Going to try out oaths in my 4 color Geist coralhelm build with a one of Arlinn and Elspeth. Seems like it frees me to go somewhat lower in my creature count and improves my fixing. Will come back with a list and testing impressions later.
Cannot believe someone suggested cutting celestial colonnades. That is THE reason to play jeskai control over grixis in my eyes. That manland is bonkers.
One with black for Decays+Kolaghans command+Goblin Darkdwellers. To fight thopter/Sword combo more effectively, and be able to compete in card adavantage. Probabbly gonna get myself some boom/Bust aswell.
Any preliminary thoughts?
If you're running all those cards you're basically playing worse jund. If you want to play those cards, probably just play jund.
What I threw together today. Ancestral Vision sealed it for me, a 5 mana Angel, even as good as Archangel Avacyn, is not where this archetype is going. Testing has been pretty awesome, Ancestral Vision isn't something that repairs our weakness against decks that just outspeed us in the early game when we can't one for one fast enough, but it does make it so that when we get past the nail biting first few turns against something like affinity or infect or burn we actually stabilize. We aren't broken good by any means with this unbanning, but at least we finally have a truly excellent turn 1 play that can replenish us in the late game.
Sideboard is definitely kinda thrown together, but I don't really know what the new meta will be like so all I can work off of is an educated guess.
Lol, the blue meta. Ancestral visions is NOT going to make control decks the decks to beat in modern. Hopefully it makes them playable again, but I have my doubts. 3 cards on TURN 5 at the earliest just isn't super great when the top 3 decks post eldrazi (infect, affinity, and burn) are all trying to kill you turn 3 and 4.
Sword of the meek combo is SLOW, folds to the same sideboard cards that affinity folds to, and Arlinn is now giving our guys trample.
The biggest thing that's changed for us with this ban and restricted announcement is that our deck isn't going to get beat up by eldrazi anymore. We're back in business, and the only thing keeping us from success will be these top 3 decks that have a chance to get going too quick for us to stop. That's probably what we should be focusing on beating again, and I still maintain that adding a combo of our own in the form of some amount of Retreat to Coralhelm plus Knight of the Reliquary is our best bet. Splashing blue gets us powerful sideboard tech as well.
To sort of artificially add to both the creature count and the spell count of a Thing control list you could try some amount of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. He's a tempting removal sponge as he's often flipping the turn after you play him and when he does flip you get to flashback your spells. With that said, he's a bit slow and man the 2 drop spot is getting crowded. Probably not a 4 of, but a 2 have has been potent.
People are talking up archangel avacyn and it's hard to argue with her obvious combat wrecking power but 5 mana still feels like a lot. I will go ahead and try to throw her in and see how it goes in a more creature filled build. Looking at 3 things, 2 jace, 2 resto, 1 clique, 4 snapcaster, and 1 archangel for now. 24 lands and 4 serum visions, the rest typical jeskai spell base.
I've been playing this deck for a long time so you can stop telling me to **** off to another thread. In fact if you think burn to the face is a solution to flipping faster then I've probably played it longer than you.
Thing is playable in modern, its best place as I see it is in UWr. However the card also needs both assistance in getting activated faster and more creatures next to it to dampen its removal weakness. Simply putting it in the UWr shell that worked 3 years ago which people are still clamping on to however does not work.
I agree with, the list does need tweaking, but it works with an amount of counterspells in list, they aren't simply dead draws in a jeskai control deck as you are implying. In fact, I have no idea why you're being so confrontational with me considering the fact that we're very close to being in agreement with the card.
And as far as tell you to **** off, I never said ANYTHING of the sort, I simply pointed out that trying to force a reactive strategy into a proactive strategy isn't viable, and that you'd be better off playing another type of deck if that's what you feel you need to win. Both your your salt and the "my deck is bigger than yours" attitude you're tossing my way over some assumption that you've been playing longer than I have are both overreactions. Keep it on the cards, this is a conversation not a pissing contest.
if you're running any number of remand/manaleaks and a playset of thing's .. then that's about 8 really bad top decks ... and for a control shell that's really bad if you're lategame has as many duds like that...
imo if you really want to play titi you can't realistically play more than 2 if any at all.. and you probably would need some amount of serum visions with it to smooth out your later draws...
sigh...playtest it maybe before dismissing strategies alright? You aren't trying to win by flipping him...you play him, block, control the game as you would anyway, and if he does flip, great.. you got extra value from your tempo lightning rod..
