MTG Salvation

So I couldn't get the mana to agree with the Growth Spiral plan - same thing happened when Growth Spiral was first printed. Either you have too many cantrips and you end up flooding or you don't have enough lands to consistently hit your land drops. You also end up needing to skew your mana base away from Field of Ruin altogether which really sucks, and you're incentivized to avoid 3 drops, of which there are plenty of strong ones in this color combo. It also incentivized playing additional 1 drops, like snare and spell pierce, which are not necessarily where UWx want to be.

However, as I tested and tweaked I realized how powerful Waterlogged Grove is. I tried normal UW, just replaced 2 Field and 2 Colonnade for 4 Waterlogged Grove and it was actually good. You just need to make sure you run Timely Reinforcements to make up for the lifeloss. Since I already had 4 green sources in the deck I wanted to try to make bant work again because I was missing Coatl.

Based on some of the suggestions here, I slowly added more and more Winds of Abandon until I was off all other sweepers and eventually cut down to 3 Path. Here's the List



A couple growth Spirals help turn Winds of Abandon into a real sweeper. Because of the high number of removal spells in the deck (PTE, Coatl and WInds) and the SB creatures pulling double duty against control and creature decks, you don't need a lot of space in the sideboard for removal - 1 PTE and 1 more coatl. The sideboard is obviously heavily skewed towards Hogaak.

Quote from Cody_X »

Yea thats fair. I do worry about how often you're able to hit land drops with only 22 (I only count 21 in the decklist of 59 cards so i assume the missing one is a land) especially into teferi. You have a fair amount of cantrips, but still.

Good eye, 22nd land was a breeding pool. Brings the U to 19 and the G to 12 for cryptic and the UG two drops.

I do occasionally miss on the Spiral, but not usually until 4+ mana. The deck is very cantrip heavy so if you go to many lands you flood like crazy. This was one of the biggest reasons why I was so excited about Waterlogged Grove.

I often have to shock myself on turn 1 in order to Opt into land 3, but it's a small price to pay. Additionally, if you don't have land 3 you can just Coatl or Opt instead of Growth because they give you either a) a better chance to find land 3 with opt or b)progress the board state with Coatl. I wouldn't cast Growth on turn 2 if I didn't have the land already if I had either of those other options.

In my testing so far 22 has felt a tiny bit light on lands and 23 has felt a tiny bit heavy. Need a bigger sample size.

Quote from Cody_X »

They can claim it on our turn if they're not bad.
Its unlikely that this will be reliable in the future.

Only if you cast the RIP into an open green source, which won't always be the case. They usually spend the first few turns spending their mana. Otherwise we get to untap and can protect with our other countermagic as well.

I agree with your choice of sweepers. Verdict was pretty hard to cast which is why I cut it from the last list. I should probably choose not to have it in the sideboard either. Maybe an EE instead.

I think you could make a case for terminus as well since it plays nice with spiral growth and Jace.

Rampant growth effects are fine but I don't think into the north is needed - there's lots to do on turn 2 already. Growth spiral is unique because it's instant, draws a card and potentially puts the land in untapped. Being untapped is a huge tempo swing when you turn 2 spiral into interaction (pierce, snare, path).

BGx is great - UWx has only really had issues with ramping them too quickly when they had an early Bob + lilly. This is mitigate a bit by Spiral Growth because we can still interact while ramping; you dont have to fear pathing the Bob. Just have to watch out for Fulminator, like alway, but extra fetches help with that as well.

I also run a pair of snare, which helps a lot in this matchup.

After playing the deck a lot now over the past few days I can confidently say that Ice-Fang is definitely worth it. My question is just whether you want 3 or 4. Even when it doesn't have deathtouch, it provides an effect that bant control wants - drawing cards and providing tempo. The addition of being able to pressure opposing Narsets is also very handy in control mirrors. When you draw it late, deathtouch is always turned on which is nice. I've messed around with the mana base a little to include a pair of ETB tapped snow-duals (can't fetch them though) just to have Deathtouch more frequently.

Here's the list I'm currently on and it feels very consistent and strong:



I gave up the Field of Ruins, as Growth Spiral demands a lot of colored mana if you want to be be able to Spiral into a Spell on turn 2. I think if you want field of ruin, you could probably drop the 2 snow-duals for a single field and a misty rainforest. If you went that route I would suggest dropping Coatl number 4 for a Heiroglyphic illumination.

The other thing of note was dropping the sweepers altogether - if you can consistently turn on Coatl, verdict is not necessary.

I've been happy with the 5 "negate" effects of 3 force, 2 pierce - Its a control deck, so creature spells don't bother me a whole lot.

Mirror match feels good. Only played against Hogaak once, and he died to his deck not functioning properly so I can't really speak on the matchup, I don't see it being a whole lot different than UW. Tron is probably a lot differen't with no field of Ruin, but my experience with growth spiral decks in the past has been that the matchup is good despite low numbers of field of ruin (ran 1-2 copies in the past) - they just have such a hard time beating an early jace if you have any disruption at all. Now with force of negation, I dont see this matchup being too hard.

Terminus is still pretty awful with Narset. Also, they are running like 8 sac outlets, I'm not convinced removal is even good in that matchup.

If you decided to go the Astrolabe route then the 4th coatl might be ok - I feel like the deathtouch on Coatl isn't going to be turned on that often as is though, and even the 3rd Coatl might be a bit underwhelming without Astrolabe - it's just a flying elvish visionary.

The interesting thing about Astrolabe though, is that it can alleviate some of the downside of playing field of ruin in a 3 color deck that potentially wants UG+UorW on turn 3. It sounds pretty good in theory, just a little hard to find the space.

On Thin Ice has underperformed for me in UW - having to fetch basic plains on turn 1 to deal with a mana dork is awful, and I've been blown out by having On Thin Ice bounced/destroyed far more often than I care for. Pair all of that with the fact that Misty rainforest can't cast OTI on turn 1 and Oust is probably the better card. Often the downside of Oust is a hidden upside as well - forcing them to redraw a slow creature or gaining life by returning one of my own creatures.

Raveler is an excellent card, I can't see myself making a final list without at least 1 copy, same with Narset really. This list is just a mock up. I also think you could be right about Pierce/Force.

I'm not sure I'll miss the 2cmc counters - Spiral and Coatl give us lots of proactive 2cmc plays and the Veto slot has been taken by Force. It's really just a mix of Logic Knot and Mana Leak occupying 2 slots there - Knot probably being the better of the two in a 8 fetch deck - but the list seems pretty tight. What would you suggest cutting for them?

So we got a bunch of goodies from modern horizons! The most notable for us, imo, is fact or fiction and Force of Negation. Both of these cards play right into the strengths of a Growth Spiral control deck - We want to cast powerful turn 4 cards on turn 3. Force makes protecting a Turn 3 Jace even easier than before and Fact or Fiction is another strong 4 drop. We also get Waterlogged Grove, which seems like a strong addition to the deck in small numbers and finally, we might play a couple copies of Ice-Fang Coatl - if Fblthp, the Lost is good enough in UW for Hall of Famer Gabriel Nassif, then Ice-Fang Coatl should be a shoe in.

Here's a starting point


I haven't tested it yet, but my initial thoughts might be that 3 Force and 2 Spell Pierce might be too heavy on "negate" effects - however, decks that aren't weak to negate effects aren't going to be great against all of the removal in the deck and we really want to be able to take advantage of the tempo these spells give us, especially Force of when Pierce gets played on turn 2 off of a spiral.

Anyways, what do you guys think?

Surgical is definitely powerful enough to warrant maindeck inclusion right now, but even drawing 2 against non-GY decks is usually game losing. There's no way 4 can be correct.

Force of Negation is the new Force of Will - just hit the Altar and they become a bad dredge deck. A few FoN and a pair of surgical in the main, coupled with a trio of Rest In Peace out of the board should bring that match closer to even without auto-losing to the rest of the format.

Also, Karn isn't doing you any favors in your bad matchups either, especially the ones you seem worried about the most, the GY-Aggro matchups. Spending two turns and 5 mana over turns 4 and 5 on a grafdiggers cage is a losing recipe, and then you're stuck with the crappy situation of deciding between leaving your Cage in the board or having dead Karns.

I feel like it's beating a dead horse at this point, but Karn is awful in UW. Think about how much better your GY-aggro match would be if you had the space for 3 Rest in Peace in the board.

Quote from DaveJacinto »

I'd rather play more Cliques and Snapcasters before playing a Fblthp. That is a just Nassif being Nassif. He can get a away with playing really nonsense cards in his deck for the most part. I recall when he got kinda mad for losing to Mill that he started to play an Eldrazi titan in his board in order to get his cards back...

It wasn't even a good plan at that due to Surgical and Extirpate... but hey he's Nassif...

Eldrazi against mill is actually super powerful, even in the face of surgical/extripate you still get at least 1 full GY shuffle. It's basically a 1 card strategy against them. Nassif himself said that he never lost a single game where an eldrazi trigger happened.

That said, I don't think elvish visionary is good enough for UW control. Although, the two drop slot is the weak spot now in UW.

I thought watcher for tomorrow might have been good so I gave it a try. It only felt passable against control - against almost everything else the ETB tapped was too big of a drawback to overcome.

Quote from Humstuck »

I agree that maybe fetching a snow basic instead of a shock first turn to deal with a creature might be a problem. I just think its the most interesting in the new possible options. Very possible oust or condemn are still just better.

It's not just fetching a snow-basic turn 1, it's fetching a snow-plains - we want to cast logic knot on turn 2 and we have triple blue spells we'd like to cast on curve as well. By the time you factor in 4-5 colorless sources in the deck, you ideally don't want to be fetching plains in there first 4 turns unless you think your opponent is on blood moon.

I think it's better than Oust after turn 1 though, since you can fetch snow-island after having fetched your first shockland.

I was really high on thin ice when it was first spoiled but I'm less excited now - being forced to fetch a snow plains as my first land is really unappealing. I didn't even consider ghost quarter - I know it doesn't see a lot of play, but still something to consider. I don't see a huge upside over Oust - sometimes the 'downside' of Oust is even an upside (forcing them to redraw a manadork or other subpar creature).

I don't think I agree with the assessment that if you can't reliably cast Archmage's Charm on turn 3 then you should just play more cryptics - a 1 mana discount will make the difference of being able to cast a second spell in a turn very often. It's also the case that being unable to cast charm reliably on turn 3 is not the same as never being able to cast charm on turn 3. Something like 60-65 percent of the time you will be able to cast it turn 3. This is not to say that Archmage's Charm is playable, just that saying 'why would you play it over cryptic?' isn't a strong argument against it.

I don't think Fact or Fiction is necessary to support Force, the walkers will likely provide enough CA. Force and Jace are best friends - slamming a Jace onto an empty board on turn 4 used to be a pipe dream in modern against most decks. Not anymore. This doesn't mean FoF isn't worth it though - I really like that FoF gets around opposing narsets for example.

I think I disagree on number of snapcaster though - it's mana intensive and opt-caster mage is a pretty mediocre use of snappy. Though I do think you're right about opt being superior due to Narset....I really like heirogly Illumination for this purpose as well. I've actually just been on 27 land 4 illumination no serum/opt and it's felt good. Solves the blue mana issue for Archmage's charm too.

Im also interested in what happens with arena. I have some strange hopeful feeling (based on the flexibility and design choices of cards like Kaya's Guile, Archmage's Charm and the new cycling sideboard-esque cards like the hurkyls recall one) that Horizons was designed with Arena best of one matches in mind. I wouldn't be surprised to see Horizons be a gateway of some kind into modern or something modern-esque on arena very soon.

Remand on FoN for the 3 for 1 is not going to come up very often - if you're waiting long enough to cast your threats that you have mana left over to cast remand it will be deep enough in the game where opp will be hardcasting rather than pitching.

Remand after Veto is fine, but it's not different than remand after any generic counter spell - it'll come up and it's a nice play, but it means you have remand in your control deck. So, meh.