TBH I didn't really like discard or counterspells before Horizons, so not adopting them post-Horizons has been pretty easy
I dislike discard being a bad top deck late game, and with adding 10-12 new horizons cards to the main it's just hard to justify room for discard. Counterspells I'm more on board with than before, since previously the way they work so poorly with Ensnaring Bridge was awkward, but now I find bridge is something I rarely search up anymore (down to 1 bridge in the main), counterspells are something I would be more likely to play now, but more in the sideboard.
I do see the deck as mostly a combo deck now with a minor prison theme, or at least that's the version I'm seeing as most successful, both with other people having success and my own experiences as well. So any counterspells would mostly be aimed at protecting the combo
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-league-2019-06-14#kanister_- this is the 5-0 deck of his from last friday's 5-0 dump that he based off TheNobody's list. If you click through his twitch video past broadcasts you'll see him playing a UWR variant recently, including a bit today, as well as the Grixis version linked above. I think he's been doing pretty well with the deck overall recently. He went 6-2 in the weekend's modern challenge with a UWR version, you might find it in the results, I dunno exactly where he placed
I've been trying out UWR for a little while, and Kanister's changes as well. Kanister basically just plays white for sideboard Paths, and teferi, and today Fragmentize and Sunbeam Spellbomb. So pretty minimal stuff. So basically losing dead of winter, ego, battle for those. In many ways Path is a strict upgrade to black removal, though Battle does have bonus effects vs burn, so there is that. Teferi is great protection for the combo and against control especially. I'd say teferi is one of the biggest reasons to potentially be white. He's got 4x Leyline of the Void for his graveyard hate.
I do think the egos are less needed now that the list is more combo. Games don't drag out to turn 57 anymore usually. Even things like artifact destruction is less of a concern, since 1) we're less focused on Ensnaring bridge usually, and 2) the combo doesn't super care about artifact destruction. Especially if you have Urza and Sword in play, and then play Foundry, artifact destruction is entirely irrelevant. I've had people try it, and as long as you have artifacts/mana to sacrifice something in response to get sword back and just continue going off, which is easy to do with Urza providing a ton of mana, you're fine. You can just keep going off with the Abrupt Decay or whatever on the stack, making a ton of tokens and maybe activating Urza until you hit another Foundry, let it resolve, play the foundry, do your thing again. Likewise creature removal works the same, go off in response until you hit another urza, let the removal resolve then replay Urza.
So far I quite like Jeskai. I think the biggest thing I miss, is Dead of Winter in the board for creature matchups like Humans. Kanister is playing 2 path and 3 bolt though, which helps a lot as well. So i dunno
I think in the end the difference between Jeskai and Grixis isn't huge and comes down to just some sideboard options. White traditionally has the most powerful sideboard cards in modern, so I could see Jeskai becoming the preferred option.
Losing Ego certainly does hurt the tron matchup, but even with it the tron matchup wasn't exactly good anyway.
Hard enchantment removal is nice, but I'm not sure how needed it really is. Urza, Aether grid, Sai, etc all provide very valid ways to beat Stony Silence or Rest in Peace. Echoing Truth is ok too, though less good. But it is nice that you can assemble your combo, bounce whatever is stopping you and just win. Though Teferi is great for that too while also providing other value.
On a sidenote, I love that Kanister is playing the deck a lot lately. It's great to have a MPL level player in the same page as us, as well as getting more people interested in the deck. The more people trying it out means the more we'll be able to narrow down to what is the "best" build, if there really is one. And it's great just to be able to watch someone else play the deck. I don't agree with all of his decisions in deckbuilding, but hearing others thoughts, especially when they have success with it, is great
the biggest change to the meta recently is the new Bridgevine deck with Hogaak and Altar of Dementia. Worth checking that out so you know how it works. Bridge is no longer a slam dunk against them as Hogaak, Altar, and Bridge from Below, give them a way to just mill you out without ever needing to attack.
As for video content, there isnt much. Though if you check of the recent twitch stream of Kanister_mtg. Yesterday he took TheNobody's deck, made some changes (mostly the sideboard) and ran it through a 4-1 league, then made a few more changes and 5-0'd another league. I see he's streaming another UWR modification of the deck right now as well.
