Temporal mastery is also gone,the miracle happens to frequently when I don't want it to
You do know that you don't have to miracle it right?
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If you can cast a spell, you're doing well, If you can't, that's okay, too. It usually takes a few turns before you have enough mana to do anything. Meanwhile, you should figure out whether you need to discard (p.11). Then announce the end of your turn, and let your opponent have a go.
Yes,but I'm not using serum because of AV which makes it impossible to manipulate and I'm at ten warps so Aeons better for the buyback, I'm mono blue and use the lens for mana ramp so I have islands to spare usually.
I use my disruption to draw, which is another drawback with mastery, and I suspect to see a bunch of prison decks and chalice especially so I've tried to minimize my one drops.
Burn,Fish,Zoo,Thalia,Goblins and all the other fast decks I needed early cheap disruption, if I did miracle a mastery it usually only added a land and disrupted my original plan so I freed up two slots from the temporal's for additional disruption and another two, one for another aeons, the other is stretch,which is there because of surgical extraction.
Sucks losing warps and fizzling so stretch and snappy is great late game.
One of the hard things to do with this deck is sideboard. What comes in? what goes out? It all feels like a critical mass; like I get there are bad cards, like remand on the draw, but still it feels like I can't get rid of pieces because it's all too important
Hello, I have been reading mtg salvation for years but this is my first ever post. I've been playing my own version of Turns on and off at my local FNMs since last August and have had excellent success with it. This last saturday I took it to Columbus Ohio regionals and went 5-3-1. I would have easily placed top 32 had I not punted a game against tron which I was clearly going to win (I stole his turn 3 karn with a commandeer only to lose him to an end-step warping wail token a few turns later). This deck is real. Very few combo decks can put together such a consistent win even though it doesn't break moderns explicit turn 3 rule. If the format slows down any more it will very quickly become a Tier 1 deck.
When I started working on it the deck was mono-blue but after getting hit with a well timed choke I threw in some glacial fortress and before I knew it I was main decking Angelsong when infect was popular this last fall, and searching the gatherer for the best white sideboard cards to shore up the problems with aggro. Now I am sold that turns is a blue deck with a mostly white sideboard.
I find that even with no reshuffle I have only been decked a couple of times (once to double chalice of the void vs sun and moon). And cards like elixer and days undoing are only worth it if you run jace. Instead of jace I lean on thassa to do my heavy lifting, she can come down late and still close a game out in 3 or 4 turns, whereas a late game Jace will require a reshuffle to be used as a win con. (when your racing the clock to close out a win before the round runs out you want Thassa and not Jace)
And why no Snapcaster Mage in my list? because I wasn't casting him until turn 7 most games, which made him a dead card until then so I replaced him with additional early interaction and i have never looked back.
My MVP's this last weekend were Dark Steel Citadel (push him I dare you) and Commandeer (it really doesn't get any better than stealing karns, ugins, and sphinx's revelations while they think your tapped out and helpless. I had never played Kataki, War's Wage in here before this weekend so I was a bit caught off guard by how powerful it becomes when used against lantern and affinity. With him Exhaustion becomes a creeping-corrosion-time-walk.... for only 3 mana. Gaining life through Atarkas Command and Skullcrack do not seem to be working so I'm going to try to keep eidolon off the board and slow down burn with spell snare. And lastly due to the recent rise in the frequency of ad nauseum combo I'm going to add meddling mage to the side when I get some.
I'm off cryptic for that very reason,thats how I squeezed in spreading seas in my MB which I think has been better because the early game is what matters and I always want to draw.I chose seas instead of one drop counters because of chalice and removed serum so I only have two spells affected by chalice on one.(spell pierce) howling mine I also feel is better than dictate because I can tap it down with giga while I tap down their lands and keep them from drawing off of it, which against counter and burn is a big deal.
Boseiju keeps the warps and counterspells from being stopped,added minamo(thanks Blair Phoenix) since it untaps boseiju.
Titi I like(more explosive) but I've pulled it completely,this meta has serious hate and Titi just dies. If it doesn't I was already winning and waterveil would have done it anyways.
Temporal mastery is also gone,the miracle happens to frequently when I don't want it to,usually too early and gets countered and I'm out a warp that would have been relevant when I was ready to go off.Instead I run 4 warps,3 waterveil and two aeons with a single time stretch and I won't be going back.
I tried to go with zero snappy and it wasn't working,I put a single back in and it's perfect with one.
I have been testing numerous ideas and splashes and am currently staying mono blue with the lens and snow lands.
GP in Vancouver is in two weeks,Grixis Delver, Dredge, Living End were all choices but I opted for turns because of no other reason than I love it!Its my favorite deck.I hadn't found anything since twin was banned until this.
So here's what I'm taking if I can make it(8-9hrs away).
Sideboard is getting better, still torn about adding chalice or explosives to SB.
Anyways,if you read through it all I thank you and I'd love to hear any suggestions while I still have time to test them.Ill add in some strategies I have for certain matches later and what I side in,maybe some of you will have some better choices I've overlooked or don't know about.
list seems even worse since the last one.. :| (not telling that to start flame, just pointing things out to help you develop a more competitive build )
you should try not using lenses. they aren't that good honestly..
