You bring up some good points on Remand, I'll be testing it out in place of Mana Leak, Augur, and Think Twice. It will take awhile but with enough playtesting, I should be able to find out if it's worth the re-slotting. My list is in the signature if you want to make a suggestion as to what to cut for it.
My only argument against Remand is that I would be exchanging card-advantage for tempo, I don't want to make that sacrifice.
Remand doesn't lose card advantage, and it gains tempo when used against anything it's more efficient than (as any counterspell does).
Since it replaces itself, it's an even 1 for 1 trade on the card advantage spectrum, and is much better against cards like Lingering Souls or snapcaster-retargets than mana leak is. Remand also gives you some additional play in control mirrors in that you can remand your own spells that they would target with something like Cryptic Command or Spell snare, effectively nullifying their counter, while you don't lose a single card over this effect.
The one distinct thing, is remand is better at digging for important spells and land drops, whereas leak is better at fully stopping something from resolving for good. Both have their obvious advantages, but this deck wants to be drawing lots of cards, and any opportunity to draw cards while affecting your opponent's board or stack is awesome.
As for your deck list. Add 2-3 serum visions to it. Don't comment on it until after you've added them and given it a chance with some tests. If you don't like it, then get rid of it, but every time I've added the visions to the deck, it performed 3x more consistently, and most of the other players in this thread who gave it a try found the same to be true. If you play 3 visions, you can also drop down to 25 land, effectively improving your spell quality.
Also, playing this deck without dreadship reef is silly. Dreadship reef is probably the best card in any control mirror, and enables you to hit ultimatums when you only have 4 lands in play. You don't need 4, but there is a noticable difference when you play 1-2, and you'll love having reef when you're stuck on 4-5 lands with an ultimatum in hand, but still need to play a draw-go playstyle.
I'm absolutely of the opinion that remand is better than leak in cruel control. I think the two can be ran side by side, but remand plays a hugely important role in cruel in that it can time walk your opponent to the point where you can resolve Cruel and win. Looking at it analytically, remand and leak are similar, yet very different. Remand is better at setting your opponent back and furthering your own game-plan. At the same point, it's worse at protecting your threats and hand. It's also slightly worse against low cmc cards, but the thing is, any low cmc card your opponent would play is why you play lightning bolt, izzet charm, and electrolyze.
Remand fits cruel perfectly - It keeps larger threats off the board just long enough that you can drop an ultimatum, and ultimately win the game off that. Remand keeps problematic threats from resolving for at least a turn, all while digging for extremely crucial land drops and ultimatums. If you haven't tested this deck with remand, I would absolutely suggest giving it a shot, whether in conjunction with leak or not.
It's important to play this deck from the perspective that everything you should play should support the ultimate gameplan of resolving a cruel ultimatum, with only 2 in your deck. When you pair remand with cryptic command and snapcaster mage, it's not uncommon to timewalk your opponent 3-4 times prior to dropping an ultimatum on-curve. The lovely thing with cruel, is it doesn't matter if your opponent has a few cards in hand from you returning a card via remand since they're going to be discarding 3 anyway.
Now, the role of Izzet charm is mainly as support-removal, and early-game countering. It's true that it's not great at anything in particular, but you don't really need it to be, and against most of the creatures in the format, it's not worse than doom blade or terminate. Against the 5% of the creatures in the format that wouldn't die to doom izzet charm, that's why you play Damnation instead of Pyroclasm. At the very worst, you can try to time walk and keep their board clear of weenies until you can edict their creature with ultimatum or devour flesh.
The last Modern GPT I played in, I ended up coming 2nd, loosing to Scapeshift. There is another GPT this weekend that I'm trying to prepare for >_>
I haven't been playing this super recently, but typically it just came down to resolving slaughter games in most of the matchups I played. With that said, most of the scapeshift lists have adopted omen and prime time recently, so it's a bit different. With that said, I still used slaughter games liberally in both matchups. You can name scapeshift then later name primeval titan with a second slaughter games, or a flashed-back slaughter games off snapcaster.
I think the most important thing is to determine which variant you're playing against first. Sowing salt isn't that great against the UGR cryptic shift without omens or titans. It's much stronger against the titan/omen variant.
Also, I would consider adding a few hard-counters to your sideboard. I've found remand better than leak in this matchup, but I would suggest possibly adding a counterflux or two to your board as it's really solid in this matchup. Shadow of doubt is also very strong in the board here as it's good against pod, tron, and scapeshift, all of which are reasonably popular decks, and 1 of which is already a bad matchup (tron).