I've also been mostly playing variations of TheNobody's list. Arcum's Astrolabe feel more and more where we want to be. From there so far Goblin Engineer does feel like you really want the card, so it leads you down the path of options of Jeskai or Grixis, so it'll be interesting to see what people think is best. I've been playing a bunch of Jeskai lists lately and quite like them. I feel like you lose out on Unmoored Ego, but the rest of the sideboard cards are better
1) So far I've been trying it and kinda loving it. Cantrips you on ETB, which is so much better than something like Chromatic star since it works under Rest in Peace. It's fixing is reusable, and it sticks around for Whir. So far I haven't really experienced ANY issues with a 3 colour deck and a manabase very similar to what The Nobody's posted. I'm running Jeskai and I just swapped swamp to plains, and I cut a fetchland for a Mountain. I didn't like field of ruin being able to strip my only red source. It's a small issue with 4 astrolabes and 4 opals, but especially with Stony Silence it happens. I don't think I've had an issue casting Astrolabe on turn 1, or otherwise casting my spells
2) a) It gets a bit easier with a little practice. So far it hasn't been a major issue for me, but it could be. Most of the time people scoop within 5 or 10 thopters. Sometimes if you've got a Karnstruct from a previous Urza that is capable of attacking, you can just pump it to lethal. If you absolutely need to dig with Urza's ability to win it just sucks balls and there isn't too much way around it if they make you play it out.
2) b) The way I do it that I feel is best is click Thopter Foundry, which then since you're activating an ability means only urza's mana ability is allowed so you only have to click Urza once, then click sword, then sword again. Lather, Rise, Repeat. Similarly if you're going to activate his other ability click it first, then it's a bit easier to make mana with him.
I've started playing a bit on mtgo too. Still not entirely sure where I want to go with it, but Urza and Engineer both seem great. I was able to grind out a game where my opponent played a turn 2 stony thanks to urza, and engineers. I ended up saccing my bridges to Sai, attacking with a couple 20/20 Constructs, then using engineers to bridge the bridges back into play. All while drawing basically a whole ton of cards every turn between engineers (chromatics stars and terrarions), Sai, and Urza. I ended up having to dig through my ENTIRE deck as my 2 Ghirapur Aether Grids were the actual bottom 2 cards (what are the odds!).
I think the biggest annoyance I have is actually playing out the combo with Urza is quite time consuming on mtgo. Especially if you have to try and dig for an answer like Aether Grid. That match I had to dig through my whole deck I only had about 2.5 minutes left on my clock, and we only played 2 games.
On the Narset front, I was really enjoying Narset pre-Horizons, but now I just can't seem to fit her in. Too many cards I want to play, not enough room to play them all now that I'm jamming engineers and Urzas into the list
I do like a lot about Todd's build. It's obviously meant to be a pretty all in combo version. All the card draw is pretty great. It definitely needs some number of engineers. Also as he mentioned the sideboard is pretty terrible. But for a first draft list, it seems like a very possible direction the deck could go. Goblin engineer + Ichor wellspring is pretty great
The last game sure showed how, especially with so many cheap cantrippy artifacts, a foundry can win on its own even with no answer to leyline that is on the board
I think blast zone is great if you can fit it. However foundry and Whir mean we can afford very few colourless sources and inventors fair or academy ruins often get preference with no room left for blast zone. But if you can fit it into the mana base, it's a great card
I really don't see why we would want force of negation.
We can't use it very well on our turn to protect our stuff, and a lot of the hate we face is instant speed artifact destruction/graveyard hate. It can't stop leyline of the void, so we likely still need alternate wincon and/or enchantment removal anyway.
I think if we want a counterspell we should consider stoic rebuttal. Or in a more combo focused deck possibly pact of negation
But personally I don't think I'm really interested in have force even in the sideboard
Lots of options these days. I thought the astrolabe was pretty bad, but especially with the basic fetch, and I realized it doesn't sac to filter mana, it actually doesn't sound crazy to try to go a basic snow-covered manabase.
Also I'm turning around a bit on Saheeli. Works well with urza, and Urza's Karnstruct token make for finally something worth copying. A giant construct token or two seems like a not unreasonable way to win even if they kill Urza. Or play a goblin engineer, then activate Saheeli to turn something that doesn't have summoning sickness into an engineer, so you can activate it right away. I think she'll be better than Sai in some situations, while Sai will be better in others, but with her ability being somewhat relevant she's not terrible for us!
