Also, I'm juggling with the concept of adding Liliana #2 to the main deck. She can create tokens while digging for the God or Taker. Reanimating Taker with Liliana the turn after she ETB is particularly powerful, because all your mana will be available to cast the kidnapped creature, thus nullifying all drawbacks associated with Taker. Unchecked, Liliana can wipe the board with her ultimate, except for Zombies (which should be good for us).
Does that make sense? Or am I trying too hard?
Edit : One thing that bugs me with Dispersal is that it's only good in the early game when opponent can't pay 4. But The Pirate God wants to play the long game... There's a certain contradiction here...
I'm still on board the Champion of Wits bus, but I'm going to try cutting down to 3. Drawing multiples in the early game can get clunky. Champion of Wits just does so much in the deck and we want to draw at least 1 sometime in early/mid game. It filters away Dispersal's after they've outlived their usefulness, it filters away cards that don't fit the side of the clock we're playing in a matchup, it chump blocks early on and it helps us find land sometimes.
I also think it's important that we don't end up too spell heavy. If there's a way to get a similar effect on a creature, that's should be what we opt for. For that reason, I think we can rule out Search for Azcanta against control. We really want to try and play Aggro-Control in those matchups and dropping creatures early is how we do it, not by trying to out control them.
Arguel's Blood Fast is interesting and worth trying. But I'd lean toward Dreamstealer as the card we'd want against Control for the reasons I mentioned.
As for Liliana, I have no experience with her in the deck. As you know, I was running Baral's Expertise in her place for a while and I've recently cut that for Vizier of Many Faces and dropped to 24 lands. I think Liliana fits well and I'll probably move to adding her in eventually, but I wanted to comment on the Hostage Taker thing. It doesn't nullify all drawbacks, as instant speed removal still disrupts any card advantage we'd gain from her. I know, I know, "dies to removal" isn't a perfect metric, but it's worth mentioning.
I've had games where Lookout's Dispersal becomes useless, but it generally takes quite a while. I've also had it win me the late game once against an opposing Scarab God being cast and I forced him to pay an extra 4 turning off his activation for that turn. 4 mana tax stays relevant for a long time and it's basically "Counter target spell" all the way through the midgame.
One thing from the Jaberwocki list that I find really interesting to try is the Torrential Gearhulk/Glimmer/Commit//Memory package. Being able to Memory at the end of an opponents turn seems really good for us in a lot of matchups.
I think 4 Champion of Wits and some number of The Scarab God are enough incremental advantage against everyone but control decks. Champion gets clunky in multiples, but you can discard extra Champions to the first one, so that's not actually a big deal. And honestly, it's possible 4 Champion of Wits and your Scarab Gods are still enough. The bigger issue in beating these control decks really lies in beating early Scarab Gods and Gearhulks more than winning a long game. You can bring in a card advantage engine like Arguel's Blood Fast or Treasure Map to give an extra oomph, but losing to a turn-5 God is probably the biggest danger with this deck against UB Control, not them grinding you out -- Duress and maybe even Spell Pierce should help you clear the way for those card advantage engines. I think in this matchup I would be looking to lose some of my tempo elements (except Hostage Taker/Duress/Spell Pierce -- Hostage Taker solves our issue with the big creatures and those two cheap spells let you clear the way in time to get things done before the creatures take over) and have some more unconditional answers. Essence Scatter is probably good here.
I really doubt that the Gearhulk package is any good if I'm being frank. I have no idea where you want it. Your deck already has a potential curve of Gifted Aetherborn, Hostage Taker, and Scarab God to punish green creature decks. Gearhulk is too slow to be useful against fast aggro or combo. And like I said in the previous paragraph, what matters against control for you is just leaning on your card advantage engines and protecting them at key points with discard or cheap countermagic while not dying to early big creatures. Gearhulk isn't really useful for that IMO. A big flash threat like Gearhulk is good if you have a more effective proactive play to force through on your next turn in these decks, but you can't really attain a critical mass of instants to make sure Gearhulk has something to do without diluting the deck's effectiveness generally.
Round 1: Grixis Control 2-1. I've played this fella before and he knew he had to play around Dispersals. The important thing here is to land early threats and protect them as much as possible. I side out 1 Hostage Taker but sometimes you just gotta play Hostage Taker with no extra value to keep the pressure on.
Round 2: U/B Aggro 2-1. A brew with Heart of Kiran, Gifted Aetherborn, Dread Wanderer, Vampire Conquistador, Wanted Scoundrels, etc. Game 1 I landed Scarab God turn 5 and he conceded because he had no maindeck removal. Game 2 he rolled over me with Heart of Kiran and Wanted Scoundrels. Game 3 I Freebooter'd his Hour of Glorys and landed Scarab God again and he conceded. I didn't sideboard this round.