4 remands are a bit too much, perfect number seems to be 2 or 3 with 1 or 2 unsubstantiate / boomerangs
we cannot be competitive without at least 2x cryptic commands
boseiju isn't good in turns enters tapped and simply that could cut it off the 75, the shock effect isn't good and we really don't need the uncounterable clause.
really cut the mines in favor to dictate of kruphix. there is no need of howling mine if not as a dictate number 5 or 6.
no mikokoro? you should add that
and to everyone who cut completely temporal mastery: don't do that. play it. your choice to play it in 3 or 4 copies, but play it. because you can cheat a power nine card every game and choosing to not do so is just not a good move.
choosing extra turn effects spell works like that:
i want 4 time warp
i want 4 temporal mastery
i want 3 part the waterveil
i want some "secret tech" extra turn effect? -1 part the waterveil or -1 temporal mastery +1 secret tech extra turn
i want to go up to 12 turn effects? +1 ptw or +1 secret tech extra turn of choice if needed
Wooh, new primer. Needs some ironing out, but it will get there. Don't have anything enlightening to add, as I'm currently still testing 2 Howling Mines in lieu of Thing in the Ice (alright so far, but definitely not strictly better). I might switch back to TitI and try the playset Ancestral Vision soon, as Farf seems to be insistent about that card, although I wish he could offer some... deeper thoughts. Meddling Mage in the sideboard also sounds fun, I'll look into rebuilding mine as a whole anyway, so that's a consideration.
What I can add to the new thread is yet another foiled out Turns (a fair bit of the foiling is still in progress, see below), pictures sadly taken with my phone's camera, can't find my proper one:
Mainboard
Non-foils:
Exhaustions; I like the DiTerlizzi artwork too much, I'm postponing those a bit
1 Flooded Strand; to be replaced by an Expedition Misty Rainforest (playing 4 different fetches has some fringe upside against Pithing Needle)
Inkmoth Nexus; as you can tell, I like promos quite a bit, so I'm waiting for the WMCQ promo Inkmoth later this year
Gemstone Caverns; this spiked all the way back after Pro Tour OGW iirc, hoped the price for a German foil (I go for German whenever possible) would drop a bit
Howling Mines; still not a final choice for the deck
Time Warps; I'm not a fan of the Judge promo artwork and German M10 foil Warps are insanely expensive, plus until more surface, a playset is straight up not feasible
Temporal Masteries; simply haven't gotten around to it
Sideboard
As stated, I'm looking to rebuild the sideboard, I'd primarily like to try out a total of 3 Chalices. Non-foils are currently the 3 Leylines and 2 (signed) Reinforcements.
so awesome to see more people picking up the deck and even more foiling it out! i'll post mine one of these days too
like you i'm missing from the main board 4 temporal mastery and 4 time warp, plus 2 cryptic command. for the time warps i think i'll alter them instead of foiling them. i think i'll sunbleach the tempest ones because i like the old frame. at the top of the next foils to get i also have a vendilion clique i can't find anywhere near me :/
No hard feelings,but I would like to here your reasoning behind some things,I value all criticism, good or bad.
Lens,why do you think it's not good? It accelerates and allows turn four warping as well as freeing up islands to sac for aeons so I don't fizzle. Allows PtW to go off earlier as well.
Cryptic is four mana and is terrible against burn,and fast aggro,as well as anyone playing blue.Giga taps down,remand is counter/draw and boomerang is in SB if I need bounce all for half the mana.I just don't like it in the deck,cool card but to slow for my personal taste since it's to sketchy to cast against blue decks on turn four.A four mana cryptic getting dispelled or pierced is a terrible feeling.Is it a core card?I don't think so, and others are getting away from it too for probably the same reasons I have,it was better when the deck was more unknown.
Mine I can drop and protect turn three/four,dictate is turn four/five and can't be tapped down to keep opponent from drawing cards which sometimes is important.
Mastery I just don't want for the reasons I stated.
Boseiju,the only card that shocks me,I ran twin,the one or two times its activated is nothing compared to fetches and shocklands,then it's a waterveil target.
Mikokoro is draw which I have lots of,making my warp uncounterable has been more effective. Unsubstantiate, thats maybe a route I might take and replace the two spell pierce,the creature part makes me feel better about not having vapor snag,and it gets me off all one drops to dodge chalice better.Right now chalice only affects AV on turn four which after side board is easy to deal with.
Now if I was still trying UW then I would have path to exile, thing in the ice,ghostly prison, worship and O-rings.I also would drop the lens,AV and snow lands and use mikokoro,Flagstones of trokair for waterveil and hallowed fountain with four fetches.I think splashing diffrent colors means diffrent game plans.
No hard feelings,but I would like to here your reasoning behind some things,I value all criticism, good or bad.
Lens,why do you think it's not good? It accelerates and allows turn four warping as well as freeing up islands to sac for aeons so I don't fizzle. Allows PtW to go off earlier as well.
