I continue to believe that UW is a great color pairing for Control decks in the meta. Has anybody played against the new-look Ponza featuring BBE? Pre-unbanning, big Ponza was my boogeyman deck when piloting UWC, and I’m hoping the matchup has gotten a little better for us.
Sorry, but the matchup is downright terrible now. I thought the matchup was bad before, but BBE is gamebreaking, serving as a haste-y extra threat while also and having all kinds of all-stars to cascade into (Moon, Stone/Molten Rain, Tireless Tracker, even Arbor Elf can be disasterous for keeping up with their curve). They also cut some of the medium cards like Acid-Moss for more hits for BBE, meaning more must-counter spells and card advantage. Yeah, not good haha.
I've already lost to T2/3 BBE into Moon multiple times.
Dang, sounds rough. I see that the newer lists are moving away from Stormbreath Dragon and maindeck Thrun (which may not have been common overall, but was certainly present in my local meta), so I’d hoped that seeing less of those two haymakers would make the matchup more tolerable.
Welp, my counter-heavy and planeswalker-dense experiment has come to an end. It caught some people off guard for a little while, but results have tailed off and now I’m back on something resembling the stock list (with a little extra potential pressure in the form of maindeck Clique and Secure; as a poster above pointed out, these cards are great ways to advance the board state without having to tap out). My time off the beaten path has made my appreciate the Ben Hill-style builds a lot more.
I continue to believe that UW is a great color pairing for Control decks in the meta. Has anybody played against the new-look Ponza featuring BBE? Pre-unbanning, big Ponza was my boogeyman deck when piloting UWC, and I’m hoping the matchup has gotten a little better for us.
Hey all! I recently assembled this glorious deck. Ad Nauseam’s playstyle of building up slow, incremental, and permanent (due to the lack of shuffle effects) advantages via early cantrips and scrys, bridging towards a mid/late-game of absolute madness as you plunge into negative life totals/draw your entire deck/roll the dice on a do-or-die Spoils...well, it’s been fantastically fun so far.
I’ve been running a pretty stock list (Dreadship or Nephalia in the utility land slot, Grave Titan as the non-combo-oriented sideboard tech), and my results have been quite swingy. In paper and against friends who usually give me a good run for my money, I’m doing great; but my couple MTGO leagues have yielded very poor results (partially due to the learning curve involved with comboing off on that interface, admittedly). Here are some things I’m doing, which may or may not be correct:
- I’ll trim Bloom before Prism against Remand and Chalice decks, while I’ll trim Prism before Bloom against Stony Silence, artifact destruction effects, or more generally if I just need to lose a mana rock or two.
- I’ll trim one Spoils quite often as a general principle, while I’ll trim the second or sometimes even third copy against decks that put a lot of pressure on my life total.
- Pact of Negation gets reduced down to one copy against most non-blue decks, but I’m usually hesitant to side every copy of them out, because it’s always nice to have the option of hitting Spoils for a Pact against an otherwise unbeatable card, but I’m not sure how realistic this is. Tangentially, it’s pretty clear that Spoils has the steepest learning curve of any cards in the stock list.
- If I need to trim a cantrip against a deck trying to all-out race me, Serum Visions gets the cut, otherwise I’ll trim a Sleight of Hand (especially if any number of Blooms have been cut). I have never cut more than one cantrip.
- I’ll cut up to two Phyrexian Unlife in matches where it’s bad—losing any more than that makes me worry about watering down the combo’s consistency. I sometimes cut an Angel’s Grace against discard decks, but that may be incorrect because having the redundancy of a playset may be better. What matches, if any, should Grace be trimmed for?
- I honestly don’t really know when to side in Grave Titan, lmao. Against Shadow and BGx midrange decks, but where else? Lantern? Mirror? When should the big man (or other transformational fatties) make an appearance?
Those are some general protocols I’ve been following. I would greatly appreciate feedback on them from experienced players, along with any other tips you’d like to share (including anything MTGO-specific). Thanks!
Seal Away
1W
Enchantment
Flash
When Seal Away enters the battlefield, exile target tapped creature an opponent controls until Seal Away leaves the battlefield.
Healing Grace
W
Instant
Prevent the next 3 damage that would be dealt to any target this turn by a source of your choice. You gain 3 life.
Those both seem very playable! They’re probably pretty low key printings in terms of what people will be talking about in the near future, but I like them both for UWC. Oh, and there’s also this guy...
