Has anyone been experimenting with Commandeer? I recently went to 4 Serum Visions and 2 Opt to add one to the main and then I have one in the sideboard, as well. It's been surprisingly nifty. Stealing walkers from Tron has been great. It is surprisingly relevant against burn or u/w control. Thoughts?
I'm currently running only 1 in my 75 (sideboard) but used to have 1 main. I don't run into many walkers or relevant targets which is why the shift but in a tron heavy meta, it certainly is worth a look, if not a slot.
Running a 1-of search tonight and upped snapcaster to 3. 4/3 split on serum visions/opt because I felt like 4 opt was too much, and not ready to cut down to 2. Another change is moving cryptic command up to 3 in the main and dropping spreading seas to the board (x2). Removed the 4th gigadrowse from my board and added 2x spell pierce. Will report back my results.
Dang Moose, I LOVE that list! Just pulled the trigger on a pack foil Search and ready to modify my mono-U build to the UB. Are you running the multiple 1-of fetches to get around the Pithing Needle shenanigans? Thoughts on not running either of the "flex" cards that are Remand and Spreading Seas?
Are 5 fetches really enough to turn on Fatal Push when required?
I don't run Chalice in the sideboard due to not wanting to pay the $$$ for 3. Thinking of trying to make room for a 3rd Thing in the Ice or more cheap counters like Spell Pierce and Dispel, but very open to suggestions.
One thing that really seems to benefit us is the lack of knowledge that opponents have about our deck. Most people see blue and assume you are a heavy control deck as opposed to a combo-control deck that runs just enough disruption to stall before combo-town.
How's Nephalia Academy been for you? I like the idea of the card, just not sure how well it works in our deck.
About your sideboard questions, you could remove the two cards you're testing or not in love with for another TitI and Spell Pierce? In the times I've brought in TitI, it was either all 3 or 2 of them to make sure I can draw one in the early half of the game.
I do think that Nimble Obstructionist is a solid card, this deck is not it's true home. It really wants to be in a counter-control deck, not combo-control. What match-ups do you see the Relic being relevant? In those match-ups, does it really matter? I only ask because I haven't had to play against a graveyard strategy yet with this deck. It seems like a 2-of sideboard card vs a graveyard deck isn't enough slots to really matter.
Can post deck list if people care. Sideboard is still a work in progress.
Yes, also quite interested! I'd say that if you haven't posted a list yet, please share! More the merrier, honestly 👍
Solid finish too by the way. Burn is damn hard.
Good to have some feedback about Opt. I like your list except I prefer remand over spreading seas.
Oh I know you're stance on Remand Maybe when you're in turns, drawing multiple cards per turn, the dead draw is irrelevant, but sometimes I'd say it's not and the mana denial AND card draw is usable without having to target a spell. Seas does give you the chance to keep rolling if you've drawn no gas, that one extra draw sometimes keeps you rolling and you can't get that with a remand.
I'm sure you've explained somewhere in this forum but do you have any input on the dead-drawn remand? I ran 2+ remand for a LONG time, but have since realized that Exhaustion is much more important so I've upped that to the mandatory playset! Was formerly on 2-3 with 4 Gigadrowse and switched it up. My argument for seas over remand is a meta choice. My meta has lots of tron and other decks that don't like island. Also, if something is a threat that I was going to counter on turn 2 or 3, I'll just bounce it a turn or 2 later with cryptic command.
DAAAAAAAMNIT, was almost done with the report and lost it to a miss-click on my browser
Basically it comes down to:
2 weeks back, went 3-1 with a loss early to merfolk, a bye and 2 wins vs non-experienced players (GW Gideon tokens and Affinity)
Last week went 3-0-1 winning against Living End, G(w) Tron and UR Kiki-Control.
Bottom line, 4x Opt is too many, for my particular build. Going to drop 2 and add a third snapcaster and a third cryptic to the main. By adding snappy and a probable cantrip, I'm sticking with 22 lands. Sideboard is shifting -1 cryptic, -1 gigadrowse and +2 spell pierce.
Uggg, I'm still pissed at myself for the miss-click!
Edit:
Seeing as nobody has commented yet, I'll put a bit more detail in here!
Nothing really of note for the 3-1 finish except that the affinity player really messed up and had lethal on board, but since I mind-tricked him, didn't notice it. Was an untapped Inkmoth with the ability to animate and equip with plating. The mind-trick was an exhaustion and spreading seas. Should have held up the seas for Recall but won anyway!
Last week required a few moments that I'm pretty proud of. Vs living end I noticed they were playing Ricochet Trap in game 2 and play around it REAL hard in game 3 only casting non-targeting spells until they were completely off R. This was clutch because he had the trap in hand!
Vs G(w) Tron I got "lucky" and had a turn 1 Howling Mine! There was a time in game 2 where he kept playing a plains and it immediately made me wonder, but eventually though he had Path?? In tron?? Sure enough, after I bounced it with cryptic, and won with an awoken Inkmoth, he revealed the path!
Felt really good to win vs the Kiki deck because he is a really good local player and one of my "mini boss" opponents. He always beats me! Went to 3 games and in the final game, we both had a ton of mana and when I tried to cast TitI got in a counter war. My TitI, he Remanded, I Dispelled, with only 3 up he cast snapcaster targeting the dispel from turns earlier and targeted my dispel. Back to the remand targeting TitI which I wondered about for a good minute. I had 4 mana still up and cryptic in hand. Also an exhaustion.. Not sure why I had to think that long as exhaustion was the OBVIOUS choice. Let remand resolve, titi back to hand, windmill slam exhaustion! His expression was epic. Him:"Awe crap! Should have played around that!" Me:"YUP!"
Proceeded to win.
I haven't had (made) time since FNM to put down a brief report and still don't have time but thought I'd fill in a spot, which I can edit later. Last Friday I went 3-0-1 splitting the final round. The previous Friday was a 3-1 finish losing round 1 to bad keeps and terrible shuffling (also merfolk). The deck is really strong and I think it just needs more exposure to get really tuned.
Everyone that I've played agains and around knows what the deck is, so that's not the problem. Not enough people are playing it and adding to the reflection pool 🤔
Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to put some content in this post!
My buddy runs a bant spirits list and he's 100% (all pre-board matches and 1 fnm match) vs me. Possibly because he knows the match-up so well due to years of testing vs turns, but could just be the explosiveness of the small creatures and plethora of counterspells.
Can anyone say whether Opt improves Thing by a lot? Because those two sound like they should work very well together.
As I haven't tested it yet, cannot say, but it really feels like it should make it much better! Flipping thing on their turn could be backbreaking. Although I'd still keep it in the board so they're more likely to board out removal.
With luck, I'll be hitting up FNM tomorrow night and will sling some turns!
Edit: not slinging any cardboard tonight 😢
Did anyone get to try out a new build at FNM? I was going to but my wife was canned yesterday, and being the awesome husband I am, opted to have a date night to help ease the sting. Maybe next week 🤷♂️
If this is really something that is going to be pursued, protecting the As Foretold is 100% key. More of the denial spells like Gigadrowse in turns 1-2 so we keep them off spells would be important. It feels like one of the only cards to mess up your day, in this case, would be abrupt decay. I'm sure there are other instant speed cards that would really goof you up, but none that come to mind ATM.
Those are all solid options, but I think ultimately the key will be building it closely in parallel to the more 'stock' lists but with a different sort of engine to get you going.
Correct, if they have the removal for the first As Foretold, then you just have to play another. These are not bad in multiples like other cards tend to be. Except when your opp has the maelstrom pulse
Just got my new art foil playsets; Opt and Spell Pierce so I'm all ready for FNM!
oh and Thing in the Ice suddenly looks much better in the deck when you've got 12 cantrips, Foretold as a way to accelerate casting them and CMC-3 time warps available to cast with an As Foretold. oh and of course ancestral vision pairs with Thing very well.
The list he's running is *rough* but I have a feeling that with a few tweaks it can retain 95% of what makes the 'stock' lists good while adding another dimension to it.
there are downsides, of course. I feel like the deck needs a bit more interaction, but not too much. There's a lot to like about this lower-to-the-ground approach.
didnt want to quote the whole post, but agree with LOTS you've said. the fact that this is a different approach to the turns deck (in the early stages of development) shows that there is real potential (obviously) for the deck to be at least T1.5 or better. Things that could have made this version of the deck better could be as simple as a main deck Emrakul to help shuffle without paying; because you're drawing so many cards, discard her to help shuffle instead of paying to activate the elixir.
If this is really something that is going to be pursued, protecting the As Foretold is 100% key. More of the denial spells like Gigadrowse in turns 1-2 so we keep them off spells would be important. It feels like one of the only cards to mess up your day, in this case, would be abrupt decay. I'm sure there are other instant speed cards that would really goof you up, but none that come to mind ATM. Your finisher could be as simple as 1-2 of the new targeted "draw seven" or the trusted PtW (except this gets exiled when you cast it ) Maybe Kefnet the Mindful would work since it's likely we would have 7 cards in hand quite often during the critical turns.
Either way, I'm a bit bummed since I just unloaded my OG foil AV's the other day and would REALLY want to slot them into something like this. Oh well, guess I'll have to go for the new hotness version!
Running a 1-of search tonight and upped snapcaster to 3. 4/3 split on serum visions/opt because I felt like 4 opt was too much, and not ready to cut down to 2. Another change is moving cryptic command up to 3 in the main and dropping spreading seas to the board (x2). Removed the 4th gigadrowse from my board and added 2x spell pierce. Will report back my results.
Edit: added card tags
Are 5 fetches really enough to turn on Fatal Push when required?
Snapcaster Mage
Gigadrowse
Exhaustion
Opt/Serum Visions
I ask because you mentioned a few times that these got you through the game.
How's Nephalia Academy been for you? I like the idea of the card, just not sure how well it works in our deck.
About your sideboard questions, you could remove the two cards you're testing or not in love with for another TitI and Spell Pierce? In the times I've brought in TitI, it was either all 3 or 2 of them to make sure I can draw one in the early half of the game.
I do think that Nimble Obstructionist is a solid card, this deck is not it's true home. It really wants to be in a counter-control deck, not combo-control. What match-ups do you see the Relic being relevant? In those match-ups, does it really matter? I only ask because I haven't had to play against a graveyard strategy yet with this deck. It seems like a 2-of sideboard card vs a graveyard deck isn't enough slots to really matter.
Yes, also quite interested! I'd say that if you haven't posted a list yet, please share! More the merrier, honestly 👍
Solid finish too by the way. Burn is damn hard.
I'm sure you've explained somewhere in this forum but do you have any input on the dead-drawn remand? I ran 2+ remand for a LONG time, but have since realized that Exhaustion is much more important so I've upped that to the mandatory playset! Was formerly on 2-3 with 4 Gigadrowse and switched it up. My argument for seas over remand is a meta choice. My meta has lots of tron and other decks that don't like island. Also, if something is a threat that I was going to counter on turn 2 or 3, I'll just bounce it a turn or 2 later with cryptic command.
Basically it comes down to:
2 weeks back, went 3-1 with a loss early to merfolk, a bye and 2 wins vs non-experienced players (GW Gideon tokens and Affinity)
Last week went 3-0-1 winning against Living End, G(w) Tron and UR Kiki-Control.
Bottom line, 4x Opt is too many, for my particular build. Going to drop 2 and add a third snapcaster and a third cryptic to the main. By adding snappy and a probable cantrip, I'm sticking with 22 lands. Sideboard is shifting -1 cryptic, -1 gigadrowse and +2 spell pierce.
Uggg, I'm still pissed at myself for the miss-click!
Edit:
Seeing as nobody has commented yet, I'll put a bit more detail in here!
Nothing really of note for the 3-1 finish except that the affinity player really messed up and had lethal on board, but since I mind-tricked him, didn't notice it. Was an untapped Inkmoth with the ability to animate and equip with plating. The mind-trick was an exhaustion and spreading seas. Should have held up the seas for Recall but won anyway!
Last week required a few moments that I'm pretty proud of. Vs living end I noticed they were playing Ricochet Trap in game 2 and play around it REAL hard in game 3 only casting non-targeting spells until they were completely off R. This was clutch because he had the trap in hand!
Vs G(w) Tron I got "lucky" and had a turn 1 Howling Mine! There was a time in game 2 where he kept playing a plains and it immediately made me wonder, but eventually though he had Path?? In tron?? Sure enough, after I bounced it with cryptic, and won with an awoken Inkmoth, he revealed the path!
Felt really good to win vs the Kiki deck because he is a really good local player and one of my "mini boss" opponents. He always beats me! Went to 3 games and in the final game, we both had a ton of mana and when I tried to cast TitI got in a counter war. My TitI, he Remanded, I Dispelled, with only 3 up he cast snapcaster targeting the dispel from turns earlier and targeted my dispel. Back to the remand targeting TitI which I wondered about for a good minute. I had 4 mana still up and cryptic in hand. Also an exhaustion.. Not sure why I had to think that long as exhaustion was the OBVIOUS choice. Let remand resolve, titi back to hand, windmill slam exhaustion! His expression was epic. Him:"Awe crap! Should have played around that!" Me:"YUP!"
Proceeded to win.
New version of the deck is:
3 Snapcaster Mage
Spells:35
3 Gigadrowse
2 Opt
4 Serum Visions
2 Howling Mine
2 Spreading Seas
4 Dictate of Kruphix
4 Exhaustion
3 Cryptic Command
4 Time Warp
3 Part the Waterveil
4 Temporal Mastery
1 Gemstone Caverns
19 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Inkmoth Nexus
3 Thing in the Ice
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Dispel
2 Spell Pierce
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Spreading Seas
1 Commandeer
Not as great as the original version of this post but pretty close. Still bummed about the miss-click lol
Everyone that I've played agains and around knows what the deck is, so that's not the problem. Not enough people are playing it and adding to the reflection pool 🤔
Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to put some content in this post!
As I haven't tested it yet, cannot say, but it really feels like it should make it much better! Flipping thing on their turn could be backbreaking. Although I'd still keep it in the board so they're more likely to board out removal.
With luck, I'll be hitting up FNM tomorrow night and will sling some turns!
Edit: not slinging any cardboard tonight 😢
Correct, if they have the removal for the first As Foretold, then you just have to play another. These are not bad in multiples like other cards tend to be. Except when your opp has the maelstrom pulse
Just got my new art foil playsets; Opt and Spell Pierce so I'm all ready for FNM!
If this is really something that is going to be pursued, protecting the As Foretold is 100% key. More of the denial spells like Gigadrowse in turns 1-2 so we keep them off spells would be important. It feels like one of the only cards to mess up your day, in this case, would be abrupt decay. I'm sure there are other instant speed cards that would really goof you up, but none that come to mind ATM. Your finisher could be as simple as 1-2 of the new targeted "draw seven" or the trusted PtW (except this gets exiled when you cast it
Either way, I'm a bit bummed since I just unloaded my OG foil AV's the other day and would REALLY want to slot them into something like this. Oh well, guess I'll have to go for the new hotness version!