Jace is all about card selection for control. His +1 is okay nice, but that's not what makes him so valuable, it's the -2.
Oh, hey, I just -2'd with Jace and revealed Land, Land and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. My opponent is naturally going to split the Tamiyo/Land piles, I'm going to take Tamiyo, and have 2 fewer lands I have to worry about grabbing - unless, of course, I need the lands or maybe have a spare Tamiyo. Jace increases card quality, but what simultaneously makes him better than other draw spells is that he has the flexibility to insulate you against aggro as opposed to the increase in card quality.
This flexibility is what makes him good for control decks - flexible value cards are basically what makes control decks work. That's why Gideon Jura was probably one of the better control PW's ever - he had the flexibility to stall, remove, or strap the game on his back and win games. Jace gives you the ability to stall or dog - his ultimately is decent in the right contexts, but you're forgoing a lot of cards by continuing to count him up.
Once you land this combo it's damn near impossible for your opponent to do anything about it because of the evasion Navigator provides to both of your creatures.
There's been a little bit of talk at standard pauper at my LGS and I decided to make a pauper deck based around a card the Johnny in me always wanted to play - Scrapyard Salvo.
As the card indicates, of course, the goal is a good bit involving getting artifacts in your graveyard for a big Salvo haymaker with a fairly healthy dose of card draw and a rather slim mana base. Here's the list that I feel is pretty strong right now:
I wound up adding Brimstone Volley because I felt like the deck needed just a little extra oomph to push it over when I either didn't have a Salvo in hand or it wasn't quite big enough.
In terms of other cards that almost made their way in but not quite:
Card Draw: Panic Spellbomb - This card narrowly loses out to Scroll of Avacyn simply because the requirement of a creature in order to get the card draw makes it a little less unreliable, particularly if I'm trying to make due with a 1 land hand. Faithless Looting - This loses out to Wild Guess because I like the net card gain on Wild Guess a bit more and I need to make sure I don't run out of artifacts. Dangerous Wager - This also lost out to Wild Guess and Scroll simply because with as many cards as the deck is already drawing it's hard to get a comfortably empty hand where you don't want to ditch a Brimstone Volley or a Scrapyard Salvo.
Creatures: Immolating Soul Eater - I'm not totally set on dropping this guy yet, but he and Vault Skirge are somewhat fighting for the same spot; Vault Skirge's ability to get out on turn 1 + evasion gives him the edge. Iron Myr - He died too much when I needed the mana, really. Ferrovore - What I initially thought was an auto-include due to his ability to omnomnom artifacts, I often felt like he was too little, too late - or overkill when I got him. Vulshok Replica - He's close to being in as well, but 3 mana can become slightly iffy early-to-mid game, having 8 3 drops seems to be as much as I can feel as if I can clog my hand without losing. He may be worth putting in for Brimstone Volley, though.
Other: Artillerize - I originally really wanted to put this card in here, but the 4 mana was just too expensive where I felt that Brimstone Volley was just better under most circumstances. Scroll of Griselbrand - The discard just wasn't quite as useful for this deck as the card draw was.
I welcome potential suggestions as well as sideboard ideas; I don't really have any expectation of what to play against for SB.
Ok. I made room for 2 Sorins by cutting another think twice and the Snapcaster Mage. I cut the Think Twice because the spellbombs provide card draw, even though I am losing flashback. I cut the mage because his only target that didn't already have flashback was mana leak and in testing it just didn't always seem to work out.
I am thinking about dropping the 2 Mana Leaks for 2 Negates. I feel like with all of the tapping abilities and spells I have that I will be fine with most creatures and that negate can take care of the other non creature stuff without the opponent being able to pay the mana to prevent the counter. Does anyone have advice on this?
For Mana Leak vs. Negate, it's kind of iffy on either side. Standard right now is fairly creature dominated, however there are some pretty big doozies (like Bonfire, GSZ) that it's nice to not have to worry about the mana cost and in some cases it often makes it easier to play counters because you know what your counter will or won't be able to answer.
As far as your draw spell issue, I think instead of cutting Think Twices, you should cut Ponders. You're only running 4 Miracle cards, and control decks tend to win through card advantage. Ponder doesn't really increase card advantage and doesn't have quite the same effect on card quality when you're not trying to use it with some sort of combo (Miracles, Delver, etc).
Think Twice also synergizes well with other instant answers; like the Feeling of Dread you have as well as counters. You leaving 2-3 mana up with cards in hand and a Think Twice in hand/GY makes your opponent have to constantly question if you have removal, card draw, etc. in hand - and you can leave that mana up, even purely as a bluff, while not being wasted if your opponent does call your bluff, because you turn around and devote that mana to drawing.
In a quick meta game, look at it from the perspective of your opponent, knowing they're playing against a control deck:
You play a turn 1 tap land, they play a land and pass - turn 2 you play a land and ponder. They don't have to worry about you countering their turn 2 play. But if you play a land and pass, they do have to worry about it, even if you don't have the ponder in hand. It may just slow them down a little bit, but it can be a nice edge as a control deck.
@malvis
I am new to this deck and I am really liking your list but can't figure out what to side out in certain match ups. could you explain your sideboardinng strategy? I am not sure what cards to take out when siding.
Sure thing - I'll give you some quick break downs of certain matchups and tell you what I'd do - though let me know if I'm particularly missing something.
We'll start with the obvious, Delver -
In this matchup your basic intent is to control the tempo enough that you can either make them tap out to land a big bomb (particularly Tamiyo or Gideon) or make them have to over-extend in order to deal with them. You want to play your bombs around Mana Leak and try to draw them out by forcing your opponent to have to sacrifice card advantage to keep trying to control the tempo. My sideboard strategy would change a little bit considering which version of Delver, but generally speaking I'd suggest:
-2 Entreat the Angels
-3 Terminus
-2 Ponder
+2 Mental Misstep
+2 Curse of Death's Hold
+3 Timely Reinforcements
With Misstep, I would generally speaking urge you to save it for Delver if you get it relatively early game. Even if they do something like turn 1 Gitaxian Probe you, it doesn't matter if they see the Misstep. If you Misstep the Probe, there's nothing that's going to stop them from dropping a land and playing the delver. If they play around the Misstep, so what? Your goal against them is to push the game as long as possible with as much life as possible. Once you can safely play a Gideon, Tamiyo or Sorin without having to worry about them being leaked, you're pretty likely going to win. Aggressively protect your life total early game - if they tap out to play a Delver, or leave 1 mana open to play a delver, try to kill it even if you have to do it during your turn with an instance; don't give them the opportunity to leak it, or profitably play a Snapcaster. Even if they snag it, it disrupts the deck a lot more than you may think - many times the decks will play a Delver with a ponder having set up a next turn transformation, so if you force them to bounce it, and they replay it, they may not transform it for a couple of turns because they no longer have a ponder that set it up; or they may have to Snap into a Ponder to try to set it up.
Don't be afraid to expose your smaller spells to Leaks. Timely, Lingering Souls, O Rings, Revoke. If you've gotten them to play out to answer them, that usually paves the way for you to land one of your higher CMC spells which is what you want.
Your goal against Delver is to try to slow down the tempo, until you eventually assume control.
