Have to say, that my experience backs up most of what Xaltair says about Jeskai. After playing straight U/W for a couple of months, I played it for about 5 weeks and the first few went fine with lots and lots of wins -- but over time the wheels came off. In my local meta, you really do need some early interaction though (and I'm not a huge fan of Meltdown and Farm is little better) so I went Esper. So far it's been okay, but not amazing. We'll see what happens in the mew meta.
I have to say I disagree that running our own Spell Pierce is an easy answer to our oppo's running it in something like UG merfolk. It may be the best answer available, but against that deck you often HAVE to Settle on T4 or lose. It's also not uncommon to fail to play a land on each of your first 5 turns. I won't lie, watching the MOL 5-0 lists for the first few days of the new season this week was seriously discomfiting. It was all UG all the time and I was very worried that I was going to have to go back to Red and try to make the stupid cycling RR1 pyroclasm work. Over the last few days though, the Grixis control decks have been beating them senseless as have the GPG decks. Thank goodness. Guess we'll just have to keep watching to see how things evolve.
Totally agree with you Chaos. Nothing wrong with energy.
The game's designers are bankrupt of ideas, so they've pushed a few things out that didn't work leading to a mess of bannings that have badly undermined consumer confidence in the game. I've been laying since 94 and I've seen some really crappy formats. This isn't even close to that bad. But in those cases, WotC designed their way out of the problem. They aren't doing that this time. They've been dumbing the game down for years now, "simplifying" some rules and designing out complexity. I am not calling for a return of interrupt windows, but the whole you-can-play-anything-you-want-as-long-as-you-play-monsters is intellectually boring.
The deck loses so much without Attune. No way can we keep up with RRed without the consistent mana and early energy. If that happens we have to evolve into a new deck. Personally, I think it probably dies. I think that's very unlikely though. WotC has screwed the pooch so badly over the past year with al the bannings, you have to think they are really reticent to interfere again.
I think I like ths idea. Certainly, I think its worth trying out. The cards are all dirt cheap, so it's not like there's any real risk. Couple of things though:
1) I think sacrificing Siphoner is a huge error. I realize you are going counters instead of energy, but the Siphoner often generates the energy he needs all by himself.
2) Attune -- again, I know you are trying to do something different, but one of the main reasons the deck works as it is, is because you can mana fix so effectively.
3) I am not thrilled with the top end. It's really just more dorks while I like to see a different angle of attack. So I'd want to see a couple of Vraskas.
4) You can make room for some of these things by cutting Enter the Unknown -- which looks awful -- and maybe Hadana's Climb. The Temple looks really good though, so it's totally worth testing.
Some really interesting ideas here though. Good work.
It looks really interesting, but if you are going to go this route, aren't you strictly better off playing a Goryo's Vengeance deck? Whether you play Shoal or not, you are strictly better off with the improved creature package and the hand disruption. The transitional SB was super janky (this coming from someone who likes to change things up out of the board) and the creature selection was really dodgy. Hollow One is meh and no Griselbrand???
One thing is for sure, there are a lot of totally legit options for building with As Foretold.
I am looking to do something similar as I want to be able to cast my drawn Leylines of Sanctity. Have you given any thought to running Restore Balance, at lest in the board?
Sun Droplet is terribad. You only get one life back per turn, which is just too slow against RDW. If you really want to go for a 2CC artifact then try the Dragonclaw thing that RDW runs for the mirror. Each time a red spell is cast you can gain a life, which has a faster impact on the game. That aside, RDW runs a lot of burn spells and goes to the dome a lot. Leyline of Sanctity is definitely the best option.
Totally agree with you on Street Wraith, Dave. I had three in my hand at one point in G1 of the Burn Match-up and managed to discard one to hand size in the BR match at 7 life or so.
Okay, so I played the deck last night for the first time and have mixed feelings about it...at least on first try.