Cryptic is four mana and is terrible against burn,and fast aggro,as well as anyone playing blue.Giga taps down,remand is counter/draw and boomerang is in SB if I need bounce all for half the mana.I just don't like it in the deck,cool card but to slow for my personal taste since it's to sketchy to cast against blue decks on turn four.A four mana cryptic getting dispelled or pierced is a terrible feeling.Is it a core card?I don't think so, and others are getting away from it too for probably the same reasons I have,it was better when the deck was more unknown.
Mine I can drop and protect turn three/four,dictate is turn four/five and can't be tapped down to keep opponent from drawing cards which sometimes is important.
Mastery I just don't want for the reasons I stated.
Boseiju,the only card that shocks me,I ran twin,the one or two times its activated is nothing compared to fetches and shocklands,then it's a waterveil target.
Mikokoro is draw which I have lots of,making my warp uncounterable has been more effective. Unsubstantiate, thats maybe a route I might take and replace the two spell pierce,the creature part makes me feel better about not having vapor snag,and it gets me off all one drops to dodge chalice better.Right now chalice only affects AV on turn four which after side board is easy to deal with.
Now if I was still trying UW then I would have path to exile, thing in the ice,ghostly prison, worship and O-rings.I also would drop the lens,AV and snow lands and use mikokoro,Flagstones of trokair for waterveil and hallowed fountain with four fetches.I think splashing diffrent colors means diffrent game plans.
lenses were used to ramp to emrakul. no point in playing them if you aren't cheating emrakul in play that way.. turn 4 warp with lenses means this:
turn 1 i don't know, maybe island pass or island sv, pass
turn 2 island, howling mine (tap out and giving opponent card advantage)
turn 3 island, lenses (tap out, -1 land)
turn 4 i have 4 mana, 6 if i have another land drop
that line of play sucks bad. sorry :/
i'd rather play
turn 1 island sv setting up mastery
turn 2 island, pass, remand
turn 3 miracled mastery, island
extra turn! turn 4 island, pass, cryptic command or dictate
turn 5 time warp
or
turn 1 island
turn 2 island, pass, remand
turn 3 island, pass, dictate
turn 4 island, pass, cryptic command
turn 5 time warp
temporal mastery is the second best extra turn effect right after time warp
mine gives first your opponent a card, while dictate can be played at insta speed
mikokoro works very well when people answer your dictates in play with disenchant and such cards, having 1 mikokoro means you gain a lot and lose almost nothing. play it
while i do agree that having a cryptic command countered by dispel sucks, i'll note that dispel isn't that played because U isn't played that much at all. this is why boseiju isn't good too. to win against control you just have to gigadrowse eot and go off, it is one of the easiest match ups for us. back on cryptic command it has "When you cast cryptic command, you can't lose the game this turn." written on it. it is one of the most powerfull cards we have, 2 is obligatory to play. only splashes *might* cut it because of the triple U but even those lists still want to play cryptics
Has anybody tried mainboarding Shadow of Doubt? I did great last night at my friendly Modern gathering with the bros. The meta included 2 Tron, 1 Bant Eldrazi, and several Aggro builds. It's basically dead against MonoG Infect, Affinity, and RDW. It's BALLER against aggro decks that depend on getting those perfect land drops with JUST THE RIGHT amount of each color carefully selected...then sinkhole'd with a cantrip!
Maybe I'm biased because of how good the card feels against Fetchlands which, I'm sure I can check on MTGGoldfish, make up a massive part of a general meta in modern.
I agree with Mastery being critical. It gives you another way to play an engine and an extra turn spell in the same turn and kickstart the combo. One of my favorite lines is to just play control for the first 4 turns, get them tapped out and play turn 5 Howling Mine/TiTi + Exhaustion so they can't interact and you start really going off the next turn. Mastery gives you another even better version of that line and it's the only way to really enable a "turn 4" kill.
If you're not playing Serum Visions I guess I can see the argument, but I also see SV as a mandatory 4 of. We need a turn 1 play that actually does something and helps us set up, and when you're comboing off it's basically just an Ancestral Vision that you can cast at any time because we don't usually need all 3 cards off the top anyway. Serum Visions is the grease that keeps the wheels turning at every stage of the game.
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If you can cast a spell, you're doing well, If you can't, that's okay, too. It usually takes a few turns before you have enough mana to do anything. Meanwhile, you should figure out whether you need to discard (p.11). Then announce the end of your turn, and let your opponent have a go.
I agree with Mastery being critical. It gives you another way to play an engine and an extra turn spell in the same turn and kickstart the combo. One of my favorite lines is to just play control for the first 4 turns, get them tapped out and play turn 5 Howling Mine/TiTi + Exhaustion so they can't interact and you start really going off the next turn. Mastery gives you another even better version of that line and it's the only way to really enable a "turn 4" kill.