Round 3: Ramunap Red 2-0. GF again! I'm convinced this matchup is a total coin flip. My hands just lined up perfectly both games. Second game she played 3 Hazorets. I countered 2 and Vraska's took care of the third and she ran out of gas. Essence Scatter is great in this matchup.
Round 4: Sultai Energy Split. We still played it out after deciding to split, and he absolutely crushed me. Turns out Scarab God into Vraska into Carnage Tyrant is pretty strong. I'm 0-4 against Sultai so far and I'm not really sure what to do about that. The games are either over in the first 6 turns or they go super long. They just have so many huge bombs, it's hard to keep up.
So yeah, I love the 2/3 split of Scatter/Dispersal. 3 Champion of Wits felt good. The maindeck Doomfalls performed well taking out a Scarab God and a Hazoret in Game 1s through the course of the night. I'm really missing out by not running Liliana though, and I think I'll need to add her soon. Consign // Oblivion feels meh, I didn't ever really want to bring them in even against the Heart of Kirans. I'll probably keep testing them though.
I think Sultai is just incredibly broken at the moment much like how energy in general was broken last season (which I basically didn't play at all in paper... despite buying a ton of cards at the time... this hobby is evil sometimes). The fact that Vraska is actually playing out much better than I thought means they got a very good long game plan when combined with The Scarab God, and the energy lets them fix easily into an almost modern-lite configuration for mana. It's kind of nuts. They basically do the things we do, only they get to play cards like Rogue Refiner that in some ways is better than Champion of Wits. Then there is Longtusk Cub, which can win the game all on it's own if left unanswered.
Not that it's a blow against this deck in particular, but I'm not sure what will be happening after the pro-tour hits.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
@Patbou
Tapout dras Pack was supposed to be tappout draw spell or package possibly
as I said earlier sorry I'm a phone poster
My next comment is about mana efficiency, with draw spells. You cant flashback Chart a Course, but is to already so much more efficient than your opponent's draw spells it doesn't matter you have to do it on your turn. The key to beating control is putting on pressure and stopping Azcanta. If you can constantly ping your opponent with a two drop and use chart to find ways to protect it, or even better find more threats, you will win the match up.
Sorry the response took so long I've been really busy.
It's worth a shot. Right now I think the scarab god is still the ideal 5 drop next to Liliana, Death's Majesty, but the ability to hit with 5 in the air in a format where there aren't a lot of things that can fly sounds good.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Round 1: Grixis Control 2-1. I've played this fella before and he knew he had to play around Dispersals. The important thing here is to land early threats and protect them as much as possible. I side out 1 Hostage Taker but sometimes you just gotta play Hostage Taker with no extra value to keep the pressure on.
Round 2: U/B Aggro 2-1. A brew with Heart of Kiran, Gifted Aetherborn, Dread Wanderer, Vampire Conquistador, Wanted Scoundrels, etc. Game 1 I landed Scarab God turn 5 and he conceded because he had no maindeck removal. Game 2 he rolled over me with Heart of Kiran and Wanted Scoundrels. Game 3 I Freebooter'd his Hour of Glorys and landed Scarab God again and he conceded. I didn't sideboard this round.
Round 3: Ramunap Red 2-0. GF again! I'm convinced this matchup is a total coin flip. My hands just lined up perfectly both games. Second game she played 3 Hazorets. I countered 2 and Vraska's took care of the third and she ran out of gas. Essence Scatter is great in this matchup.
Round 4: Sultai Energy Split. We still played it out after deciding to split, and he absolutely crushed me. Turns out Scarab God into Vraska into Carnage Tyrant is pretty strong. I'm 0-4 against Sultai so far and I'm not really sure what to do about that. The games are either over in the first 6 turns or they go super long. They just have so many huge bombs, it's hard to keep up.
So yeah, I love the 2/3 split of Scatter/Dispersal. 3 Champion of Wits felt good. The maindeck Doomfalls performed well taking out a Scarab God and a Hazoret in Game 1s through the course of the night. I'm really missing out by not running Liliana though, and I think I'll need to add her soon. Consign // Oblivion feels meh, I didn't ever really want to bring them in even against the Heart of Kirans. I'll probably keep testing them though.
How has Consign // Oblivion worked for you? I've got a similar sideboard except I've got 1x Lost Legacy and an extra copy of Essence Extraction. Also, I was skeptical on Gonti, but after siding out one of the Hostage Taker and using him a few times it feels amazingly satisfying when the gambling pays off and you score something great off of the top of their deck.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So far I've used Consign // Oblivion once against a brew using Sunbird's Invocation. bounced it the turn he played it and then used the discard function to grab his last two cards on my turn.
I kinda put it in the sideboard to deal with any random enchantments I come across, but it could sometimes take out Scarab God or Hazoret I guess. It needs a lot more testing, I'm not really sure if it's worth the two slots.
Harsh Scrutiny, on the other hand, has been great to me even as a singleton. I bring it in against U/B control, but that matchup is already pretty far in our favor. It's mostly great against Temur and any deck with Scarab God though, so I bring it in a lot. I believe Patbou is even MBing it.
I saw recently Jaberwocki went 5 0 with a UB midrange deck. And I saw a thread on Reddit if a guy only losing 1 game at at PPTQ or whatever. I think the deck is still good. Just less so all in on the pirate synergy.
I'm guessing that means I'm not the only one who's learned the hard way that this deck isn't as competitive as we would've liked?
yeah...had a TERRIBLE PPTQ few weeks ago...the following weekend i sleeved up a budget monored midrange deck...had more fun and better results...
we'll see what the next set brings
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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
So I've been running a version of this deck for a while now and stumbled upon this. I tossed in the freebooters, I had dread wanderers instead, but I'm not sure how I feel about them. What else so you guys think could take it's place? I'm not too sure I like freebooter.
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Let's explore something else... Chart the Course is nice card advantage, as is eternalized Champion of Wits. But The Scarab God, Liliana, Death's Majesty and Hostage Taker do a better job at that. What about we concentrate on surviving the early game, and by itself doing this will grant us the time to get to these cards? As an example, in the list I posted Saturday, I could replace 4 Champion of Wits for Essence Scatter #2, Harsh Scrutiny #2, and 2 Doomfall. This would free up Lookout's Dispersal to protect God or Taker. Search for Azcanta and Arguel's Blood Fast could both go in the SB for needed card advantage vs Control and Midrange.
Also, I'm juggling with the concept of adding Liliana #2 to the main deck. She can create tokens while digging for the God or Taker. Reanimating Taker with Liliana the turn after she ETB is particularly powerful, because all your mana will be available to cast the kidnapped creature, thus nullifying all drawbacks associated with Taker. Unchecked, Liliana can wipe the board with her ultimate, except for Zombies (which should be good for us).
Does that make sense? Or am I trying too hard?
Edit : One thing that bugs me with Dispersal is that it's only good in the early game when opponent can't pay 4. But The Pirate God wants to play the long game... There's a certain contradiction here...
1st, GP Toronto Sunday Super Series 2016 : Ally Company RWBG
Top 8, PPTQ Shadows over Innistrad : Boros Humans WR.
Use a hypergeometric calculator for your deckbuilding maths,
and use TopDecked to manage your decks and collection on your Apple or Android device.
I also think it's important that we don't end up too spell heavy. If there's a way to get a similar effect on a creature, that's should be what we opt for. For that reason, I think we can rule out Search for Azcanta against control. We really want to try and play Aggro-Control in those matchups and dropping creatures early is how we do it, not by trying to out control them.
Arguel's Blood Fast is interesting and worth trying. But I'd lean toward Dreamstealer as the card we'd want against Control for the reasons I mentioned.
As for Liliana, I have no experience with her in the deck. As you know, I was running Baral's Expertise in her place for a while and I've recently cut that for Vizier of Many Faces and dropped to 24 lands. I think Liliana fits well and I'll probably move to adding her in eventually, but I wanted to comment on the Hostage Taker thing. It doesn't nullify all drawbacks, as instant speed removal still disrupts any card advantage we'd gain from her. I know, I know, "dies to removal" isn't a perfect metric, but it's worth mentioning.
I've had games where Lookout's Dispersal becomes useless, but it generally takes quite a while. I've also had it win me the late game once against an opposing Scarab God being cast and I forced him to pay an extra 4 turning off his activation for that turn. 4 mana tax stays relevant for a long time and it's basically "Counter target spell" all the way through the midgame.
One thing from the Jaberwocki list that I find really interesting to try is the Torrential Gearhulk/Glimmer/Commit//Memory package. Being able to Memory at the end of an opponents turn seems really good for us in a lot of matchups.