I went with a mostly stock list in the MD, adding fetches for a singleton Tarn and the Madcap/Emperion combo in the board. I know there's at least one RDW player at my LGS and didn't like the idea of auto-losing a round. In retrospect this was an error.
R1: RDW: loss 1-2 -- sometimes the MtG Gods just don't love you at all...
I lose the roll and she get's me to three in fairly quick order. I manage to LE to clear away the threats and I manage the Eidolon triggers as carefully as possible but die to bolt off the top. Note: I barely drew ANY cyclers! WTF? Game two I let her expend a bunch of the burn in her hand and then, when she's down to three cards in hand I have to gamble that they aren't all bolts or wear//tears and tap out to go for Emperion. She isn't able to kill so once I untap I just sit on my counters. She has Eidolon in play and has damaged herself to burn me so even if I don't counter anything that threatens the 8/8 , she is unable to kill the Emperion without killing herself first. G3: I mulligan to 5 and she get's the god draw. I had the Madcap Experiment but even if I don't miss my T3 land drop I would have probably lost anyway. She was just too damned fast and I was too short on resources.
R2: Jeskai control: win 2-0
I lose the roll again, but I know what he's playing so keep my 5 land/AV opener. I cycle a few things here and there and win a couple of fights over Ancestral Visions which keeps me waaaay ahead on cards. I destroy a man land with Field of Ruin at some point, but it wasn't really relevant. G2 was more of the same. I wait until have 6 mana in play before going for As Foretold. He counters, I counter, he counters again and I Dispel. I get my free AV to refresh my hand and win from their. He cast Supreme Verdict a couple of times, but I drew two LE's and Transmuted for the third.
R3: BR aggro. 2-1. This deck is a bit weird. It's a home brew, but one with a lot of good synergies. Basically, the pilot got tired of casting Death's Shadow and decided to do something a bit different. At least that's my understanding. I lose the roll (!) and mulligan (!!) and he rips my AV away with his first spell. Again, I somehow fail to draw a lot of cyclers and lose fairly quickly. G2 I suspend an AV on T1 and then somehow he does not Thoughtseize/Inquisition me on his T1 so I suspend another on T2. G3 was all about Bojuka Bog. I keep an opener with some cyclers and little else (not a great hand but he wasn't THAT fast and I wanted to protect my assets from hand destruction -- I saw TS, Inquisition AND Collective Brutality) and draw into AV. I totally drew the wrong half of my deck in this game, but I hit all 4 AV's so managed to get enough gas that it didn't matter. I get two Riverwinders and a Wraith into the yard and then Transmute for Acqueduct so I can reuse my Bog on his yard so when I LE he doesn't get Kalitas + Geralf's Messenger back as I was at 3 and that would kill me. This was the game winning play as I was able to kill him a couple of turns later with big beasts.
Lessons learned (so far):
1) If you are going to go with the Red splash, go all in. I didn't bother with SSG/Blood Moon primarily because the meta at my LGS alrady has some Blood Moon decks so people are already prepared for that. It might be worthwhile at a larger event like a PPTQ. But even then, it's not actually that good. Most decks can deal with a Platinum Emperion so you have to untap with it in play and then have counters in hand to get value from it. If I was going to play a Blood Moon deck (which sometimes just wins games) I would go back to Ponza.
2) I will go with Leyline of Sanctity in the board next time as I think the Madcap may not be that amazing against RDW, which is what I want it for.
3) Bojuka Bog (and Dimir Acqueduct) are worth playing. They were very, very good. In fact, I don't think you need 4 Leylines of the Void in the SB. So I'll run three Faerie Macabre instead, freeing up yet another SB slot. I ran two Archfiends instead of Architects of Will (non-bo with Madcap) and they were ineffective. Basically, I never ran into anything I wanted to put -1/-1 counters on so this bears more experimentation.
I will try it again. Some situations felt very good, but it needs to have more game against some of the formats major threats like RDW.
Gentlemen (or ladies, I don't want to make any assumptions), let's settle down a bit.
