I love how Blind Obediance shuts down all those haste creatures as well as every restoration angel shenanigans all while beeing a wincon on his own. Great card
I've been following a different path on bant control since i've choosed the enchantement way of stalling which proved to be quite annoying but quite slow and missing a real strong ending game enchantement. That leads me to a black splash for vraska who is really amazing since it adds board control as well as a real wincon. Here's the list i'm playing right now even if i lack of sideboard yet :
You're right.
Right now no one plays nihil anymore since the general consensus is that graffdigger's cage is better. Well, not against this deck. Cage does nothing against this deck, only prevents you to cast flashback spells (10 cards in the pack, not a big deal since you will cut some of those for sideboard) and it won't prevent you to be smashed by splinterfrights, wolves and spiders.
But honestly i don't see how i could splash kessig in my version since i'm already running 4 grottos and a heavy white splash in sideboard. And i don't really see what's the point of adding kessig to this deck. It does nothing to your game plan which is to stall the game until you can gain ridiculous amount of life then kill opponent with anything that can kill him. And an army of 30+ spiders seems better than a kessig to reach that goal.
First utility of wurm is to block, not to attack, that's why i'd rather have a 2 mana 2/2 or 3/3 than an 5 or 6 mana 10/10 early. In late game wurm is bigger than ghoultree and 1 or 2 mana isn't quite an issue.
For the chump blocking, i'd say it's an invalid argument since this deck kill either with spider spawning or with kessig cagebreaker or with big trampling splinterfrights. And if you're worried about tokens, both sever the bloodline and elesh norn from sideboard does the job. And this deck always wins races, thanks to gnaw to the bone so being chumpblocked isn't that bad.
And a fringe argument is that i've already goes T2 wurm 0/0 to be able to play splinterfright on T3.
I've tested ghoultree but i've been kind of disatisfied by it. The boneyard wurm might not be the best card of this deck but it is the best solution right now imho.
Not really original but it does the job against the current meta. Don't play it if you expect a lot of nihil spellbombs or day of judgement based decks.
The deck is fun to play even if the mana base is awful sometimes.
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On another note, I can only hope that people in non-USA countries will take a moment from doubling down on their whining quotient to consider that maybe, just maybe, this is an opportunity to create some local (to them) events in the vein of the SCG Opens. If you truly have the number and dedication of disenfranchised players that you claim to have, their would likely be enough support to have these sorts of things elsewhere.
Problem is European legislation forbids payouts in money, just check what happened in the last 2 GP in Deutchland. Do you really think you can make T2 tournaments viable with only prize in boosters or cards ? That is totally irrealistic. Look at what is the biggest private tournament in the world : a french organized legacy tournament The Bazaar of Moxen. Such a tournament cannot be hold more than once a year because of the organisation cost, the halls are way more expensive in Europe than in US, not even speaking of the gaz/airplane/train cost, hostel cost... all this is much more expensive in Europe.
Do you really hope to be able to gather 500+ people every month on locations all across Europe with prizes in cards ?
You're looking the problem with an american point of view, problem is Europe and US are really different so you can't apply that point of view here.
And you're forgetting that legislation is really different for money you earn from GP/PT. Here we're heavily taxed on that. Just to let you understand, when the Guillaumes made Worlds final last year they earned 70000 dollars. Do the conversion in Euro, it makes roughly 37000 € on which they were taxed by 40%. It gives in the end 22000 € or 40000 $. It is still a big sum of money but you can't make a living on this, even more when you divide it by 2.
I've been testing quite a few versions of Lux Cannon (with eldrazis, with frost titan, with wurmcoil engine, with molten-tail masticore, with jace...) in the past week and i've come to a version that had proved its power and its speed on all the others i've tested.
Here it is :
The thing that looks the most weird is the lack of Jace in the 75 but vs UW and its 5/6 Jace's package, you won't be able to play it efficiently 80% of the time and vs aggro decks it is most of times a too slow card. You don't really need to brainstorm for answers in this deck, you just have to riddlesmith until you got a lux cannon and start doing abusive things with contagion engine.
That deck can do pretty silly things and starts blowing things out on turn 5 most of times, even if it can start on turn 4 with a lot of luck (T1 key, T2 chalice,T3 lux cannon, T4 steady progress). Stall the game until that point and opponent has no more chances to recover.
Biggest problem is eldrazi green. If he's on the play there's not so much you can do against a T3 primeval followed by his friends and post board terrastodon is usually game over.
Elspeth Tirel is not an aggro card, it's a control one. You guys are thinking in the wrong side : Elspeth isn't a token generator at first. Elspeth should be used like this : drop her behind wall of omens/sea gate oracle and use her +2. Then you have choise between making more board position OR reset the board position and you've got that choise one turn on two. Loosing your walls at this point of the game isn't a problem anymore.
Getting rid of everything is rarely a bad thing when you're the control player. You wont do that unless you have to do that. Then again I drop elspeth on turn 5, get her to 6 counters, then on turn 6 in use her ultimate, i've still got at least 5 mana untapped and cards in hand, how would i been unable to deal with a single creature when i play Jace 2.0, wall of omens, sea gate oracle, journey to nowhere, condemn and sun titan ?
I don't really see destroying journey with elspeth's ultimate as a problem since you've got sun titan to get them back on better targets and journey will never get rid of planeswalker or artifact, i've posted my list in the UW decklist section if you want to see it.
And for now there's not so much arguments in favor of journey over condemn cauz of all the artifact/enchantement hate that sees plays and the lack of fauna shaman decks.