Well if we're going to go ahead and say you need to be completely proactive
you can stop right there because I never said that. But there is a difference between having a longrange gameplan and "sitting back and watch titi slowly thaw out"
Eh, you certainly opened the door to the point, this deck in all its forms minus kiki resto variants is not particularly proactive. If that's your big concern for your meta then there are other decks for you to play.
And Thing doesn't really take that long to thaw out if you don't want him to. Plenty burn to chuck at the face when you need him to flip. Think twice also overpreforms when you're going for the flip. Jace as a 2 of has been good for flashing back spells as well.
That's not how modern works though, you need a proactive gameplan. And flipping a turn 2 titi is one thing but you don't want it to turn into a dead draw as early as turn 5. You can't simply take a standard UWr shell and put 4x titi in there, the card needs support to function.
Imagine this situation; you're in the endgame facing, say, two turns lethal. You have your titi out and if you could just flip the bastard you can swing for the win on an empty board with your 7/8. Not an unrealistic scenario I'd say. But now one of the cards in your hand is a Remand, and your opponent, not being a complete idiot, realises that if titi flips you win the game. So your opponent just doesn't play anything for the last two turns and kills you. This is not a rare niche scenario and will happen if you build titi in a mostly reactive deck with a ton of counterspells.
Well if we're going to go ahead and say you need to be completely proactive in modern than this deck as a concept is mostly invalidated. Yes the deck runs a lot of counterspells but it also can run near 12 removal spells for your doomsday scenario. Frankly, every deck in modern can falter because of a poor draw.
Thing has been awesome for me in most scenarios. Sure enough, I'm just one guy testing with friends and on cockatrice (not exactly known for it's consistent playtesting environment), but at the very least I've seen enough to know that this card has a lot of potential in some sort of control shell. The people who think this is going into delver or storm sideboard are dead wrong, making a deck that primarily bets on winning the game with Thing are dead wrong. Removal spells are too prevalent in modern and Thing is a little slow all things considered. He plays best as a tempo suck letting us establish control over the game while our opponents waste their resources killing him. On the off chance he doesn't die though, he wins the game. He's a low investment wincon at best, and a tempo lightning rod at worst. Pretty much exactly what this kind of deck looks for.
If you're uncomfortable sitting back and trying to answer the threats that come at you (understandable in the current modern meta filthy with decks trying to turn 3/4 you) then this deck isn't really going to appeal to you in general.
traditionally three drops that do not immediately impact the board or are not somehow especially good against common removal in Modern are bad. I would not play anything for three mana that dies to bolt, normally a dead card against us. Jori En seems bad here.
Titi has been more than viable in testing, the deck simply has to be adjusted. My creature base at the moment is 4 thing, 3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, 4 snapcaster mage, 1 vendillion clique, and 2 restoangel. Full 4 bolt and helix with all the spell recursion means you're using them early game to deal with threats and using them again late game to win with colonades, fliers, or thing. In my experience thing usually gets removed in the match ups where the opposing deck can do so, which isn't a big deal as they often lose tempo doing so, letting us get ahead naturally as the deck sporting all the answers. Play the game as you normally would and if titi flips you usually just win on the spot. Plus snap, resto, and clique are all good with flipping titi.
Jace is fine in the spell centric thing in the ice build I have going on at the moment. Flashes back multiple spells, draws you cards before flipping. I'm more of a fan of him in grixis because it has more proactive soceries to flash back like discard and serum visions. The down side is you become really dependent on thing in the ice to win as you have less burn overall due to no lightning helix and your man lands are much worse than celestial colonnade. But once you're not running Jace you're not tossing back nearly as many spells as you otherwise would be with him triggering your thing in the ice. He can be awkward but I haven't thought of something that would replace him.
With that said, even just having two collected companies in the main can be worth it. It's practically our whole game against jund if they can just one for one you through the early turns.
If you're running all those cards you're basically playing worse jund. If you want to play those cards, probably just play jund.