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I was just trying out Grave Titan as a temporary switch over 1 Cruel, he is not terrible by any means and there is very little removal that kills him. I like having both wurm coil and Batterskull in the deck as we have little life gain and you just pitch them to thirst and get them back when u want to close, they have so much upside vs some decks they are a solid piece of the Thist engine. Those creature finishers can come out a turn earlier than cruel and blunt more creatures if you have fallen behind.
Again we have thirst or even charm to filter these.
Thought Flare and think twice are just not modern cards at all in my eyes. We already have 4 thirst for Knoledge, just run some remands and more snap casters ( very often used on thirst) or Gifts Ungiven!
Oh and Slaughter Games is mostly for scape shift but it is fine vs Tron and control as well.
I wouldn't knock Thoughtflare until you try it. A lot of players think it's bad at first until they try playing with it, then they realize that it fits the gameplan perfectly (for the draw-go variant at least). Thirst is great, and you know I'm all for it, but it also warps your deck into forcing in artifacts that you may or may not want to be playing with. Thoughtflare digs deeper and nets you cards unconditionally, which allows you to play more early disruption that stabilizes you against aggro and combo.
As for Grave Titan, it may not die to lightning bolt, but it makes wraths relevant in control mirrors, which is not something you ever want to do in a control mirror. Batterskull on the other hand is always good since it's recursive and can equip to snapcasters or augurs when you're not using them. Additionally, it still dies to path, terminate and pulse, both of which still see play in the format to a decent degree. The other big problem with large creature finishers is that you literally can't ever cast them against combo unless you're playing tons of spot discard in a more tapout oriented variant. If free counters were available in the format, it would be different, but this isn't the case. Cruel is a special case in that it gets around a lot of the issues facing combo in that it forces them to discard 3. Even then, you usually don't want to hardcast cruel against combo unless you know the discard 3 will prevent them from comboing out (or you're about to die).
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Just an update of my artifact version. Thirst and Explosives are pretty much my fave cards in the format, as the most flexible removal (even artifact+enchantments!) and draw combo. This build has more ramp and finishers but they are quite resilient and dominating ones. Grave Titan has been amazing so much I shaved an ultimatum for him, he stabilizes u so well and one swing is game. Signets are great for getting to 4+ faster and save u vs blood moon! Pithing needle is a god send vs walkers, pod, man lands and tec edge. I feel this version has more flexibility and les holes than the all spell versions with outs to almost any situatin, not to mention the best draw and filtering engine.
Combo and control mu become very good with this board, not sure about all the lands still like reef, cairns, and pool...
Personally, I think you're focusing too much on your finishers, and not enough on your disruption early on.
I've mentioned it in this thread Ad Nauseam (not referencing the card), but creature finishers are slow, clunky, and way too easy to disrupt in this format.
Part of the reason that Cruel is such a great card, is that it can't be "answered" with anything short of permission. Creatures like Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine can be answered just as easily with stuff like leak, remand, or cryptic Command, but are also vulnerable to removal and wrath effects. Further, they don't create an immediate affect on your opponent's board and hand, which Cruel does.
Against the majority of combo players, cruel also is a relevant card to hardcast and tap out for, since they usually won't be able to handle a discard 3 effect unless they have 7 cards in hand. It's extremely unlikely by turn 7 that they will have 7 cards in hand since prior to that, you're playing a back and forth game of disruption their combo with hand disruption, permission, or removal, and you then use cruel to push them behind and pull way far ahead yourself.
Against aggro, cruel affects the board, buys you life, and draws cards without being vulnerable to removal effects. If they have a full board of creatures when you try to resolve a cruel, this likely won't help, but if that's the case, you probably haven't drawn any relevant removal like Electrolyze, Lightning Bolt, Izzet Charm, or any wrath effects.
It might be blasphemy, but I'm beginning to feel like inquisition of kozilek isn't well-positioned in a control deck. It's a disruptive card for aggro/midrange strategies, yet it's a terrible top-deck if you're aiming to control the board and really only effective in your opening hand
I'm also leaning away from sweepers, they're just bad in so many match-ups and are rarely game changing against aggressive strategies. Even when I have it in hand, i'm never willing to tap out for it against aggressive strategies since this format is just too wild to take such a risk
I've always been of the opinion that spot discard is much less valuable in full-on control. With that said, I still like Inquisition, and think it's a bit of a necessary evil as it can hit relevant t1-t2 threats without being as conditional as spell snare. It's also very strong in any control mirror as it can grab cards while also providing valuable information. Part of the reason I like Thoughtflare a lot is that it replaces dead topdecks like Inquisition with cards that are hopefully more live or relevant.
