So, I went to a big tourney on Sunday and in the new meta went 0-3 drop. It was the first time for me to play this deck in over a month, I haven't been to a store for FNM since sometime in March, also the past two weeks I've been addicted to mtg Arena and this deck is not one of the ones that I have on there to test play.
In the first round I lost to a B/G saproling deck, I just couldn't draw any Fumigates and only drew one Settle in two games and obviously 1 for 1 removal doesn't work against saprolings very well at all. That's not that surprising, also I was also mana flooded in game 1 too with about 9 lands and 5 other cards played in the whole game.
In the second round I lost to the U/W/B Esper approach, I won the first game but I lost the next 2. One reason is that my sideboard was a mess, I was testing a new idea and it didn't work at all. I did experience the opp's TEferi going ultimate and bouncing back all my permanents for the win. I believe main deck he was only playing Teferi and Lyra Dawnbringer as win conditions. It was not hard to deal with Lyra between seal away, settle and cast out and of course, essence scatter and other counterspells. However, I only had 2 cast outs in the deck as an answer to teferi so after he came down it was over.
In the third round I faced the mirror match again, a U/W approach deck and I won the first game again...my main deck is not changed since last month except for changing baffling end with seal away so that's why I was winning the first games in mirror matches. In the second and third games he brought in a lot of creatures, including Shalai, Lyra, and angel of sanctions as well as Gideon and Teferi. I again used my messed up sideboard so although I tried to hang on a long time, I managed to cast approach in the 2nd game, but the next turn he dropped Gideon and made an emblem and the turn after that he dropped Shalai to protect him and I was basically locked out of the game right there.
I didn't expect to face these decks in the first 3 rounds and since my sideboard was sketchy I'm not surprised that I didn't win the 2nd and 3rd games. What I did learn is that Teferi can be dangerous if you can't counter or get rid of him after he hits the board, of course, he was good against my control deck but I have no idea how he would be against an aggro deck.
As for Lyra Dawnbringer she didn't really get to hit me since the deck has so many ways to get rid of creatures, and of course she's good to drop against another control deck especially if she's protected by Shalai but against aggro I don't think she would do much.
I will, of course, keep playing this deck but I do need to rethink the whole sideboard, hopefully, when metagame gets settled it will be easier to figure out a solid sideboard, and I can change the deck to how I want it in September when Approach is rotating out. The deck really needs a stable metagame to shine so that we know what to play in the sideboard.
congrats on your 5-0. i quite like the idea of Puncturing Blow to deal with x/5's
with all the weenie and x/1 strategies around i wonder if R/w path of Mettle decks will make a comeback.
I'm going to be testing my R/W path of mettle deck at FNM tonight, although besides Clifftop Retreat I don't have any other Dominaria cards in the deck.
Goblin Chainwhirler looks promising. Can also do crazy stuff with Soul-Scar Mage.
Yeah, this is a pretty cool interaction that I missed initally. It makes Chainwhirler good against any creature deck, not just the ones that play x/1's. I'll probably go back to playing Soul-Scar instead of Firebrand, since it's also less vulnerable to opposing Chainwhirlers.
Three red is kind of hard to do unless you are mono red, and even then his 3 toughness makes him easy to kill with abrade or lightning strike. If he was 2/4 instead he'd be damn near unstoppable but with all the burn in the format I don't know.
Thanks, it's the same with siren stormtamer, many people got tricked by that since if you sac it then you make yourself have hexproof, but the angel is easier to see. I'm not sure how many people will play the angel though.
Sup fellas! Looking at this list for FNM. I haven't played Standard in a very... very long time. This seems about as close to "Do nothing control" as I can reasonably get, so it should be fun... for me. *evil laugh*
Overall, I plan on doing my thing game one. Good ole classic control magic. Counter some spells. Kill some creatures. Draw some cards and play the Approach. Nothing special here. After board, we have options for different threat packages and some hole fillers in our game 1 plan. Authority of the Consuls is basically an ace in the hole to the Izzet GPG deck. Or at least it seems like it. Crook also gives additional game against Scarab God based decks. Essense Scatter for the low to the ground. Renewed Faith if I feel like I'm under a particularly high amount of pressure and Censor sucks for some reason. Glyph Keeper + Gideon is good in control mirrors. Lyra feels like she'd do well in most late game situations and against the more aggro/midrange Monsters builds.