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
3WU
Legendary Planeswalker - Teferi
4
+1: Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap two lands.
-3: Put target nonland permanent into its owner’s library third from the top.
-8: You get an emblem with “Whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls.”
He could be quite interesting depending on how our builds shake out after the big meta changes.
Wizard's Retort
1UU
Instant
This spell costs 1 less to cast if you control a Wizard.
Counter target spell.
The condition is almost certainly too much of a stretch for us, but it looks like they’re printing a lot of Wizards in this block, so you never know. T1 Sage of Epityr?
That’s what stood out to me during a quick skim. Looks like there’s some real potential here.
Time has been limited for me as well, but I’ve honestly been having spectacular results in test games with friends using the list I posted a few days back (double Clique, Shadow of Doubt, Secure the Wastes, 2 JtMS, 2/1/1 of Gid OTT/Gid AoZ/Gid Jura, 4x Remand etc). Later this week I’ll be headed to Modern night with a similar list, and hopefully I’ll be buying into UW on MTGO in the near future as well.
I share the ambivalence that some others have expressed over JtMS, weighing the opportunity cost of his inclusion against the immense power he brings. In a way, it’s fortunate that the pre-JtMS stock list was so well established, because it gives us a benchmark to return to as we experiment with different shells.
After Masters 25 drops we should see an uptick in the flow of information as more people acquire their copies of JtMS, and perhaps the variety of ideas floating around will begin to coalesce around a more focused strategy. Until then, no reason not to experiment, if you ask me. The one thing my friends have said after facing my new take on UW is that it’s a lot more unpredictable, and in a format like Modern, that’s a strength in its own right.
@JayJay, your logic is sound—proactive game plans are historically the best ones, a fact which I remind my less experienced friends of often, when they naturally gravitate toward more reactive setups after losing to this or that deck. Having conceded that, I suppose we can probably agree that a draw-go build (and this term applies only in relation to the stock tapout list; my build, at least, is far from pure draw-go, with 6 Planeswalkers and plenty of other Sorcery-speed plays) has rarely looked as appealing as it does now, with the state of the meta such an open question, and the more draw-go oriented cards lining up better against Jace and BBE. In other words, even though UW may still be largely a tapout deck when the dust settles from this meta shift, now is a great time to be testing a more reactive build to see whether it has legs. I’m fairly optimistic, myself.
One thing I find interesting is that, regardless of diverging opinions regarding the core philosophy of the deck, most in this thread (and some pros who’ve run out UW lists recently) are high on Gideon, AoZ right now. I’ve liked him in this deck for a long time, but never quite managed to make space for him until the unbannings and subsequent changes. Some people are cutting Jura for him, but I’ve been loving a 2/1/1 split between Trials/AoZ/Jura.
Back to the more reactive, Seas-less setup: the more I think of it, the more Shadow of Doubt as a two-of sounds fantastic. That’s what I’ll be testing next. However, I confess to having no idea whether Opt will be better than Serum in this setup. That’s a tough one to call IMO. Serum may still be king despite Opt’s greater flexibility in a build running Remands and a Spell Snare.
One thing I will say: although Seas and Mana Leak have performed admirably for me over the last few months, it feels good to be working on a list that eliminates the negative synergies between those cards and Path + Settle. Time will tell whether UW can afford to forego those cards, but for the moment I think alternative options are well worth exploring.
Before playing, I sought to add another Mind Sculptor but was struggling for slots. That led me to cutting all four copies of Seas as an experiment, replacing them with four copies of Remand, which has long been a card that I wanted to like in this shell. One of the recent post-ban UW 5-0s on MTGO ran 3x Remand, so I decided to give it a shot. From there, I shaved a Search in favor of another JtMS and cut the Mana Leaks for a second Cryptic and a third Wall of Omens. Thought about spicing in a Shadow of Doubt as well, but I stopped shy of doing so.
Secure the Wastes really stood out in this setup. It’s everything from pseudo-removal to chump block factory to finisher (weird to win by going wide with UW, but it happened plenty of times between Warriors, Knight Allies, Snappers, Cliques, Colonnades, and animated Gideons).