So next we'll do Pod; against Pod in general you want to go removal heavy and try to slow them down. Tamiyo can be particularly devastating with her ability to keep Pod tapped down. SB strategy can change depending on the flavor you go against (Celestial Purge is useless against Bant Pod, and depends on the concentration of red/black creatures in other versions of Pod; potentially the same with Revoke Existence. A lot of Pod decks are running value creatures with low P/T so Curse of Death's Hold can be good as well; really cutting down on the value of things like Blade Splicer, Strangelroot Geist, etc.
For pod decks usually your risk is at being blown out, so your goal would be to remove anything that is a potential pod target, using like Lingering Souls to block, and try to get the board as clear as possible to land a big permanent like Sorin, Gideon or Tamiyo who can do a lot to take care of themselves - or at least buy you a few turns.
SB wise, I'd generally remove both Entreats (this is a common theme and why I'm starting to question it), drop probably some Think Twices (Ponder's ability to setup Terminus can be quite valuable here) - and put in the Sever the Bloodline - Purges if you're playing a flavor where that is more valuable, Curses if Purge isn't; unless you know your opponent is either running a lot of artifact creatures or putting in Swords/O Rings, in which case Revoke might be better.
I'm running a little low on time, so I'll just start trimming down these and giving quick card descriptions:
Zombies - this one is pretty obvious; protect your life total extremely aggressively, I'd do -2 Entreats, -2 Ponder, -3 Think Twice, -2 Tamiyo, +2 Celestial Purge, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +1 Sever the Bloodline, +2 Curse of Death's Hold, +1 Batterskull.
WRR - This is a very interesting matchup because in my experience the biggest threat usually becomes Inkmoth Nexus. This is one of the builds I actually find Entreat the Angels to be better in, as they're usually not quickly attacking your life total, and getting 2-3 angels out usually sets you up for a profitable trade (2 Angels gets one Titan); more usually means that you are winning next turn unless they are sitting on a Bonfire. Memoricide is an effective way to either eliminate the chance at them surprise winning with a topdeck Bonfire, or if you are feeling particularly bold/aggressive, taking out Primetime. Sideboard wise, I would do: -2 Oblivion Ring, -2 Ponder, -1 Terminus, +1 Sever the Bloodline, +2 Curse of Death's Hold, +2 Memoricide.
RG Aggro - The sideboard process and strategy for this build is very much similar to zombies for the very same reason. The only other things I would note here is to play with Sorin and Gideon a bit more conservatively after game 1, as you don't want to be the dreaded recipient of a Zealous Conscripts taking your Sorin and giving a permanent +1/0 or getting an extra 6/6 attacker that you're not ready to block from Gideon. Not saying don't play them, but just keep this potential in the back of your mind when making plays. You do need to hold back a little bit more than you do with Zombies, because you have to worry about hasters like Hellrider in particular. Whereas Zombie it's a bit more like "kill everything that movies", RG aggro takes a little more reservation to try to lure them into overextending, which means eating a little more damage earlier - but letting you kill the Hellrider before they can swing for game, to follow up with a DOJ or something to assume control. This matchup can be kinda iffy though as even wiping their board doesn't get you a breather if they turnaround and play a Strangelroot Geist with a Wolf Run can push you over.
FRites - I actually haven't played against this matchup in a long, long time - the board is not super well-built to play against this. I'd probably go for adding in Memoricide, Celestial Purge, Sever - you want to try to remove those fatties as reliably as you can.
Generally, against most of these aggro decks don't be afraid to throw your Planeswalkers in the way as speed bumps; the longer these games go, the better your chances. You don't want to waste them if you can help it, but throwing out a Sorin, making a Vampire, and forcing your opponent to devote 3 creatures to swinging at Sorin to kill him can be a very solid play to buy you an extra turn for a board wipe, or force them to play an additional creature to get more value out of a DOJ.
The significant changes versus what I had been running is that I swapped from one Doom Blade and one GFTT to 2 of each, dropped 3 Despises to throw in 2 Oblivion Rings + 1 more Terminus - as I took often had the Despises come in late game and either dead, or practically dead. I took out 2 Consecrated Sphinx to go with Entreat the Angels as my finisher because too often Sphinx became the target of what was otherwise mostly useless creature removal and I removed the 2 Curse of Death's Hold to put in 2 Ponder; as I felt Curse very often became a case of too little too late in the current meta against most decks and kept it in the SB because the few it was good against, it was really good against.
My matchups were as follows:
Round 1: Mono Red Goblins
I won this matchup 2-0 fairly easily. Game 1 I had a turn 3 Lingering Souls to protect a turn 4 Sorin, he had to blow most of his hand to get rid of Sorin, the Vampire token and the 4 Spirit Tokens that he had no answer to Gideon when I played him. Game 2, he had the blow up in hand, but I had a Snapcaster and a Mental Misstep and the mana to pay the blue negating two Goblin Grenades.
Round 2: Jund Mid-Range
This deck really wasn't built to deal with the control matchup at all. It ran Olivia, Huntmaster, Thundermaw, etc. Since my deck is built to deal with faster decks, it had more than enough removal to take care of these creatures. I thought it was pod at first, but it wasn't. I won this fairly easily (though the games were somewhat long as he had a lot of "this needs to die right now threats") with Entreat the Angels on game 1 and a Tamiyo Ultimate on game 2.
Round 3: U/W Delver
This deck does fairly well in this matchup I feel, there are a few approaches to playing this deck that you have to pursue one of depending on your opening hand, either overwhelm them with threats like Sorin, Gideon, Liliana, etc - keep the board clear as much as possible as you will win a dragged out game - or just use Lingering Souls as a way to slow the game down long enough so that you don't get eaten alive by Mana Leak. If you can make it to turn 4-5 with 15+ life and don't miss land drops, you're usually going to win this matchup.
Round 4: Blue/Black Heartless
I'm still very surprised this deck isn't seen competitive as it's a very scary matchup - the first game was very very long. I did have my one truly lucky heart of the cards moment in game 1 when my opponent played a Frost Titan and 4 different cloning effects and tapped down all but 1 white source, next turn I drew into a Miracle'd terminus that I didn't know was there. A few turns later I went into a EoT Think Twice and an Entreat the Angels Miracle for 4 to win (he'd paid 4 life for Metamorphs). The big champ though through a lot of this game was Vault of the Archangel, letting my Spirit and Vampire tokens either be able to swing unmolested for a life-swing game (with a Sorin Emblem out late game as well) or stand in the path of blocking Runescarred Demons, Frost Titans and Sphinxes of Uthuun while promising to trade with the and gain me life. Game 2 I drew a very aggressive hand of 2 Lingering Souls, 3 Lands, a Revoke Existence and a Sorin, and aggro'd him down pretty hard; he couldn't catch up after I Revoked his turn 2 Heartless.
Of all the matchups though, this is the one I felt the most struggle to beat - though I won 2-0 I could have very easily lost game 1 and my opponent was going to play a Massacre Wurm one more turn against me in game 2 which would've taken me down to 4 life. You can't play it like a regular aggro deck and just answer his early threats until he runs out of cards. Because not only are the threats pretty big, they also produce card advantage, and it runs a lot of clones as well as recursion. When you're both running on fumes and he pulls a Sphinx of Uthuun and, well, Fact of Fiction is good; even better when it's attached to a 4/5 body.
Round 5: Green/White Elves
This was the source of my one loss for the night. I won game 1 - keeping an opening hand of Tragic Slip, Think Twice, 3 lands and two Go For the Throats which wound up pretty solid in slowing him down. Because all that early removal slowed him down, he had to play out significantly, Gideon bought a turn into a Terminus, which made him scoop as he was topdecking at that point and I still had 4 cards in hand. Game 2 I mulled to 6, keeping 3 lands, a DoJ and two Lingering Souls. He drew pretty nuts. I would've been okay but my 4th land came into play tapped preventing me from casting Day, and he Zenith'd for a Behemoth to kill me on turn 5. Game 3 he played a turn 1 Llanowar Elf, turn 2 played a land and 3 Arbor Elves. I played a Lingering Souls which kept him from attacking, he got a 3rd Arbor Elf out as well as a Birds and a Avacyn's Pilgrim. I made more Spirit tokens and he played a Archdruid and swung with all the elves. I was sitting on a Sever the Bloodline, so I blocked the Llanowar Elf to kill it, then next turn played a Sever on the Arbor Elves, played my 2nd Lingering Souls. He got a Township, pumped everything and swung with everything but the Archdruid. I sac'd 2 tokens to block, and would've done more except I didn't have a board wipe and I had a Tamiyo in hand. I played Tamiyo, drew 4, didn't hit a board wipe and was thinking I might lose - played a Sorin to make another blocker. He pumped again, swung at me, I blocked to stay alive, drew 5 with Tamiyo the next turn which pulled me into a Day, which I gladly played. He played a Primetime, I kept it tapped, eventually ultimating Sorin getting a Primetime and a Thragtusk and at that point the game was over.
Round 6: Bant Pod
Game 1 he mulled to 6 and drew a slow hand. I also happened to draw a 3 lander, 2 Lingering Souls, a Liliana and a Tragic Slip. That game didn't last long and he scooped on turn 6 when I had a 5 counter Liliana and he had no answers. I do think he made a huge play mistaken in that he discarded a Pod to Liliana; though I don't know what the rest of his hand was, I'd only seen two U/G lands and thought might be playing Miracle Gro until I saw the pod, which changed my sideboard for game 2 a good bit.
For game 2, he had a bit better of a start, playing a turn 1 Birds into a turn 2 Blade Splicer. Turn 3 he played a 2nd Blade Splicer. I played Lingering Souls to chump the Golems and then turn 4 played Sever the Bloodline on golem tokens. He got a Township out and pumped the two Blade Splicers to keep pressure on me, and I cast a 2nd Lingering Souls to keep blocking. I sac'd my two Birds to try to take out one splicer, but he used Restoration Angel to bounce it, though I had a Terminus in hand that I hard casted the next turn to clean the board. He then played a Thragtusk and a Birthing Pod, but I had a Tamiyo to tap down his Pod and flashed one of the Lingering Souls to protect her. Then the entire Justice League assembled and I went and played Sorin, Liliana and Gideon in three straight turns and totally took over the board and there was nothing he could do about it after that.
Overall, the only thing I'm starting to question is Entreat the Angels. I feel like it's stronger then Consecrated Sphinx as a win con, and in an aggro-heavy meta I feel like more creatures is > card draw. I'm just not totally sure if this is the right card or not. It's hard to say as I didn't really play any control oriented matchups where I think this card is a lot stronger. I sided out Entreat the Angels game 2 in almost every matchup, but game one even one 4/4 flying blocker for 5 often comes in handy.
I'm also not completely sold on the sideboard either. However, I think all of my main board additions were pretty good. I like Ponder a lot more than I like Forbidden Alchemy. Because this deck runs only 2 Snapcasters, and only 4 cards otherwise with Flashback, Alchemy becomes a bit riskier, in my opinion and I've seen quite a few Alchemy casts become something like "Liliana, Land, Sorin, Terminus" and I need the land, but I only run 2 Sorins and am playing a deck where this lifegain could become quite valuable.
Maybe there's something better than Ponder, but I did get to set up a couple of Terminus throughout the night as well.
I've noticed most of you is not playing counters in MB, is it for cavern of souls? how is that working for you?
The big problem I see with counters right now in standard is multi-fold. If you look at aggro decks right now, there are a couple of issues with them. Either they lean towards playing cavern of souls, they're ramp heavy (thus out of ranging leak fairly quickly) or between what you're offered in black/white there are simply better options. Adding all three of those colors in standard right now offers a fairly powerful toolkit and the deck is very strapped for space.
Yeah, I'm getting really worried about aggro. Mono-green Dungrove ruined my night. I took 13 damage from a Sword'd Dungrove Elder, and the next turn (after I DOJ'd), he just shrugged, cast a Strangleroot Geist, Sword'd up, and finished me off. D: I dunno, I had a sketchy keep with some spot-removal that was worthless against the Elder. Maybe I side that stuff out and keep in the sweepers? But beyond the already-problematic Swords, now there's Rancor. I'm starting to think between that and Delvers, maybe Mental Misstep needs more serious consideration.
Another thing I'm having a hard time with is graveyard-based stuff, especially Solar Flare and Reanimator. Sure, I could load up on Dissipates and graveyard-hate .. but my sideboard can only hold 15 cards, ya know? Starting to wish I'd have just stuck with Pod or learned how to play Delver or something.
I do agree that these two particular matchups can be problem children, however every deck has its weak spots. If you want a deck that doesn't have matchups that it's weak against, there just really aren't any in standard.
As far as Mono-Green Dungrove Elder, that's one I agree with a fair bit. I'd initially started to think about Barter in Blood but it didn't really make sense to do that if you're not running four Day of Judgement and four Terminus because both of those cards are realistically better in this situation. With an Esper Walkers deck, it's more unlikely that you're going to have two creatures out that you're not okay with losing than it is your opponent having more creatures than you can make sac with Barter. Too bad that card's not instant speed or it'd be way better.
That being said, Dungrove Elder may be specifically one of the most difficult cards to deal with for this deck right now, particularly now that Rancor is around to make chump blocking it with Spirit Tokens far less viable. I personally got done in pretty roughly against a mono-green Dungrove deck when he popped out the Triumph of Ferocity on turn 2 with a Llanowar Elf out, and there were only 2-3 turns for the rest of the game I could keep him from drawing off of that.
Part of what makes it difficult is that you're having to try to deal with Dungrove Elder and Strangleroot Geist, just like the example you showed. It's made even more difficult by the flexibility of Green Sun's Zenith - as well as Geist and all the mana dork's abilities to protect Elder from Tribute to Hunger and Liliana of the Veil.
My primary suggestion would be, post SB against this build, to try to get up to 4 Terminus, specifically because it's able to both handle Dungrove Elder and Strangleroot Geist, which are the two best creatures in the deck. Likewise, Despise is a good card. Grafdigger's Cage might also be worth exploring. Preventing them from Green Sun Zenith'ing for what they need, as well as Strangleroot Geist's Undying ability is probably worth the loss of flashing back Think Twice; and if you take out Snapcaster Mage for it (assuming you're even running it to begin with) the loss to you should be less than is to your opponent.
