With 9 basics, it now becomes far more difficult to T7 Ultimatum. I think we need far more draw cards in the main, such as Remand, Blue Sun's Zenith, and possibly Serum Visions.
While on the topic of the manabase, I have a humble suggestion that I've used from experience. My manabase from my Grixis Cruel Control build consisted of...
I know it sounds insane, but I was able to get Cruel mana on turn 7 nearly every game I played it. The main downside, of course, was that I was playing a tempo behind most games due to all of the CIPT effects. I was far less likely to have problems with mana disruption due to cards like Fulminator Mage, Blood Moon or Ghost Quarter though.
I don't blame anyone for paying no heed to the suggestion, but I figure that the suggestion could at least help some of the more budget-minded among us.
I haven't played the deck as much as some of you maybe but I haven't really had any problems at all. I play 3 basic islands, 1 swamp, 1 cairns, 1 sunken ruins, 2/2 split for Lavaclaw/Tar pit as CIP Tapped lands.
I do agree that the lack of the second good fetch hurts us, but we have Sulfur falls which is activated by most of our other lands as well.
I can't remember 1 time where i was at 7 mana with Ruins or Cairns in play and i couldn't ultimatum. Really only question is can you cryptic on turn 4, and a few times you will be missing 1 blue to do that.
I haven't played the deck as much as some of you maybe but I haven't really had any problems at all. I play 3 basic islands, 1 swamp, 1 cairns, 1 sunken ruins, 2/2 split for Lavaclaw/Tar pit as CIP Tapped lands.
I do agree that the lack of the second good fetch hurts us, but we have Sulfur falls which is activated by most of our other lands as well.
I can't remember 1 time where i was at 7 mana with Ruins or Cairns in play and i couldn't ultimatum. Really only question is can you cryptic on turn 4, and a few times you will be missing 1 blue to do that.
Thats some of my problems sometimes, is having that 3rd blue for cryptic, but now that I have dreadship reef it's pretty much solved the issue.
I don't think you're getting my point. I am not talking about internal consistency, I am comparing our fetch consistency to that of WUR. They will always have the edge because they can run up to 8 on color fetches and thus no matter which one they get, always be guaranteed whatever dual colors they want in any situation. If we want to run fetches 5-8, we give up a small amount of consistency by losing access to at least 1 dual with that fetch. Thus, the manabase of WUR is indeed slightly more consistent than ours.
If we ever get Onslaught fetches in Modern, this disparity goes away entirely. Otherwise, you'll end up choosing between being able to fetch basic Swamps and having access to Steam Vents (which is one of our best duals) with that same fetch land. And as FBarkles mentioned, losing that kind of consistency puts a bit more strain on our T7 Ultimatum. You might be able to offset this slightly by running 1-2 more filter lands, but you'll never get that same level of flexibility as WUR.
And one other thing, I wouldn't run more than 1 Mountain, ever. Blood Moon doesn't remove our access to red mana
UWR is more consistent with their fetches, but marsh flats/verdant catacombs is still consistent enough imo with blood crypt/watery grave/and swamps so you can still fetch for either source if you need it. Steam vents is good but it's not too important, we should only need 12-14 red sources for consistency in casting a t1 lightning bolt according to those hypergeometric distribution tables. Tack that on with all the library manipulation we've got and it's consistent enough, red is the "splash" color of this deck for sure since there isn't anything red intensive that we really need to cast
You're right, there isn't a need for a second mountain, I was entertaining the thought really. It should probably be another watery grave/crypt. I just like the flexibility of being able to have as much untapped lands as possible which in itself boosts the consistency of a t7 ultimatum (for me at least) rather than having too many lands that come into play tapped. What's also important is the ability to play out your gameplan prior to the ultimatum on their respective terms, sunken ruins/cairns/bluffs/storage lands are going to hurt this on top of the 3-4 manlands we're all running
The 3rd Blood crypt can also be a watery grave or one of the cascade bluffs lands. The question is a matter of how many possible ways are there in which we can cast a t1 lightning bolt vs how many blue sources we need for a t4 cryptic. I can only go by experience since I haven't actually messed around with the probability equations but both 13 red and 19 blue have proven very consistent for their respective spells, I'm gonna have to look into the math to find out if the third blood crypt can be optimized into a better choice be it a storage land, manland, watery grave, cascade bluffs ect
On Storage Lands
I'm running so much draw with fb and other interactive things to do that it has never been profitable for me to start tacking up storage counters, I have a total of 18 ways to manipulate to draw/manipulate the library
With 9 basics, it now becomes far more difficult to T7 Ultimatum. I think we need far more draw cards in the main, such as Remand, Blue Sun's Zenith, and possibly Serum Visions.
I like 8-9 basics, it hasn't hurt the consistency but rather the opposite. You also have to take into account that if you're playing modern, your mana base is going to be attacked and the destroy effects are almost always targeted towards nonbasics.
On draw spells
Blue Sun's Zenith: It's a bad sphinx's revelation, which is a bad cruel ultimatum (which we have), just run another ultimatum. It's too slow and cost ineffective, you need to have the flexibility of being able to interact with your opponent early on in the game so the draw has to be cheap
Serum Visions: It hasn't done much for me, but I think it's because we need to keep mana open to interact with our opponent on their turn
Remand: It's really good, ran in conjunction with mana leak and think twice. Offsetting your opponent's tempo while cantripping is powerful, it helps to hit the land drops/fight counter wars (then there's the cute interaction of remanding your own spell if you need to). It's really good in an ultimatum deck
Currently running these for draw spells, they either have flashback to combat hand disruption and add flexibility or they come with the upside of controlling or disrupting my opponent
Thats some of my problems sometimes, is having that 3rd blue for cryptic, but now that I have dreadship reef it's pretty much solved the issue.
With dreadship reef, the reliability of cryptic command would probably transpire in these 2 ways I can think of
1.) You had to spend a couple turns adding a counter to it, meaning that you couldn't have tapped into your other resources for the time being
2.) It wasn't on turn four
Wouldn't Sunken Ruins or cascade bluffs be a better option? It would help to negate these two downsides since it helps fix the mana while coming into play "untapped" since you won't have to dedicate resources to maintaining it. Although storage land would shine against the blue mirrors, my only gripe is that it would hurt your gameplan against anything else
Blue Sun's Zenith: It's a bad sphinx's revelation, which is a bad cruel ultimatum (which we have), just run another ultimatum. It's too slow and cost ineffective, you need to have the flexibility of being able to interact with your opponent early on in the game so the draw has to be cheap
Serum Visions: It hasn't done much for me, but I think it's because we need to keep mana open to interact with our opponent on their turn
Remand: It's really good, ran in conjunction with mana leak and think twice. Offsetting your opponent's tempo while cantripping is powerful, it helps to hit the land drops/fight counter wars (then there's the cute interaction of remanding your own spell if you need to). It's really good in an ultimatum deck
Currently running these for draw spells, they either have flashback to combat hand disruption and add flexibility or they come with the upside of controlling or disrupting my opponent
With dreadship reef, the reliability of cryptic command would probably transpire in these 2 ways I can think of
1.) You had to spend a couple turns adding a counter to it, meaning that you couldn't have tapped into your other resources for the time being
2.) It wasn't on turn four
I agree that BSZ is a bad card compared to Ultimatum and Revelation. The reason I suggested it is because it is an instant speed card draw, which is the absolute weakness of Ultimatum. The idea is that we can use this to bait a counter then resolve an Ultimatum in the blue mirrors, or resolve some early card draw then follow it up with an Ultimatum to cement the game.
I like that card advantage engine that you have. I prefer Gifts or Teaching over Alchemy, but I have not tested Alchemy enough and perhaps that is correct.
While the storage lands are not the best forms of mana fixing or the most efficient, they are the most manipulative. The moment a counter is added, opponents view it as a target for land destruction. I've had Scapeshift opponnents tap out of blue to Cryptic it, Merfolks Spreading Seas it, and a number of Ghost Quarters/Tectonic Edges remove it rather than an important color source. Increasing the number of Filter lands will cause the land destruction to target actual valuable colored sources.
I'm running a mana-base similar to this one, and I rarely have had problems. I think Reflecting Pool is one of those lands that is overlooked by many. Granted you would have to muligan a hand with 3 lands, all being Pools, but that is a very rare occurance.
Sorry if I'm not following the current discussion, but I have more basic questions about this deck.