As for sweepers, I kind of agree, but I also think playing 2-3 damnation is an unfortunate necessity. As long as GW aggro, Zoo, and Affinity exist, sweepers will be good, and turn these matchups from average or bad to even-favorable. For the variant that I typically play, I like to rely on sweepers to kill creatures that aren't vulnerable to Electrolyze or Lightning Bolt, then use bolt and electrolyze to clean up any fodder that comes afterward (if out of burn range of course).
I'm my playtesting Cruel Ultimatum has done nothing at all. Vs control matchups (the only time it goes late) it gets countered, the opponent has no hand, and the effect on board state is so minimal that I'm dead next turn anyways. Just my pitch in.
What's your list? Cruel is typically the card that wins the control mirror for me. It takes effort to resolve, but you have ways to bait out counters (thoughtflare, snapcaster, inquisition) in order to resolve Cruel through permission.
It's not something that you just durdle around with then drop on turn 7 in prayer that they don't have a permission spell waiting for it.
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For whatever it's worth, damnation kills thrun since it has a no regeneration clause. I think you missed that in your game.
As for a utility card, for an extra slot, I really recommend repeal. It's just a good catch-all card that is always welcome. At the worst, it cantrips and can buy back snapcasters and augurs that you've already used. At it's best, it's very strong against lingering soul tokens and voice of resurgence tokens, while also being an efficient time walk against cards like deathrite shaman. Additionally, it's nice to bounce a card to your opponent's hand before hitting them with an ultimatum, which forces them to discard it. I've used this to deal with planeswalkers on some occasions as they conveniently survive through cruel.
Glad to see serum visions getting more love in here! I swear by it. It doesn't seem like adding 2-3 would be a big deal, but somehow it is, but only in this deck.
From what I remember, I played Soul Sisters, Ad Nauseam, Bug mill ( http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1143062 ) UR Storm, URW control(with the 20 + cantrips), uwr midrange, affinity, 8rack, 2 jund decks, a bunch of tron decks, and about 4 living end decks all on cockatrice. I don't remember how they all exactly played out but I can recall to the best of my ability
Soul Sisters is a pretty free matchup, but it's easy for me to say since i'm running Thundermaw Hellkite and Electolyze MD. It usually starts out with him gaining about 56 life, me neutralizing whatever threat (Ascendant, and sometimes that 2/2 ajani card). If anything got out of hand, I would unsummon them with far and pull ahead with a thundermaw and cruel ultimatum. We played about 4 back to back matches and I never lost one
I haven't lost a full match to ad nauseam yet, but since i'm new to modern I usually get bodied by any combo deck game one until I know what to IOK and what to not let resolve. G2 is always way better, always try to stall these matchups as long as possible even if there is no way to win game 1
I went 1 - 2 against the mill deck. I don't know how to interact with that one outside of being as aggressive as possible. Misplayed quite a bit, always got hit by Archive Trap. Be careful with your fetch lands on this one, i've had half my deck milled out on turn one and all of my win cons extracted before
UR storm feels a lot like ad nauseam, but way more difficult. I pulled ahead 2-1 after losing terribly the first round. IOK/Seize their starting pieces (rite of flame, and that 2 cmc enchantment that copies their spells)
Against affinity, I took out 2 vault skirges, an inkmoth nexus, and that 0/1 battlecry dude with an electrolyze followed up by another one. He scooped and left before we can go to game 2
I was somehow able to stabilize with blue sun's zenith against 8rack game 1, don't remember the exact details and played as aggressively as possible. g2 he resolves a liliana, 2 racks, and an ensaring bridge, fought for dear life in vain and lost. g3 I got lucky and played engineered explosives for 1. He strips away my entire hand after I get a snapcaster with lb flashback to hit him for 8. at 12 life he resolved an ensnaring bridge. I top decked a rakdos charm and a thundermaw hellkite back to back for the win. I don't know what to say exactly about this matchup because I got really lucky in the 3rd round. Sideboarding can be tricky too, would IOK be viable against them? It's a terrible top-deck but disrupting their disruption early enough can be make or break too.
Jund overwhelmed me with Goyfs/Bobs and Lilianas g1 while I drew into no removal/draw and land flooded. g2/3 I was on top of his goyfs with terminates, IOKs and landed cruel ultimatum. Killed quite a few Lilianas with my own thundermaws
Lost the first match 0-2 against URW control. In the next match I won g1 and then he had to leave, I don't have enough experience to come to a verdict on where we stand in this match-up.
Tron is another tricky matchup but it feels very even. My gameplan is to just play agressively, there isn't much you can do to interact with them, it feels like i'm playing a uw delver deck against wolf-run ramp. Far // Away is huge in this matchup, if you can stall their attack phases long enough then you can pull ahead. Lost against 2 tron decks and won against 2 tron decks so far. I have yet to draw into Sowing salt against them, but Thoughtseize helps a hell of a out and so does countering their uncounterables with mindbreak traps
URW Midrange feels like it's slightly in my favor. I lost one match 1-2 and won another 2-1, IOK is pretty boss here.