That's the decklist I've come to through testing. Venser hasn't been good even with quite a few targets in the deck. Baneslayer was first in sideboard but it looks like the meta isn't good right now to play her. Only troubles i had with this deck is against mono-green Eldrazi which would need 15 cards sideboard to become an average match-up and some sort of big red decks that can be too fast for you if you don't have the good draws. Every other match-up are in your favor.
She's really powerful as she is a reusable nevinyrral disk that can hit planeswalker. As far as i've tested her in UW sun titan control, she's been gamebreaker a lot of times. I think you guys are seeing her wrong while seeing her through her 2 first abilities, her ultimate is damn powerful and makes her one of the most powerful planeswalker in standard right now.
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Martial Law
3 Rest in Peace
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Detention Sphere
2 Sphere of Safety
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Terminus
3 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Thragtusk
3 Vraska the Unseen
Right now no one plays nihil anymore since the general consensus is that graffdigger's cage is better. Well, not against this deck. Cage does nothing against this deck, only prevents you to cast flashback spells (10 cards in the pack, not a big deal since you will cut some of those for sideboard) and it won't prevent you to be smashed by splinterfrights, wolves and spiders.
But honestly i don't see how i could splash kessig in my version since i'm already running 4 grottos and a heavy white splash in sideboard. And i don't really see what's the point of adding kessig to this deck. It does nothing to your game plan which is to stall the game until you can gain ridiculous amount of life then kill opponent with anything that can kill him. And an army of 30+ spiders seems better than a kessig to reach that goal.
For the chump blocking, i'd say it's an invalid argument since this deck kill either with spider spawning or with kessig cagebreaker or with big trampling splinterfrights. And if you're worried about tokens, both sever the bloodline and elesh norn from sideboard does the job. And this deck always wins races, thanks to gnaw to the bone so being chumpblocked isn't that bad.
And a fringe argument is that i've already goes T2 wurm 0/0 to be able to play splinterfright on T3.
I've tested ghoultree but i've been kind of disatisfied by it. The boneyard wurm might not be the best card of this deck but it is the best solution right now imho.
4 shimmering grotto
4 hinterland harbor
3 evolving wilds
2 woodland cemetary
3 forest
3 island
1 swamp
CREATURES 26
4 birds of paradise
4 deranged assistant
4 splinterfright
4 armored skaab
4 screeching skaab
3 kessig cagebreaker
3 boneyard wurm
3 gnaw to the bone
4 mulch
2 tracker's instincts
2 dream twist
3 spider spawning
3 ray of revelation
2 ancient grudge
2 silent departure
3 sever the bloodline
2 elesh norn, grand cenobite
2 unburial rites
1 plains
The deck is fun to play even if the mana base is awful sometimes.
Problem is European legislation forbids payouts in money, just check what happened in the last 2 GP in Deutchland. Do you really think you can make T2 tournaments viable with only prize in boosters or cards ? That is totally irrealistic. Look at what is the biggest private tournament in the world : a french organized legacy tournament The Bazaar of Moxen. Such a tournament cannot be hold more than once a year because of the organisation cost, the halls are way more expensive in Europe than in US, not even speaking of the gaz/airplane/train cost, hostel cost... all this is much more expensive in Europe.
Do you really hope to be able to gather 500+ people every month on locations all across Europe with prizes in cards ?
You're looking the problem with an american point of view, problem is Europe and US are really different so you can't apply that point of view here.
And you're forgetting that legislation is really different for money you earn from GP/PT. Here we're heavily taxed on that. Just to let you understand, when the Guillaumes made Worlds final last year they earned 70000 dollars. Do the conversion in Euro, it makes roughly 37000 € on which they were taxed by 40%. It gives in the end 22000 € or 40000 $. It is still a big sum of money but you can't make a living on this, even more when you divide it by 2.
2/1
Infect
Whenever ~ deals damage to a player you loose that much life
Here it is :
3 scalding tarn
4 tectonic edge
2 mystifing maze
4 trinket mage
4 riddlesmith
4 grand architect
4 lux cannon
4 everflowing chalice
4 steady progress
3 contagion clasm
3 contagion engine
3 ratchet bomb
1 brittle effigy
1 voltaic key
1 mox opal
1 chimeric mass
4 into the roil
4 spell pierce
2 volition reins
2 wurmcoil engine
1 nihil spellbomb
1 elixir of immortality
1 ratchet bomb
The thing that looks the most weird is the lack of Jace in the 75 but vs UW and its 5/6 Jace's package, you won't be able to play it efficiently 80% of the time and vs aggro decks it is most of times a too slow card. You don't really need to brainstorm for answers in this deck, you just have to riddlesmith until you got a lux cannon and start doing abusive things with contagion engine.
That deck can do pretty silly things and starts blowing things out on turn 5 most of times, even if it can start on turn 4 with a lot of luck (T1 key, T2 chalice,T3 lux cannon, T4 steady progress). Stall the game until that point and opponent has no more chances to recover.
Biggest problem is eldrazi green. If he's on the play there's not so much you can do against a T3 primeval followed by his friends and post board terrastodon is usually game over.
And for now there's not so much arguments in favor of journey over condemn cauz of all the artifact/enchantement hate that sees plays and the lack of fauna shaman decks.
Sideboard
That's the decklist I've come to through testing. Venser hasn't been good even with quite a few targets in the deck. Baneslayer was first in sideboard but it looks like the meta isn't good right now to play her. Only troubles i had with this deck is against mono-green Eldrazi which would need 15 cards sideboard to become an average match-up and some sort of big red decks that can be too fast for you if you don't have the good draws. Every other match-up are in your favor.