So far, the most popular control deck in Modern is the UWR Wafo-Tapa. Although that deck is very good at not dying, it lacks the powerful game ending spell that is Cruel Ultimatum (playing instead the less impressive Sphinx's Revelation). My doubt is, if in order to build this deck, can I just mimic Wafo-Tapa spells and look for the black replacement of the white cards (basically changing Lightning Helix and Path to Exile for black spot removal, Supreme Verdict for Damnation and so on), or the fact that Cruel Control game plan for the late game is different from that of UWR also affects to the choices regarding the early game (like playing Remand over Mana Leak, discard spells, artifact acceleration or any other I could have missed)?
If you want my 5cent about the manabase topic, don't play more than 5 shocklands. Sulfur Falls, Drowned Catacomb and Sunken Ruins are fine cards.
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Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
My doubt is, if in order to build this deck, can I just mimic Wafo-Tapa spells and look for the black replacement of the white cards (basically changing Lightning Helix and Path to Exile for black spot removal, Supreme Verdict for Damnation and so on), or the fact that Cruel Control game plan for the late game is different from that of UWR also affects to the choices regarding the early game (like playing Remand over Mana Leak, discard spells, artifact acceleration or any other I could have missed)?
That's how I started too.
Of note: UWR has better mana then Grixis due to two on-color fetches and a better man land.
If you're just swapping white cards for black cards... why not play UWR instead? The white cards are significantly better.
Remand is way better positioned in a cruel control deck
Terminate/dreadbore/hero's downfall
Rakdos Charm in the side
Forbidden alchemy/mystical teachings have their merits
I don't know what white cards are significantly better you're thinking of but if it's the following
Lightning Helix : Just a worse lightning bolt, I wouldn't run it even if it were in my colors. UWR runs lightning helix because it has trouble with the 2cmc removal/counter spot outside of mana leak, remand wouldn't be a good fit due to lack of cruel ultimatum. If there were a functional copy of lightning helix in grixis colors, I would still prefer remand since it pairs well with cruel ultimatum and much more suited to the gameplan. Helix is a good card, but imho it's arbitrary to what UWR is trying to accomplish is to grind away incremental damage until very late in the game. You know why grixis can grind away at its opponent's life total better than UWR? Cruel ultimatum
Path to exile : Okay it's a good removal spell, no spot removal is exactly on par, but we have edict effects to take care of eldrazi, thrun, geist. UWR still doesn't have cruel ultimatum
Supreme Verdict is better against a tempo deck I guess, but thrun can still regen. So I consider damnation on par in some ways. Grixis also has cruel ultimatum
UWR has only a slightly better manabase, grixis colors have plenty of consistency. Can still fetch blood crypt/grave with marsh flats/catacombs. I don't think that this point is even significant enough to bring up
My experience with both decks
UWR is more favored than grixis against burn and merfolk due to the uncounterable wrath and lifegain options
Grixis is more favored against tron and uwr midrange than uwr control due to spot discard + edicts
Spot discard gives us access to a stronger game-plan against the control and combo decks
The main advantage of playing black is that Cruel Ultimatum is miles better than Sphinx's Revelation. However, having worse removal spells and a worse manabase makes the aggro match-ups harder, and things turn even worse if you play Remand and Thoughtseize. In my first testing games I had problems even against Affinity with that configuration, so that's why I asked about how far can we go from the UWR early game plan in order to exploit black advantages without being crushed by random aggro. Probably maindeck Thoughtseize was not the best idea, but Remand certainly deserves a spot in this deck.
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I don't like spot discard in the maindeck, especially if our gameplan is keep our mana untapped to react during our opponent's turn. They're also bad topdecks (control is in a bad spot when it runs out of gas) and lose a lot of effectiveness unless played early. Spot discard is good against tempo, tron, control, and combo so it's definitely sideboard-worthy, I run four seize in the board. Just my own 2 cents
Just letting you guys know I may do some videos that I am going to throw up on youtube for Cruel control. Could add them to the primer for when we get bumped to established Not really sure what list I should run though... my current one seems maybe a bit dated? Here it is for suggestions before i run it through its paces for all to see. Perhaps try out augur of bolas?
Just letting you guys know I may do some videos that I am going to throw up on youtube for Cruel control. Could add them to the primer for when we get bumped to established Not really sure what list I should run though... my current one seems maybe a bit dated? Here it is for suggestions before i run it through its paces for all to see. Perhaps try out augur of bolas?
You're not gonna like augur all too much, with the amount of permission you're running you're going to wish that he's a think twice (good against jund). Trust me, I've been there lol
Steam augury isn't good. I'm not complaining about the card selection, but it's too expensive for what you're trying to achieve. Alchemy is a better choice for you since it has practically the same digging speed, your own choice of card selection, flashback (good against jund), and comes out an entire turn earlier. Steam augury has to compete with cryptic command, snapcaster mage, and damnation.
Btw, you should probably run at least 1 more damnation. I prefer 3 since you don't want to see multiples early on but you want to be reliably drawing into it, it's a necessary evil
It's my personal preference, but spreading seas is better than sowing salt. It cantrips, comes down two turns earlier, it's good against burn and other 18-22 land decks, stops manlands in the control mirror, just has more utility overall.
Even against tron it has outperformed sowing salt, at 4cmc they have a high chance of already forming their tron and playing something nasty by the time you land it
Hey all. I am new to this thread so please bear with me if some of these questions have already been discussed. I am a brewer and I have recently been experimenting in the Grixis spectrum of control decks. The main thing I feel is lacking is Cruel Ultimatum itself. Sure it's a bomb but it leaves you open when you tap to cast it. In any case I decided to test some alternate win conditions.
What do you guys think of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver here? I have been testing it and it has been a very effective win condition. It's easy to cast at 3cc, and relatively easy to protect. He snowballs rapidly and can win the game all by himself from multiple angles.
Another walker to consider is Sorin Markov, 6cc sorcery speed is steep but when he lands he is a gigantic house. I have been runnin a 3/1 split between Ashiok and Sorin, those 4 cards + manlands make up the bulk of my win conditions.
Probably just -2/-2 permanently instead of until EOT. Honestly a 2 mana -2/-2 would be insane for black to have and would help a ton of black control decks.
I'm new to these forums and have been scanning most of this thread, and I'm wondering why cards such as Surgical Extraction and Shadow of Doubt aren't mentioned very often. I've seen them listed in other places, but wondering why they aren't getting any mention here or in some of the most recent deck lists on MTGO.
In a deck that is focused on card removal and counters, as soon as 1 key card is in the opponents graveyard extracting the rest of them from the game is an amazing ability. I mean Spell Snaring a bob or goyf then removing all of them from their deck for 1 mana or 2 life is killer. Same thing with Shadow of Doubt... nearly all modern decks play fetch lands. Doubt can stop a land fetch, thus setting the opponent behind a land and you get a can trip. Using it to stop a pod is effectively a free creature removal too.
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I know it sounds insane, but I was able to get Cruel mana on turn 7 nearly every game I played it. The main downside, of course, was that I was playing a tempo behind most games due to all of the CIPT effects. I was far less likely to have problems with mana disruption due to cards like Fulminator Mage, Blood Moon or Ghost Quarter though.
I don't blame anyone for paying no heed to the suggestion, but I figure that the suggestion could at least help some of the more budget-minded among us.
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I do agree that the lack of the second good fetch hurts us, but we have Sulfur falls which is activated by most of our other lands as well.
I can't remember 1 time where i was at 7 mana with Ruins or Cairns in play and i couldn't ultimatum. Really only question is can you cryptic on turn 4, and a few times you will be missing 1 blue to do that.
Thats some of my problems sometimes, is having that 3rd blue for cryptic, but now that I have dreadship reef it's pretty much solved the issue.
UUBBBRR
UWR is more consistent with their fetches, but marsh flats/verdant catacombs is still consistent enough imo with blood crypt/watery grave/and swamps so you can still fetch for either source if you need it. Steam vents is good but it's not too important, we should only need 12-14 red sources for consistency in casting a t1 lightning bolt according to those hypergeometric distribution tables. Tack that on with all the library manipulation we've got and it's consistent enough, red is the "splash" color of this deck for sure since there isn't anything red intensive that we really need to cast
You're right, there isn't a need for a second mountain, I was entertaining the thought really. It should probably be another watery grave/crypt. I just like the flexibility of being able to have as much untapped lands as possible which in itself boosts the consistency of a t7 ultimatum (for me at least) rather than having too many lands that come into play tapped. What's also important is the ability to play out your gameplan prior to the ultimatum on their respective terms, sunken ruins/cairns/bluffs/storage lands are going to hurt this on top of the 3-4 manlands we're all running
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Marsh Flats
3 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Steam Vents
3 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
4 Island
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
14 Red
17 Black
19 Blue
The 3rd Blood crypt can also be a watery grave or one of the cascade bluffs lands. The question is a matter of how many possible ways are there in which we can cast a t1 lightning bolt vs how many blue sources we need for a t4 cryptic. I can only go by experience since I haven't actually messed around with the probability equations but both 13 red and 19 blue have proven very consistent for their respective spells, I'm gonna have to look into the math to find out if the third blood crypt can be optimized into a better choice be it a storage land, manland, watery grave, cascade bluffs ect
On Storage Lands
I'm running so much draw with fb and other interactive things to do that it has never been profitable for me to start tacking up storage counters, I have a total of 18 ways to manipulate to draw/manipulate the library
I like 8-9 basics, it hasn't hurt the consistency but rather the opposite. You also have to take into account that if you're playing modern, your mana base is going to be attacked and the destroy effects are almost always targeted towards nonbasics.
On draw spells
Blue Sun's Zenith: It's a bad sphinx's revelation, which is a bad cruel ultimatum (which we have), just run another ultimatum. It's too slow and cost ineffective, you need to have the flexibility of being able to interact with your opponent early on in the game so the draw has to be cheap
Serum Visions: It hasn't done much for me, but I think it's because we need to keep mana open to interact with our opponent on their turn
Remand: It's really good, ran in conjunction with mana leak and think twice. Offsetting your opponent's tempo while cantripping is powerful, it helps to hit the land drops/fight counter wars (then there's the cute interaction of remanding your own spell if you need to). It's really good in an ultimatum deck
Currently running these for draw spells, they either have flashback to combat hand disruption and add flexibility or they come with the upside of controlling or disrupting my opponent
3 Remand
3 Think Twice
1 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Electrolyze
3 Cryptic Command
3 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Condescend
With dreadship reef, the reliability of cryptic command would probably transpire in these 2 ways I can think of
1.) You had to spend a couple turns adding a counter to it, meaning that you couldn't have tapped into your other resources for the time being
2.) It wasn't on turn four
Wouldn't Sunken Ruins or cascade bluffs be a better option? It would help to negate these two downsides since it helps fix the mana while coming into play "untapped" since you won't have to dedicate resources to maintaining it. Although storage land would shine against the blue mirrors, my only gripe is that it would hurt your gameplan against anything else
I agree that BSZ is a bad card compared to Ultimatum and Revelation. The reason I suggested it is because it is an instant speed card draw, which is the absolute weakness of Ultimatum. The idea is that we can use this to bait a counter then resolve an Ultimatum in the blue mirrors, or resolve some early card draw then follow it up with an Ultimatum to cement the game.
I like that card advantage engine that you have. I prefer Gifts or Teaching over Alchemy, but I have not tested Alchemy enough and perhaps that is correct.
While the storage lands are not the best forms of mana fixing or the most efficient, they are the most manipulative. The moment a counter is added, opponents view it as a target for land destruction. I've had Scapeshift opponnents tap out of blue to Cryptic it, Merfolks Spreading Seas it, and a number of Ghost Quarters/Tectonic Edges remove it rather than an important color source. Increasing the number of Filter lands will cause the land destruction to target actual valuable colored sources.
I'm running a mana-base similar to this one, and I rarely have had problems. I think Reflecting Pool is one of those lands that is overlooked by many. Granted you would have to muligan a hand with 3 lands, all being Pools, but that is a very rare occurance.
So far, the most popular control deck in Modern is the UWR Wafo-Tapa. Although that deck is very good at not dying, it lacks the powerful game ending spell that is Cruel Ultimatum (playing instead the less impressive Sphinx's Revelation). My doubt is, if in order to build this deck, can I just mimic Wafo-Tapa spells and look for the black replacement of the white cards (basically changing Lightning Helix and Path to Exile for black spot removal, Supreme Verdict for Damnation and so on), or the fact that Cruel Control game plan for the late game is different from that of UWR also affects to the choices regarding the early game (like playing Remand over Mana Leak, discard spells, artifact acceleration or any other I could have missed)?
If you want my 5cent about the manabase topic, don't play more than 5 shocklands. Sulfur Falls, Drowned Catacomb and Sunken Ruins are fine cards.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
That's how I started too.
Of note: UWR has better mana then Grixis due to two on-color fetches and a better man land.
If you're just swapping white cards for black cards... why not play UWR instead? The white cards are significantly better.
[CARD]
Cruel ultimatum[/CARD] > Sphinx's Revelation
Far // Away makes the tron matchup way easier
Spot discard (although I prefer it in the side)
Remand is way better positioned in a cruel control deck
Terminate/dreadbore/hero's downfall
Rakdos Charm in the side
Forbidden alchemy/mystical teachings have their merits
I don't know what white cards are significantly better you're thinking of but if it's the following
Lightning Helix : Just a worse lightning bolt, I wouldn't run it even if it were in my colors. UWR runs lightning helix because it has trouble with the 2cmc removal/counter spot outside of mana leak, remand wouldn't be a good fit due to lack of cruel ultimatum. If there were a functional copy of lightning helix in grixis colors, I would still prefer remand since it pairs well with cruel ultimatum and much more suited to the gameplan. Helix is a good card, but imho it's arbitrary to what UWR is trying to accomplish is to grind away incremental damage until very late in the game. You know why grixis can grind away at its opponent's life total better than UWR? Cruel ultimatum
Path to exile : Okay it's a good removal spell, no spot removal is exactly on par, but we have edict effects to take care of eldrazi, thrun, geist. UWR still doesn't have cruel ultimatum
Sphinx's revelation : A worse cruel ultimatum
Supreme Verdict is better against a tempo deck I guess, but thrun can still regen. So I consider damnation on par in some ways. Grixis also has cruel ultimatum
UWR has only a slightly better manabase, grixis colors have plenty of consistency. Can still fetch blood crypt/grave with marsh flats/catacombs. I don't think that this point is even significant enough to bring up
My experience with both decks
UWR is more favored than grixis against burn and merfolk due to the uncounterable wrath and lifegain options
Grixis is more favored against tron and uwr midrange than uwr control due to spot discard + edicts
Spot discard gives us access to a stronger game-plan against the control and combo decks
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
http://i.imgur.com/TJsXzXu.jpg
You're not gonna like augur all too much, with the amount of permission you're running you're going to wish that he's a think twice (good against jund). Trust me, I've been there lol
Steam augury isn't good. I'm not complaining about the card selection, but it's too expensive for what you're trying to achieve. Alchemy is a better choice for you since it has practically the same digging speed, your own choice of card selection, flashback (good against jund), and comes out an entire turn earlier. Steam augury has to compete with cryptic command, snapcaster mage, and damnation.
Btw, you should probably run at least 1 more damnation. I prefer 3 since you don't want to see multiples early on but you want to be reliably drawing into it, it's a necessary evil
It's my personal preference, but spreading seas is better than sowing salt. It cantrips, comes down two turns earlier, it's good against burn and other 18-22 land decks, stops manlands in the control mirror, just has more utility overall.
Even against tron it has outperformed sowing salt, at 4cmc they have a high chance of already forming their tron and playing something nasty by the time you land it
What do you guys think of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver here? I have been testing it and it has been a very effective win condition. It's easy to cast at 3cc, and relatively easy to protect. He snowballs rapidly and can win the game all by himself from multiple angles.
Another walker to consider is Sorin Markov, 6cc sorcery speed is steep but when he lands he is a gigantic house. I have been runnin a 3/1 split between Ashiok and Sorin, those 4 cards + manlands make up the bulk of my win conditions.
Thoughts?
Which'd mean strictly better Shrivel, actually.
Perhaps it inflicts -1/-1 counters... or it's a "2 to all creatures, +2 life for each creature shocked this way" deal...
...nah, that'd be too pushed.
In a deck that is focused on card removal and counters, as soon as 1 key card is in the opponents graveyard extracting the rest of them from the game is an amazing ability. I mean Spell Snaring a bob or goyf then removing all of them from their deck for 1 mana or 2 life is killer. Same thing with Shadow of Doubt... nearly all modern decks play fetch lands. Doubt can stop a land fetch, thus setting the opponent behind a land and you get a can trip. Using it to stop a pod is effectively a free creature removal too.