I think the living end match-up is slightly in their favor game 1 and then g2 is slightly in ours. Rakdos Charm is unsurprisingly a powerful sb choice here
What I've learned so far is that Rakdos Charm and Mindbreak traps are auto-includes in any grixis sideboard. They're both extremely cross-applicable. It's also recommended to have at least 1 Engineered explosives and 1 witchbane orb for those one-sided, non-interactive matchups
In my experience, and with practice, UWR control should be in cruel's favor. The main reason is that you have better tools to deal with them than they do to deal with you. Hand disruption + Counters is better than their suite of relatively few counterspell effects and high cmc cryptic commands. Their heavy removal suite turns into a bad burn deck against you, which *can* burn you off if you're not careful, but shouldn't be a huge risk if played correctly.
Also, post board you can sideboard in Slaughter games, and if you play it carefully, you can eliminate their ability to pull ahead by naming Revelation, or use it to discard multiple copies of cards in their hand after seeing what they have with an inquisition. If I don't know what they have in hand, I'll usually name cryptic command or revelation since they're the 2 most important cards for them in the matchup. Occasionally I'll name snapcaster as well, but that's not as common. I have however inquisitioned them and seen multiple copies of remand or leak, and then followed that with a value-based slaughter games to force them to discard 2 cards as well.
The biggest risk in these matchups is them resolving an Ajani, since you don't have a lot of great ways of handling a resolved Ajani. Most of the time I've found that they'll get a bit desperate and try to burn you out, but that usually won't be in their benefit since you'll typically be able to resolve an Ultimatum prior to them killing you with their burn.
Baiting out their countermagic with stuff like Thoughtflare and Electrolyze is also relatively important when trying to resolve an ultimatum as it forces them to fall behind in card advantage, or lose to a resolved Cruel. Additionally, dreadship reef is a game changer in this matchup as you can accrue tons of mana while playing draw-go magic, which allows you to easily resolve an ultimatum through their leaks, cryptics, remands, or anything else they may have.
Also, cruel is better than revelation 9x out of 10. I've played matches where they resolve multiple revelations after I tap out to play an ultimatum, but you still end up winning the damage and card advantage war there.
My typical sideboard plan for UWR: Usually your lightning bolts and wraths are somewhat useless here since they're not very creature dependent, and you're not going to win the game by burning them out or by bolting their snapcasters. Depending on my board, I'll typically use a plan like this : (-4) Lightning Bolt, (-2) Damnation -- (+2) Slaughter Games, (+1) Counterflux, (+1) Pithing Needle, (+1) Relic of Progenitus, (+1) Shadow of Doubt.
Condescend is an interesting card, and I definitely think it warrants more play than it currently sees. I'd be interested to hear back results. One advantage of condescend is that it can still counter spells late in the game unlike leak, it just becomes a lot more expensive to do so.
As for Thoughtflare, I don't think it's proper to compare it to Blue Sun's Zenith or Revelation. I personally look at flare as a very strong filter spell that just happens to gain card advantage at the same time.
Keep in mind, your late game card advantage engine is Cruel Ultimatum, which also serves as your finisher. Thoughtflare on the other hand keeps your cards flowing smoothly mid-game, and sets up your ultimatum a few turns down the road.
As for Draining Whelk, it seems really expensive what amounts to mystic snake. Have you considered playing Teferi instead?
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It's an unneccessary 6 mana sorcery speed creature. In other words, it's awful against combo, too slow against aggro, it's impossible to resolve in any control mirror, and probably won't impact the game enough to be worthwhile in a midrange matchup. Second, why do you need an alternative win condition? You already should be playing snapcasters, burn, and manlands, which all serve perfectly fine as "alternative win conditions".
I think when you want to play a card, you should start by asking what the benefits are, what matchups it helps in, and what matchups it's bad in. When a card like Aetherling bad in 95% of the matchups you would expect to face in this format, it's probably not worth playing.
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Rise/Fall was discussed a bunch of pages back. I bought a pair and keep them off to the side but yes I actually do like that card very much.
Rise // Fall was a card that I found was very hit or miss. When it was awesome, it was incredible, but at other times it felt extremely average. I loved the fact that it was a great late-game topdeck whereas other discard sucked late-game, but I ended up cutting it as it was a bit more hit/miss than I had wanted.
