowed Moonlight
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Bygone Bishop
2 Planar Outburst
2 Negate
1 Confirm Suspicions
2 Summary Dismissal
Had lots of fun with the deck, and ended up 3-1. This was my first time playing many of these cards, so I felt like I spent a lot of the early rounds trying learn exactly what they do.
Round 1 vs. Mono-Red Aggro 0-2
A fairly grindy match, I think I actual have a decent match up, but felt like I wasn't drawing too well in either game. Both games pretty much came down to seeing who could land lethal damage. Exquisite Firecraft with spell mastery ended up being the game breaker although I was able to fend it off a bit with Spell Queller and Unsubstantiate.
Round 2 vs. G/B Midrange 2-0
My opponent had a tough time getting his deck off the ground with some pretty bad draws. This spirits deck really punishes opponents who stumble, if it gets ahead early it can pretty much lock them out.
Round 3 vs. R/G Zada/Silverfur/Cryptolith Combo 2-1
Game 1 my opponent utterly crushed me. I didn't really know what his deck was trying to do and he was able to go nuts, making a million hasty, giant wolves.
Once I understood the matchup, I focused my plan on keeping Silverfur and Zada off the board and had a much easier time of it. Declaration in Stone was really good here. If you have a clear idea of your opponents win conditions, Spirits really allows you to sit back and punish them when they go for it.
Round 4 vs. G/B Delirium 2-0
Again focused on opponents win condition, making sure Ishkanah didn't hit the battlefield, and punished him for stumbling on mana.
A few thoughts:
Avacyn and Deep-Fiend didn't see much play and felt a bit win-more. I'll probably keep Avacyn, but either drop Deep-Fiend or move to the sideboard.
Anticipate was the card I sided out most often as it is the one main deck card that doesn't impact the board. It may also need to move to the sideboard. Will probably consider starting Declaration In Stone and Negate instead of Anticipate and Elder Deep-Fiend.
Unsubstantiate was indeed very good, especially with helping me to catch up or get control of the board when I was on the draw. A common sequence for me was Unsubstantiate my opponent's turn 3 play and then Spell Queller when they try to re-cast.
I didn't have a lot situations where I wanted to play Essence Flux. Doesn't mean it's bad here, just wasn't relevant in my particular match ups.
I haven't been able to play against Humans or Bant so far, so I don't really know what to expect there.
2 Hangarback Walker
4 Bearer of Silence
1 Matter Reshaper
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
1 Archangel Avacyn
Spells (13)
1 Warping Wail
3 Transgress the Mind
2 Ultimate Price
2 Declaration in Stone
3 Silkwrap
2 Anguished Unmaking
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Lands (25)
2 Forsaken Sanctuary
3 Shambling Vent
1 Llanowar Wastes
2 Battlefield Forge
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Plains
4 Swamp
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Blighted Fen
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Tragic Arrogance
1 Languish
2 Read the Bones
1 Ruinous Path
2 Hallowed Moonlight
2 Infinite Obliteration
2 Virulent Plague
1 Linvala, the Preserver
2 Duress
1 Ultimate Price
The plan is to use a high volume of removal plus creature spells that double as removal (Bearer, Strangler, Displacer) to control the opponents board while adding to my own board. The most powerful sequence, which I hit many times, is turn 2 Transgress/Silkwrap > turn 3 Strangler > turn 4 Bearer/Thought-Knot.
The main things I'm trying to sort out is whether I have the right number and mix of lands, and whether I need to smooth out the mana curve a bit. I have a lot of 2-mana spells and perhaps not enough 1s (Duress???) or 3s (Stasis Snare???). I want to make sure that I can hit an early exile spell, but perhaps I have 1 or 2 too many? Also considering dropping the 1 Matter Reshaper for another Strangler, but I'm trying to stay away from too many 4-ofs except for spells that I'm always happy to see. Having multiples of a creature on the battlefield is becoming a real liability with so many Decalarations running around in the meta.
For the next iteration of this I'm planning to do -1 Forsaken Sanctuary, -1 Silkwrap, -1 Transgress the Mind, -1 Warping Wail, +1 Plains, +1 Hangarback Walker, +1 Stasis Snare, +1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Not sure what else I should change.
Here's the rundown for my game day matches:
Round 1 vs. B/R Vampires 2-0
Not the most solid build of Vampires, needed a higher density of creatures. I'd love to see a good version of this deck, somewhat sad that this hasn't materialized so far.
Round 2 vs. B/G Aristocrats 0-2
This deck is really tricky for me to beat. I have lots of sideboard answers (maybe too many?) but I don't have a good feel on the best way to attack it. They dump out creatures so quickly, that it's hard to keep up. I definitely need to practice this one more.
Round 3 vs. Esper Dragons 2-0
Managed to battle through a horde Ojutais and Silumgars for the win.
Round 4 vs. B/W Control 2-1
An interesting deck with various token generators plus Mindwrack Demon. He blew up both my board and hand in game 2, but otherwise my creature control plan was able to manage things pretty well.
Quarterfinals vs. W/G Humans 2-0
Pretty straightforward match, containing his board while I grew mine. Was helped by a punt in game 2 that allowed me to blow up his board with an Avacyn flip.
Semifinals vs. mono-White Humans 2-0
A similar match where I was able to keep him from hitting critical mass on board and then outclassing him with my finishers.
Finals vs. mono-White Humans 1-2
The other semifinals match was between mono-White and the Aristocrats deck that I lost to earlier on. Since I had just come off two wins vs. Humans, I was really hoping the White deck would win, and it did! I was feeling pretty good going in to this match. Game 1 I executed my same plan once again, but then I got completely wrecked in the last two games, facing down an overwhelming mass of enchantments: Gryff's Boon, Always Watching, Silkwrap, and Stasis Snare. It was a heartbreaking loss, but he had a great version of this deck and an excellent sideboard plan.
Overall matches 5-2, 2nd place out of 25.