While the meta is still in such flux I know it’s impossible to nail down a perfect build, but I thought I’d share these developments in case anyone wants to try an approach that puts more creatures into the field, usually at instant speed. That said, what I’d really like feedback on is a more broad and overarching string of thoughts that pertains to the underlying philosophy of UWC:
My first post in this thread, when I began buying into the deck, detailed my perception of UW as either tapout or draw-go, with various choices (like the number of Snapcaster) contingent upon that choice of play style. The consensus was—correctly, in retrospect—that tapout was stronger. I just wonder how true that is post-ban, with BBE decks making the Verdict-or-die setup look a little clunky, and enemy JtMS demanding an immediate answer, whether it be counter magic or instant speed board pressure.
I believe that the near-painless consistency of our manabase, along with our ability to disrupt the enemy manabase, is possibly the single best reason to play UWC. I am also coming to believe that there is a fundamanetal tension between Spreading Seas and the ability to play draw-go until it’s safe to drop a wincon. Remand in for Seas keeps our consistency levels just as high, and allows us to stall threats through the early and mid game while never being a dead card.
I don’t know which strategy will prove to be more powerful as the dust from the unbannings settles, but I do think it’s going to be useful to conceive of UW tapout and UW draw-go as two separate shells, at least for now, since the superiority of the former setup is no longer necessarily a given. Am I overrating the potential of draw-go?
I’ve been tinkering with some builds in anticipation of how the meta will unfold over the next several weeks. I see that BennyHillz’s recent 5-0 is a fairly stock list with 2x Wall and 3x JtMS, the latter replacing Jura, Jace AoT, and a Search. He also ran a Terminus in place of the third Verdict, with six total wrath effects in the 75 (including Engineered Explosives).
That’s certainly one direction in which to take the deck—maybe even the best direction. Wall into Gideon OTT into Verdict is still an extremely strong progression against plenty of decks. However, some in this thread have voiced concern that BBE decks and other linear aggro decks with a prevalence of haste creatures might make Verdict look a little clunky. If that turns out to be the case, here’s the list I’ve put together that focuses on generating a beefier board state, allowing us to interact favorably with the linear aggro decks which aim to get in under Verdict, while presenting the potential for a strong clock against combo:
I haven’t drawn up a sideboard yet because its contents will be contingent on the main, which I’m not sure is a total mess or not.
It’s a bit strange: I started off with the idea of building around JtMS (extra fetches, 2x Wall, Secure the Wastes over Rev due to the utility of instant speed blockers, etc). But that line of thinking led me to Gideon, AoZ, which in turn led me to the full Gid Squad and only one copy of Modern’s new overlord. Strictly incorrect? That’s possible, but the Gideons have always been incredible for me, and this is the sort of shell in which AoZ could shine.
Any feedback? I’ll be testing over the long weekend, but ironing out any glaring weaknesses beforehand would be sweet.
Just built this deck in paper and on MTGO and I’ve been having a blast playing it. The most WTF moment I’ve experienced so far in MTGO leagues was taking a G1 off of Tron with only one land! T1 Champion of the Parish, T2 Norin and swing for 2, T3 Sister and swing for 5, T4 Berseker and swing for 10. At 3 life, the opponent throws down Ugin and wrecks my board. I untap and Bolt face for the GG.
Went 3-1 at my LGS debut, although that record included a bye. Surprisingly, I beat Shadow twice (Grixis and Traverse) while dropping the 3-0 game to Burn. The crucial decision, which was probably an incorrect one, came in G1 when I kept (on the draw) a four-land hand with Norin, Chamber, and Thraben Inspector. My rationalization was that I’d only take two hits from creatures at most—with T1 Norin into T2 Chamber, I could chump his T3 attack and trade from there on out, with the Norin loop to turn the corner once I found a value engine and Inspector to mitigate flood. Unfortunately, my opponent’s progression was Guide into a flurry of burn spells, while I flooded out despite Guide triggers and cracking a Clue. Should I have mulliganed agggressively for a Sister? That feels risky against Searing Blaze.
Although I’m new to the deck, I think the unbans are going to be just fine for us. Yes, Jund is a lot more powerful now, but I think our matchup against them is improved from their prior iterations. BBE alone isn’t so bad—I agree that Kalitas is worse for us unless we’re sitting on a Path—but more importantly, BBE incentivizes then to play less discard and fewer conditional answers like Fatal Push. Their more creature-heavy build plays into our hands, and although they still run outs to our combo pieces, those can be clunky if we’re pressuring them with a big Champion.
Crumble to dust is probably to slow as the opponent can already resolve something with Tron before you can react to it. Manabase wise the Ghost Quarters and Fields are both doable as we can play them instead of Westvale Abbey/Keral Keep.
But if you want to put something in your sideboard I'd probably go for Fulminator Mage it is cheaper than Crumble to Dust and costs the opponent a land.
Fulminator is a good call. EtB triggers into LD, and it fits into a mostly vacant spot on the curve. Definitely playable.
I think I’m going to try working at least one Field of Ruin into the manabase, perhaps two.
On a related note, has anyone ever tried Weathered Wayfarer? I always felt this guy was a nice addition to the deck when I played mono-white Death and Taxes, and he could be even better here. The downside is that we don’t play through Vial so we’re less likely to have free mana for his activates ability, but the upsides are numerous:
- Yet another CMC 1 Human to efficiently trigger all of our advantage engines. Some might say that our curve is already low enough, but for those playing a full set of Thraben Inspector, a low curve feels great.
- Can help tilt a hand that would otherwise be a mulligan into a possible keep, but this is only advisable when you know what you’re up against.
- His ability should be live most of the time, between our low land count and our Paths ramping the opponent.
- The tutoring ability is quite relevant here beyond just hitting land drops and color fixing (which are already quite nice). Tutoring for Kher Keep for value, Westvale Abbey to end the game, or Field/GQ when LD is necessary to live is some real power.
- Feel like a pro when you side him out on the play and then back in on the draw. #tinyedges
^ I’d love to hear some more discussion on how we handle Tron and Valakut. People over the last few pages have been discussing Blood Moon—what numbers, whether to main or side it—and that’s probably the first card that should be in consideration. Beyond that:
- Is Crumble to Dust too slow and/or too hard to reliably cast on curve with 20 lands?
- Is tossing a Ghost Quarter in the side as a hedge against certain land-based strategies worth a slot?
- Can we accommodate Field of Ruin in the maindeck? I play a lot of UW Control, and Field is sometimes the best card in the entire 75. We’re only two colors, and we play plenty of basics, which seems to be a shell that Field slots well into (UWC, GB midrange etc). Still, including a pair or so of Fields would probably mean losing utility lands like Kher Keep and Westvale Abbey, which have been great in my games so far. Speaking of which:
Results after switching to the Human tribal subtheme have been even better than before. T1 Champion really changes the dynamic of the deck. The full playset of Thraben Inspector has been fantastic as well. It replaces itself, goes wide, provides another EtB trigger for all of our nonsense, and cuts down opposing Myr tokens like nobody’s businesses, all for W. I’d encourage people who haven’t tried her out yet to do so.
@SavageGaulAlso, human tribal theme allow us to avoid counterspells in certain creatures under cavern of souls' protection. 1 Blood Moon Main deck and +1 in the sideboard. Is it really better than any other card?
I tried Rabblemaster and didn't worth it back then. MWM I didn't think about it. But I did think about Squadron Hawk!
Yep, Hawk has always got to be at least in the maybeboard, I’d say. As for Moon, I’m not sure. It hasn’t really impressed me so far, which is strange, because it feels so well-positioned in the format as a whole. Maybe we just can’t afford slots for cards that fail to advance our Plan A as much as other decks can. But how do we handle Tron decks otherwise? Crumble to Dust?
@binmaa10, Traveler is a good call. May well be worth testing! To be clear, my questions about the Goblins pertained to the idea of them in the Norin Sisters shell as a whole, not alongside the Human subtheme.
Results were great considering it was my first time piloting the deck (and also considering the issues I had with the build, which I’ll expand upon later). These were the numbers:
7-3 vs UW Control (no sideboarding)
4-1 vs Vengevine
4-0 vs Skred Red
2-3 vs Mono-U Merfolk
2-3 vs Bant Knightfall
The UW Control matches had me wanting to play a 4th Tremors (as a commenter upthread noted, resolving a T2 Tremors provides a ton of inevitability in such a matchup), but against the faster, more creature-based decks, I quickly realized that Tremors isn’t usually the T2 play we’re looking for. That said, I still like the card a lot, and am happy with the “safe” option of 3 Tremors and 1 Purphoros in my updated version of the deck (below), at least for now, with an eye toward trying out a 2/2 split later.
My biggest issue across the above games was simply not finding enough creatures. Most of my losses (or slow, stumbling wins which would have been losses if my opponent had drawn well early on) were due to having all the right pieces down but not enough creatures to cast. With my above list, having a Norin looping endlessly feels nearly unstoppable, while a progression without Norin is distinctly lacking.
Norin is the namesake card, of course, so that’s to be expected to some degree, but the most significant conclusion from those games remains that the above list is too light on creatures. The first change I made toward a higher creature count was to add more Thraben Inspectors—they have been consistent overperformers. From there, the creatures with Human tribal synergies became too appealing to ignore:
+4 Thraben Inspector
+4 Champion of the Parish
+2 Thalia’s Lieutenant
I’ll be testing those changes soon. Champion of the Parish seems guaranteed to thrive in this setup. Lieutenant I’m less sure of, with his anthem effect more hit-or-miss than it is in most Human builds, but even as Champion 5+6 he may prove valuable, much like Berserker is nice as Norin 5+6. 4 Thraben Inspector has the potential to be a little clunky on land-light progressions, but I think the draws are necessary with Copter relegated to the maybeboard for the moment.
Any thoughts on these changes? It may be a while before I can test again, so discussion would be welcome.
One last thought: for the non-Human builds, have people tried cards like Mogg War Marshal or Goblin Rabblemaster? This is a definite stretch, but is a Goblin sub-theme worth exploring as a fun alternative? Legion Loyalist is still a hell of a card.
Even though this probably did not help wiht your deck. This post was something I wanted to write for a long time in order to share the point of view I am having on this deck and I hope that I'll be able to start some discussion with it.
On the contrary, this was quite a useful little writeup. Thanks for sharing. From my inexperienced perspective, the numbers and prioritization of your groupings looks right on.
For now, I’ve settled on the 4th Attendant and a lone Inspector for my two undecided slots. I hope to get some proxied games in relatively soon.
Dang, sounds rough. I see that the newer lists are moving away from Stormbreath Dragon and maindeck Thrun (which may not have been common overall, but was certainly present in my local meta), so I’d hoped that seeing less of those two haymakers would make the matchup more tolerable.
I continue to believe that UW is a great color pairing for Control decks in the meta. Has anybody played against the new-look Ponza featuring BBE? Pre-unbanning, big Ponza was my boogeyman deck when piloting UWC, and I’m hoping the matchup has gotten a little better for us.
I’ve been running a pretty stock list (Dreadship or Nephalia in the utility land slot, Grave Titan as the non-combo-oriented sideboard tech), and my results have been quite swingy. In paper and against friends who usually give me a good run for my money, I’m doing great; but my couple MTGO leagues have yielded very poor results (partially due to the learning curve involved with comboing off on that interface, admittedly). Here are some things I’m doing, which may or may not be correct:
- I’ll trim Bloom before Prism against Remand and Chalice decks, while I’ll trim Prism before Bloom against Stony Silence, artifact destruction effects, or more generally if I just need to lose a mana rock or two.
- I’ll trim one Spoils quite often as a general principle, while I’ll trim the second or sometimes even third copy against decks that put a lot of pressure on my life total.
- Pact of Negation gets reduced down to one copy against most non-blue decks, but I’m usually hesitant to side every copy of them out, because it’s always nice to have the option of hitting Spoils for a Pact against an otherwise unbeatable card, but I’m not sure how realistic this is. Tangentially, it’s pretty clear that Spoils has the steepest learning curve of any cards in the stock list.
- If I need to trim a cantrip against a deck trying to all-out race me, Serum Visions gets the cut, otherwise I’ll trim a Sleight of Hand (especially if any number of Blooms have been cut). I have never cut more than one cantrip.
- I’ll cut up to two Phyrexian Unlife in matches where it’s bad—losing any more than that makes me worry about watering down the combo’s consistency. I sometimes cut an Angel’s Grace against discard decks, but that may be incorrect because having the redundancy of a playset may be better. What matches, if any, should Grace be trimmed for?
- I honestly don’t really know when to side in Grave Titan, lmao. Against Shadow and BGx midrange decks, but where else? Lantern? Mirror? When should the big man (or other transformational fatties) make an appearance?
Those are some general protocols I’ve been following. I would greatly appreciate feedback on them from experienced players, along with any other tips you’d like to share (including anything MTGO-specific). Thanks!
Seal Away
1W
Enchantment
Flash
When Seal Away enters the battlefield, exile target tapped creature an opponent controls until Seal Away leaves the battlefield.
Healing Grace
W
Instant
Prevent the next 3 damage that would be dealt to any target this turn by a source of your choice. You gain 3 life.
Those both seem very playable! They’re probably pretty low key printings in terms of what people will be talking about in the near future, but I like them both for UWC. Oh, and there’s also this guy...
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
3WU
Legendary Planeswalker - Teferi
4
+1: Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap two lands.
-3: Put target nonland permanent into its owner’s library third from the top.
-8: You get an emblem with “Whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls.”
He could be quite interesting depending on how our builds shake out after the big meta changes.
Wizard's Retort
1UU
Instant
This spell costs 1 less to cast if you control a Wizard.
Counter target spell.
The condition is almost certainly too much of a stretch for us, but it looks like they’re printing a lot of Wizards in this block, so you never know. T1 Sage of Epityr?
That’s what stood out to me during a quick skim. Looks like there’s some real potential here.
I share the ambivalence that some others have expressed over JtMS, weighing the opportunity cost of his inclusion against the immense power he brings. In a way, it’s fortunate that the pre-JtMS stock list was so well established, because it gives us a benchmark to return to as we experiment with different shells.
After Masters 25 drops we should see an uptick in the flow of information as more people acquire their copies of JtMS, and perhaps the variety of ideas floating around will begin to coalesce around a more focused strategy. Until then, no reason not to experiment, if you ask me. The one thing my friends have said after facing my new take on UW is that it’s a lot more unpredictable, and in a format like Modern, that’s a strength in its own right.
One thing I find interesting is that, regardless of diverging opinions regarding the core philosophy of the deck, most in this thread (and some pros who’ve run out UW lists recently) are high on Gideon, AoZ right now. I’ve liked him in this deck for a long time, but never quite managed to make space for him until the unbannings and subsequent changes. Some people are cutting Jura for him, but I’ve been loving a 2/1/1 split between Trials/AoZ/Jura.
Back to the more reactive, Seas-less setup: the more I think of it, the more Shadow of Doubt as a two-of sounds fantastic. That’s what I’ll be testing next. However, I confess to having no idea whether Opt will be better than Serum in this setup. That’s a tough one to call IMO. Serum may still be king despite Opt’s greater flexibility in a build running Remands and a Spell Snare.
One thing I will say: although Seas and Mana Leak have performed admirably for me over the last few months, it feels good to be working on a list that eliminates the negative synergies between those cards and Path + Settle. Time will tell whether UW can afford to forego those cards, but for the moment I think alternative options are well worth exploring.
Before playing, I sought to add another Mind Sculptor but was struggling for slots. That led me to cutting all four copies of Seas as an experiment, replacing them with four copies of Remand, which has long been a card that I wanted to like in this shell. One of the recent post-ban UW 5-0s on MTGO ran 3x Remand, so I decided to give it a shot. From there, I shaved a Search in favor of another JtMS and cut the Mana Leaks for a second Cryptic and a third Wall of Omens. Thought about spicing in a Shadow of Doubt as well, but I stopped shy of doing so.
Secure the Wastes really stood out in this setup. It’s everything from pseudo-removal to chump block factory to finisher (weird to win by going wide with UW, but it happened plenty of times between Warriors, Knight Allies, Snappers, Cliques, Colonnades, and animated Gideons).
While the meta is still in such flux I know it’s impossible to nail down a perfect build, but I thought I’d share these developments in case anyone wants to try an approach that puts more creatures into the field, usually at instant speed. That said, what I’d really like feedback on is a more broad and overarching string of thoughts that pertains to the underlying philosophy of UWC:
My first post in this thread, when I began buying into the deck, detailed my perception of UW as either tapout or draw-go, with various choices (like the number of Snapcaster) contingent upon that choice of play style. The consensus was—correctly, in retrospect—that tapout was stronger. I just wonder how true that is post-ban, with BBE decks making the Verdict-or-die setup look a little clunky, and enemy JtMS demanding an immediate answer, whether it be counter magic or instant speed board pressure.
I believe that the near-painless consistency of our manabase, along with our ability to disrupt the enemy manabase, is possibly the single best reason to play UWC. I am also coming to believe that there is a fundamanetal tension between Spreading Seas and the ability to play draw-go until it’s safe to drop a wincon. Remand in for Seas keeps our consistency levels just as high, and allows us to stall threats through the early and mid game while never being a dead card.
I don’t know which strategy will prove to be more powerful as the dust from the unbannings settles, but I do think it’s going to be useful to conceive of UW tapout and UW draw-go as two separate shells, at least for now, since the superiority of the former setup is no longer necessarily a given. Am I overrating the potential of draw-go?
I’ve been tinkering with some builds in anticipation of how the meta will unfold over the next several weeks. I see that BennyHillz’s recent 5-0 is a fairly stock list with 2x Wall and 3x JtMS, the latter replacing Jura, Jace AoT, and a Search. He also ran a Terminus in place of the third Verdict, with six total wrath effects in the 75 (including Engineered Explosives).
That’s certainly one direction in which to take the deck—maybe even the best direction. Wall into Gideon OTT into Verdict is still an extremely strong progression against plenty of decks. However, some in this thread have voiced concern that BBE decks and other linear aggro decks with a prevalence of haste creatures might make Verdict look a little clunky. If that turns out to be the case, here’s the list I’ve put together that focuses on generating a beefier board state, allowing us to interact favorably with the linear aggro decks which aim to get in under Verdict, while presenting the potential for a strong clock against combo:
1x Logic Knot
2x Mana Leak
1x Negate
4x Path to Exile
1x Secure the Wastes
1x Settle the Wreckage
1x Spell Snare
4x Serum Visions
1x Supreme Verdict
4x Field of Ruin
4x Flooded Strand
1x Hallowed Fountain
5x Island
3x Plains
2x Polluted Delta
1x Prairie Stream
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Gideon Jura
2x Gideon of the Trials
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Search for Azcanta
4x Spreading Seas
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Wall of Omens
I haven’t drawn up a sideboard yet because its contents will be contingent on the main, which I’m not sure is a total mess or not.
It’s a bit strange: I started off with the idea of building around JtMS (extra fetches, 2x Wall, Secure the Wastes over Rev due to the utility of instant speed blockers, etc). But that line of thinking led me to Gideon, AoZ, which in turn led me to the full Gid Squad and only one copy of Modern’s new overlord. Strictly incorrect? That’s possible, but the Gideons have always been incredible for me, and this is the sort of shell in which AoZ could shine.
Any feedback? I’ll be testing over the long weekend, but ironing out any glaring weaknesses beforehand would be sweet.
Went 3-1 at my LGS debut, although that record included a bye. Surprisingly, I beat Shadow twice (Grixis and Traverse) while dropping the 3-0 game to Burn. The crucial decision, which was probably an incorrect one, came in G1 when I kept (on the draw) a four-land hand with Norin, Chamber, and Thraben Inspector. My rationalization was that I’d only take two hits from creatures at most—with T1 Norin into T2 Chamber, I could chump his T3 attack and trade from there on out, with the Norin loop to turn the corner once I found a value engine and Inspector to mitigate flood. Unfortunately, my opponent’s progression was Guide into a flurry of burn spells, while I flooded out despite Guide triggers and cracking a Clue. Should I have mulliganed agggressively for a Sister? That feels risky against Searing Blaze.
Although I’m new to the deck, I think the unbans are going to be just fine for us. Yes, Jund is a lot more powerful now, but I think our matchup against them is improved from their prior iterations. BBE alone isn’t so bad—I agree that Kalitas is worse for us unless we’re sitting on a Path—but more importantly, BBE incentivizes then to play less discard and fewer conditional answers like Fatal Push. Their more creature-heavy build plays into our hands, and although they still run outs to our combo pieces, those can be clunky if we’re pressuring them with a big Champion.
Fulminator is a good call. EtB triggers into LD, and it fits into a mostly vacant spot on the curve. Definitely playable.
I think I’m going to try working at least one Field of Ruin into the manabase, perhaps two.
On a related note, has anyone ever tried Weathered Wayfarer? I always felt this guy was a nice addition to the deck when I played mono-white Death and Taxes, and he could be even better here. The downside is that we don’t play through Vial so we’re less likely to have free mana for his activates ability, but the upsides are numerous:
- Yet another CMC 1 Human to efficiently trigger all of our advantage engines. Some might say that our curve is already low enough, but for those playing a full set of Thraben Inspector, a low curve feels great.
- Can help tilt a hand that would otherwise be a mulligan into a possible keep, but this is only advisable when you know what you’re up against.
- His ability should be live most of the time, between our low land count and our Paths ramping the opponent.
- The tutoring ability is quite relevant here beyond just hitting land drops and color fixing (which are already quite nice). Tutoring for Kher Keep for value, Westvale Abbey to end the game, or Field/GQ when LD is necessary to live is some real power.
- Feel like a pro when you side him out on the play and then back in on the draw. #tinyedges
I’ll be testing him as a one-of. Any thoughts?
- Is Crumble to Dust too slow and/or too hard to reliably cast on curve with 20 lands?
- Is tossing a Ghost Quarter in the side as a hedge against certain land-based strategies worth a slot?
- Can we accommodate Field of Ruin in the maindeck? I play a lot of UW Control, and Field is sometimes the best card in the entire 75. We’re only two colors, and we play plenty of basics, which seems to be a shell that Field slots well into (UWC, GB midrange etc). Still, including a pair or so of Fields would probably mean losing utility lands like Kher Keep and Westvale Abbey, which have been great in my games so far. Speaking of which:
Results after switching to the Human tribal subtheme have been even better than before. T1 Champion really changes the dynamic of the deck. The full playset of Thraben Inspector has been fantastic as well. It replaces itself, goes wide, provides another EtB trigger for all of our nonsense, and cuts down opposing Myr tokens like nobody’s businesses, all for W. I’d encourage people who haven’t tried her out yet to do so.
Yep, Hawk has always got to be at least in the maybeboard, I’d say. As for Moon, I’m not sure. It hasn’t really impressed me so far, which is strange, because it feels so well-positioned in the format as a whole. Maybe we just can’t afford slots for cards that fail to advance our Plan A as much as other decks can. But how do we handle Tron decks otherwise? Crumble to Dust?
@binmaa10, Traveler is a good call. May well be worth testing! To be clear, my questions about the Goblins pertained to the idea of them in the Norin Sisters shell as a whole, not alongside the Human subtheme.
Results were great considering it was my first time piloting the deck (and also considering the issues I had with the build, which I’ll expand upon later). These were the numbers:
7-3 vs UW Control (no sideboarding)
4-1 vs Vengevine
4-0 vs Skred Red
2-3 vs Mono-U Merfolk
2-3 vs Bant Knightfall
The UW Control matches had me wanting to play a 4th Tremors (as a commenter upthread noted, resolving a T2 Tremors provides a ton of inevitability in such a matchup), but against the faster, more creature-based decks, I quickly realized that Tremors isn’t usually the T2 play we’re looking for. That said, I still like the card a lot, and am happy with the “safe” option of 3 Tremors and 1 Purphoros in my updated version of the deck (below), at least for now, with an eye toward trying out a 2/2 split later.
My biggest issue across the above games was simply not finding enough creatures. Most of my losses (or slow, stumbling wins which would have been losses if my opponent had drawn well early on) were due to having all the right pieces down but not enough creatures to cast. With my above list, having a Norin looping endlessly feels nearly unstoppable, while a progression without Norin is distinctly lacking.
Norin is the namesake card, of course, so that’s to be expected to some degree, but the most significant conclusion from those games remains that the above list is too light on creatures. The first change I made toward a higher creature count was to add more Thraben Inspectors—they have been consistent overperformers. From there, the creatures with Human tribal synergies became too appealing to ignore:
-2 Boros Charm
-1 Spirit Bonds
-1 Blood Moon
-1 Purphoros
-1 Impact Tremors
-1 Soul Warden
-2 Smuggler’s Copter
-1 Path to Exile
+4 Thraben Inspector
+4 Champion of the Parish
+2 Thalia’s Lieutenant
I’ll be testing those changes soon. Champion of the Parish seems guaranteed to thrive in this setup. Lieutenant I’m less sure of, with his anthem effect more hit-or-miss than it is in most Human builds, but even as Champion 5+6 he may prove valuable, much like Berserker is nice as Norin 5+6. 4 Thraben Inspector has the potential to be a little clunky on land-light progressions, but I think the draws are necessary with Copter relegated to the maybeboard for the moment.
Any thoughts on these changes? It may be a while before I can test again, so discussion would be welcome.
One last thought: for the non-Human builds, have people tried cards like Mogg War Marshal or Goblin Rabblemaster? This is a definite stretch, but is a Goblin sub-theme worth exploring as a fun alternative? Legion Loyalist is still a hell of a card.
On the contrary, this was quite a useful little writeup. Thanks for sharing. From my inexperienced perspective, the numbers and prioritization of your groupings looks right on.
For now, I’ve settled on the 4th Attendant and a lone Inspector for my two undecided slots. I hope to get some proxied games in relatively soon.