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Obviously, but with 2 Terminates, a Tribute (this is no longer in my list though), and 2 more Damnations, I'd rather have the speed and flexibility of a cheaper sweeper. The creature that you'd most commonly need Damnation for is Goyf, and we have more outs to that card than is usual in Modern (2-3 Spell Snares in addition to removal).
Once this deck hits 4-6 mana, things are normally pretty grave for the other side. Cryptic Commands, Damnations, and Snapcaster Mage start kicking in, and stabilizing gets a lot easier. I found myself wanting more interaction early.
Yeah, that makes sense. One thing from what you mentioned earlier, you CAN play this with fewer lands. Chapin played cruel control in old extended with 23 lands. Given, that was with artifact rocks and thirst for knowledge, but it's not quite as crazy as it sounds. I'm not saying it's ideal, but 25-26 lands with a lot of card draw and cantrips can hit land drops somewhat reliably.
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27 might be one too many, but it's not as crazy as you guys might think. The Extended version of this deck had 27 lands, and it had arguably more card draw/cantripping than we had. Even with 27 lands I found myself getting stuck on 5 a few times. If you're playing 25 you're insane, but 26 is defensible in my opinion.
I've made a few other small changes to the list as well. I cut a Damnation for a Pyroclasm, as 'clasm is basically just a Wrath in this format anyway. I also cut an Augur and the Tribute for a Spell Snare and an Izzet Charm. I hate not having early answers to things like Deathrite Shaman, Bob, and Liliana, and these things up the answer count.
I like clasm, but one thing I would note is that with a primary removal suite of Izzet Charm, Lightning Bolt and Electrolyze, having access to Damnation has been way more valuable than clasm since it can kill the large and hard to kill stuff that bolt won't take care off.
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I agree with forest. I can see playing 26 (I actually just upped the count in my mtgo deck due to getting landscrewed a bit too often), but you don't want to get flooded either. When built properly, this deck should feel like the entire thing cantrips, and once you start hitting 1-2 electrolyzes, finding your land drops should be pretty easy even with 25 or so lands.
I concur with playing serum visions as well. I honestly think in 90% of modern decks, visions is crap, but something about serum visions in cruel control makes it run 10x more smooth. I originally only had 1 visions for my MTGO cruel variant, but I added another visions and a 26th land, and suddenly it's running like a completely different deck. I know that doesn't sound like it should be the case, but I wouldn't play this deck without 2-3 serum visions in it.
I know not everyone loves it, but I'm a big fan of playing at least 2-3 izzet charms in addition to remands. Izzet charm is just such a great roleplayer here, and allows you to effectively play 6-8 2 mana counterspell effects maindeck without feeling like you're overloaded with too many counters and not enough removal for deathrites, confidants, or whatever else is coming at you.
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So I finally took the plunge and put some money into MTGO and bought this deck (for the most part). It didn't cost too much since I was able to salvage a lot of my old cards, so I think it's worthwhile.
I still don't have the damnations or scalding tarns (way too much money for a playset on mtgo), but everything else is there for me, which is the important part.
Edit - After losing to affinity in the second round of a daily event due to Volcanic Fallout not being able to kill Etched Champion, I may try to grab some damnations. I know they're far better in this deck than fallout, especially since you occasionally need something that can kill creatures that bolt and electrolyze can't.
I would strongly advise people play shadow of doubt in their sideboard. It's maindeck worthy right now as it's a very strong card against scapeshift, tron, Gifts, and birthing pod variants.
When you're playing any control mirror, it can help get ahead on lands, and at the very worst, gives you something to cantrip with when you're not doing anything else. It's never a dead card, and can occasionally be a blowout on your opponent.
hi =) i'm playng cruel control deck and i never had problem against controll and aggro deck... but i have some problem to deal with pod... probably the problem isen't the deck, but me =) i never played against pod and when i'm dealing with it i never know what to do... can some suggestion? becouse in G1 i always win easy... G2 after SB i have a lot of problem because i don't know what to change... i put 3 "slaughter game" and "rakdos charm" but i never know wich card to name with slaughter game!
I've found myself sideboarding out Inquisition of Kozilek for shadow of doubt and a singleton Slaughter Games. I'll then typically trade an izzet charm for a pithing needle, and my 2 devour fleshes for a singleton rakdos charm and grafdigger's cage.
The persist combo of township and finks can get annoying, but I can usually avoid it by not letting finks resolve, needling township, or simply killing my opponent with ultimatums while they durdle around with a finks.
Remand doesn't lose card advantage, and it gains tempo when used against anything it's more efficient than (as any counterspell does).
Since it replaces itself, it's an even 1 for 1 trade on the card advantage spectrum, and is much better against cards like Lingering Souls or snapcaster-retargets than mana leak is. Remand also gives you some additional play in control mirrors in that you can remand your own spells that they would target with something like Cryptic Command or Spell snare, effectively nullifying their counter, while you don't lose a single card over this effect.