If you're not playing Serum Visions I guess I can see the argument, but I also see SV as a mandatory 4 of. We need a turn 1 play that actually does something and helps us set up, and when you're comboing off it's basically just an Ancestral Vision that you can cast at any time because we don't usually need all 3 cards off the top anyway. Serum Visions is the grease that keeps the wheels turning at every stage of the game.
i think i've won 80% of the matches that had an early miracled mastery. just last week i was able to hit that:
Has anybody tried mainboarding Shadow of Doubt? I did great last night at my friendly Modern gathering with the bros. The meta included 2 Tron, 1 Bant Eldrazi, and several Aggro builds. It's basically dead against MonoG Infect, Affinity, and RDW. It's BALLER against aggro decks that depend on getting those perfect land drops with JUST THE RIGHT amount of each color carefully selected...then sinkhole'd with a cantrip!
Maybe I'm biased because of how good the card feels against Fetchlands which, I'm sure I can check on MTGGoldfish, make up a massive part of a general meta in modern.
Shadow of Doubt is reasonably enticing and overall mostly a meta call, I feel. Absolutely horrendous against Affinity, probably awkward on the draw against many decks, pointless in extra turns or for trying to protect your combo (a 2 mana cantrip with no further effect is just not acceptable). On the flipside it can really catch your opponent off-guard (Squelch can accomplish the same thing) and help with the mana-denial/land control strategy that Turns likes to deploy. Ultimately I think that Shadow of Doubt is not worth it without running some number of Ghost Quarters and GQ really isn't a card this deck wants.
i've seen a lot of shadow of doubt in the sideboard tho, usually as a 2x... never been a fan of the card but it isn't bad. a bit like the opposit of boomerang.
bommerang doesn't excel at resolving anything but its strenght is that hits everything,
shadow of doubt can be very bad or very good depending on the match up
i've seen a lot of shadow of doubt in the sideboard tho, usually as a 2x... never been a fan of the card but it isn't bad. a bit like the opposit of boomerang.
bommerang doesn't excel at resolving anything but its strenght is that hits everything,
shadow of doubt can be very bad or very good depending on the match up
Boomerang is not terrible at resolving things. Bouncing a control deck's land eot turn 2 can generally bait a counter, which can let you cast a Dictate on your turn three with ease (I generally don't care about letting the control deck draw an extra card first).
I recently cut Shadow of Doubt from my SB. It's fun when you get someone with it, but it just doesn't really do enough imo to warrant the SB slot. Maybe if Slaughter games becomes popular again, but I haven't seen anyone use that card in a long time. Squelch is probably the better overall choice if you want to get people's fetches while cantripping but I still think it's overall too low impact to warrant.
In other news I got blown out yesterday by gigadrowse-ing my opponent's untapped 4 lands in anticipation of starting to warp next turn, and being hit with a cryptic bouncing one of my lands. Never drew another gigadrowse and died horribly. Should have waited another turn.
i've seen a lot of shadow of doubt in the sideboard tho, usually as a 2x... never been a fan of the card but it isn't bad. a bit like the opposit of boomerang.
bommerang doesn't excel at resolving anything but its strenght is that hits everything,
shadow of doubt can be very bad or very good depending on the match up
Boomerang is not terrible at resolving things. Bouncing a control deck's land eot turn 2 can generally bait a counter, which can let you cast a Dictate on your turn three with ease (I generally don't care about letting the control deck draw an extra card first).
I recently cut Shadow of Doubt from my SB. It's fun when you get someone with it, but it just doesn't really do enough imo to warrant the SB slot. Maybe if Slaughter games becomes popular again, but I haven't seen anyone use that card in a long time. Squelch is probably the better overall choice if you want to get people's fetches while cantripping but I still think it's overall too low impact to warrant.
In other news I got blown out yesterday by gigadrowse-ing my opponent's untapped 4 lands in anticipation of starting to warp next turn, and being hit with a cryptic bouncing one of my lands. Never drew another gigadrowse and died horribly. Should have waited another turn.
I've had a couple years of practice with the Mono Blue Taking Turns. I've noticed that as the meta changes, there are plenty of decks in T1 and T2 that will have difficulty bouncing back once you take out a in the first two turns. I used to run playsets of Boomerang as well as Wipe Away to facilitate that, but that was back when Delver and Twin were the most popular decks.
Squelch running alongside something like Spreading Seas might work. I had never thought of it but the last two pages of the thread include several decks that use Spreading Seas. I'll try both out and see how it goes!
We will have to agree to disagree on lens.They are masterpieces so that might be why I'm so clingy.lol.
I did replace the two pierces with Unsubstantiate. squelch I had forgotten about,i might have to try that idea,your right, with seas that could be very good to help stall.
Chalice on zero is what I meant by affecting AV because it doesn't stop it being suspended,that means I have till turn four to bounce it.Sorry bout that.
Decay,wear/tear,revelrey,claim are all an issue for both the mines and dictate,AV and the extra seas helps with that,everyone is getting used to the deck and is either countering or destroying them because they know that's how to make us fizzle.
I might have old dog new tricks syndrome too,playing twin then WUR delver,then Grixis delver,merfolk and RW prison has set certain strategies and the cards used in them in my brain.Im nervous about the GP and I was having poor results with other decklists.