I think Board the Weatherlight has a lot of potential and might be another good reason to go white over black. It's just a real shame that it's 2 mana, since we're already pretty flooded at 2 mana. But it's certainly worth trying
This is an interesting take from Sam Black. Obviously very different from what we usually play and very combo focused. I do like the Sai, and the Stoic Rebuttals. Rebuttal seems like it could be the best way to protect Urza. I also really like the idea of baby Teferi as extra protection. I've been playing him in UW Control lately and really liking him, and even playing him a bit in thopter sword too. His bounce can also deal with pesky hate cards like RiP, Stony, leyline etc, while also doing a great job of protecting our thing fairly well.
I don't think I like the Tamiyo, the Mox Amber, or the Ancient Stirrings. Tamiyo's ability I just don't think is relevant enough at 4 mana, kinda late to be protecting us from those effects. Mox Amber seems really slow, and Ancient Stirrings I feel just doesn't hit enough of the deck.
Possibly welding jars could replace Ambers, Whir could replace stirrings, or even just Serum Visions. I'm not super sold on Saheeli, but she could be good here with Urza around. We could also replace stirrings or something else with Goblin Engineers or something.
Anyway, it's obviously a rough theorycrafting list, but I thought it had some interesting ideas that might spark some new ideas in people's brewing
I think this is pretty huge, ya. The deck could take a radical twist around Urza. There are a bunch of ways you could win on the spot with thopter sword + urza. Play a single blasting station and flip your deck till you hit it with the infinite mana, then win with blasting station, etc. I think there is a lot of power and potential there.
Oh snap, new Urza, Lord High Artificer is interesting, 4 mana 1/4, makes a Karn Scion of Urza construct on entering, all your artifacts now tap for U, and 5 mana to shuffle, exile top card, and until end of turn cast that card for free. Makes thopter sword infinite life, infinite tokens, infinite mana, since you can just tap the sword for u each time, or tap the sword and the token for u.
I dislike discard being a bad top deck late game, and with adding 10-12 new horizons cards to the main it's just hard to justify room for discard. Counterspells I'm more on board with than before, since previously the way they work so poorly with Ensnaring Bridge was awkward, but now I find bridge is something I rarely search up anymore (down to 1 bridge in the main), counterspells are something I would be more likely to play now, but more in the sideboard.
I do see the deck as mostly a combo deck now with a minor prison theme, or at least that's the version I'm seeing as most successful, both with other people having success and my own experiences as well. So any counterspells would mostly be aimed at protecting the combo
edit: this is his UWR list from yesterday's challenge: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2019-06-16#kanister_th_place
I do think the egos are less needed now that the list is more combo. Games don't drag out to turn 57 anymore usually. Even things like artifact destruction is less of a concern, since 1) we're less focused on Ensnaring bridge usually, and 2) the combo doesn't super care about artifact destruction. Especially if you have Urza and Sword in play, and then play Foundry, artifact destruction is entirely irrelevant. I've had people try it, and as long as you have artifacts/mana to sacrifice something in response to get sword back and just continue going off, which is easy to do with Urza providing a ton of mana, you're fine. You can just keep going off with the Abrupt Decay or whatever on the stack, making a ton of tokens and maybe activating Urza until you hit another Foundry, let it resolve, play the foundry, do your thing again. Likewise creature removal works the same, go off in response until you hit another urza, let the removal resolve then replay Urza.
So far I quite like Jeskai. I think the biggest thing I miss, is Dead of Winter in the board for creature matchups like Humans. Kanister is playing 2 path and 3 bolt though, which helps a lot as well. So i dunno
I think in the end the difference between Jeskai and Grixis isn't huge and comes down to just some sideboard options. White traditionally has the most powerful sideboard cards in modern, so I could see Jeskai becoming the preferred option.
Losing Ego certainly does hurt the tron matchup, but even with it the tron matchup wasn't exactly good anyway.
Hard enchantment removal is nice, but I'm not sure how needed it really is. Urza, Aether grid, Sai, etc all provide very valid ways to beat Stony Silence or Rest in Peace. Echoing Truth is ok too, though less good. But it is nice that you can assemble your combo, bounce whatever is stopping you and just win. Though Teferi is great for that too while also providing other value.
On a sidenote, I love that Kanister is playing the deck a lot lately. It's great to have a MPL level player in the same page as us, as well as getting more people interested in the deck. The more people trying it out means the more we'll be able to narrow down to what is the "best" build, if there really is one. And it's great just to be able to watch someone else play the deck. I don't agree with all of his decisions in deckbuilding, but hearing others thoughts, especially when they have success with it, is great
As for video content, there isnt much. Though if you check of the recent twitch stream of Kanister_mtg. Yesterday he took TheNobody's deck, made some changes (mostly the sideboard) and ran it through a 4-1 league, then made a few more changes and 5-0'd another league. I see he's streaming another UWR modification of the deck right now as well.
I've also been mostly playing variations of TheNobody's list. Arcum's Astrolabe feel more and more where we want to be. From there so far Goblin Engineer does feel like you really want the card, so it leads you down the path of options of Jeskai or Grixis, so it'll be interesting to see what people think is best. I've been playing a bunch of Jeskai lists lately and quite like them. I feel like you lose out on Unmoored Ego, but the rest of the sideboard cards are better
2) a) It gets a bit easier with a little practice. So far it hasn't been a major issue for me, but it could be. Most of the time people scoop within 5 or 10 thopters. Sometimes if you've got a Karnstruct from a previous Urza that is capable of attacking, you can just pump it to lethal. If you absolutely need to dig with Urza's ability to win it just sucks balls and there isn't too much way around it if they make you play it out.
2) b) The way I do it that I feel is best is click Thopter Foundry, which then since you're activating an ability means only urza's mana ability is allowed so you only have to click Urza once, then click sword, then sword again. Lather, Rise, Repeat. Similarly if you're going to activate his other ability click it first, then it's a bit easier to make mana with him.
I think the biggest annoyance I have is actually playing out the combo with Urza is quite time consuming on mtgo. Especially if you have to try and dig for an answer like Aether Grid. That match I had to dig through my whole deck I only had about 2.5 minutes left on my clock, and we only played 2 games.
On the Narset front, I was really enjoying Narset pre-Horizons, but now I just can't seem to fit her in. Too many cards I want to play, not enough room to play them all now that I'm jamming engineers and Urzas into the list
The last game sure showed how, especially with so many cheap cantrippy artifacts, a foundry can win on its own even with no answer to leyline that is on the board
We can't use it very well on our turn to protect our stuff, and a lot of the hate we face is instant speed artifact destruction/graveyard hate. It can't stop leyline of the void, so we likely still need alternate wincon and/or enchantment removal anyway.
I think if we want a counterspell we should consider stoic rebuttal. Or in a more combo focused deck possibly pact of negation
But personally I don't think I'm really interested in have force even in the sideboard
Also I'm turning around a bit on Saheeli. Works well with urza, and Urza's Karnstruct token make for finally something worth copying. A giant construct token or two seems like a not unreasonable way to win even if they kill Urza. Or play a goblin engineer, then activate Saheeli to turn something that doesn't have summoning sickness into an engineer, so you can activate it right away. I think she'll be better than Sai in some situations, while Sai will be better in others, but with her ability being somewhat relevant she's not terrible for us!
1 Sai, Master Thopterist
4 Urza, Lord High Artificer
Planeswalkers (7)
3 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
1 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
Lands (20)
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Island
4 Glimmervoid
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Spire of Industry
4 Waterlogged Grove
1 Inventors' Fair
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Stoic Rebuttal
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Mox Amber
4 Mox Opal
4 Ancient Stirrings
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Nature's Claim
2 Negate
3 Path to Exile
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
This is an interesting take from Sam Black. Obviously very different from what we usually play and very combo focused. I do like the Sai, and the Stoic Rebuttals. Rebuttal seems like it could be the best way to protect Urza. I also really like the idea of baby Teferi as extra protection. I've been playing him in UW Control lately and really liking him, and even playing him a bit in thopter sword too. His bounce can also deal with pesky hate cards like RiP, Stony, leyline etc, while also doing a great job of protecting our thing fairly well.
I don't think I like the Tamiyo, the Mox Amber, or the Ancient Stirrings. Tamiyo's ability I just don't think is relevant enough at 4 mana, kinda late to be protecting us from those effects. Mox Amber seems really slow, and Ancient Stirrings I feel just doesn't hit enough of the deck.
Possibly welding jars could replace Ambers, Whir could replace stirrings, or even just Serum Visions. I'm not super sold on Saheeli, but she could be good here with Urza around. We could also replace stirrings or something else with Goblin Engineers or something.
Anyway, it's obviously a rough theorycrafting list, but I thought it had some interesting ideas that might spark some new ideas in people's brewing
Seems pretty strong.