This thread exists to share ideas. Not all ideas/comments are going to be brilliant (Xaltair, Planeswalkers are freaking amazing and changed the game in a major way and you just have to get on board with that fact), but often the idea that significantly changes things was dismissed out of hand by someone else (Mooster, Thaumatic Compass is absolutely a bomb -- at least in the control mirror. So is Kefnet. I even run one in energy decks). Let's try to keep the comments about the decks and debate ideas, not the people who have them. Who knows, maybe we'll start a trend and the quality of political discourse in broader society will improve too...okay, maybe not. But at least we can be civil to each other here.
Search/serum do help to get the combo pieces but if we’re going to be more all-in on the combo then wouldn’t Jund living end be better at what it tries to achieve. I think the advantage of this version of living end is the potential to be more interactive than the Jund version. As such, I would prefer taking advantage of other cards like chalices or counterspells in their slot otherwise I would just go back to Jund. He did well with a 6-1 finish tho!
Totally agree. I put this deck together and will try it out this evening, but the first thing I had to consider was the ways it attacks the metagame differently to traditional LE and cascade decks. The Jund LE deck is already very tight, with legit answers to most of the threats in the environment. It's pretty horrid in a control-heavy environment though. You have to get a little lucky to overwhelm your oppo's counters and then resolve an EoT LE (so you can untap and get in a swing before they Wrath). The U deck sacrifices the speed and consistency of cascade for better interaction (and access to 1 and 2 cc spells). Thus I do not love Supreme Will in the deck. Search for Azcanta may be another story. This is an awesome card on its own and thus it may be worth trying. I won't be giving it a go tonight though. I'll play something pretty stock to get a better feel for it before tinkering.
I've actually taken to playing 4C Approach and have yet to lose a match. Admittedly though, I'm not playing in the most competitive of environments. I've been beating both energy variants, RamR, Pummeler, the mirror, vamps and tokens...You are right though, the mana can be challenging.
Also, he's totally right about the third Scavenger and, honestly, I think if you aren't playing Vraska you aren't playing the deck correctly. I don't mean to sound obnoxious and apologise if I come across that way. Vraska is expensive, but so worthwhile. We have no MD outs to annoying enchantments and artifacts and Vraska gives us this in spades while not diluting the threats in our deck. If you totally stall out and can't brak through the wall, at least you can go for the ult + a ping from a Ballista ftw. That's not the main value though as it's very corner case. Killing GPG, or a 6/6 angel and creating a stream of blockers for the big Hydra on the other side of the table is just too valuable.
I am intrigued by the 4c Energy idea -- based mostly on Jund. I looked at the decklist you linked and made some changes to restore the explosive starts the snake offers. That deck is more an extension of the GRU decks than the sultai decks anyways.
I am not at all convinced you need the Servants, nor do I think you need 4 each Push and H. Lightning; especially not with Ballistae in the deck. As I look at this though, I realize that the only R in the MD is the trio of burn spells and wonder if it's really worth it to warp the mana around for them. The SB cards are very good, especially in the Temur Energy match, so that might help the sell job. You could also consider Glorybringer (or even Whirler Virtuosos) over Hostage Taker in the MD.
Markarlock, I think this would be a massive error. As you say Abrade is one argument against it, but it certainly isn't the biggest one. As it stands right now, Gideon is probably the most versatile card in the deck. It does fantastic defensive work against problem cards like Hazoret and Chandra or the bad guy's biggest dork. It can lock an oppo out if they can't remove it thanks to it's ultimate. It can also go aggro and simply attack for the win. The Tower is too reliant on generating energy, and then, when it does, it's just a bolt. In fact, due to the steep energy demands, it's not even a very good bolt. Finally, still on the Gideon side...Gideon often draws oppos into attacking him even when they can't kill him. This is damage not coming your way, thus givng you time to find Approach.