The one distinct thing, is remand is better at digging for important spells and land drops, whereas leak is better at fully stopping something from resolving for good. Both have their obvious advantages, but this deck wants to be drawing lots of cards, and any opportunity to draw cards while affecting your opponent's board or stack is awesome.
As for your deck list. Add 2-3 serum visions to it. Don't comment on it until after you've added them and given it a chance with some tests. If you don't like it, then get rid of it, but every time I've added the visions to the deck, it performed 3x more consistently, and most of the other players in this thread who gave it a try found the same to be true. If you play 3 visions, you can also drop down to 25 land, effectively improving your spell quality.
Also, playing this deck without dreadship reef is silly. Dreadship reef is probably the best card in any control mirror, and enables you to hit ultimatums when you only have 4 lands in play. You don't need 4, but there is a noticable difference when you play 1-2, and you'll love having reef when you're stuck on 4-5 lands with an ultimatum in hand, but still need to play a draw-go playstyle.
Remand fits cruel perfectly - It keeps larger threats off the board just long enough that you can drop an ultimatum, and ultimately win the game off that. Remand keeps problematic threats from resolving for at least a turn, all while digging for extremely crucial land drops and ultimatums. If you haven't tested this deck with remand, I would absolutely suggest giving it a shot, whether in conjunction with leak or not.
It's important to play this deck from the perspective that everything you should play should support the ultimate gameplan of resolving a cruel ultimatum, with only 2 in your deck. When you pair remand with cryptic command and snapcaster mage, it's not uncommon to timewalk your opponent 3-4 times prior to dropping an ultimatum on-curve. The lovely thing with cruel, is it doesn't matter if your opponent has a few cards in hand from you returning a card via remand since they're going to be discarding 3 anyway.
Now, the role of Izzet charm is mainly as support-removal, and early-game countering. It's true that it's not great at anything in particular, but you don't really need it to be, and against most of the creatures in the format, it's not worse than doom blade or terminate. Against the 5% of the creatures in the format that wouldn't die to doom izzet charm, that's why you play Damnation instead of Pyroclasm. At the very worst, you can try to time walk and keep their board clear of weenies until you can edict their creature with ultimatum or devour flesh.
I haven't been playing this super recently, but typically it just came down to resolving slaughter games in most of the matchups I played. With that said, most of the scapeshift lists have adopted omen and prime time recently, so it's a bit different. With that said, I still used slaughter games liberally in both matchups. You can name scapeshift then later name primeval titan with a second slaughter games, or a flashed-back slaughter games off snapcaster.
I think the most important thing is to determine which variant you're playing against first. Sowing salt isn't that great against the UGR cryptic shift without omens or titans. It's much stronger against the titan/omen variant.
Also, I would consider adding a few hard-counters to your sideboard. I've found remand better than leak in this matchup, but I would suggest possibly adding a counterflux or two to your board as it's really solid in this matchup. Shadow of doubt is also very strong in the board here as it's good against pod, tron, and scapeshift, all of which are reasonably popular decks, and 1 of which is already a bad matchup (tron).
I wouldn't knock Thoughtflare until you try it. A lot of players think it's bad at first until they try playing with it, then they realize that it fits the gameplan perfectly (for the draw-go variant at least). Thirst is great, and you know I'm all for it, but it also warps your deck into forcing in artifacts that you may or may not want to be playing with. Thoughtflare digs deeper and nets you cards unconditionally, which allows you to play more early disruption that stabilizes you against aggro and combo.
As for Grave Titan, it may not die to lightning bolt, but it makes wraths relevant in control mirrors, which is not something you ever want to do in a control mirror. Batterskull on the other hand is always good since it's recursive and can equip to snapcasters or augurs when you're not using them. Additionally, it still dies to path, terminate and pulse, both of which still see play in the format to a decent degree. The other big problem with large creature finishers is that you literally can't ever cast them against combo unless you're playing tons of spot discard in a more tapout oriented variant. If free counters were available in the format, it would be different, but this isn't the case. Cruel is a special case in that it gets around a lot of the issues facing combo in that it forces them to discard 3. Even then, you usually don't want to hardcast cruel against combo unless you know the discard 3 will prevent them from comboing out (or you're about to die).
Personally, I think you're focusing too much on your finishers, and not enough on your disruption early on.
I've mentioned it in this thread Ad Nauseam (not referencing the card), but creature finishers are slow, clunky, and way too easy to disrupt in this format.
