MTG Salvation

Traditionally speaking, the deck has never wanted mainboard discard because you're trying to get to turn 20 before winning with rev > zenith.
Things are a little bit different these days, but fundamentally, you are still trying to play a long game.
The nature of playing a pile of lands over everyone else in the format means you need to draw that many more cards in order to balance out on interaction for their threats.
The more cards you add that neither draw cards nor (reliably) answer something, the more you stress the card advantage you already have.
The nature of planeswalkers means that discard is probably better now than its ever been, but you are still fundamentally trying to play a long game, which discard doesn't work well with, not to mention the fact that thoughtseize causes lifeloss (while iok/duress miss a lot of important things we're scared of), discard doesnt require them to spend mana, and lets them spend their turn still deploying a threat, and of course the fact that a lot of the format is simply not that weak to discard, especially discard thats not on turn 1/2.
Its better in the board because its functional (but not great) in a lot of matchups (shadow, tron, etc) where some of our interaction is very bad (cryptic command, supreme verdict) so making the swap lets us keep the same amount of interaction post board.

The matchup hinges immensely on planeswalkers. The more answers to resolved walkers that you have (pithing needle, o ring, hex parasite, etc), the better.
The more noncreature wincons you have (gideon aoz, dawn of hope, crucible, misc planeswalkers etc), the better.
Playing more thraben inspectors helps a lot, as does trying to attack their mana in the case of esper. Don't overextend in to sweepers, but make sure you don't just flop it they untap and slam a walker because your board is too small.
Walking ballista is also pretty decent, so finding room for a copy can help a lot.

Yea, I was literally just talking about this at legacy today too.
I played against BR reanimator, which by an metric, is a deck not designed to produce interesting games.
And I won't say that it exactly does, but legacy as a whole produces a lot more decision points, and a lot more opportunities for a game to subtly shift.
Do you counter their fast mana? Do you surgical their chancellor in response to an exhume knowing they left up mana for a potential entomb when you have a plow in hand? Do you want to throw a spell away to a chancellor trigger turn 1? Do you want to cast a brainstorm in response to their therapy? How much are you willing tuck? What if it was an unmask instead? How many turns do you want to time walk yourself leaving up a deathrite shaman? Would you rather cast a thalia or a revoker on turn 2 if they've already dropped double petal? Is a turn 1 ooze better than mulling to leyline? Is it worth crop rotating a karakas into a bog with no loam in hand?
This just scratches the surface, but this is the bread and butter of games vs a deck thats the epitome of a roulette machine.
Games in modern do not consistently feel like this. Frequently the reanimator deck just has it doesn't and you're left with a coloring book.

Well I've been pretty silent for a while, but I'll chime in.
I voted for 4.
I won't say its the worst its ever been. I've played through Probe + grave troll and eye of ugin + TKS.
This is better.
Somewhat.

As someone who forces interactive decks that produce (in my opinion) consistently interesting games, the fact that the format heavily rewards those that do the exact opposite is certainly disheartening.
I do enjoy winning, everyone does, but I'm not upset at the format because my deck isn't good (not exactly, any how).
I really just want to sit down to play magic every week, and know there 75% of my matches are going to be interesting games, full of decisions, potential back and forth, and just generally stimulating games.
I know this is possible, because its true for legacy, but it is not remotely true for modern.
Theres a whole laundry list of cards I'd love to ban for selfish reasons, because I don't believe that they promote interesting decks (tron lands, stinkweed/thug, cavern of souls, ensnaring bridge, valakut, spirit guide, burning inquiry, and plenty more I'm sure.)
Despite looting/stirrings being popular targets, given wizard's general goal to ban the enablers, there is atleast a chance that those cards produce interesting games. If decks like phoenix or amulet titan are fringe decks that pop up from time to time, I could deal with it. (Not to mention things like lantern, hardened scales, or mardu, that actually do produce interesting games much more frequently). At the very least, they do provide a decision to two to make, which is more than can be said of cards like burning inquiry.
My local meta is a pretty good mix of people playing what they enjoy, and people playing what we all know is good, so theres certainly variety. If people around me were more inclined to just play the top decks, I'd probably have voted closer to 5.
Perhaps this isn't a popular opinion, especially given the long list of complaints, but at the core, I just want to play interesting games. If wizards can make that happen by printing a lot of interesting fair cards in modern horizons, thats great. If they can't, then I'll probably start to reevaluate how much of my modern cards I want to keep.

P sure this wants to be a wargate deck, not whir.
I also don't think SSS is worthwhile. I assume you're just looking for sword of the meek synergy, but I don't think its really worth it.

Now that I think about it though, wargate + glittering wish with 1 copy of Sword of the meek and 0-1 foundry main, and 1 foundry in the board could be pretty decent. Its such a low amount of space for the combo, since wargate can get azcanta, snap, clique, walkers, lands, etc. Maybe there are other permanents you would play, or maybe not. (Crucible? Other creatures? Wilderness reclamation? Its goodish with thopter combo. Wargating for it is 7 mana tho, so maybe its too winmore).

Idk, something to think about here. Maybe I'll try messing with this. Unfortunately only have 2 copies of wargate, but maybe you don't want more.

If you search up 6 mountains and 1 valakut, 6 triggers will be put onto the stack. Whether or not valakut lives to see these triggers resolve is irrelevant.
If someone destroys a mountain, it may cancel the triggers.
Valakut has what is called an "intervening if clause" ("Whenever a Mountain enters the battlefield under your control, if you control at least five other Mountains, ...") which defines a condition necessary for the effect to trigger, as well as necessary for the effect to resolve.
The destroyed mountain will produce a trigger that when resolved, will see 5 other mountains (the 5 that were not destroyed) but the other 5 mountains will produces triggers that do not see 5 other mountains (only 4 since one is destroyed) and only 3 damage will be dealt (assuming only a single valakut).

If your opponent uses a ghost quarter or a field of ruin, if you are able to find another mountain to replace the destroyed one, you'll be able to "save" your triggers, as well as produce another one for the new mountain entering. (That is to say, when you cast a scapeshift, fetch up nonbasics first to leave more basics in the deck for potential disruption)


I'm also intending to put this deck together, probably in straight RUG as well.
I don't have an exact list yet, but I expect to be playing a more control-heavy list.
I'm not sure if its been brought up before, but temporal mastery with jace seems like it could find a real home here. Getting an extra turn that the opponent isn't expecting could easily win the game, but worse case, a random explore is still a pretty reasonable floor in a deck looking to make land drops.

Condemn isa lot worse because of discard. If ashadow player expects it, they can wait to attack until they find a discard/counter spell. Not the case with plow.

For sure interactivity questions, I think the easiest solution would be to add a third category. Instead of simply "interactive" and "non interactive" try "non interactive" "interactive threat" and "interactive non-threat" with each category worth a different amount of points (maybe 0, 1, 2 is correct, or 0, .75, 1.25, or whatever is better)
I would never consider lava spike an interactive card (its just going upstairs, its less interactive than any vanilla creature), but boros charm is sometimes interactive, so maybe thats enough to put it into the second category. Bolt is somewhere between threat/nonthreat depending on the deck as well.
This also somewhat solves the tron problem.
In theory, ugin is an interactive card, but in practice, its a coinflip of a few bolts/EEs or just straight up wins the game because the other player can't possibly beat it, so it should be worth less points than O stone, but more points than urza's tower.

Having played a fair amount of myth realized, heres a few suggestions:
You want snapcaster mage. Its too good not to play.
You probably want to up the amount of burn you play. 4 bolt, 4 helix, 2 boros charm, (4 snap) maybe a forked bolt, electrolyze, etc. Especially instants, but even for sorceries. Being able to cast burn on their endstep while growing myth, then untapping is pretty strong. (also boros charm double strike can be pretty gross)
Chart a course is also a very tempting card for such a build. Its a little awkward casting it MP2 with myth, but not nearly as bad as prowess creatures.
You can loot away extra myths late game, or just keep cards flowing.
I also really don't like your mana base.
5 fetches is low, 6 shocks is high, and you have too many UR lands to support myth adequately. You can really never have enough white sources with that card.
its also a functional mana sink, making manlands less useful (which is nice because none of the jeskai manlands are very good in delver)

Before ixalan, UW exists as a "UW ponza" deck with spreading seas and such main. It was fine, considered an alternative to jeskai, but not better.
Then ixalan gives us search for azcanta and opt, dominaria gives us teferi, and wotc gives us jace.
Coupled with other bull***** like hollow one being a deck now, humans being a deck now, spirits being a deck now, hardened scales being a deck now, hollowvine being a deck for a minute, etc, terminus became not only a real option, but actually better than bolt + verdict.
On top of that, we got ceremonious rejection in kaladesh, and damping sphere in dominaria, which lets us actually beat tron some amount of the time without having to play mainboard spreading seas and the like.

The deck is still weak to dredge (all control decks are going to be), which is somewhat problematic at the moment, as well at weak to combo like storm, ad nauseum, valakut, etc, but you're generally good vs the aggro decks, and good vs the midrange decks, which make up a pretty hefty amount of the format.
Jund is also seeing a resurgence due to trophy being printed, but I'm not as sure how lasting that will be.
I think UW is better positioned moving forwards, as even if it never regains its dominance of the past few months, there will likely be a snap/jace deck around the top of the format for the forseeable future.