At least... that word vomit is my plan. We'll see how it goes.
Looks interesting but where is your alternate win condition in game 1, you are putting all your eggs in one basket with just Approach. Also in the sideboard why do you have just 1 spell pierce and 2 essence scatters, you should be playing the scatters main deck because pretty much every day has some creatures.
I'm working on a flash only deck right now. What I mean is that aside from enchantments and artifacts all the other cards should be played on my opp's turn, so I'm looking to not play Fumigate, and just have Seal Away, settle the wreckage, cast out and commit to deal with threats and of course counterspells.
I was also at Esper at first a week or so ago but now switched to UW. Sure you lose The Scarab God, Fatal Push and Vraska's Contempt but you'll get a more solid base in return. I've checked Chapin's list, tweaked it a little because I wasn't very happy with Evolving Wilds among other things.
This is where I'm at now, feels good. After game 1 it's possible to transition to a more creature based deck if required while still keeping your control options open. Any comments are welcome. Also trying out 1 Slaughter the Strong main as a cheaper sweeper for all the big boys out there.
I like your build, a lot more than the pro's build that's for sure. Having said that I feel that Teferi main deck is not a good choice, the reason is that against aggro decks which are any type of Red decks, or the new Knight decks as well as R/G dinos you will be dead before Teferi comes out and even if he is out the opp won't care much about him and just run you over with creatures. I would test him as a 1 of or at most 2 of in the maindeck.
Second I like that you included Slaughter the strong and I think this should be a 2 of in the deck at least, there will be a lot of big creatures coming out fast including turn 4 Carnage Tyrant and we need this card to deal with him. I know settle deals with him as does fumigate but it's good to have a 3 mana answer as well.
I'm not sold on blink of an eye, because I run T. Gearhulk main deck so I'd rather run commit instead and also the 1 Pull from tomorrow is too situational and will not work at all in most games, and if you can cast it for a lot it means you're winning anyway.
I would also go up to 4 on Essence scatter, it will be a creature heavy meta so this spell is golden.
As for the sideboard, I don't know what's up with the 1 spell pierce and 1 solemnity but they're not so good as just 1 of. I also think now that T. Gearhulk should be main-decked instead of sideboarded in, because what will you side them in against? Against aggro they are too slow, against control they don't really do much but there's more effective cards to side in the mirror match than gearhulks.
I will be posting my decklist next week, after Dominaria is out and I can get some cards to playtest.
With T. Gearhulk, by your statement, we shouldn't be running it at all (which I disagree with tbh)
If it's too slow maindeck and too slow and situational to side in, why not just run something else. I plan on dumping gearhulks for more spells as I will be running less instants and more enchantments like seal away.
I also feel forsake the worldly should be incorporated in the 75 somewhere. It is house to blow up opposing cast outs/bindings and is fairly decent vs vehicles.
And cycle is good too
Yeah, I can see how that can be misunderstood, my point was that you should play Gearhulk main deck and you can side it out against aggro Red decks since it's too slow, but you shouldn't just have it in the sideboard because it doesn't work too well against mid-range/control decks in game 2 if you have to side it in.
Basically, if your deck is built to make use of T. GEarhulk then play it main deck, but don't have it in the sideboard just because. I'm gonna have my deck be built around using Gearhulk and thus running some good instants as well as some other combos with it, you can all see it when I post my decklist next week. I've mentioned a couple of things already but people didn't take it seriously so you'll just have to wait and see next week!
I was also at Esper at first a week or so ago but now switched to UW. Sure you lose The Scarab God, Fatal Push and Vraska's Contempt but you'll get a more solid base in return. I've checked Chapin's list, tweaked it a little because I wasn't very happy with Evolving Wilds among other things.
This is where I'm at now, feels good. After game 1 it's possible to transition to a more creature based deck if required while still keeping your control options open. Any comments are welcome. Also trying out 1 Slaughter the Strong main as a cheaper sweeper for all the big boys out there.