Part of the reason that Cruel is such a great card, is that it can't be "answered" with anything short of permission. Creatures like Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine can be answered just as easily with stuff like leak, remand, or cryptic Command, but are also vulnerable to removal and wrath effects. Further, they don't create an immediate affect on your opponent's board and hand, which Cruel does.
Against the majority of combo players, cruel also is a relevant card to hardcast and tap out for, since they usually won't be able to handle a discard 3 effect unless they have 7 cards in hand. It's extremely unlikely by turn 7 that they will have 7 cards in hand since prior to that, you're playing a back and forth game of disruption their combo with hand disruption, permission, or removal, and you then use cruel to push them behind and pull way far ahead yourself.
Against aggro, cruel affects the board, buys you life, and draws cards without being vulnerable to removal effects. If they have a full board of creatures when you try to resolve a cruel, this likely won't help, but if that's the case, you probably haven't drawn any relevant removal like Electrolyze, Lightning Bolt, Izzet Charm, or any wrath effects.
I've always been of the opinion that spot discard is much less valuable in full-on control. With that said, I still like Inquisition, and think it's a bit of a necessary evil as it can hit relevant t1-t2 threats without being as conditional as spell snare. It's also very strong in any control mirror as it can grab cards while also providing valuable information. Part of the reason I like Thoughtflare a lot is that it replaces dead topdecks like Inquisition with cards that are hopefully more live or relevant.
As for sweepers, I kind of agree, but I also think playing 2-3 damnation is an unfortunate necessity. As long as GW aggro, Zoo, and Affinity exist, sweepers will be good, and turn these matchups from average or bad to even-favorable. For the variant that I typically play, I like to rely on sweepers to kill creatures that aren't vulnerable to Electrolyze or Lightning Bolt, then use bolt and electrolyze to clean up any fodder that comes afterward (if out of burn range of course).
What's your list? Cruel is typically the card that wins the control mirror for me. It takes effort to resolve, but you have ways to bait out counters (thoughtflare, snapcaster, inquisition) in order to resolve Cruel through permission.
It's not something that you just durdle around with then drop on turn 7 in prayer that they don't have a permission spell waiting for it.
As for a utility card, for an extra slot, I really recommend repeal. It's just a good catch-all card that is always welcome. At the worst, it cantrips and can buy back snapcasters and augurs that you've already used. At it's best, it's very strong against lingering soul tokens and voice of resurgence tokens, while also being an efficient time walk against cards like deathrite shaman. Additionally, it's nice to bounce a card to your opponent's hand before hitting them with an ultimatum, which forces them to discard it. I've used this to deal with planeswalkers on some occasions as they conveniently survive through cruel.
Glad to see serum visions getting more love in here! I swear by it. It doesn't seem like adding 2-3 would be a big deal, but somehow it is, but only in this deck.
In my experience, and with practice, UWR control should be in cruel's favor. The main reason is that you have better tools to deal with them than they do to deal with you. Hand disruption + Counters is better than their suite of relatively few counterspell effects and high cmc cryptic commands. Their heavy removal suite turns into a bad burn deck against you, which *can* burn you off if you're not careful, but shouldn't be a huge risk if played correctly.
Also, post board you can sideboard in Slaughter games, and if you play it carefully, you can eliminate their ability to pull ahead by naming Revelation, or use it to discard multiple copies of cards in their hand after seeing what they have with an inquisition. If I don't know what they have in hand, I'll usually name cryptic command or revelation since they're the 2 most important cards for them in the matchup. Occasionally I'll name snapcaster as well, but that's not as common. I have however inquisitioned them and seen multiple copies of remand or leak, and then followed that with a value-based slaughter games to force them to discard 2 cards as well.
The biggest risk in these matchups is them resolving an Ajani, since you don't have a lot of great ways of handling a resolved Ajani. Most of the time I've found that they'll get a bit desperate and try to burn you out, but that usually won't be in their benefit since you'll typically be able to resolve an Ultimatum prior to them killing you with their burn.
Baiting out their countermagic with stuff like Thoughtflare and Electrolyze is also relatively important when trying to resolve an ultimatum as it forces them to fall behind in card advantage, or lose to a resolved Cruel. Additionally, dreadship reef is a game changer in this matchup as you can accrue tons of mana while playing draw-go magic, which allows you to easily resolve an ultimatum through their leaks, cryptics, remands, or anything else they may have.
Also, cruel is better than revelation 9x out of 10. I've played matches where they resolve multiple revelations after I tap out to play an ultimatum, but you still end up winning the damage and card advantage war there.