I really doubt that the Gearhulk package is any good if I'm being frank. I have no idea where you want it. Your deck already has a potential curve of Gifted Aetherborn, Hostage Taker, and Scarab God to punish green creature decks. Gearhulk is too slow to be useful against fast aggro or combo. And like I said in the previous paragraph, what matters against control for you is just leaning on your card advantage engines and protecting them at key points with discard or cheap countermagic while not dying to early big creatures. Gearhulk isn't really useful for that IMO. A big flash threat like Gearhulk is good if you have a more effective proactive play to force through on your next turn in these decks, but you can't really attain a critical mass of instants to make sure Gearhulk has something to do without diluting the deck's effectiveness generally.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
6 Swamp
5 Island
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Fetid Pools
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Ifnir Deadlands
1 Field of Ruin
Creatures (22)
3 Siren Stormtamer
4 Kitesail Freebooter
4 Gifted Aetherborn
3 Champion of Wits
4 Hostage Taker
3 The Scarab God
4 Fatal Push
2 Essence Scatter
1 Walk the Plank
2 Doomfall
3 Lookout's Dispersal
2 Vraska's Contempt
3 Duress
2 Negate
3 Bontu's Last Reckoning
3 Essence Extraction
1 Harsh Scrutiny
2 Consign // Oblivion
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Round 1: Grixis Control 2-1. I've played this fella before and he knew he had to play around Dispersals. The important thing here is to land early threats and protect them as much as possible. I side out 1 Hostage Taker but sometimes you just gotta play Hostage Taker with no extra value to keep the pressure on.
Round 2: U/B Aggro 2-1. A brew with Heart of Kiran, Gifted Aetherborn, Dread Wanderer, Vampire Conquistador, Wanted Scoundrels, etc. Game 1 I landed Scarab God turn 5 and he conceded because he had no maindeck removal. Game 2 he rolled over me with Heart of Kiran and Wanted Scoundrels. Game 3 I Freebooter'd his Hour of Glorys and landed Scarab God again and he conceded. I didn't sideboard this round.
Round 3: Ramunap Red 2-0. GF again! I'm convinced this matchup is a total coin flip. My hands just lined up perfectly both games. Second game she played 3 Hazorets. I countered 2 and Vraska's took care of the third and she ran out of gas. Essence Scatter is great in this matchup.
Round 4: Sultai Energy Split. We still played it out after deciding to split, and he absolutely crushed me. Turns out Scarab God into Vraska into Carnage Tyrant is pretty strong. I'm 0-4 against Sultai so far and I'm not really sure what to do about that. The games are either over in the first 6 turns or they go super long. They just have so many huge bombs, it's hard to keep up.
So yeah, I love the 2/3 split of Scatter/Dispersal. 3 Champion of Wits felt good. The maindeck Doomfalls performed well taking out a Scarab God and a Hazoret in Game 1s through the course of the night. I'm really missing out by not running Liliana though, and I think I'll need to add her soon. Consign // Oblivion feels meh, I didn't ever really want to bring them in even against the Heart of Kirans. I'll probably keep testing them though.
Not that it's a blow against this deck in particular, but I'm not sure what will be happening after the pro-tour hits.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Tapout dras Pack was supposed to be tappout draw spell or package possibly
as I said earlier sorry I'm a phone poster
My next comment is about mana efficiency, with draw spells. You cant flashback Chart a Course, but is to already so much more efficient than your opponent's draw spells it doesn't matter you have to do it on your turn. The key to beating control is putting on pressure and stopping Azcanta. If you can constantly ping your opponent with a two drop and use chart to find ways to protect it, or even better find more threats, you will win the match up.
Sorry the response took so long I've been really busy.
Standard
UB UB Midrange UB
Modern
GRWUBTribal Flames ZooGRWUB
RUGTemur DelverRUG
Legacy
UW Stoneblade UW
Anyone have thoughts on running a couple Glyph Keeper on the top end?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
How has Consign // Oblivion worked for you? I've got a similar sideboard except I've got 1x Lost Legacy and an extra copy of Essence Extraction. Also, I was skeptical on Gonti, but after siding out one of the Hostage Taker and using him a few times it feels amazingly satisfying when the gambling pays off and you score something great off of the top of their deck.
I'm thinking of dropping one Essence Extraction in my sideboard along with the walkers to add one more lookout's Dispersal and bring in Harsh Scrutiny.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I kinda put it in the sideboard to deal with any random enchantments I come across, but it could sometimes take out Scarab God or Hazoret I guess. It needs a lot more testing, I'm not really sure if it's worth the two slots.
Harsh Scrutiny, on the other hand, has been great to me even as a singleton. I bring it in against U/B control, but that matchup is already pretty far in our favor. It's mostly great against Temur and any deck with Scarab God though, so I bring it in a lot. I believe Patbou is even MBing it.
I'm guessing that means I'm not the only one who's learned the hard way that this deck isn't as competitive as we would've liked?
yeah...had a TERRIBLE PPTQ few weeks ago...the following weekend i sleeved up a budget monored midrange deck...had more fun and better results...
we'll see what the next set brings
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm