Something about my sideboard choices: my meta is filled with controls and midrange. I still like being set up against the mtgo goldfish metagame, so I'm not ignoring graveyard strategies just because there're a couple of dredge and phoenix players out of the whole group of players I see at LGSs, for example, but cards like Blossom are specifically to deal with shadow, GB and UW control which we have abundance of, while Fav Winds is necessary for bolt decks and the mirror matchup.
Things might change depending on the impact TTR will have against the field, but I can see how these colours should aim at playing a tempo game in G1 switching to a slower and grindier plan post side when people brings in creature hate so the tempo plan is likely to be less effective. In order to do so you want Planeswalkers and tokens to overwhelm the opponent with their value, while disrupting them with the abilities of the creatures that make up the core of our deck.
I'm telling you Teferi, Time Raveler is absurd in our deck, tested it in my Esper side today and I'm moving to 2x copies main board because it's insane at breaking the simmetry and setting you ahead on tempo. It also (finally!) gives me the type of tool I wanted to deal with pre side ensnaring bridge and prisons. The interaction with spell queller turn it into a 2 for 1, it's going to steal so many games in the next month or two just because people ain't used to that static ability. Jesus, it also has solved me the terminus problem, have fun casting it on turn 6, also goodbye settle the wreckage... the control matchup is hugely in our favor once teferi hits the floor, but it has proven really impactful against BG Rock aswell. How about gurmag Angler? And Temur Battlerage after blocks? I think UW and Esper Spirits are taking a huge boost because of this PW, every word on that card is relevant for us, like flashing souls is the new spice... but that bounce ability!
2x mainboard, must have.
TMS has been the first PW I tested last summer and it's been so good at doing the stuff I needed him to do that I consider it an auto include in every UW or Esper version. Loved Chandra Torch in Jeskai btw, but Jace is still superior.
I think the posts where I had explained the card have gone lost with that mess this site has been through like two months ago, but in short: there are slow enough matchups where you are at the mercy of the top deck and you not just want something to draw, but to draw selectively, so unless you are on bant for Company, you want a tool to pick up cards and decide what to keep. Jace does that, and being a PW it will be harder for the opponent to deal with it, especially when they don't see that coming. I want him against control and prisons. Whatever ensnaring bridge deck plays with no cards in hand so you just have to tick up for 5 turns before the opponent gets doomed. Control is forced to find D Sphere or move with colonnade to attacking, it puts them in a very awkward spot. Resolving Jace is the best play you can have and your plan should be focusse on that once you have it in your hand. Some told me you can't resolve TMS against a counterspell deck, I say by experience there's plenty of spots to do that if you re smart enough to sequence your cards. Drawing the best two cards off the top 4 on your deck pulls you so much ahead. It also deals with the 5/5 angels which is very important when you have a few PtE post side.
It feels great to have such a great card for the control MU but also for a variety of decks like mono red prison, enchantments, mill, 8 rack,Rock (you get full grind mode after sideboard), martyrs, controls, teachings, whirl... you get the brainstorm for longer games(liked it against vizier combo too where I'm the controller and I need to draw answers to fight his topdecks later in the game, plus it beats worship) and an alternative wincon that bypasses the attack step.
Sure, PWs allow us to attack from a different angle, I value them a lot for this reason.
It's also not just about the static ability, but the minus which deals with prisons drawing you a card. I think this and the static ability are worth giving it a chance.
I'm also on Esper so casting souls at flash speed sounds spicy.
Btw, have you heard opponent can't cast the spell exiled by spell queller when teferi, time raveler is on your side of the field? I'm giving it a shot in my sideboard
Yea but they still play 4x Welding jar they never get to use against us. they will sit there and sca just before the ability of the land resolves. We are talking about a land that'r requiring so much mana investment to set up, maybe you'll get to steal one game and it will feel great, but that's not changing you winrate against pretty much any archetype. It's just reasonable to crack it for zero, hitting vials and wanderers is enough to hold me back from testing it in UW, not even mentioning bant which is 3 colours and has 4 more 1cmc drops.
Simmetry and tempo are key, this land fits a mono red prison type of deck, but feel free to make your tests. everything comes down to that, eventually
You have named 3 matchups where they either kill you before you have the time to set that thing up, or they name it with spyglass. My feeling about this engineered explosives-type of effects is that they aren't good because they are symmetrical. They look appealing but they end up being a trap on the long run. I think Deputy already does the job very well.
Any thoughts on the recent War of the Spark spoilers? No spirits so far.. well there is one, but it sucks
I actually hope for no support to come in the near future in the U W G colours. Bant spirits is already fine and if it hadn't been for the rise of phoenix it would dominate the meta or it would be the most represented deck at least. Such an archetype deserves one sideboard card at most, I have seen plenty of people succeeding with that version having no idea about how to sequence our most fondamental creatures, some of them lacked the basis of magic rulings and they still managed to hit the top 4 of local tourneys because Collected Company into hexproof lock/counterpsell/removal(deputy) takes no brain.
The deck can be so straightforward compared to any other version that I'm hoping for no more intuitive-playable stuff, I don't like that part of the game that reminds me of the "turn 3 karn " scenarios( not to be taken litterally), it's frustrating when a deck makes people consistently win without some refined thinking being involved. This in the way I feel about it.
As for the future, I'll welcome experiments as Pestilent Spirits and I'll hope for the best tribe in modern not to get more busted cards, so that it will be more about the player and less about the list.
Hi all, I've enjoyed UW control videos and gameplay enough to join your side of the game. The first thing I'd like to ask is if the terminus version is still worth the loss of the serum visions set and the presence of the third jace tms. I remember a discussion I've read last summer about Ivan Floch and other hall of famers runing SV over the full set of Opts, while still picking terminus as a wrath effect...
I've played my first FNM with 2 Verdicts and 2 Settle, 3+3 Sv/ opts just to see how those two types of cantrip work, one Gideon AoZ in replacement of the 3rd Jace, and it felt very good (faced eldrazi tron, mardu pyro, ur phoenix. Gideon has been impressive by the way). I kind of feel Terminus is very relevant in the Spirits mu ( I'm a Spirits player,I know how easier life is when UW is on the settle/verdict plan), but I wonder If it's actually superior to the settle/verdict split against dredge and phoenix given that shuffling occurs during the game and looting digs for those threats again.
Also,in my meta GDS is well represented, and I can see Verdict being much safer than Teminus there.
Other than this, I'd like to hear something about the mana and the effort you have to put to set up Terminus. I believe someone here said months ago you've got less than 15% to flip terminus off the top, but I'm actually more worried about this 6 mana sorcery that needs Jace to be set up, which means it's not coming down before turn 5 when you don't happen to draw it as the first card for the turn...
Another thing I'm debating on is which should be the spot removal #5: I have heard good about condemn because of the instant speed nature, which is good along with snap and it's very good vs GDS, but it depends on the creature attacking, and once again I'm not a fan of textboxes with conditions. How about oust to get rid of bears ( exp if they know I'm on the Settle plan)or creature combo pieces like Vannifar, or lavamancer, Teeg and that type of garbage? Is Blessed Alliance too mana inefficient to be considered in that spot?
I would also expect 3 Damping Sphere and 2 Disdainful Stroke in SpookyGoose's deck to make it solid against Tron, as much as we can be, and the card I think I fear the most in Whir Prison is Bridge and/or Whir into Bridge or EE, and Stony only stops EE. Sideboard, they can bring in Torpor Orb, which also ignored Stony.
Yeah, the problem with Whirl is stony not affecting static abilities, so bridge and torpor orb don't get answered. Then they land Aether Grid and they take value out of every artifact on the field, or they close it with tezzereth.
Stony is excellent against tron on curve, but it doesn't beat a map on the play, nor a natural tron, and it's useless later in the game, whereas Damping Sphere hoses them at any point but it lets them cycle and activate stone. As things stand, I think a mix of the two is desireable, and I don't see stony being more than a 1x in the side. Those numbers about the Scales and Affinity matchups really make me think.
@SpookyGoose
Results from GP Bilbao also interesting, and I don't know the lists of those Spirit decks, but I'm betting they ran 2-3 Stony and if they did, it didn't seem to matter much...
"Spirits went:
5-0 versus Mill (100%)
3-10 versus Hardened Scales (23.1%)
2-9 versus Affinity (18.2%)"
This is really interesting. How about the datas against tron and Whirl?
For the Esper souls: I've been giving a chance to Kaya, orzhov usurper, and I'm pleased. A closer look reveals how many 1cmc permanents are actually present in the top 6-7 decks of the format and how many of them do take benefit out of their graveyard, making both the +1 and -1 potentially relevant. It's slow, as every PW, but it does work and gives you a chance to shot the opponent with her ultimate. Differently from Dovin, which I'm replacing with Kira, Kaya does stuff with her +1 instead of just setting up, and she does gain life going up, something sweet against burn. However she doesn't protect herself on an empty board as Dovin does, this is why I believe Dovin is a maindeckable PW, Kaya is a sideboard option. I love the extra interaction with the graveyard that my sideboard features now, I think 4x anti graveyard effects are important nowadays.
Today I attended a 40 people tourney facing Whirl L, Bant Spirits W, Shadow D, Nausea W, UR Kiki W and Amulet Titan W, and made it into the top8, losing to UW control. I actually didn't miss Worship, which I do a bit more at the FNM level where linear aggro decks show up more consistently.
Also, I'm bringing back Kira in my 75: I think it is really important to play Kira in Esper because of the Humans and Spirits mirror. Deputy of Detention is a nightmare when you re running lingering souls; since I moved to Esper two months ago, Kira has been the card I ve been missing the most. Kira's so good against humans and spirits because of Deputy and reflector, UR/Grixis/jund/jeskai/GB and burn too because she counters all of their searing effects.
When you re not playing curious obsession, I believe it's a mistake not to have Kira whetever the non-Bant splash you are playing is. Same goes for the split Deputy-Detention Shpere in whatever non-company version, because you want the exile effect against Torpor Orb and something extra agsint shadow that is not dying to removal spells.
I know a lot of people don't like the main deck eidolon of the great revels but I have won so many games with my opponent at 2 and one of those out I am sold on them. They speed up the clock dramatically. There are very few decks in modern I don't want them in against.
Half of the metagame right now is hostile to mainboard eidolon: humans, burn, dredge( and midrange to some extent ) are matchups where eidolon works against you. Bant Spirts is also one of those where the variability is too high to justify it in the 60s.
Eidolon is great and pushes the race by its own when you re against a slower deck, otherwise is a card that ends up hitting you more than the opponent. You really have to cross your fingest and hope to find control, combo or some deck working with lots of cheap spells like whirl or phoenix.
To be honest, of the matchups you have mentioned, I think golgari was the only dubious one , it can be either good or quite bad, it depends on the first 3 tuns of the game and the number of goyfs they play. Affinity is also a tricky one if they deploy their hand soon enough.
Same goes for bolt, it can be as efficient as push at removing creatures or just a card to throw at the opponent's face. It does steal games, but I ended up not finding it realiable on a long run because you have no way to take care of goyfs, kalitas, Things, Drakes, late game champions or pumped humans, it fails at killing a spell queller when they've got a phantom down, there're too many spots where it comes too late and shooting the face is the only appealing option.
It's also possible that one should go all in on the burn strategy, pretty much like you did with 4 Eid, 4 Bolts, but the liability is there and is quite big.
Speaking of siding against Phoenix, is that crazy to cut all the 4 mausoleum wanderers? I ve been trying so many post side configurations and cutting wanderers has been the most convincing.
The reason is that you can't realistically counter looting or cantrips, best case scenario you trade for an early morphose. It's hard to even trade with a bolt because they always get to play the number of lands they need to safely cast their stuff. The longer the game goes, the worse wanderer gets to be, it's an horrible top deck because it races poorly and it doesn't even trade with a phoenix by its own.
Spirit of labyrinth is fine against looting, but as much as I love playing just spirts in this deck, I think thalia offers a better tax plan against the field, especially now hollow one is gone and so is pyromancer.
Damping sphere is good when deployed early but I ended up leaving it in the side, I value rest in peace way more because it shuts the flashback of looting which is incredibly good in the mid game. That flashback allows them to cycle lands and flip a thing in the ice which would take turns to do so otherwise. Also getting rid of Phoenix permanently is pretty good. I ve read many plans and I don't see RiP that often and I'm surprised. I find it very relevant even in esper where I'm loosing half a Lingering souls.
Dovin also works better in esper because of all the tokens you can produce, not that it wouldn't work in UW, because it's true that my esper version plays as a regular UW sprits a lot of times where I don't get to draw souls, but it's overall better positioned in such a version with higher removal count and souls. I feel like it's a flexible mb card, sideboard needs silver bullets. This is how I intend it.
Testing in competitive leagues is the only reliable source of informations by the way: you won't get to play against that density of top tier decks and good pilots at any local event nor in any friendly league, so keep it up.
Well, thanks for the service you've provided us so far. Hoping we'll have a new forum in the future which resembles this one. If so, I'll be still bringing my contribution and my experience there.
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Rattlechains
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
Spells: 15
4 Aether Vial
3 Fatal Push
2 Path to Exile
1 Collective Brutality
3 Lingering Souls
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
2 Seachrome Coast
2 Darkslick Shore
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Stony Silence
2 Damping Sphere
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Rest In Peace
2 Countersquall
1 Favorable Winds
1 Bitterblossom
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Detention Sphere
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Something about my sideboard choices: my meta is filled with controls and midrange. I still like being set up against the mtgo goldfish metagame, so I'm not ignoring graveyard strategies just because there're a couple of dredge and phoenix players out of the whole group of players I see at LGSs, for example, but cards like Blossom are specifically to deal with shadow, GB and UW control which we have abundance of, while Fav Winds is necessary for bolt decks and the mirror matchup.
Things might change depending on the impact TTR will have against the field, but I can see how these colours should aim at playing a tempo game in G1 switching to a slower and grindier plan post side when people brings in creature hate so the tempo plan is likely to be less effective. In order to do so you want Planeswalkers and tokens to overwhelm the opponent with their value, while disrupting them with the abilities of the creatures that make up the core of our deck.
2x mainboard, must have.
I think the posts where I had explained the card have gone lost with that mess this site has been through like two months ago, but in short: there are slow enough matchups where you are at the mercy of the top deck and you not just want something to draw, but to draw selectively, so unless you are on bant for Company, you want a tool to pick up cards and decide what to keep. Jace does that, and being a PW it will be harder for the opponent to deal with it, especially when they don't see that coming. I want him against control and prisons. Whatever ensnaring bridge deck plays with no cards in hand so you just have to tick up for 5 turns before the opponent gets doomed. Control is forced to find D Sphere or move with colonnade to attacking, it puts them in a very awkward spot. Resolving Jace is the best play you can have and your plan should be focusse on that once you have it in your hand. Some told me you can't resolve TMS against a counterspell deck, I say by experience there's plenty of spots to do that if you re smart enough to sequence your cards. Drawing the best two cards off the top 4 on your deck pulls you so much ahead. It also deals with the 5/5 angels which is very important when you have a few PtE post side.
It feels great to have such a great card for the control MU but also for a variety of decks like mono red prison, enchantments, mill, 8 rack,Rock (you get full grind mode after sideboard), martyrs, controls, teachings, whirl... you get the brainstorm for longer games(liked it against vizier combo too where I'm the controller and I need to draw answers to fight his topdecks later in the game, plus it beats worship) and an alternative wincon that bypasses the attack step.
Test it yourself, have fun
It's also not just about the static ability, but the minus which deals with prisons drawing you a card. I think this and the static ability are worth giving it a chance.
I'm also on Esper so casting souls at flash speed sounds spicy.
Simmetry and tempo are key, this land fits a mono red prison type of deck, but feel free to make your tests. everything comes down to that, eventually
I actually hope for no support to come in the near future in the U W G colours. Bant spirits is already fine and if it hadn't been for the rise of phoenix it would dominate the meta or it would be the most represented deck at least. Such an archetype deserves one sideboard card at most, I have seen plenty of people succeeding with that version having no idea about how to sequence our most fondamental creatures, some of them lacked the basis of magic rulings and they still managed to hit the top 4 of local tourneys because Collected Company into hexproof lock/counterpsell/removal(deputy) takes no brain.
The deck can be so straightforward compared to any other version that I'm hoping for no more intuitive-playable stuff, I don't like that part of the game that reminds me of the "turn 3 karn " scenarios( not to be taken litterally), it's frustrating when a deck makes people consistently win without some refined thinking being involved. This in the way I feel about it.
As for the future, I'll welcome experiments as Pestilent Spirits and I'll hope for the best tribe in modern not to get more busted cards, so that it will be more about the player and less about the list.
I've played my first FNM with 2 Verdicts and 2 Settle, 3+3 Sv/ opts just to see how those two types of cantrip work, one Gideon AoZ in replacement of the 3rd Jace, and it felt very good (faced eldrazi tron, mardu pyro, ur phoenix. Gideon has been impressive by the way). I kind of feel Terminus is very relevant in the Spirits mu ( I'm a Spirits player,I know how easier life is when UW is on the settle/verdict plan), but I wonder If it's actually superior to the settle/verdict split against dredge and phoenix given that shuffling occurs during the game and looting digs for those threats again.
Also,in my meta GDS is well represented, and I can see Verdict being much safer than Teminus there.
Other than this, I'd like to hear something about the mana and the effort you have to put to set up Terminus. I believe someone here said months ago you've got less than 15% to flip terminus off the top, but I'm actually more worried about this 6 mana sorcery that needs Jace to be set up, which means it's not coming down before turn 5 when you don't happen to draw it as the first card for the turn...
Another thing I'm debating on is which should be the spot removal #5: I have heard good about condemn because of the instant speed nature, which is good along with snap and it's very good vs GDS, but it depends on the creature attacking, and once again I'm not a fan of textboxes with conditions. How about oust to get rid of bears ( exp if they know I'm on the Settle plan)or creature combo pieces like Vannifar, or lavamancer, Teeg and that type of garbage? Is Blessed Alliance too mana inefficient to be considered in that spot?
Yeah, the problem with Whirl is stony not affecting static abilities, so bridge and torpor orb don't get answered. Then they land Aether Grid and they take value out of every artifact on the field, or they close it with tezzereth.
Stony is excellent against tron on curve, but it doesn't beat a map on the play, nor a natural tron, and it's useless later in the game, whereas Damping Sphere hoses them at any point but it lets them cycle and activate stone. As things stand, I think a mix of the two is desireable, and I don't see stony being more than a 1x in the side. Those numbers about the Scales and Affinity matchups really make me think.
This is really interesting. How about the datas against tron and Whirl?
Today I attended a 40 people tourney facing Whirl L, Bant Spirits W, Shadow D, Nausea W, UR Kiki W and Amulet Titan W, and made it into the top8, losing to UW control. I actually didn't miss Worship, which I do a bit more at the FNM level where linear aggro decks show up more consistently.
Also, I'm bringing back Kira in my 75: I think it is really important to play Kira in Esper because of the Humans and Spirits mirror. Deputy of Detention is a nightmare when you re running lingering souls; since I moved to Esper two months ago, Kira has been the card I ve been missing the most. Kira's so good against humans and spirits because of Deputy and reflector, UR/Grixis/jund/jeskai/GB and burn too because she counters all of their searing effects.
When you re not playing curious obsession, I believe it's a mistake not to have Kira whetever the non-Bant splash you are playing is. Same goes for the split Deputy-Detention Shpere in whatever non-company version, because you want the exile effect against Torpor Orb and something extra agsint shadow that is not dying to removal spells.
This is my list with the latest adjustments:
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Rattlechains
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Spells: 14
4 Aether Vial
3 Fatal Push
2 Path to Exile
2 Collective Brutality
3 Lingering Souls
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
2 Seachrome Coast
2 Darkslick Shore
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest In Peace
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Damping Sphere
2 Countersquall
1 Favorable winds
1 Deputy of Detention
1 Detention Sphere
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Half of the metagame right now is hostile to mainboard eidolon: humans, burn, dredge( and midrange to some extent ) are matchups where eidolon works against you. Bant Spirts is also one of those where the variability is too high to justify it in the 60s.
Eidolon is great and pushes the race by its own when you re against a slower deck, otherwise is a card that ends up hitting you more than the opponent. You really have to cross your fingest and hope to find control, combo or some deck working with lots of cheap spells like whirl or phoenix.
To be honest, of the matchups you have mentioned, I think golgari was the only dubious one , it can be either good or quite bad, it depends on the first 3 tuns of the game and the number of goyfs they play. Affinity is also a tricky one if they deploy their hand soon enough.
Same goes for bolt, it can be as efficient as push at removing creatures or just a card to throw at the opponent's face. It does steal games, but I ended up not finding it realiable on a long run because you have no way to take care of goyfs, kalitas, Things, Drakes, late game champions or pumped humans, it fails at killing a spell queller when they've got a phantom down, there're too many spots where it comes too late and shooting the face is the only appealing option.
It's also possible that one should go all in on the burn strategy, pretty much like you did with 4 Eid, 4 Bolts, but the liability is there and is quite big.
The reason is that you can't realistically counter looting or cantrips, best case scenario you trade for an early morphose. It's hard to even trade with a bolt because they always get to play the number of lands they need to safely cast their stuff. The longer the game goes, the worse wanderer gets to be, it's an horrible top deck because it races poorly and it doesn't even trade with a phoenix by its own.
Spirit of labyrinth is fine against looting, but as much as I love playing just spirts in this deck, I think thalia offers a better tax plan against the field, especially now hollow one is gone and so is pyromancer.
Damping sphere is good when deployed early but I ended up leaving it in the side, I value rest in peace way more because it shuts the flashback of looting which is incredibly good in the mid game. That flashback allows them to cycle lands and flip a thing in the ice which would take turns to do so otherwise. Also getting rid of Phoenix permanently is pretty good. I ve read many plans and I don't see RiP that often and I'm surprised. I find it very relevant even in esper where I'm loosing half a Lingering souls.
Dovin also works better in esper because of all the tokens you can produce, not that it wouldn't work in UW, because it's true that my esper version plays as a regular UW sprits a lot of times where I don't get to draw souls, but it's overall better positioned in such a version with higher removal count and souls. I feel like it's a flexible mb card, sideboard needs silver bullets. This is how I intend it.
Testing in competitive leagues is the only reliable source of informations by the way: you won't get to play against that density of top tier decks and good pilots at any local event nor in any friendly league, so keep it up.