AV is very expensive so I can see why it hasn't been tested a whole lot and why so few lists run it,but it changes things,I end up with the same amount of cards turn 4 as I would turn 6 with dictate getting flashed turn 3,and AV is easier to protect.Its like a mine but it doesn't make me rely on the mines.
Has anyone tried peek yet?It came up in a conversation about the probe ban I had with a buddy.It could be worth looking into.Use it opponent EoT T4.
We will have to agree to disagree on lens.They are masterpieces so that might be why I'm so clingy.lol.
I did replace the two pierces with Unsubstantiate. squelch I had forgotten about,i might have to try that idea,your right, with seas that could be very good to help stall.
Chalice on zero is what I meant by affecting AV because it doesn't stop it being suspended,that means I have till turn four to bounce it.Sorry bout that.
Decay,wear/tear,revelrey,claim are all an issue for both the mines and dictate,AV and the extra seas helps with that,everyone is getting used to the deck and is either countering or destroying them because they know that's how to make us fizzle.
I might have old dog new tricks syndrome too,playing twin then WUR delver,then Grixis delver,merfolk and RW prison has set certain strategies and the cards used in them in my brain.Im nervous about the GP and I was having poor results with other decklists.
AV is very expensive so I can see why it hasn't been tested a whole lot and why so few lists run it,but it changes things,I end up with the same amount of cards turn 4 as I would turn 6 with dictate getting flashed turn 3,and AV is easier to protect.Its like a mine but it doesn't make me rely on the mines.
Has anyone tried peek yet?It came up in a conversation about the probe ban I had with a buddy.It could be worth looking into.Use it opponent EoT T4.
Most of us even foiled out the deck,av price isnt a problem
ancestral vision gives you 3 cards turn 5 if played turn 1. Not turn 4. It is just card disadvantage in the critical turns and takes 4 Interactive slots (since you still have to play mine effects anyway)
lenses aren't useful without emrakul
You really need temporal mastery
I played the first of a 4 night Modern League at my university's Magic Club last night. Wound up deciding to proxy up the UW list in the primer since proxied decks were legal. The league is one round per night, and my first round last night was against Jeskai Nahiri. I figured I may as well post a quick write-up of how things went/how I sideboarded as I wasn't exactly sure that I made the right sideboard changes.
Round 1: Jeskai Nahiri
Game 1 went pretty well! He didn't know what I was on, so I simply waited until he cast a turn 5 Nahiri before Gigadrowsing his last untapped blue source and flashing in a Dictate. I couldn't go off that turn, but since Exhaustion does such a good job of pretending to be a 3-mana Time Walk I just cast that and passed before going off on my turn 6.
IN: 2x Leyline of Sanctity, 1x Rest in Peace
OUT: 3x Thing in the Ice
Game 2 I didn't see a single dictate, and ended with me being Lightning Bolted/Helixed to death. He sided in Counterflux to deal with my Gigadrowses, which turned out to be a pretty big issue.
Game 3 was another win for me. Lots of early-game interaction with Gigadrowse and Exhaustion, landed a Dictate that we both drew off of a few times, baited out a few counterspells, then Gigadrowsed his remaining blue mana on his end step. Killed him with an awakened Inkmoth Nexus.
Overall I was pretty happy with how the deck played, even though it was only a single round. I'm definitely going to be building the deck for sure after how much I enjoyed playing it. I'm leaning a bit toward the UW build (even though it is more expensive) mainly for the sideboard options, however I'm still considering mono U as well.
I tried Shadow of Doubt with no success.
That card has the same problem of redirect: if you have 2 untapped lands but your opponent doesn't fetch or aim at you (burn or discard) you have almost lost.
The best cantrip alternative is Spreading Seas, because our worst matchups (burn, infect, zoo) have perfect manabase and no generic mana cost.
Infect (and affinity) also have Nexus.
I have been running Shadow as a 2-of in the mainboard because of all the tri-color and tron in my meta. Should I try Spreading Seas in the main or is it really garbage against other decks? I feel like having a crucial early land turn into an island is actually more annoying than I imagine...
Your opponent didn't exile your Dictate with Nahiri's ability?!
He wasn't a strong player...
You could even save your Gigadrowse for another time, because one mana means Dispel or Snare, useless against Dictate or Warps.
I'm not sure why he didn't, honestly. I don't know much about him though as he isn't a regular. I think he just proxied up the deck for the league. That one definitely left me scratching my head.
With hindsight I definitely should have saved the Gigadrowse. I didn't wind up mattering all that much, but you're absolutely right.
Wooh, new primer. Needs some ironing out, but it will get there. Don't have anything enlightening to add, as I'm currently still testing 2 Howling Mines in lieu of Thing in the Ice (alright so far, but definitely not strictly better). I might switch back to TitI and try the playset Ancestral Vision soon, as Farf seems to be insistent about that card, although I wish he could offer some... deeper thoughts. Meddling Mage in the sideboard also sounds fun, I'll look into rebuilding mine as a whole anyway, so that's a consideration.
What I can add to the new thread is yet another foiled out Turns (a fair bit of the foiling is still in progress, see below), pictures sadly taken with my phone's camera, can't find my proper one:
Mainboard
Non-foils:
Exhaustions; I like the DiTerlizzi artwork too much, I'm postponing those a bit
1 Flooded Strand; to be replaced by an Expedition Misty Rainforest (playing 4 different fetches has some fringe upside against Pithing Needle)
Inkmoth Nexus; as you can tell, I like promos quite a bit, so I'm waiting for the WMCQ promo Inkmoth later this year
Gemstone Caverns; this spiked all the way back after Pro Tour OGW iirc, hoped the price for a German foil (I go for German whenever possible) would drop a bit
Howling Mines; still not a final choice for the deck
Time Warps; I'm not a fan of the Judge promo artwork and German M10 foil Warps are insanely expensive, plus until more surface, a playset is straight up not feasible
Temporal Masteries; simply haven't gotten around to it
Sideboard
As stated, I'm looking to rebuild the sideboard, I'd primarily like to try out a total of 3 Chalices. Non-foils are currently the 3 Leylines and 2 (signed) Reinforcements.
that looks great, i'm also slowly foiling it out...I can't recognise the card in 4x above gigadrowse and the one in 2x next to gigadrowse. what are they
also I need an opinion on unsubstatiate: the full art promo looks sweet, but it's not foil... so what's best to put in a pimped deck? the full art promo or a the foil regular?
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Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
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You do know that you don't have to miracle it right?
I use my disruption to draw, which is another drawback with mastery, and I suspect to see a bunch of prison decks and chalice especially so I've tried to minimize my one drops.
Burn,Fish,Zoo,Thalia,Goblins and all the other fast decks I needed early cheap disruption, if I did miracle a mastery it usually only added a land and disrupted my original plan so I freed up two slots from the temporal's for additional disruption and another two, one for another aeons, the other is stretch,which is there because of surgical extraction.
Sucks losing warps and fizzling so stretch and snappy is great late game.
When I started working on it the deck was mono-blue but after getting hit with a well timed choke I threw in some glacial fortress and before I knew it I was main decking Angelsong when infect was popular this last fall, and searching the gatherer for the best white sideboard cards to shore up the problems with aggro. Now I am sold that turns is a blue deck with a mostly white sideboard.
I find that even with no reshuffle I have only been decked a couple of times (once to double chalice of the void vs sun and moon). And cards like elixer and days undoing are only worth it if you run jace. Instead of jace I lean on thassa to do my heavy lifting, she can come down late and still close a game out in 3 or 4 turns, whereas a late game Jace will require a reshuffle to be used as a win con. (when your racing the clock to close out a win before the round runs out you want Thassa and not Jace)
And why no Snapcaster Mage in my list? because I wasn't casting him until turn 7 most games, which made him a dead card until then so I replaced him with additional early interaction and i have never looked back.
Here is the list I took to regionals:
3 Serum Visions
4 Dictate of kruphix
2 Howling Mine
1 Thassa, God of the sea
3 Gigadrowse
4 Remand
4 Exhaustion
2 Cryptic Command
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Part the Waterveil
1 Mikokoro, Center of the sea
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Flooded Strand
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Mystic Gate
9 Islands
3 Pollen lullaby
3 Dispel
2 Porphyry Nodes
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Stony Silence
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Commandeer
My MVP's this last weekend were Dark Steel Citadel (push him I dare you) and Commandeer (it really doesn't get any better than stealing karns, ugins, and sphinx's revelations while they think your tapped out and helpless. I had never played Kataki, War's Wage in here before this weekend so I was a bit caught off guard by how powerful it becomes when used against lantern and affinity. With him Exhaustion becomes a creeping-corrosion-time-walk.... for only 3 mana. Gaining life through Atarkas Command and Skullcrack do not seem to be working so I'm going to try to keep eidolon off the board and slow down burn with spell snare. And lastly due to the recent rise in the frequency of ad nauseum combo I'm going to add meddling mage to the side when I get some.
-1 Stony Silence
-1 Laboratory Maniac
-3 Timely Reinforcements
+3 Spell Snare
+1 Kataki, War's Wage
+1 Commandeer
Pretty much every aggro deck beside burn buckles to pollen lullaby. But we need figure out how to fix the burn matchup cause its our achilles.
Uw Taking Turns
The Bad Moon
Small Mardu Midrange
Big Mardu Midrange
Grixis Waste Not Combo
Bw 8-Rack
Bw Midrange
list seems even worse since the last one.. :| (not telling that to start flame, just pointing things out to help you develop a more competitive build )
you should try not using lenses. they aren't that good honestly..