My typical sideboard plan for UWR: Usually your lightning bolts and wraths are somewhat useless here since they're not very creature dependent, and you're not going to win the game by burning them out or by bolting their snapcasters. Depending on my board, I'll typically use a plan like this : (-4) Lightning Bolt, (-2) Damnation -- (+2) Slaughter Games, (+1) Counterflux, (+1) Pithing Needle, (+1) Relic of Progenitus, (+1) Shadow of Doubt.
As for Thoughtflare, I don't think it's proper to compare it to Blue Sun's Zenith or Revelation. I personally look at flare as a very strong filter spell that just happens to gain card advantage at the same time.
Keep in mind, your late game card advantage engine is Cruel Ultimatum, which also serves as your finisher. Thoughtflare on the other hand keeps your cards flowing smoothly mid-game, and sets up your ultimatum a few turns down the road.
As for Draining Whelk, it seems really expensive what amounts to mystic snake. Have you considered playing Teferi instead?
It's an unneccessary 6 mana sorcery speed creature. In other words, it's awful against combo, too slow against aggro, it's impossible to resolve in any control mirror, and probably won't impact the game enough to be worthwhile in a midrange matchup. Second, why do you need an alternative win condition? You already should be playing snapcasters, burn, and manlands, which all serve perfectly fine as "alternative win conditions".
I think when you want to play a card, you should start by asking what the benefits are, what matchups it helps in, and what matchups it's bad in. When a card like Aetherling bad in 95% of the matchups you would expect to face in this format, it's probably not worth playing.
Rise // Fall was a card that I found was very hit or miss. When it was awesome, it was incredible, but at other times it felt extremely average. I loved the fact that it was a great late-game topdeck whereas other discard sucked late-game, but I ended up cutting it as it was a bit more hit/miss than I had wanted.
Yeah, that makes sense. One thing from what you mentioned earlier, you CAN play this with fewer lands. Chapin played cruel control in old extended with 23 lands. Given, that was with artifact rocks and thirst for knowledge, but it's not quite as crazy as it sounds. I'm not saying it's ideal, but 25-26 lands with a lot of card draw and cantrips can hit land drops somewhat reliably.
I like clasm, but one thing I would note is that with a primary removal suite of Izzet Charm, Lightning Bolt and Electrolyze, having access to Damnation has been way more valuable than clasm since it can kill the large and hard to kill stuff that bolt won't take care off.
I concur with playing serum visions as well. I honestly think in 90% of modern decks, visions is crap, but something about serum visions in cruel control makes it run 10x more smooth. I originally only had 1 visions for my MTGO cruel variant, but I added another visions and a 26th land, and suddenly it's running like a completely different deck. I know that doesn't sound like it should be the case, but I wouldn't play this deck without 2-3 serum visions in it.
I know not everyone loves it, but I'm a big fan of playing at least 2-3 izzet charms in addition to remands. Izzet charm is just such a great roleplayer here, and allows you to effectively play 6-8 2 mana counterspell effects maindeck without feeling like you're overloaded with too many counters and not enough removal for deathrites, confidants, or whatever else is coming at you.
I still don't have the damnations or scalding tarns (way too much money for a playset on mtgo), but everything else is there for me, which is the important part.
3x Augur of Bolas
2x Snapcaster Mage
Instants / Sorceries
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Cryptic Command
2x Izzet charm
3x Remand
3x Electrolyze
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Terminate
2x Devour Flesh
2x Volcanic Fallout
1x Repeal
1x Serum Visions
2x Thoughtflare
2x Cruel Ultimatum
2x Island
1x Mountain
1x Swamp
1x Dragonskull Summit
1x River of Tears
3x Steam Vents
2x Watery Grave
2x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Drowned Catacomb
3x Sulfur Falls
1x Dreadship Reef
1x Sunken Ruins
2x Repeal
2x Slaughter Games
2x Sowing Salt
1x Pyroclasm
2x Rakdos Charm
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Spreading Seas
1x Deathmark
1x Negate
1x Pillar of Flame
Edit - After losing to affinity in the second round of a daily event due to Volcanic Fallout not being able to kill Etched Champion, I may try to grab some damnations. I know they're far better in this deck than fallout, especially since you occasionally need something that can kill creatures that bolt and electrolyze can't.
When you're playing any control mirror, it can help get ahead on lands, and at the very worst, gives you something to cantrip with when you're not doing anything else. It's never a dead card, and can occasionally be a blowout on your opponent.
I've found myself sideboarding out Inquisition of Kozilek for shadow of doubt and a singleton Slaughter Games. I'll then typically trade an izzet charm for a pithing needle, and my 2 devour fleshes for a singleton rakdos charm and grafdigger's cage.
The persist combo of township and finks can get annoying, but I can usually avoid it by not letting finks resolve, needling township, or simply killing my opponent with ultimatums while they durdle around with a finks.