I have to say I disagree that running our own Spell Pierce is an easy answer to our oppo's running it in something like UG merfolk. It may be the best answer available, but against that deck you often HAVE to Settle on T4 or lose. It's also not uncommon to fail to play a land on each of your first 5 turns. I won't lie, watching the MOL 5-0 lists for the first few days of the new season this week was seriously discomfiting. It was all UG all the time and I was very worried that I was going to have to go back to Red and try to make the stupid cycling RR1 pyroclasm work. Over the last few days though, the Grixis control decks have been beating them senseless as have the GPG decks. Thank goodness. Guess we'll just have to keep watching to see how things evolve.
The game's designers are bankrupt of ideas, so they've pushed a few things out that didn't work leading to a mess of bannings that have badly undermined consumer confidence in the game. I've been laying since 94 and I've seen some really crappy formats. This isn't even close to that bad. But in those cases, WotC designed their way out of the problem. They aren't doing that this time. They've been dumbing the game down for years now, "simplifying" some rules and designing out complexity. I am not calling for a return of interrupt windows, but the whole you-can-play-anything-you-want-as-long-as-you-play-monsters is intellectually boring.
/M
1) I think sacrificing Siphoner is a huge error. I realize you are going counters instead of energy, but the Siphoner often generates the energy he needs all by himself.
2) Attune -- again, I know you are trying to do something different, but one of the main reasons the deck works as it is, is because you can mana fix so effectively.
3) I am not thrilled with the top end. It's really just more dorks while I like to see a different angle of attack. So I'd want to see a couple of Vraskas.
4) You can make room for some of these things by cutting Enter the Unknown -- which looks awful -- and maybe Hadana's Climb. The Temple looks really good though, so it's totally worth testing.
Some really interesting ideas here though. Good work.
One thing is for sure, there are a lot of totally legit options for building with As Foretold.
I am looking to do something similar as I want to be able to cast my drawn Leylines of Sanctity. Have you given any thought to running Restore Balance, at lest in the board?
I went with a mostly stock list in the MD, adding fetches for a singleton Tarn and the Madcap/Emperion combo in the board. I know there's at least one RDW player at my LGS and didn't like the idea of auto-losing a round. In retrospect this was an error.
R1: RDW: loss 1-2 -- sometimes the MtG Gods just don't love you at all...
I lose the roll and she get's me to three in fairly quick order. I manage to LE to clear away the threats and I manage the Eidolon triggers as carefully as possible but die to bolt off the top. Note: I barely drew ANY cyclers! WTF? Game two I let her expend a bunch of the burn in her hand and then, when she's down to three cards in hand I have to gamble that they aren't all bolts or wear//tears and tap out to go for Emperion. She isn't able to kill so once I untap I just sit on my counters. She has Eidolon in play and has damaged herself to burn me so even if I don't counter anything that threatens the 8/8 , she is unable to kill the Emperion without killing herself first. G3: I mulligan to 5 and she get's the god draw. I had the Madcap Experiment but even if I don't miss my T3 land drop I would have probably lost anyway. She was just too damned fast and I was too short on resources.
R2: Jeskai control: win 2-0
I lose the roll again, but I know what he's playing so keep my 5 land/AV opener. I cycle a few things here and there and win a couple of fights over Ancestral Visions which keeps me waaaay ahead on cards. I destroy a man land with Field of Ruin at some point, but it wasn't really relevant. G2 was more of the same. I wait until have 6 mana in play before going for As Foretold. He counters, I counter, he counters again and I Dispel. I get my free AV to refresh my hand and win from their. He cast Supreme Verdict a couple of times, but I drew two LE's and Transmuted for the third.
R3: BR aggro. 2-1. This deck is a bit weird. It's a home brew, but one with a lot of good synergies. Basically, the pilot got tired of casting Death's Shadow and decided to do something a bit different. At least that's my understanding. I lose the roll (!) and mulligan (!!) and he rips my AV away with his first spell. Again, I somehow fail to draw a lot of cyclers and lose fairly quickly.