You can infract this post if you want, but the censorship rule is bull*****. I don't particularly enjoy seeing and having to talk about the topic in question anymore either since it's all the same dumb arguments over and over, but this is the state of the meta and banlist thread. This is the place for discussions like that. If people don't want to talk about certain banned cards, MAYBE THEY SHOULDN'T BE IN THE BANLIST THREAD. Or they could just learn to skip over and ignore comments on topics they don't want to talk about.

The bottom line is that that particular banning was controversial (thus why people are still talking about it 2 years later), Wizards basically gave us a heads-up that they might unban something after the PT, and it's a card on many people's short-lists of potential unban targets. Whether or not it's a viable unban at this point is a perfectly reasonable debate to have IN THE BANLIST THREAD.

That's all I have to say on the topic, but you can consider this my formal dissent to reinstituting this censorship rule in this thread.

Nph

Is anyone else a fan of the full art Cryptic Commands? Ever since I traded up from the modern masters version I fell in love with them.

eww expeditions are ugly, go for original foils

I'm not on Logic Knot because of the mana requirement and corner cases where it does too little. For UW, it's fantastic. In lists with lighter red, Logic Knot is a very good card.

Quote from stokpile »

Quote from Cody_X »

The idea of thopter sword is that people envision it as a turn 3 win, and it can just take over turn 4. Gifts is more of a turn 4 > 5 sort of combo, meaning its a good turn or two slower at best. In practice, thopter sword is a two card combo that shifts deck lists, where as gifts is a 1 card combo that fits in a bit easier.

Not entirely true. Both "combos" require you to alter your deck in less than optimal ways just to accommodate them. Thopters requires you to run more search like muddle or tezz which takes you down 1 path and gifts requires you to play more 1-ofs, many you never want to ever draw, in order to be fully effective. Meanwhile just shoving either combo into an existing deck is not something that can be done with any amount of success because then you're very all in with little to no support.

Gifts doesn't require that many 1-ofs. You really just need Iona, Elesh Norn, and Unburial Rites. Value cards that you look for with Gifts when you can't find the combo are generally 2-4 ofs, and Iona and Elesh Norn are the main things that you would be searching for if you needed specific hate against a deck.

Is AV a draw go card? Irrelevant, we play Supreme Verdict. Whatever

Point being, does it actually make our current deck better without building an entirely different deck / engine? NO. It doesn't

I was waiting for it to happen, someone finally just compared REV to AV saying "I'd rather have AV imho" Well sir, go and take your AV. That's your prerogative.

I hate to do this, because it reeks of condesescension and I DON'T intend it that way at all, but BESIDES Amalek, I look down the list and names I recognize from the forum of people who have been posting here and relentlessly grinding this deck for over a year, most of you (us) seem to be relatively "meh" on visions and are more "hey well the deck we already had is now better positioned, so instead of redesigning the whole thing we can play the deck we've worked so hard on and be better positioned to attack the metagame than we used to be, yayyyy" These are the people who understand the power of sphinx's rev, understand the consistency of think twice, and the people who will be remanding your AV until the cows come home.

Then there are a gang of newer contributors who perhaps don't have as much physical and practical playtime with the deck who are all on the hype train. This brings us back to the "build the original wafo list and go from there so you can understand how the shell works " thing we have to go back to every so often.

I'm not hating onyou guys, in fact that teachings list is sweet. I just don't think it's better than what we were doing. Given the fact that Wadfo-had access to teachings and chose not to play it, neither did he. You can try to pin me on an "appeal to authority" there, but facts are facts. We are playing a deck that is basically just wafo worship. I think it's pretty telling that he of all people abandoned teachings.
I tried for a few months last year to get teachings to work and it was just never as solidly consistent as the GP Boston shell.

Where are Donny and Piotrowiak? (forgive the spelling)

Quote from Sentimental_Engine_Slayer »

Precisely how good do you think Hallowed Moonlight is in this deck / metagame as a 2 of to replace wafo's 2 shadow of doubt?

I've been playing one in the side in my teachings list, it's been great. I have pondered moving it to the main deck, but I don't think playing two is great... Maybe a 1/1 split with shadow?

Quote from Cody_X

I'm curious as to why you sided trickbind in against storm, because I don't think it belongs in the main board.

Trickbind stifles Storm triggers, so UR Storm gets only 1 damage out of a Grapeshot. It's decent if they're not on the Pyromancer Ascension plan and its 2 Grapeshots for 20 Storm each.