I like your build, a lot more than the pro's build that's for sure. Having said that I feel that Teferi main deck is not a good choice, the reason is that against aggro decks which are any type of Red decks, or the new Knight decks as well as R/G dinos you will be dead before Teferi comes out and even if he is out the opp won't care much about him and just run you over with creatures. I would test him as a 1 of or at most 2 of in the maindeck.
Second I like that you included Slaughter the strong and I think this should be a 2 of in the deck at least, there will be a lot of big creatures coming out fast including turn 4 Carnage Tyrant and we need this card to deal with him. I know settle deals with him as does fumigate but it's good to have a 3 mana answer as well.
I'm not sold on blink of an eye, because I run T. Gearhulk main deck so I'd rather run commit instead and also the 1 Pull from tomorrow is too situational and will not work at all in most games, and if you can cast it for a lot it means you're winning anyway.
I would also go up to 4 on Essence scatter, it will be a creature heavy meta so this spell is golden.
As for the sideboard, I don't know what's up with the 1 spell pierce and 1 solemnity but they're not so good as just 1 of. I also think now that T. Gearhulk should be main-decked instead of sideboarded in, because what will you side them in against? Against aggro they are too slow, against control they don't really do much but there's more effective cards to side in the mirror match than gearhulks.
I will be posting my decklist next week, after Dominaria is out and I can get some cards to playtest.
StarCityGames has an article about control. Dominaria's Many Gifts To Blue Mages. It is a Premium article, so below is one of the lists Patrick came up with.
When talking about Lyra he said
"Baneslayer Angel 2.0 is no joke, but there's still the question of what mix of removal opponents play. Transforming into a mix of Regal Caracal and Lyra really forks your opponents that will be anticipating transformation. They may have solid answers for one or the other, but how many pieces of interaction are good against both?"
Thanks for the info pumpmonkey, those decklists look like he really did come up with them in less than 10 minutes just to fill out an article that he needed to do.
I may not be making much sense I've been playing MTG Arena beta for the past 5 hrs, had to finally take a break I'm at 21-11 so far, and I've been using two different decks although neither are U/W since I don't have the cards to build the deck in Arena since the packs I got to start and open all had crap rares.
Anyways, back to this deck, the decklists look strange and there's no way you want to run Lyra Dawnbringer main deck, and in the sideboard you have to know that the opp will probably know you are bringing it in, and unfortunately you can't just tap out and drop it on turn 5 because Vraska's Contempt and Hour of Devastation are still cards.
I got nothing against angels, god knows 10 years ago I build an EDH deck which is an B/W angel deck which I just resurrected a couple of weeks ago, so I'm a big fan of angels but running this main deck would mean to change the deck quite a bit to fit her and also maybe find space to run Shalai, Voice of Plenty in the same main deck build. In terms of sideboarding, again we have to be careful since everyone will expect Lyra to come in from the sideboard so they will play around her, and although I really want her to be good I don't see that happening right now. It's also a good idea to wait for her craze to go down and for her to go under $20 a piece.
I just started yesterday and have built up R/G Dinos and U/R Enigma Drake to the point where I can win 70-80% of the games, pending no mana flood or mana screw in the games.
I agree, she's hella good against targeted removal, so in a mirror match or against U/B Scarab God decks that usually only use targeted removal she is golden and should be able to hold down the fort for a turn or two so we can beat face with the rest of the people.
I think that we talked about what we'd love to have in our decks, but the truth of the matter is that decks will just get faster in the Dominaria standard especially mono green, RG Monsters, dinos and any deck running green due to Llanowar Elves.
People are brewing decks which can play Carnage Tyrant or Ghalta on turn 4 regularly due to elves being played on turn one. So, we have to have a lot of removal for the early game, and we do have to be able to clear the board by turn 4 or turn 5 no matter what. So, I know that Fumigate is still a big player in our deck, but if the green and RG decks run crazy we may have to be playing Slaughter the strong in the sideboard, if not even trying it main deck as well.
We all know aggro decks are relatively easy to play, and mono-green, RG monsters both have good matchups against mono-Red, so many people will play those decks. Also, goblins may be a deck waiting in the darkness to rear its ugly head again, but even without goblins, we are looking at about a turn faster standard when facing mono green, GR monsters or any other deck running green.
So, let's focus on the best build pre-sideboard to deal with aggro decks since we usually have a good matchup against mid-range and control decks anyways.
Fall of the Thran looks like an exciting card but it needs so much help to accomplish it's purpose
if you're planning to put the last Saga trigger from Phyrexian Scriptures to 187 their GY or even Rescue it before any lands return I'm all for it. but giving your opponent 2 lands the next turn could have you staring at a 2-3 mana removal spell after you were lucky rnough to resolve a 6 mana spell.
still looks like a fun card to try and break, maybe some combination or Powerstone Shard or Mirage Mirror could give it some legs
maybe there's a Flicker effect that I can't recall off the top of my head
I know what you mean, but at this point, I'm also into looking at Thran temporal gateway because I can put something directly into play for 4 mana, which means I can put a Saga, Artifact or Legendary permanent directly into play as an instant.
What does this mean?
You can put in Fall of the Thran as early as turn 5, as an instant on opp's turn and it can't be countered unless he has Disallow or nimble obstructionist. After you destroy the lands you can still use the Thran gateway to put other cards into play as soon as you hit 4 mana again which could be the next turn, if you drop a land, put 2 into play from the saga and flip search for azcanta.
You can also put torrential gearhulk into play for 4 mana as well which is pretty damn good, not to mention putting Nezahal into play on your opp's turn for 4 mana only. You can also put a planeswalker into play such as Teferi, Gideon or Dovin Baan if you play these as well as other legendary cards like search for azcanta and all these can come in as an instant on your opp's turn and they can't counter them.
So, I may be testing a build with 2-3 Thran Temporal Gateway in the deck since it already works really well with other cards already in the deck. This card was built to be well built around but it would fit very well in a control deck and I believe it will go up in price in the next couple of weeks so you better get your copies quickly while they are still about $5.
I will stick to my R/W aggro deck, the problem is that at 4 mana Hazoret is king or queen until she rotates out in September. So, although Skizzik is awesome and Verix Bladewing looks like a player they will be sitting on the bench until September for sure.
So, I'm glad I don't have to upgrade anything in my deck except getting Clifftop Retreat to make the mana even better in the deck, but in terms of Red cards I don't see anything going into the deck from Dominaria.
In terms of White I'm looking at Danitha because she works well with Path of mettle and she can be quite strong at 3 mana and I already know what I can exchange her with, in my deck, especially since the mana will be better now. History of Benalia would also work since the tokens have vigilance and can help trigger Path so I'm looking at that as well.
Knight of grace is an auto-include in the sideboard against black decks though.
That's what I'm looking at, basically, nothing from Red but some cards from White and I may be able to fit 1 or 2 equipment cards in as well, but aside from that the deck will pretty much stay as it is.
In the first round I lost to a B/G saproling deck, I just couldn't draw any Fumigates and only drew one Settle in two games and obviously 1 for 1 removal doesn't work against saprolings very well at all. That's not that surprising, also I was also mana flooded in game 1 too with about 9 lands and 5 other cards played in the whole game.
In the second round I lost to the U/W/B Esper approach, I won the first game but I lost the next 2. One reason is that my sideboard was a mess, I was testing a new idea and it didn't work at all. I did experience the opp's TEferi going ultimate and bouncing back all my permanents for the win. I believe main deck he was only playing Teferi and Lyra Dawnbringer as win conditions. It was not hard to deal with Lyra between seal away, settle and cast out and of course, essence scatter and other counterspells. However, I only had 2 cast outs in the deck as an answer to teferi so after he came down it was over.
In the third round I faced the mirror match again, a U/W approach deck and I won the first game again...my main deck is not changed since last month except for changing baffling end with seal away so that's why I was winning the first games in mirror matches. In the second and third games he brought in a lot of creatures, including Shalai, Lyra, and angel of sanctions as well as Gideon and Teferi. I again used my messed up sideboard so although I tried to hang on a long time, I managed to cast approach in the 2nd game, but the next turn he dropped Gideon and made an emblem and the turn after that he dropped Shalai to protect him and I was basically locked out of the game right there.