As far as GY-based decks, a fairly catch-all card that I've started putting back in my sideboard is Memoricide over something like Surgical Extraction, Nihil Spellbomb or Dissipate. It just bridges the gap against more decks. Playing it naming Unburial Rites against reanimator or solar flare is pretty solid. I tend to take it out for, say, Liliana of the Veilwho tends to not be as good against those builds. Memoricide also disrupts any sort of combo-based deck you'd see, and likewise is a very good way to get rid of Planeswalkers in control mirrors.
One of the reasons I really started liking Memoricide over Surgical Extraction was that in many cases I had a hard time getting the cards I needed to get rid of in the graveyard to start with - particularly as a card in control mirrors where I wanted to get rid of things like Planeswalkers, or combo-based creatures like Havengul Lich. It might actually not even be bad against Dungrove Elder now that I think about it. Dealing with the first one isn't too bad, but dealing with number 2 and 3 is where things start to get out of hand.
Turn 4: activate pod (paying 2 life) and sac a 2 drop, grab lich from pod (token on pod), hardcast metamorph (pay 2 life) targeting Lich and then put the phylactery counter on the metamorph.
Two 5/5 indestructible creatures on turn 4.
If you don't have a morph in hand, you can snag it on turn 5 if you have a Messenger out. Obviously, here are many other variants of this with Pod, but indestructible Metamorph with a counter is very possible. Example:
Turn 3: Messenger
Turn 4: Cast pod, activate pod (pay 2 life) sacrificing Messenger for Metamorph (targeting Messenger).
Turn 5: Hardcast Lich, activate Pod sacrificing Metamorph, process undying from the Metamorph (targeting Lich for a 6/6 Meta-lich) and put the counter on Metamorph, find second Metamorph with the Pod effect, create another Lich copy putting a counter on the second Metamorph. Two 5/5 and one 6/6 indestructibles on the fifth turn.
The one thing to just point out regarding this entire line of logic is that, assuming you get through this entire process unmolested, you're in really good shape in quite a few different two card combos with cards that are otherwise a bit better than Lich.
Turn 3: Cast Messenger
Turn 4: Cast Pod, Activate Pod, Sacrifice Messenger for Metamorph
Turn 5: Swing with 2 Messengers, activate Pod, hard cast a Restoration Angel, Pod a Messenger into a Metamorph or a 2nd Resto Angel, bounce the Messenger you just podded... Your opponent is at 7 life and you have two 3/2's with undying that will do 2 if they get removed where they can re-enter, and 2 3/4s with evasion.
Now, I'm not saying that your scenario isn't gonna happen, but more that as Pod you have to look at the utility of some of these creatures without pod. Phylactery Lich isn't great even if you put the counter on Pod, and still, honestly, isn't -that good- even when you have a metamorph'd one with a counter on itself. It's still a vanilla 5/5. This is a standard meta where Terminus, Oblivion ring, Tragic Slip and Vapor Snag are already seeing a fairly high amount of play. Even Sever the Bloodline is seeing a fair bit of play, as well as plenty of tokens that can chump block for days.
People may roll their eyes and brush this off as a "dies to removal" argument, but it's more like Phylactery Lich just isn't that good of a card unless you combo it. I mean, it's a good thought and all, but an aggressive deck with an already -very- solid 3 drop (Geralf's Messenger) doesn't need that much more crowding at the 3 drop slot - and it already has plenty of additional competition - even from something like Diregraf Ghoul if you want to stay in the Zombie Theme, as well as Blade Splicer, Borderland Ranger, Deceiver Exarch, Fiend Hunter, Glissa, etc. etc.
Really, if you wanted to run Lich in Pod, it'd probably be much better served in a deck with Glissa and other Artifact creatures as opposed to a Zombie focus that way you have a lot more targets for Lich if you don't get a pod out or it gets destroyed. Tapping BBB for a Lich and nothing to stick a counter onto it is pretty bad when you consider the other options pod has.
One of the things that I've noticed a lot of decks missing that I've been running with my own Esper walker build is a singleton Vault of the Archangel.
Admittedly, the color requirements in this deck early game can be a little dicey, however the singleton Vault has gotten me out of many a tight spot. Mid-late game, it turns tokens generated by Lingering Souls into little nightmares. Your opponents basically can't swing profitably with anything, and you attacking generates significant life swings, especially if you have a Sorin Emblem out.
It also helps turn games around where you're legitimately concerned about something like a Geralf's Messenger or Hellrider turning around the life you have left, particularly as Esper control is running fewer counters than it used to, leaving us a lot more susceptible to having no way to answer it until the damage has already been done.
The one other thing I'd mention is that I no longer thing the split between Go For the Throat and Doom Blade is worth it over just going with more Go For the Throat. Tempered Steel is basically dead, which leaves the only two creatures you're going to see with any amount of consistency from an Artifact standpoint are Wurmcoil Engine and Solemn Simulacrum. Maybe the occasional Phyrexian Metamorph creature (assuming it's not copying a black creature). However, you're far more likely to find yourself staring down a Zombie of some sort, Griselbrand, Blood Artist, etc. with far greater frequency than you are threatening artifact creatures. Likewise, these artifact creatures are going to come out a lot slower, making it more likely you can react with a board wipe instead.
It still has the sacrifice ability, and that still works. When an object says "This creature", or "This artifact", or "This purple elephant token", it really means "this object", just with a better wording.
Great. Of all of the parts of this, this was the one I was the most foggy on - as I've generally trained myself to assume the wording is as deliberate as possible, this is one of the times that the deliberate wording gets broken from. Now that I know, it's easy to remember, it's just not overly intuitive. Particularly as my advice to newer players is almost always "make sure you are rewarding the words terminology of the card exactly".
I guess from a logic perspective, you can look at it more like "Whenever this (whatever it is) is the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it." and that creature is just more of a word that makes that less awkward to read.
At this point, I play Phantasmal Image copying said Ichor Wellspring - which, if I'm correct on my cloning logic, means that it enters as a non-creature version of the card.
Now, this is where I start to get a little fuzzy.
Phantasmal Image says "it's an Illusion in addition to its other types and it gains "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it".
Now, I believe non-creatures cannot have creature sub-types, so the questions ensuing from this are as follows:
Would it lose the Illusion subtype? I believe the answer to this is yes, but I'm not totally certain.
Would it retain the second part of the ability: "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it"?
As a followup to that question: If so, does that ability do nothing so long as it's not a creature?
And as one final follow-up to that question, assuming the ability doesn't do anything so long as it's not a creature:
If I used Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas to turn this into a creature, would it regain the subtype of Illusion, or would it never get this subtype back?
It seems a bit interesting to me that when you split the two sets, white gets both allied color guilds in R2R, and both enemy colored guilds in Gatecrash - while all the other colors have one ally and one enemy-colored guild in each set.
I guess in order to fit five guilds in per set, one of them had to hit that way.
It probably promises something quite interesting for the third set from the block since they're covering all 10 guilds in the first two sets with a 5/5 split instead of the 4/3/3 split they did in the original Ravnica block.
I always love this argument of "How is 6 mana over 2 turns at the expense of a land drop good???"
We see this all the time about plenty of different cards. This card is good for decks that are low mana cost. For multiple reasons. One, when you play out your hand, or most of it, in the first few turns, hit turn 4 or so where you've unloaded must of your opening hand, you still have one mana up while putting a counter on this, and have a turn 5 4/4 haster that can serve as a close-out.
Now, while I think this is definitely a very Timmy card, the people talking down because it might fizzle are obviously used to other people telling them what to play.
That being said, it deserves obvious comparisons to Genesis Wave - but I think one of the things that makes it worse than Genesis Wave that's being missed here, is that Genesis Wave is a may on putting it on the battlefield - as well as the fact that you don't have to quite build as around it as you do Primal Surge.
Interesting combos with Genesis Wave are, for instance, Genesis Waving for a billion, and letting Anger be put in the graveyard - which you can't do with this. There are, of course, plenty of others as well. It's a neat card, and if you're running a full permanent based deck with this as a 1 of or so, you could probably get away with it, but I think 10 mana is too much for most constructed formats outside of EDH. But as I've come to learn, in EDH anything (that isn't banned) is playable.
Oh, hey, I just -2'd with Jace and revealed Land, Land and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. My opponent is naturally going to split the Tamiyo/Land piles, I'm going to take Tamiyo, and have 2 fewer lands I have to worry about grabbing - unless, of course, I need the lands or maybe have a spare Tamiyo. Jace increases card quality, but what simultaneously makes him better than other draw spells is that he has the flexibility to insulate you against aggro as opposed to the increase in card quality.
This flexibility is what makes him good for control decks - flexible value cards are basically what makes control decks work. That's why Gideon Jura was probably one of the better control PW's ever - he had the flexibility to stall, remove, or strap the game on his back and win games. Jace gives you the ability to stall or dog - his ultimately is decent in the right contexts, but you're forgoing a lot of cards by continuing to count him up.
Deadeye Navigator soulbound with Pestermite/Zealous Conscripts/Deceiver Exarch + Bloom Tender/Somberwald Sage/Gilded Lotus (etc) = Infinite Mana - if you also happen to have a draw out permanent like Desolate Lighthouse/Mulldrifter/Wall of Blossoms out, you can draw out your entire deck to win with the usual infinite mana suspects. Even if not - you still get infinite ETB triggers which means you can either tap your opponent out during their upkeep, or if you have Zealous Conscripts, you can take all of your opponent's permanents every turn.
Once you land this combo it's damn near impossible for your opponent to do anything about it because of the evasion Navigator provides to both of your creatures.
As the card indicates, of course, the goal is a good bit involving getting artifacts in your graveyard for a big Salvo haymaker with a fairly healthy dose of card draw and a rather slim mana base. Here's the list that I feel is pretty strong right now:
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Mycosynth Wellspring
4x Scroll of Avacyn
4x Traveler's Amulet
4x Perilous Myr
4x Vault Skirge
Instants
4x Brimstone Volley
4x Galvanic Blast
4x Kuldotha Rebirth
4x Scrapyard Salvo
4x Wild Guess
Lands
16x Mountain
I wound up adding Brimstone Volley because I felt like the deck needed just a little extra oomph to push it over when I either didn't have a Salvo in hand or it wasn't quite big enough.
In terms of other cards that almost made their way in but not quite:
Card Draw:
Panic Spellbomb - This card narrowly loses out to Scroll of Avacyn simply because the requirement of a creature in order to get the card draw makes it a little less unreliable, particularly if I'm trying to make due with a 1 land hand.
Faithless Looting - This loses out to Wild Guess because I like the net card gain on Wild Guess a bit more and I need to make sure I don't run out of artifacts.
Dangerous Wager - This also lost out to Wild Guess and Scroll simply because with as many cards as the deck is already drawing it's hard to get a comfortably empty hand where you don't want to ditch a Brimstone Volley or a Scrapyard Salvo.
Creatures:
Immolating Soul Eater - I'm not totally set on dropping this guy yet, but he and Vault Skirge are somewhat fighting for the same spot; Vault Skirge's ability to get out on turn 1 + evasion gives him the edge.
Iron Myr - He died too much when I needed the mana, really.
Ferrovore - What I initially thought was an auto-include due to his ability to omnomnom artifacts, I often felt like he was too little, too late - or overkill when I got him.
Vulshok Replica - He's close to being in as well, but 3 mana can become slightly iffy early-to-mid game, having 8 3 drops seems to be as much as I can feel as if I can clog my hand without losing. He may be worth putting in for Brimstone Volley, though.
Other:
Artillerize - I originally really wanted to put this card in here, but the 4 mana was just too expensive where I felt that Brimstone Volley was just better under most circumstances.
Scroll of Griselbrand - The discard just wasn't quite as useful for this deck as the card draw was.
I welcome potential suggestions as well as sideboard ideas; I don't really have any expectation of what to play against for SB.
For Mana Leak vs. Negate, it's kind of iffy on either side. Standard right now is fairly creature dominated, however there are some pretty big doozies (like Bonfire, GSZ) that it's nice to not have to worry about the mana cost and in some cases it often makes it easier to play counters because you know what your counter will or won't be able to answer.
As far as your draw spell issue, I think instead of cutting Think Twices, you should cut Ponders. You're only running 4 Miracle cards, and control decks tend to win through card advantage. Ponder doesn't really increase card advantage and doesn't have quite the same effect on card quality when you're not trying to use it with some sort of combo (Miracles, Delver, etc).
Think Twice also synergizes well with other instant answers; like the Feeling of Dread you have as well as counters. You leaving 2-3 mana up with cards in hand and a Think Twice in hand/GY makes your opponent have to constantly question if you have removal, card draw, etc. in hand - and you can leave that mana up, even purely as a bluff, while not being wasted if your opponent does call your bluff, because you turn around and devote that mana to drawing.
In a quick meta game, look at it from the perspective of your opponent, knowing they're playing against a control deck:
You play a turn 1 tap land, they play a land and pass - turn 2 you play a land and ponder. They don't have to worry about you countering their turn 2 play. But if you play a land and pass, they do have to worry about it, even if you don't have the ponder in hand. It may just slow them down a little bit, but it can be a nice edge as a control deck.
Sure thing - I'll give you some quick break downs of certain matchups and tell you what I'd do - though let me know if I'm particularly missing something.
We'll start with the obvious, Delver -
In this matchup your basic intent is to control the tempo enough that you can either make them tap out to land a big bomb (particularly Tamiyo or Gideon) or make them have to over-extend in order to deal with them. You want to play your bombs around Mana Leak and try to draw them out by forcing your opponent to have to sacrifice card advantage to keep trying to control the tempo. My sideboard strategy would change a little bit considering which version of Delver, but generally speaking I'd suggest:
-2 Entreat the Angels
-3 Terminus
-2 Ponder
+2 Mental Misstep
+2 Curse of Death's Hold
+3 Timely Reinforcements
With Misstep, I would generally speaking urge you to save it for Delver if you get it relatively early game. Even if they do something like turn 1 Gitaxian Probe you, it doesn't matter if they see the Misstep. If you Misstep the Probe, there's nothing that's going to stop them from dropping a land and playing the delver. If they play around the Misstep, so what? Your goal against them is to push the game as long as possible with as much life as possible. Once you can safely play a Gideon, Tamiyo or Sorin without having to worry about them being leaked, you're pretty likely going to win. Aggressively protect your life total early game - if they tap out to play a Delver, or leave 1 mana open to play a delver, try to kill it even if you have to do it during your turn with an instance; don't give them the opportunity to leak it, or profitably play a Snapcaster. Even if they snag it, it disrupts the deck a lot more than you may think - many times the decks will play a Delver with a ponder having set up a next turn transformation, so if you force them to bounce it, and they replay it, they may not transform it for a couple of turns because they no longer have a ponder that set it up; or they may have to Snap into a Ponder to try to set it up.
Don't be afraid to expose your smaller spells to Leaks. Timely, Lingering Souls, O Rings, Revoke. If you've gotten them to play out to answer them, that usually paves the way for you to land one of your higher CMC spells which is what you want.
Your goal against Delver is to try to slow down the tempo, until you eventually assume control.
So next we'll do Pod; against Pod in general you want to go removal heavy and try to slow them down. Tamiyo can be particularly devastating with her ability to keep Pod tapped down. SB strategy can change depending on the flavor you go against (Celestial Purge is useless against Bant Pod, and depends on the concentration of red/black creatures in other versions of Pod; potentially the same with Revoke Existence. A lot of Pod decks are running value creatures with low P/T so Curse of Death's Hold can be good as well; really cutting down on the value of things like Blade Splicer, Strangelroot Geist, etc.
For pod decks usually your risk is at being blown out, so your goal would be to remove anything that is a potential pod target, using like Lingering Souls to block, and try to get the board as clear as possible to land a big permanent like Sorin, Gideon or Tamiyo who can do a lot to take care of themselves - or at least buy you a few turns.
SB wise, I'd generally remove both Entreats (this is a common theme and why I'm starting to question it), drop probably some Think Twices (Ponder's ability to setup Terminus can be quite valuable here) - and put in the Sever the Bloodline - Purges if you're playing a flavor where that is more valuable, Curses if Purge isn't; unless you know your opponent is either running a lot of artifact creatures or putting in Swords/O Rings, in which case Revoke might be better.
I'm running a little low on time, so I'll just start trimming down these and giving quick card descriptions:
Zombies - this one is pretty obvious; protect your life total extremely aggressively, I'd do -2 Entreats, -2 Ponder, -3 Think Twice, -2 Tamiyo, +2 Celestial Purge, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +1 Sever the Bloodline, +2 Curse of Death's Hold, +1 Batterskull.
WRR - This is a very interesting matchup because in my experience the biggest threat usually becomes Inkmoth Nexus. This is one of the builds I actually find Entreat the Angels to be better in, as they're usually not quickly attacking your life total, and getting 2-3 angels out usually sets you up for a profitable trade (2 Angels gets one Titan); more usually means that you are winning next turn unless they are sitting on a Bonfire. Memoricide is an effective way to either eliminate the chance at them surprise winning with a topdeck Bonfire, or if you are feeling particularly bold/aggressive, taking out Primetime. Sideboard wise, I would do: -2 Oblivion Ring, -2 Ponder, -1 Terminus, +1 Sever the Bloodline, +2 Curse of Death's Hold, +2 Memoricide.
RG Aggro - The sideboard process and strategy for this build is very much similar to zombies for the very same reason. The only other things I would note here is to play with Sorin and Gideon a bit more conservatively after game 1, as you don't want to be the dreaded recipient of a Zealous Conscripts taking your Sorin and giving a permanent +1/0 or getting an extra 6/6 attacker that you're not ready to block from Gideon. Not saying don't play them, but just keep this potential in the back of your mind when making plays. You do need to hold back a little bit more than you do with Zombies, because you have to worry about hasters like Hellrider in particular. Whereas Zombie it's a bit more like "kill everything that movies", RG aggro takes a little more reservation to try to lure them into overextending, which means eating a little more damage earlier - but letting you kill the Hellrider before they can swing for game, to follow up with a DOJ or something to assume control. This matchup can be kinda iffy though as even wiping their board doesn't get you a breather if they turnaround and play a Strangelroot Geist with a Wolf Run can push you over.
FRites - I actually haven't played against this matchup in a long, long time - the board is not super well-built to play against this. I'd probably go for adding in Memoricide, Celestial Purge, Sever - you want to try to remove those fatties as reliably as you can.
Generally, against most of these aggro decks don't be afraid to throw your Planeswalkers in the way as speed bumps; the longer these games go, the better your chances. You don't want to waste them if you can help it, but throwing out a Sorin, making a Vampire, and forcing your opponent to devote 3 creatures to swinging at Sorin to kill him can be a very solid play to buy you an extra turn for a board wipe, or force them to play an additional creature to get more value out of a DOJ.
2x Snapcaster Mage
Enchantments
2x Oblivion Ring
Instants
2x Go For the Throat
4x Think Twice
2x Tragic Slip
Sorceries
3x Day of Judgment
2x Entreat the Angels
4x Lingering Souls
2x Ponder
3x Terminus
Planeswalkers
2x Gideon Jira
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2x Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2x Darkslick Shores
2x Drowned Catacomb
3x Evolving Wilds
4x Glacial Fortress
3x Island
4x Isolated Chapel
3x Plains
2x Seachrome Coast
2x Swamp
1x Vault of the Archangel
2x Celestial Purge
2x Curse of Death's Hold
1x Karn Liberated
2x Memoricide
2x Mental Misstep
2x Revoke Existence
1x Sever the Bloodline
3x Timely Reinforcements
The significant changes versus what I had been running is that I swapped from one Doom Blade and one GFTT to 2 of each, dropped 3 Despises to throw in 2 Oblivion Rings + 1 more Terminus - as I took often had the Despises come in late game and either dead, or practically dead. I took out 2 Consecrated Sphinx to go with Entreat the Angels as my finisher because too often Sphinx became the target of what was otherwise mostly useless creature removal and I removed the 2 Curse of Death's Hold to put in 2 Ponder; as I felt Curse very often became a case of too little too late in the current meta against most decks and kept it in the SB because the few it was good against, it was really good against.
My matchups were as follows:
Round 1: Mono Red Goblins
I won this matchup 2-0 fairly easily. Game 1 I had a turn 3 Lingering Souls to protect a turn 4 Sorin, he had to blow most of his hand to get rid of Sorin, the Vampire token and the 4 Spirit Tokens that he had no answer to Gideon when I played him. Game 2, he had the blow up in hand, but I had a Snapcaster and a Mental Misstep and the mana to pay the blue negating two Goblin Grenades.
Round 2: Jund Mid-Range
This deck really wasn't built to deal with the control matchup at all. It ran Olivia, Huntmaster, Thundermaw, etc. Since my deck is built to deal with faster decks, it had more than enough removal to take care of these creatures. I thought it was pod at first, but it wasn't. I won this fairly easily (though the games were somewhat long as he had a lot of "this needs to die right now threats") with Entreat the Angels on game 1 and a Tamiyo Ultimate on game 2.
Round 3: U/W Delver
This deck does fairly well in this matchup I feel, there are a few approaches to playing this deck that you have to pursue one of depending on your opening hand, either overwhelm them with threats like Sorin, Gideon, Liliana, etc - keep the board clear as much as possible as you will win a dragged out game - or just use Lingering Souls as a way to slow the game down long enough so that you don't get eaten alive by Mana Leak. If you can make it to turn 4-5 with 15+ life and don't miss land drops, you're usually going to win this matchup.
Round 4: Blue/Black Heartless
I'm still very surprised this deck isn't seen competitive as it's a very scary matchup - the first game was very very long. I did have my one truly lucky heart of the cards moment in game 1 when my opponent played a Frost Titan and 4 different cloning effects and tapped down all but 1 white source, next turn I drew into a Miracle'd terminus that I didn't know was there. A few turns later I went into a EoT Think Twice and an Entreat the Angels Miracle for 4 to win (he'd paid 4 life for Metamorphs). The big champ though through a lot of this game was Vault of the Archangel, letting my Spirit and Vampire tokens either be able to swing unmolested for a life-swing game (with a Sorin Emblem out late game as well) or stand in the path of blocking Runescarred Demons, Frost Titans and Sphinxes of Uthuun while promising to trade with the and gain me life. Game 2 I drew a very aggressive hand of 2 Lingering Souls, 3 Lands, a Revoke Existence and a Sorin, and aggro'd him down pretty hard; he couldn't catch up after I Revoked his turn 2 Heartless.
Of all the matchups though, this is the one I felt the most struggle to beat - though I won 2-0 I could have very easily lost game 1 and my opponent was going to play a Massacre Wurm one more turn against me in game 2 which would've taken me down to 4 life. You can't play it like a regular aggro deck and just answer his early threats until he runs out of cards. Because not only are the threats pretty big, they also produce card advantage, and it runs a lot of clones as well as recursion. When you're both running on fumes and he pulls a Sphinx of Uthuun and, well, Fact of Fiction is good; even better when it's attached to a 4/5 body.
Round 5: Green/White Elves
This was the source of my one loss for the night. I won game 1 - keeping an opening hand of Tragic Slip, Think Twice, 3 lands and two Go For the Throats which wound up pretty solid in slowing him down. Because all that early removal slowed him down, he had to play out significantly, Gideon bought a turn into a Terminus, which made him scoop as he was topdecking at that point and I still had 4 cards in hand. Game 2 I mulled to 6, keeping 3 lands, a DoJ and two Lingering Souls. He drew pretty nuts. I would've been okay but my 4th land came into play tapped preventing me from casting Day, and he Zenith'd for a Behemoth to kill me on turn 5. Game 3 he played a turn 1 Llanowar Elf, turn 2 played a land and 3 Arbor Elves. I played a Lingering Souls which kept him from attacking, he got a 3rd Arbor Elf out as well as a Birds and a Avacyn's Pilgrim. I made more Spirit tokens and he played a Archdruid and swung with all the elves. I was sitting on a Sever the Bloodline, so I blocked the Llanowar Elf to kill it, then next turn played a Sever on the Arbor Elves, played my 2nd Lingering Souls. He got a Township, pumped everything and swung with everything but the Archdruid. I sac'd 2 tokens to block, and would've done more except I didn't have a board wipe and I had a Tamiyo in hand. I played Tamiyo, drew 4, didn't hit a board wipe and was thinking I might lose - played a Sorin to make another blocker. He pumped again, swung at me, I blocked to stay alive, drew 5 with Tamiyo the next turn which pulled me into a Day, which I gladly played. He played a Primetime, I kept it tapped, eventually ultimating Sorin getting a Primetime and a Thragtusk and at that point the game was over.
Round 6: Bant Pod
Game 1 he mulled to 6 and drew a slow hand. I also happened to draw a 3 lander, 2 Lingering Souls, a Liliana and a Tragic Slip. That game didn't last long and he scooped on turn 6 when I had a 5 counter Liliana and he had no answers. I do think he made a huge play mistaken in that he discarded a Pod to Liliana; though I don't know what the rest of his hand was, I'd only seen two U/G lands and thought might be playing Miracle Gro until I saw the pod, which changed my sideboard for game 2 a good bit.
For game 2, he had a bit better of a start, playing a turn 1 Birds into a turn 2 Blade Splicer. Turn 3 he played a 2nd Blade Splicer. I played Lingering Souls to chump the Golems and then turn 4 played Sever the Bloodline on golem tokens. He got a Township out and pumped the two Blade Splicers to keep pressure on me, and I cast a 2nd Lingering Souls to keep blocking. I sac'd my two Birds to try to take out one splicer, but he used Restoration Angel to bounce it, though I had a Terminus in hand that I hard casted the next turn to clean the board. He then played a Thragtusk and a Birthing Pod, but I had a Tamiyo to tap down his Pod and flashed one of the Lingering Souls to protect her. Then the entire Justice League assembled and I went and played Sorin, Liliana and Gideon in three straight turns and totally took over the board and there was nothing he could do about it after that.
Overall, the only thing I'm starting to question is Entreat the Angels. I feel like it's stronger then Consecrated Sphinx as a win con, and in an aggro-heavy meta I feel like more creatures is > card draw. I'm just not totally sure if this is the right card or not. It's hard to say as I didn't really play any control oriented matchups where I think this card is a lot stronger. I sided out Entreat the Angels game 2 in almost every matchup, but game one even one 4/4 flying blocker for 5 often comes in handy.
I'm also not completely sold on the sideboard either. However, I think all of my main board additions were pretty good. I like Ponder a lot more than I like Forbidden Alchemy. Because this deck runs only 2 Snapcasters, and only 4 cards otherwise with Flashback, Alchemy becomes a bit riskier, in my opinion and I've seen quite a few Alchemy casts become something like "Liliana, Land, Sorin, Terminus" and I need the land, but I only run 2 Sorins and am playing a deck where this lifegain could become quite valuable.
Maybe there's something better than Ponder, but I did get to set up a couple of Terminus throughout the night as well.
The big problem I see with counters right now in standard is multi-fold. If you look at aggro decks right now, there are a couple of issues with them. Either they lean towards playing cavern of souls, they're ramp heavy (thus out of ranging leak fairly quickly) or between what you're offered in black/white there are simply better options. Adding all three of those colors in standard right now offers a fairly powerful toolkit and the deck is very strapped for space.
I do agree that these two particular matchups can be problem children, however every deck has its weak spots. If you want a deck that doesn't have matchups that it's weak against, there just really aren't any in standard.
As far as Mono-Green Dungrove Elder, that's one I agree with a fair bit. I'd initially started to think about Barter in Blood but it didn't really make sense to do that if you're not running four Day of Judgement and four Terminus because both of those cards are realistically better in this situation. With an Esper Walkers deck, it's more unlikely that you're going to have two creatures out that you're not okay with losing than it is your opponent having more creatures than you can make sac with Barter. Too bad that card's not instant speed or it'd be way better.
That being said, Dungrove Elder may be specifically one of the most difficult cards to deal with for this deck right now, particularly now that Rancor is around to make chump blocking it with Spirit Tokens far less viable. I personally got done in pretty roughly against a mono-green Dungrove deck when he popped out the Triumph of Ferocity on turn 2 with a Llanowar Elf out, and there were only 2-3 turns for the rest of the game I could keep him from drawing off of that.
Part of what makes it difficult is that you're having to try to deal with Dungrove Elder and Strangleroot Geist, just like the example you showed. It's made even more difficult by the flexibility of Green Sun's Zenith - as well as Geist and all the mana dork's abilities to protect Elder from Tribute to Hunger and Liliana of the Veil.
My primary suggestion would be, post SB against this build, to try to get up to 4 Terminus, specifically because it's able to both handle Dungrove Elder and Strangleroot Geist, which are the two best creatures in the deck. Likewise, Despise is a good card. Grafdigger's Cage might also be worth exploring. Preventing them from Green Sun Zenith'ing for what they need, as well as Strangleroot Geist's Undying ability is probably worth the loss of flashing back Think Twice; and if you take out Snapcaster Mage for it (assuming you're even running it to begin with) the loss to you should be less than is to your opponent.
As far as GY-based decks, a fairly catch-all card that I've started putting back in my sideboard is Memoricide over something like Surgical Extraction, Nihil Spellbomb or Dissipate. It just bridges the gap against more decks. Playing it naming Unburial Rites against reanimator or solar flare is pretty solid. I tend to take it out for, say, Liliana of the Veilwho tends to not be as good against those builds. Memoricide also disrupts any sort of combo-based deck you'd see, and likewise is a very good way to get rid of Planeswalkers in control mirrors.
One of the reasons I really started liking Memoricide over Surgical Extraction was that in many cases I had a hard time getting the cards I needed to get rid of in the graveyard to start with - particularly as a card in control mirrors where I wanted to get rid of things like Planeswalkers, or combo-based creatures like Havengul Lich. It might actually not even be bad against Dungrove Elder now that I think about it. Dealing with the first one isn't too bad, but dealing with number 2 and 3 is where things start to get out of hand.
The one thing to just point out regarding this entire line of logic is that, assuming you get through this entire process unmolested, you're in really good shape in quite a few different two card combos with cards that are otherwise a bit better than Lich.
Turn 3: Cast Messenger
Turn 4: Cast Pod, Activate Pod, Sacrifice Messenger for Metamorph
Turn 5: Swing with 2 Messengers, activate Pod, hard cast a Restoration Angel, Pod a Messenger into a Metamorph or a 2nd Resto Angel, bounce the Messenger you just podded... Your opponent is at 7 life and you have two 3/2's with undying that will do 2 if they get removed where they can re-enter, and 2 3/4s with evasion.
Now, I'm not saying that your scenario isn't gonna happen, but more that as Pod you have to look at the utility of some of these creatures without pod. Phylactery Lich isn't great even if you put the counter on Pod, and still, honestly, isn't -that good- even when you have a metamorph'd one with a counter on itself. It's still a vanilla 5/5. This is a standard meta where Terminus, Oblivion ring, Tragic Slip and Vapor Snag are already seeing a fairly high amount of play. Even Sever the Bloodline is seeing a fair bit of play, as well as plenty of tokens that can chump block for days.
People may roll their eyes and brush this off as a "dies to removal" argument, but it's more like Phylactery Lich just isn't that good of a card unless you combo it. I mean, it's a good thought and all, but an aggressive deck with an already -very- solid 3 drop (Geralf's Messenger) doesn't need that much more crowding at the 3 drop slot - and it already has plenty of additional competition - even from something like Diregraf Ghoul if you want to stay in the Zombie Theme, as well as Blade Splicer, Borderland Ranger, Deceiver Exarch, Fiend Hunter, Glissa, etc. etc.
Really, if you wanted to run Lich in Pod, it'd probably be much better served in a deck with Glissa and other Artifact creatures as opposed to a Zombie focus that way you have a lot more targets for Lich if you don't get a pod out or it gets destroyed. Tapping BBB for a Lich and nothing to stick a counter onto it is pretty bad when you consider the other options pod has.
Admittedly, the color requirements in this deck early game can be a little dicey, however the singleton Vault has gotten me out of many a tight spot. Mid-late game, it turns tokens generated by Lingering Souls into little nightmares. Your opponents basically can't swing profitably with anything, and you attacking generates significant life swings, especially if you have a Sorin Emblem out.
It also helps turn games around where you're legitimately concerned about something like a Geralf's Messenger or Hellrider turning around the life you have left, particularly as Esper control is running fewer counters than it used to, leaving us a lot more susceptible to having no way to answer it until the damage has already been done.
The one other thing I'd mention is that I no longer thing the split between Go For the Throat and Doom Blade is worth it over just going with more Go For the Throat. Tempered Steel is basically dead, which leaves the only two creatures you're going to see with any amount of consistency from an Artifact standpoint are Wurmcoil Engine and Solemn Simulacrum. Maybe the occasional Phyrexian Metamorph creature (assuming it's not copying a black creature). However, you're far more likely to find yourself staring down a Zombie of some sort, Griselbrand, Blood Artist, etc. with far greater frequency than you are threatening artifact creatures. Likewise, these artifact creatures are going to come out a lot slower, making it more likely you can react with a board wipe instead.
Great. Of all of the parts of this, this was the one I was the most foggy on - as I've generally trained myself to assume the wording is as deliberate as possible, this is one of the times that the deliberate wording gets broken from. Now that I know, it's easy to remember, it's just not overly intuitive. Particularly as my advice to newer players is almost always "make sure you are rewarding the words terminology of the card exactly".
I guess from a logic perspective, you can look at it more like "Whenever this (whatever it is) is the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it." and that creature is just more of a word that makes that less awkward to read.
So the part of which I'm sure on up until this point:
Take an Artifact (I'll use Ichor Wellspring) and use Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and his -1 ability to turn it into a 5/5 Artifact Creature.
At this point, I play Phantasmal Image copying said Ichor Wellspring - which, if I'm correct on my cloning logic, means that it enters as a non-creature version of the card.
Now, this is where I start to get a little fuzzy.
Phantasmal Image says "it's an Illusion in addition to its other types and it gains "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it".
Now, I believe non-creatures cannot have creature sub-types, so the questions ensuing from this are as follows:
Would it lose the Illusion subtype? I believe the answer to this is yes, but I'm not totally certain.
Would it retain the second part of the ability: "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it"?
As a followup to that question: If so, does that ability do nothing so long as it's not a creature?
And as one final follow-up to that question, assuming the ability doesn't do anything so long as it's not a creature:
If I used Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas to turn this into a creature, would it regain the subtype of Illusion, or would it never get this subtype back?
I guess in order to fit five guilds in per set, one of them had to hit that way.
It probably promises something quite interesting for the third set from the block since they're covering all 10 guilds in the first two sets with a 5/5 split instead of the 4/3/3 split they did in the original Ravnica block.
We see this all the time about plenty of different cards. This card is good for decks that are low mana cost. For multiple reasons. One, when you play out your hand, or most of it, in the first few turns, hit turn 4 or so where you've unloaded must of your opening hand, you still have one mana up while putting a counter on this, and have a turn 5 4/4 haster that can serve as a close-out.
That being said, it deserves obvious comparisons to Genesis Wave - but I think one of the things that makes it worse than Genesis Wave that's being missed here, is that Genesis Wave is a may on putting it on the battlefield - as well as the fact that you don't have to quite build as around it as you do Primal Surge.
Interesting combos with Genesis Wave are, for instance, Genesis Waving for a billion, and letting Anger be put in the graveyard - which you can't do with this. There are, of course, plenty of others as well. It's a neat card, and if you're running a full permanent based deck with this as a 1 of or so, you could probably get away with it, but I think 10 mana is too much for most constructed formats outside of EDH. But as I've come to learn, in EDH anything (that isn't banned) is playable.