4 remands are a bit too much, perfect number seems to be 2 or 3 with 1 or 2 unsubstantiate / boomerangs
we cannot be competitive without at least 2x cryptic commands
boseiju isn't good in turns enters tapped and simply that could cut it off the 75, the shock effect isn't good and we really don't need the uncounterable clause.
really cut the mines in favor to dictate of kruphix. there is no need of howling mine if not as a dictate number 5 or 6.
no mikokoro? you should add that
and to everyone who cut completely temporal mastery: don't do that. play it. your choice to play it in 3 or 4 copies, but play it. because you can cheat a power nine card every game and choosing to not do so is just not a good move.
choosing extra turn effects spell works like that:
i want 4 time warp
i want 4 temporal mastery
i want 3 part the waterveil
i want some "secret tech" extra turn effect? -1 part the waterveil or -1 temporal mastery +1 secret tech extra turn
i want to go up to 12 turn effects? +1 ptw or +1 secret tech extra turn of choice if needed
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
so awesome to see more people picking up the deck and even more foiling it out! i'll post mine one of these days too
like you i'm missing from the main board 4 temporal mastery and 4 time warp, plus 2 cryptic command. for the time warps i think i'll alter them instead of foiling them. i think i'll sunbleach the tempest ones because i like the old frame. at the top of the next foils to get i also have a vendilion clique i can't find anywhere near me :/
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Lens,why do you think it's not good? It accelerates and allows turn four warping as well as freeing up islands to sac for aeons so I don't fizzle. Allows PtW to go off earlier as well.
Cryptic is four mana and is terrible against burn,and fast aggro,as well as anyone playing blue.Giga taps down,remand is counter/draw and boomerang is in SB if I need bounce all for half the mana.I just don't like it in the deck,cool card but to slow for my personal taste since it's to sketchy to cast against blue decks on turn four.A four mana cryptic getting dispelled or pierced is a terrible feeling.Is it a core card?I don't think so, and others are getting away from it too for probably the same reasons I have,it was better when the deck was more unknown.
Mine I can drop and protect turn three/four,dictate is turn four/five and can't be tapped down to keep opponent from drawing cards which sometimes is important.
Mastery I just don't want for the reasons I stated.
Boseiju,the only card that shocks me,I ran twin,the one or two times its activated is nothing compared to fetches and shocklands,then it's a waterveil target.
Mikokoro is draw which I have lots of,making my warp uncounterable has been more effective.
Unsubstantiate, thats maybe a route I might take and replace the two spell pierce,the creature part makes me feel better about not having vapor snag,and it gets me off all one drops to dodge chalice better.Right now chalice only affects AV on turn four which after side board is easy to deal with.
Now if I was still trying UW then I would have path to exile, thing in the ice,ghostly prison, worship and O-rings.I also would drop the lens,AV and snow lands and use mikokoro,Flagstones of trokair for waterveil and hallowed fountain with four fetches.I think splashing diffrent colors means diffrent game plans.
lenses were used to ramp to emrakul. no point in playing them if you aren't cheating emrakul in play that way.. turn 4 warp with lenses means this:
turn 1 i don't know, maybe island pass or island sv, pass
turn 2 island, howling mine (tap out and giving opponent card advantage)
turn 3 island, lenses (tap out, -1 land)
turn 4 i have 4 mana, 6 if i have another land drop
that line of play sucks bad. sorry :/
i'd rather play
turn 1 island sv setting up mastery
turn 2 island, pass, remand
turn 3 miracled mastery, island
extra turn! turn 4 island, pass, cryptic command or dictate
turn 5 time warp
or
turn 1 island
turn 2 island, pass, remand
turn 3 island, pass, dictate
turn 4 island, pass, cryptic command
turn 5 time warp
temporal mastery is the second best extra turn effect right after time warp
mine gives first your opponent a card, while dictate can be played at insta speed
mikokoro works very well when people answer your dictates in play with disenchant and such cards, having 1 mikokoro means you gain a lot and lose almost nothing. play it
while i do agree that having a cryptic command countered by dispel sucks, i'll note that dispel isn't that played because U isn't played that much at all. this is why boseiju isn't good too. to win against control you just have to gigadrowse eot and go off, it is one of the easiest match ups for us. back on cryptic command it has "When you cast cryptic command, you can't lose the game this turn." written on it. it is one of the most powerfull cards we have, 2 is obligatory to play. only splashes *might* cut it because of the triple U but even those lists still want to play cryptics
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Maybe I'm biased because of how good the card feels against Fetchlands which, I'm sure I can check on MTGGoldfish, make up a massive part of a general meta in modern.
If you're not playing Serum Visions I guess I can see the argument, but I also see SV as a mandatory 4 of. We need a turn 1 play that actually does something and helps us set up, and when you're comboing off it's basically just an Ancestral Vision that you can cast at any time because we don't usually need all 3 cards off the top anyway. Serum Visions is the grease that keeps the wheels turning at every stage of the game.
i think i've won 80% of the matches that had an early miracled mastery. just last week i was able to hit that:
turn 1 sv
turn 2 howling mine
turn 3 snapcaster + sv
turn 4 cryptic command
turn 5 miracled mastery + dictate
*opponent quits*
@purkepluff i think you should add to the primer this deck core:
4 serum visions
4 dictate of kruphix
3 part the waterveil
4 temporal mastery
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
i've seen a lot of shadow of doubt in the sideboard tho, usually as a 2x... never been a fan of the card but it isn't bad. a bit like the opposit of boomerang.
bommerang doesn't excel at resolving anything but its strenght is that hits everything,
shadow of doubt can be very bad or very good depending on the match up
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
AV's cmc is 0. The only matchup where your chalice would actively mess with AV is against Ad Nauseam
Boomerang is not terrible at resolving things. Bouncing a control deck's land eot turn 2 can generally bait a counter, which can let you cast a Dictate on your turn three with ease (I generally don't care about letting the control deck draw an extra card first).