I didn't expect to face these decks in the first 3 rounds and since my sideboard was sketchy I'm not surprised that I didn't win the 2nd and 3rd games. What I did learn is that Teferi can be dangerous if you can't counter or get rid of him after he hits the board, of course, he was good against my control deck but I have no idea how he would be against an aggro deck.
As for Lyra Dawnbringer she didn't really get to hit me since the deck has so many ways to get rid of creatures, and of course she's good to drop against another control deck especially if she's protected by Shalai but against aggro I don't think she would do much.
I will, of course, keep playing this deck but I do need to rethink the whole sideboard, hopefully, when metagame gets settled it will be easier to figure out a solid sideboard, and I can change the deck to how I want it in September when Approach is rotating out. The deck really needs a stable metagame to shine so that we know what to play in the sideboard.
I'm going to be testing my R/W path of mettle deck at FNM tonight, although besides Clifftop Retreat I don't have any other Dominaria cards in the deck.
Three red is kind of hard to do unless you are mono red, and even then his 3 toughness makes him easy to kill with abrade or lightning strike. If he was 2/4 instead he'd be damn near unstoppable but with all the burn in the format I don't know.
Thanks, it's the same with siren stormtamer, many people got tricked by that since if you sac it then you make yourself have hexproof, but the angel is easier to see. I'm not sure how many people will play the angel though.
Looks interesting but where is your alternate win condition in game 1, you are putting all your eggs in one basket with just Approach. Also in the sideboard why do you have just 1 spell pierce and 2 essence scatters, you should be playing the scatters main deck because pretty much every day has some creatures.
I'm looking at playing 4 Seal Away, 3 Settle the wreckage, 3 Cast out and 2 Commit//memory in the main deck.
The sideboard will, of course, be modified as well and change the deck a lot so that the opponent will not know what to expect and be surprised.
Yeah, I can see how that can be misunderstood, my point was that you should play Gearhulk main deck and you can side it out against aggro Red decks since it's too slow, but you shouldn't just have it in the sideboard because it doesn't work too well against mid-range/control decks in game 2 if you have to side it in.
Basically, if your deck is built to make use of T. GEarhulk then play it main deck, but don't have it in the sideboard just because. I'm gonna have my deck be built around using Gearhulk and thus running some good instants as well as some other combos with it, you can all see it when I post my decklist next week. I've mentioned a couple of things already but people didn't take it seriously so you'll just have to wait and see next week!
I like your build, a lot more than the pro's build that's for sure. Having said that I feel that Teferi main deck is not a good choice, the reason is that against aggro decks which are any type of Red decks, or the new Knight decks as well as R/G dinos you will be dead before Teferi comes out and even if he is out the opp won't care much about him and just run you over with creatures. I would test him as a 1 of or at most 2 of in the maindeck.
Second I like that you included Slaughter the strong and I think this should be a 2 of in the deck at least, there will be a lot of big creatures coming out fast including turn 4 Carnage Tyrant and we need this card to deal with him. I know settle deals with him as does fumigate but it's good to have a 3 mana answer as well.
I'm not sold on blink of an eye, because I run T. Gearhulk main deck so I'd rather run commit instead and also the 1 Pull from tomorrow is too situational and will not work at all in most games, and if you can cast it for a lot it means you're winning anyway.
I would also go up to 4 on Essence scatter, it will be a creature heavy meta so this spell is golden.
As for the sideboard, I don't know what's up with the 1 spell pierce and 1 solemnity but they're not so good as just 1 of. I also think now that T. Gearhulk should be main-decked instead of sideboarded in, because what will you side them in against? Against aggro they are too slow, against control they don't really do much but there's more effective cards to side in the mirror match than gearhulks.
I will be posting my decklist next week, after Dominaria is out and I can get some cards to playtest.
Thanks for the info pumpmonkey, those decklists look like he really did come up with them in less than 10 minutes just to fill out an article that he needed to do.
I may not be making much sense I've been playing MTG Arena beta for the past 5 hrs, had to finally take a break I'm at 21-11 so far, and I've been using two different decks although neither are U/W since I don't have the cards to build the deck in Arena since the packs I got to start and open all had crap rares.
Anyways, back to this deck, the decklists look strange and there's no way you want to run Lyra Dawnbringer main deck, and in the sideboard you have to know that the opp will probably know you are bringing it in, and unfortunately you can't just tap out and drop it on turn 5 because Vraska's Contempt and Hour of Devastation are still cards.
I got nothing against angels, god knows 10 years ago I build an EDH deck which is an B/W angel deck which I just resurrected a couple of weeks ago, so I'm a big fan of angels but running this main deck would mean to change the deck quite a bit to fit her and also maybe find space to run Shalai, Voice of Plenty in the same main deck build. In terms of sideboarding, again we have to be careful since everyone will expect Lyra to come in from the sideboard so they will play around her, and although I really want her to be good I don't see that happening right now. It's also a good idea to wait for her craze to go down and for her to go under $20 a piece.
I agree, she's hella good against targeted removal, so in a mirror match or against U/B Scarab God decks that usually only use targeted removal she is golden and should be able to hold down the fort for a turn or two so we can beat face with the rest of the people.
People are brewing decks which can play Carnage Tyrant or Ghalta on turn 4 regularly due to elves being played on turn one. So, we have to have a lot of removal for the early game, and we do have to be able to clear the board by turn 4 or turn 5 no matter what. So, I know that Fumigate is still a big player in our deck, but if the green and RG decks run crazy we may have to be playing Slaughter the strong in the sideboard, if not even trying it main deck as well.
We all know aggro decks are relatively easy to play, and mono-green, RG monsters both have good matchups against mono-Red, so many people will play those decks. Also, goblins may be a deck waiting in the darkness to rear its ugly head again, but even without goblins, we are looking at about a turn faster standard when facing mono green, GR monsters or any other deck running green.
I know we got Seal Away and we still got settle the wreckage and fumigate, but I will be testing a couple of slaughter the strong maindeck just to be able to clear the board on turn 3 or turn 4 for sure.
So, let's focus on the best build pre-sideboard to deal with aggro decks since we usually have a good matchup against mid-range and control decks anyways.
I know what you mean, but at this point, I'm also into looking at Thran temporal gateway because I can put something directly into play for 4 mana, which means I can put a Saga, Artifact or Legendary permanent directly into play as an instant.
What does this mean?
You can put in Fall of the Thran as early as turn 5, as an instant on opp's turn and it can't be countered unless he has Disallow or nimble obstructionist. After you destroy the lands you can still use the Thran gateway to put other cards into play as soon as you hit 4 mana again which could be the next turn, if you drop a land, put 2 into play from the saga and flip search for azcanta.
You can also put torrential gearhulk into play for 4 mana as well which is pretty damn good, not to mention putting Nezahal into play on your opp's turn for 4 mana only. You can also put a planeswalker into play such as Teferi, Gideon or Dovin Baan if you play these as well as other legendary cards like search for azcanta and all these can come in as an instant on your opp's turn and they can't counter them.
So, I may be testing a build with 2-3 Thran Temporal Gateway in the deck since it already works really well with other cards already in the deck. This card was built to be well built around but it would fit very well in a control deck and I believe it will go up in price in the next couple of weeks so you better get your copies quickly while they are still about $5.
So, I'm glad I don't have to upgrade anything in my deck except getting Clifftop Retreat to make the mana even better in the deck, but in terms of Red cards I don't see anything going into the deck from Dominaria.
In terms of White I'm looking at Danitha because she works well with Path of mettle and she can be quite strong at 3 mana and I already know what I can exchange her with, in my deck, especially since the mana will be better now. History of Benalia would also work since the tokens have vigilance and can help trigger Path so I'm looking at that as well.
Knight of grace is an auto-include in the sideboard against black decks though.
That's what I'm looking at, basically, nothing from Red but some cards from White and I may be able to fit 1 or 2 equipment cards in as well, but aside from that the deck will pretty much stay as it is.