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Thing in the Ice
Instants
2 Cryptic Command
2 Remand
2 Mana Leak
1 Spell Snare
1 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
4 Ancestral Vision
Lands
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Dispel
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Gideon Jura
2 Negate
1 Spell Pierce
2 Stony Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Pyroclasm
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Spellskite
What I threw together today. Ancestral Vision sealed it for me, a 5 mana Angel, even as good as Archangel Avacyn, is not where this archetype is going. Testing has been pretty awesome, Ancestral Vision isn't something that repairs our weakness against decks that just outspeed us in the early game when we can't one for one fast enough, but it does make it so that when we get past the nail biting first few turns against something like affinity or infect or burn we actually stabilize. We aren't broken good by any means with this unbanning, but at least we finally have a truly excellent turn 1 play that can replenish us in the late game.
Sideboard is definitely kinda thrown together, but I don't really know what the new meta will be like so all I can work off of is an educated guess.
Sword of the meek combo is SLOW, folds to the same sideboard cards that affinity folds to, and Arlinn is now giving our guys trample.
The biggest thing that's changed for us with this ban and restricted announcement is that our deck isn't going to get beat up by eldrazi anymore. We're back in business, and the only thing keeping us from success will be these top 3 decks that have a chance to get going too quick for us to stop. That's probably what we should be focusing on beating again, and I still maintain that adding a combo of our own in the form of some amount of Retreat to Coralhelm plus Knight of the Reliquary is our best bet. Splashing blue gets us powerful sideboard tech as well.
People are talking up archangel avacyn and it's hard to argue with her obvious combat wrecking power but 5 mana still feels like a lot. I will go ahead and try to throw her in and see how it goes in a more creature filled build. Looking at 3 things, 2 jace, 2 resto, 1 clique, 4 snapcaster, and 1 archangel for now. 24 lands and 4 serum visions, the rest typical jeskai spell base.
I agree with, the list does need tweaking, but it works with an amount of counterspells in list, they aren't simply dead draws in a jeskai control deck as you are implying. In fact, I have no idea why you're being so confrontational with me considering the fact that we're very close to being in agreement with the card.
And as far as tell you to **** off, I never said ANYTHING of the sort, I simply pointed out that trying to force a reactive strategy into a proactive strategy isn't viable, and that you'd be better off playing another type of deck if that's what you feel you need to win. Both your your salt and the "my deck is bigger than yours" attitude you're tossing my way over some assumption that you've been playing longer than I have are both overreactions. Keep it on the cards, this is a conversation not a pissing contest.
sigh...playtest it maybe before dismissing strategies alright? You aren't trying to win by flipping him...you play him, block, control the game as you would anyway, and if he does flip, great.. you got extra value from your tempo lightning rod..
Eh, you certainly opened the door to the point, this deck in all its forms minus kiki resto variants is not particularly proactive. If that's your big concern for your meta then there are other decks for you to play.
And Thing doesn't really take that long to thaw out if you don't want him to. Plenty burn to chuck at the face when you need him to flip. Think twice also overpreforms when you're going for the flip. Jace as a 2 of has been good for flashing back spells as well.
Well if we're going to go ahead and say you need to be completely proactive in modern than this deck as a concept is mostly invalidated. Yes the deck runs a lot of counterspells but it also can run near 12 removal spells for your doomsday scenario. Frankly, every deck in modern can falter because of a poor draw.
Thing has been awesome for me in most scenarios. Sure enough, I'm just one guy testing with friends and on cockatrice (not exactly known for it's consistent playtesting environment), but at the very least I've seen enough to know that this card has a lot of potential in some sort of control shell. The people who think this is going into delver or storm sideboard are dead wrong, making a deck that primarily bets on winning the game with Thing are dead wrong. Removal spells are too prevalent in modern and Thing is a little slow all things considered. He plays best as a tempo suck letting us establish control over the game while our opponents waste their resources killing him. On the off chance he doesn't die though, he wins the game. He's a low investment wincon at best, and a tempo lightning rod at worst. Pretty much exactly what this kind of deck looks for.
If you're uncomfortable sitting back and trying to answer the threats that come at you (understandable in the current modern meta filthy with decks trying to turn 3/4 you) then this deck isn't really going to appeal to you in general.