Lessons learned (so far):
1) If you are going to go with the Red splash, go all in. I didn't bother with SSG/Blood Moon primarily because the meta at my LGS alrady has some Blood Moon decks so people are already prepared for that. It might be worthwhile at a larger event like a PPTQ. But even then, it's not actually that good. Most decks can deal with a Platinum Emperion so you have to untap with it in play and then have counters in hand to get value from it. If I was going to play a Blood Moon deck (which sometimes just wins games) I would go back to Ponza.
2) I will go with Leyline of Sanctity in the board next time as I think the Madcap may not be that amazing against RDW, which is what I want it for.
3) Bojuka Bog (and Dimir Acqueduct) are worth playing. They were very, very good. In fact, I don't think you need 4 Leylines of the Void in the SB. So I'll run three Faerie Macabre instead, freeing up yet another SB slot. I ran two Archfiends instead of Architects of Will (non-bo with Madcap) and they were ineffective. Basically, I never ran into anything I wanted to put -1/-1 counters on so this bears more experimentation.
I will try it again. Some situations felt very good, but it needs to have more game against some of the formats major threats like RDW.
This thread exists to share ideas. Not all ideas/comments are going to be brilliant (Xaltair, Planeswalkers are freaking amazing and changed the game in a major way and you just have to get on board with that fact), but often the idea that significantly changes things was dismissed out of hand by someone else (Mooster, Thaumatic Compass is absolutely a bomb -- at least in the control mirror. So is Kefnet. I even run one in energy decks). Let's try to keep the comments about the decks and debate ideas, not the people who have them. Who knows, maybe we'll start a trend and the quality of political discourse in broader society will improve too...okay, maybe not. But at least we can be civil to each other here.
Happy New Year!
Totally agree. I put this deck together and will try it out this evening, but the first thing I had to consider was the ways it attacks the metagame differently to traditional LE and cascade decks. The Jund LE deck is already very tight, with legit answers to most of the threats in the environment. It's pretty horrid in a control-heavy environment though. You have to get a little lucky to overwhelm your oppo's counters and then resolve an EoT LE (so you can untap and get in a swing before they Wrath). The U deck sacrifices the speed and consistency of cascade for better interaction (and access to 1 and 2 cc spells). Thus I do not love Supreme Will in the deck. Search for Azcanta may be another story. This is an awesome card on its own and thus it may be worth trying. I won't be giving it a go tonight though. I'll play something pretty stock to get a better feel for it before tinkering.
Also, he's totally right about the third Scavenger and, honestly, I think if you aren't playing Vraska you aren't playing the deck correctly. I don't mean to sound obnoxious and apologise if I come across that way. Vraska is expensive, but so worthwhile. We have no MD outs to annoying enchantments and artifacts and Vraska gives us this in spades while not diluting the threats in our deck. If you totally stall out and can't brak through the wall, at least you can go for the ult + a ping from a Ballista ftw. That's not the main value though as it's very corner case. Killing GPG, or a 6/6 angel and creating a stream of blockers for the big Hydra on the other side of the table is just too valuable.
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Longtusk Cub
4 Rogue Refiner
4 Winding Constrictor
3 Walking Ballista
2 The Scarab God
2 Hostage Taker
2 Vraska, Relic Seeker
4 Attune with Aether
3 Fatal Push
3 Harnessed Lightning
2 Vraska's Contempt
4 Aether Hub
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Canyon Slough
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Chandra's Defeat
3 Duress
2 Negate
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
1 Appetite for the Unnatural
3 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Vraska's Contempt
1 Hour of Devastation
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
I am not at all convinced you need the Servants, nor do I think you need 4 each Push and H. Lightning; especially not with Ballistae in the deck. As I look at this though, I realize that the only R in the MD is the trio of burn spells and wonder if it's really worth it to warp the mana around for them. The SB cards are very good, especially in the Temur Energy match, so that might help the sell job. You could also consider Glorybringer (or even Whirler Virtuosos) over Hostage Taker in the MD.