I love it. When I was playing dredgevine regularly I'd come against twin which is a deck I could just never beat, didn't matter, don't hate twin and don't hate the format either. Now I'm playing mono u tron and coming up against elves a bunch which is also pretty unwinnable. Bad matchups are part of the format, and I still love it. For every broken combo deck you can't beat with your Jund list, I can stomp with my u tron list. For all those hyper aggro decks I can't beat with u tron, someone is playing a sideboard with white and stomping them. The reality of the format is that sometimes you have to hope to dodge your bad matchups, and there's not a ton you can do about it as far as formats go when the power level is so high and the meta is so wide
Could be ok but jesters cap is probably better and a bit less narrow. Emrakul getting exiled or exiling their tron lands is good enough to beat them without having to steal the emrakul yourself, hilarious as that would be.
Yeah, conduit missing Wurmcoil is a huge strike against the card and I'd never play a tutor that can't get Wurmcoil.
Gifts Tutors for Ugin and is the main reason I'm running it. Being able to grab the full Mindslaver lock with one card is also a very big plus for it. I cast gifts for slaver, ruins, Ugin, fabricate in my last tournament and it felt significantly stronger than any one card I could have tutored as Mindslaver lock or Ugin on untap usually means you win either way
Hi guys, today I have played by first time against esper control and I felt very overwhelmed, I could't do anithing. The opponent used a land, Nephalia drownyard to deck me and if I casted anything he countered it easily or pathed if it was creature. I set up a chalice on 1 as soon as I noticed he had many cmc 1 counters but he managed to destroy it. In second game, he used a creature, Teferi, mage of zhalfir that made my counters even more useless. He also used an instant tutor card Mystical teachings that made easier for him to get the appropriate answer.
Anyone has a strategy or sideboard advice to deal with this?
Other control matchups aren't usually that hard, you have counters to answer all of those plays.
As for drownyard, I've admittedly never seen anyone use that card but I feel like academy ruins is excellent in a scenario where your opponent is wasting their mana to put draw your artifacts into your yard for you
I have to agree. O stone is a card that will let you stabilize, Ugin is a card that wins the game because it sticks around after a wipe and you can bolt all your opponents follow up plays or start burning your opponent out while holding up all your mana to counter any play they make. I actually feel that in more matches than not, Ugin is the best card in the deck.
I think you should try actually playing the list before looking for substitutions. All the cards you suggested are worse than the ones already in the deck for the same role.
Ensoul artifact is only good with dark steel citadel and that's not really the direction we're going. Agreed as well that Eldrazi don't do much for us and go against this decks strengths anyway. If I get sowing salted or ghost quartered I'm usually happy because my opponent is wasting resources against me when I only need 6-8 mana to end the game anyway. Eldrazi really need tron to be cast able and that makes land destruction way better against you
Against Jund I put in my one of copy of pithing needle as it hits both of their plays that are most problematic for us (Liliana and Raging Ravine). Platinum Angel comes out, I'll drop a remand and cyclonic rift for dismembers (Bob is a great dismember target) usually too. Mindslaver is decent in this matchup but Wurmcoil and Academy Ruins is usually a solid path to victory. Jund is easier than Junk because terminate is way worse than path for wurmcoils, especially when you start looping them with academy ruins and you have a board full of wurm tokens.
Also, I said Merfolk wasn't a horrible matchup but not that it was easy. Aether Vial is soft to repeal and pithing needle and their deck is a lot less powerful without Vial on 2. It's still unfavoured but I think burn or elves is way worse.
Do we have any tips for that other than spellskite the tap/untap target?
It's sorcery speed splinter twin that probably won't run counter spells. We should not be losing to that deck as we can repeal the enchantment if they try to go off, and we can counter their combo pieces when they attempt to cast them. I don't think the deck is going to be a thing, and if it is it's aggro plan might be hard to match but it's combo plan sure won't
I'm thinking the competitive versions of this deck will be GW splashing blue and red. I currently pilot bant company and will be switching to this deck soon. The plan should be zoo rushdown with coralhelm as an incidental "oops I win." The deck shouldn't be reliant on the combo to win... So perhaps aetherize would do the trick?
aetherize is good but honestly our GW matchup is pretty good and you shouldn't worry about needing specific hate cards to win it. Aetherize is good coming out of the board but our normal game plan of repeal, condescend and remand slows these decks down enough that you have time to land a sundering Titan or wurmcoil and just win. It'll likely be similar to abzan company but with a worse combo which is a favourable matchup for us in my experience.
Do we have any tips for that other than spellskite the tap/untap target?
It's sorcery speed splinter twin that probably won't run counter spells. We should not be losing to that deck as we can repeal the enchantment if they try to go off, and we can counter their combo pieces when they attempt to cast them. I don't think the deck is going to be a thing, and if it is it's aggro plan might be hard to match but it's combo plan sure won't
FAQ looks great. I might change your intro to focus more on the deck than meta discussions about this thread and repeated questions as I don't think it adds anything and comes off negative to people who care about this deck more than this thread. That said I really like the FAQ although I still maintain that Merfolk isn't our worst matchup ever.
Tried out gifts/haven combo last night and got to resolve gifts exactly 0 times. Mulliganed to 5 in 5 separate games in my first 2 rounds, and got paired against burn round one (which I actually won a game 1 mull to 5 racing to a value Mindslaver double eidolon self kill), and UR Prowess Aggro which should be a good matchup without horrible mulligans or if I could have seen a chalice just once. Decided to stick around in the losers bracket to get some more play in anyway and I crushed Jeskai Ascendancy Combo (remand is great here, and Chalice on 4 makes fate stitcher uncastable and their deck no longer works) and played against Grixis Control where I managed an immortal Ugin cycle with crucible and haven in play at the same time. Got hit with sowing salt in two games but that card honestly didnt feel like a problem at all and I was generally happy to see my opponent tap out for it. Round 3 saw a sketchy mull to six but had tron, academy ruins and Mindslaver in hand so I just jammed Mindslaver 3 turns in a row eating counters and returning with ruins until one finally stuck which worked surprisingly great for a hand with no counter spells. Eventually blew my opponents hand up and went wurmcoil beats.
Condescend, repeal and chalice all get significantly worse when we're behind on mana, Serum visions would be decent on turn 1, unplayable turns 2-5, and irrelevant turns 6+ because we usually win if we've made it to this point in decent shape anyway. This deck doesn't want to do anything at sorcery speed if it can help it.
I wanted to try Tolaria in a gifts package to see if maybe it can find a use, otherwise yeah it's pretty much always bad but seems good enough on paper that I keep wanting to make it work. I would definitely consider dropping the tolaria for island 9 though
I'd thought about buried ruins but ultimately that's an effect we can get with Academy Ruins anyway (only a turn faster admittedly) while Ugin package adds a new line of play for us.
So, I'm going to be trying out the gifts version and I have an open utility land slot (8 islands, tron, oboro, T.west, Ghost Quarter, Ruins, Utility) and I'm giving some thought to haven of the spirit dragon. There are not a lot of decks where resolving Ugin isn't a win for us and haven turns all your gift packages into "give me these 2 cards or Ugin" which seems particularly powerful. I know some people are running Island #9 but with 2 Maindeck solemns I don't find I ever get stuck for blue. Anyone given haven any thought?
Gifts Tutors for Ugin and is the main reason I'm running it. Being able to grab the full Mindslaver lock with one card is also a very big plus for it. I cast gifts for slaver, ruins, Ugin, fabricate in my last tournament and it felt significantly stronger than any one card I could have tutored as Mindslaver lock or Ugin on untap usually means you win either way
Other control matchups aren't usually that hard, you have counters to answer all of those plays.
As for drownyard, I've admittedly never seen anyone use that card but I feel like academy ruins is excellent in a scenario where your opponent is wasting their mana to put draw your artifacts into your yard for you
Also, I said Merfolk wasn't a horrible matchup but not that it was easy. Aether Vial is soft to repeal and pithing needle and their deck is a lot less powerful without Vial on 2. It's still unfavoured but I think burn or elves is way worse.
aetherize is good but honestly our GW matchup is pretty good and you shouldn't worry about needing specific hate cards to win it. Aetherize is good coming out of the board but our normal game plan of repeal, condescend and remand slows these decks down enough that you have time to land a sundering Titan or wurmcoil and just win. It'll likely be similar to abzan company but with a worse combo which is a favourable matchup for us in my experience.
It's sorcery speed splinter twin that probably won't run counter spells. We should not be losing to that deck as we can repeal the enchantment if they try to go off, and we can counter their combo pieces when they attempt to cast them. I don't think the deck is going to be a thing, and if it is it's aggro plan might be hard to match but it's combo plan sure won't
Tried out gifts/haven combo last night and got to resolve gifts exactly 0 times. Mulliganed to 5 in 5 separate games in my first 2 rounds, and got paired against burn round one (which I actually won a game 1 mull to 5 racing to a value Mindslaver double eidolon self kill), and UR Prowess Aggro which should be a good matchup without horrible mulligans or if I could have seen a chalice just once. Decided to stick around in the losers bracket to get some more play in anyway and I crushed Jeskai Ascendancy Combo (remand is great here, and Chalice on 4 makes fate stitcher uncastable and their deck no longer works) and played against Grixis Control where I managed an immortal Ugin cycle with crucible and haven in play at the same time. Got hit with sowing salt in two games but that card honestly didnt feel like a problem at all and I was generally happy to see my opponent tap out for it. Round 3 saw a sketchy mull to six but had tron, academy ruins and Mindslaver in hand so I just jammed Mindslaver 3 turns in a row eating counters and returning with ruins until one finally stuck which worked surprisingly great for a hand with no counter spells. Eventually blew my opponents hand up and went wurmcoil beats.