I recently cut Shadow of Doubt from my SB. It's fun when you get someone with it, but it just doesn't really do enough imo to warrant the SB slot. Maybe if Slaughter games becomes popular again, but I haven't seen anyone use that card in a long time. Squelch is probably the better overall choice if you want to get people's fetches while cantripping but I still think it's overall too low impact to warrant.
In other news I got blown out yesterday by gigadrowse-ing my opponent's untapped 4 lands in anticipation of starting to warp next turn, and being hit with a cryptic bouncing one of my lands. Never drew another gigadrowse and died horribly. Should have waited another turn.
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WU Yorion, Sky Nomad
I've had a couple years of practice with the Mono Blue Taking Turns. I've noticed that as the meta changes, there are plenty of decks in T1 and T2 that will have difficulty bouncing back once you take out a in the first two turns. I used to run playsets of Boomerang as well as Wipe Away to facilitate that, but that was back when Delver and Twin were the most popular decks.
Squelch running alongside something like Spreading Seas might work. I had never thought of it but the last two pages of the thread include several decks that use Spreading Seas. I'll try both out and see how it goes!
I did replace the two pierces with Unsubstantiate.
squelch I had forgotten about,i might have to try that idea,your right, with seas that could be very good to help stall.
Chalice on zero is what I meant by affecting AV because it doesn't stop it being suspended,that means I have till turn four to bounce it.Sorry bout that.
Decay,wear/tear,revelrey,claim are all an issue for both the mines and dictate,AV and the extra seas helps with that,everyone is getting used to the deck and is either countering or destroying them because they know that's how to make us fizzle.
I might have old dog new tricks syndrome too,playing twin then WUR delver,then Grixis delver,merfolk and RW prison has set certain strategies and the cards used in them in my brain.Im nervous about the GP and I was having poor results with other decklists.
AV is very expensive so I can see why it hasn't been tested a whole lot and why so few lists run it,but it changes things,I end up with the same amount of cards turn 4 as I would turn 6 with dictate getting flashed turn 3,and AV is easier to protect.Its like a mine but it doesn't make me rely on the mines.
Has anyone tried peek yet?It came up in a conversation about the probe ban I had with a buddy.It could be worth looking into.Use it opponent EoT T4.
Most of us even foiled out the deck,av price isnt a problem
ancestral vision gives you 3 cards turn 5 if played turn 1. Not turn 4. It is just card disadvantage in the critical turns and takes 4 Interactive slots (since you still have to play mine effects anyway)
lenses aren't useful without emrakul
You really need temporal mastery
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Round 1: Jeskai Nahiri
Game 1 went pretty well! He didn't know what I was on, so I simply waited until he cast a turn 5 Nahiri before Gigadrowsing his last untapped blue source and flashing in a Dictate. I couldn't go off that turn, but since Exhaustion does such a good job of pretending to be a 3-mana Time Walk I just cast that and passed before going off on my turn 6.
Game 2 I didn't see a single dictate, and ended with me being Lightning Bolted/Helixed to death. He sided in Counterflux to deal with my Gigadrowses, which turned out to be a pretty big issue.
Game 3 was another win for me. Lots of early-game interaction with Gigadrowse and Exhaustion, landed a Dictate that we both drew off of a few times, baited out a few counterspells, then Gigadrowsed his remaining blue mana on his end step. Killed him with an awakened Inkmoth Nexus.
Overall I was pretty happy with how the deck played, even though it was only a single round. I'm definitely going to be building the deck for sure after how much I enjoyed playing it. I'm leaning a bit toward the UW build (even though it is more expensive) mainly for the sideboard options, however I'm still considering mono U as well.
UBRGDredge
Under Construction
WUBAd Nauseam
I have been running Shadow as a 2-of in the mainboard because of all the tri-color and tron in my meta. Should I try Spreading Seas in the main or is it really garbage against other decks? I feel like having a crucial early land turn into an island is actually more annoying than I imagine...
I'm not sure why he didn't, honestly. I don't know much about him though as he isn't a regular. I think he just proxied up the deck for the league. That one definitely left me scratching my head.
With hindsight I definitely should have saved the Gigadrowse. I didn't wind up mattering all that much, but you're absolutely right.
UBRGDredge
Under Construction
WUBAd Nauseam
that looks great, i'm also slowly foiling it out...I can't recognise the card in 4x above gigadrowse and the one in 2x next to gigadrowse. what are they
also I need an opinion on unsubstatiate: the full art promo looks sweet, but it's not foil... so what's best to put in a pimped deck? the full art promo or a the foil regular?
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm