Uwr is better positioned against zoo, which isn't really a bad matchup for us. We have a marginally better game against tron and a much worse matchup against burn, basically don't play grixis at all if you're expecting burn.
What we do have is a much better game against infect(edicts), bogle(edicts), control, blue tempo decks, and combo decks. Totally worth the trade-off if you ask me
Blood moon is getting popular as a maindeck option again though, repeal is really good to handle it while being a great way to dismantle the ineffectiveness of IoK later on in the game. Electrolyze might be officially dead and I'm considering just running far // away over it, making a few matchups better and at the expense of having a few worse match-ups. Another card that has good synergy with spot discard, allowing us to disrupt the early game with it while not losing its effectiveness late game. Repeal and Far // Away + IoK and Seize isn't the most efficient line of play, but in the mid-late game efficiency doesn't matter as much as versatility anyways. There are also the snapcater dance shenanigans to keep in mind too.
If all ur gonna do is complain about us not being as good as Uwr due to your expert opinion based on one pro tour or then stay out of this thread and start posting in the Uwr thread. I play them both and grixis is a better control deck by far, just because you tools don't see the blatant advantages grixis has due to your hivemnd mentality doesn't mean you have to be a toxic naysayer here, it just means that you can't properly pilot or evaluate our card choices. I practically face Palmed my face off when you asserted that we need a planesewalker
Grixis will always have a better control my than Uwr btw
Tron is the only mu where IoK is less than stellar against, it's not enough of a reason to forgo it and just play thoughtseize. This would automatically make the zoo, ub faeries, and other even/favorable matchups bad pre board. The same would go for clique, he's good against combo and slow decks but he's not where you want to be when you're facing down zoo, affinity, [insert fast deck here]. Seize and Clique would make the bad tron match-up marginally better pre-board, it's not worth hurting the mu's against the rest of the meta just for that. They would buff the splinter twin/control mirrors but we don't need them since I don't have a hard time against them preboard to begin with.
I say just forgo the few bad match-ups preboard and then use cross-applicable post board cards that can also give you an edge over the even to favorable mu's. The bad match-ups are still winnable g1 too, but in order to make them better we would have to jam in specific hate cards. The only way around this I can think of is the play either Seas or Shadow of Doubt mainboard since they at least cycle against the matchups they do nothing against, but that's just so inefficient it could end up hurting a lot
It's disruptive (although not entirely), it cantrips, and it's very useful against tron thus saving up on sideboard slots. Zoo isn't unfavorable nor does it warrant playing silver bullet answers against. On the other hand, I don't know what you plan on doing against tron besides hope you don't face them.
I think we need to worry more-so about the unfavorable mu's (tron and burn) rather than try to win-more in match-ups we already do well against
Seas actually does effect the board presence. If it prevents them from casting a creature for a couple turns or turns their nacatls into 2/2's or 1/1's it buys you turns, disrupts their tempo, and most importantly turns on electrolyze as a free removal spell. It's not the most efficient card and I'll never claim it to be an mvp, but it's cross applicable and better than the permission that zoo could just about ignore. Frankly, we need it or some other form of cheap land destruction if we want a favorable tron mu. Tron is the only thing keeping me from playing silver bullet sweepers like firespout and aotg, i swear tron warps the meta more than any other deck out there and it's kind of annoying.
If you're not playing dreadship reef, you're not playing this deck properly. Dreadship allows you to accelerate into turn 5-6 ultimatums without having to tap out, gives you a huge edge up in control mirrors, and is just the perfect land for this archetype overall.
I agree with most of the points you made except this one, after playing around with reef for a while, I just feel that I'd rather be using my lands to do other things rather than tick up reef. It's great against the blue mirrors, but it can a liability against anything else. It's a pet card of mine, but I don't think that it's an auto-include. Gonna try it out again though and be a bit more critical of how it determines the outcome of each mu. In order to power out a t5 or 6 ultimatum with reef, your oppponent has to literally sit there and do nothing to warrant your interaction with them (which costs the same mana required to tick it up). If you were able to goldfish with an early ultimatum, I highly doubt that it was because of dreadship reef.
Unlike decks like UWR control where you want to actively deal with all their threats, this deck really wants to just hold off the opponent's gameplan long enough until it can drop an ultimatum and win. I've said this for a while, but it's worth repeating. The only time this isn't the case is when your opponent has a large board presence and you can't just cryptic timewalk them into an ultimatum for the win. But in those instances, that's why you have damnations & anger of the gods out of the sideboard.
^^This^^
Which is the beauty of Cruel Control, it has tempo/combo elements to it without actually being a tempo/combo deck. Cruel Control is secretly a combo deck, the combo being Lands + Cruel Ultimatum
I think it's the right choice to max out on Inquisitions right now. They're way better vs. Zoo and Faeries than permission is, and allow you to rip out turn 1 Nacatls, turn 2 Bitterblossoms, or simply hit your opponent's leak before dropping an ultimatum.
Yup. IoK is boss and the perfect out to any nut draw
While I don't think the zoo matchup is bad, adding Anger of the Gods & Deathmark ensures that you have a decent matchup throughout the entire match. These cards are also great vs. all pod variants, which never huts.
Have you tried spreading seas? Hear me out, zoo usually only has one sacred foundry and temple garden that they fetch for (while running few lands in the first place). Seas is very debilitating to their game-plan and they even cantrip, it's a great card against decks with greedy mana bases, running very few lands, or TRON. Zoo has a greedy mana base and they're typically not running more than 19-21 lands. I know that aotg and deathmark are better against zoo than seas would ever be, but they don't do anything for the tron match-up which is one we really need to lock down. It also does work in the burn match-up, considering they're a deck that's more than content to sit on 1 to 2 lands and count to twenty with all of their burn spells. Seas can be a significant to debilitating kink in their flow, often buying more than a few turns
Yes, 3 is the number to shoot for if you want to see whatever copy of it at least once per game but don't want it in multiples early on. 2-3 are good numbers to shoot for but I prefer to reliably draw into it when it's needed. In your case, you will always be better off with a 3rd ultimatum instead of a nicol bolas
While it's true that 90% is arbitrary and really more of a guideline than an absolute law, let's look at it in a different light
90%: 1 in every ten games, you can't cast x for 1 or more turns
85%: 1 in every 7-8 games, you can't cast x for 1 or more turns
80%: 1 in ever five games, you can't cast x for 1 or more turns
Just a few lands off can really hurt your consistency, I feel that the biggest reason for a loss (for control in general) is having less consistency than the opponent.
On the sideboard again, Spreading Seas is a lot better than despise since it's really good at disrupting both zoo and tron. Stone rain is strictly better than Seas against tron, but it's not as good against zoo. Just a thought on cross-applicable sideboard options
One thing i wanted to talk is that when you are running a control deck or a deck in general you should always know which your gameplan is. What you want to do from turn 1 until you win, the thing i have encounter with discard in a control deck is that you see their hand, take one possible(IoK and 4cmc+) and start playing from there on but what if they top deck it or you are way into lategame (which should be our main objective anyway)discard becomes really useless top decks.
It's true that iok is pretty bad as a topdeck, however this gets mitigated with the bounce option from cc, far // away, and remand. Still, you can't really expect a 1 cmc spell to turn a game around if you're behind, it would be pretty broken otherwise. Spell snare suffers from the same issue (as well as any non CC permission spell) but not quite to the same extent as IoK if you're both in topdeck mode, however it hits way less relevant spells than IoK would.
We can't forget that when we build our mana base we also have to think about sideboards card like Anger of the goods. So running to many basics just to fight a sideboard card that is beatable is not worth imho.
We don't need anger of the gods, creature match-ups are pretty much even to favorable unless you're running too much permission. Anger of the gods would require 19 of your lands to produce red in order to cast it consistently, it's not cross-applicable (bad against a lot of match-ups), and is not even needed in the first place.
In here you first say that we don't need AotG becuase creature matchs are fine, but have you encountered decks running Kitchen, Voice, Vengevine or any persist type. It makes almost all of our removal 2 for 1 ourselves and this is not fun at all. AotG makes all this creature die and never come back.
True aotg does that, but electrolyze already does a pretty good job at ensuring we don't get 2 for 1'd and it's never bad to see against any matchup. We're playing cruel ultimatum, so it doesn't really matter if they have a few stragglers laying around by the time we cast it, which is the main reason why I don't see the need to actually exile persist/undying creatures with such a silver bullet spell. My gameplan against pod/aggro/tempo decks is to try and control it, but for the most part just disrupting their crucial tempo pieces is more than enough by the time Ultimatum is online. It's possible to dominate/control these types of decks with cards like AOTG and firespout, but they're just so tunnel-visioned and these aren't match-ups we should really be afraid of. If I knew the meta while expecting a lot of pod/critter decks then I would totally bring these cards in the 75, but they're not all necessary.
Mana Leak i think is a necessary evil thing it puts all of our early game together, it may not be good sometimes against some decks but you just need to side them out for games 2 and 3.
Remand is a card i don't like at all since we are tempoing our opponents we stall, control and then win with Cruel. So letting them keep their cards is not on favor, yes the card draw is nice but I already run 2 Think Twice, 1 Shadow of Doubt, 2 Forbidden Alchemy (Total MVP when didgging for the answer needed and to find the hate games 2 and 3 or when we just need to close the deal with ultimatum) 3 Electrolyze, 3 CC and 2 Jace.
Countersquall is nice an all but the heavy requirement just to be able to deal 2dmg, remember we are control not tempo, is not worth it imho. I would prefer cards like Counterflux (Good against Tron, awesome against Storm) or negate in this case.
I used to think remand wasn't where we want to be either, but it doesn't matter if the spell ends up back in their hand so much if we're forcing them to discard it via ultimatum anyways. It's a counterspell opponents can't hold up an additional 3 mana to play around, and it helps us to draw into our resources/lands and the namesake card. By the time they resolve a few spells of theirs, ultimatum should be online thanks to the consistency provided by remand, making whatever they resolve moot. Remand also doesn't have to always equate to tempo, combo decks and the U/x tron decks play it as well since they're confident that their bomb will always overpower their opponent's resolved threats (usually the case) and remand helps them get there. This also applies to Cruel Ultimatum
Another thing I'd like to note is that it usually doesn't matter whether or not the spell goes back to the hand. It's very rare that I wish my remands were mana leaks and I generally wish my leaks were remands (hence me switching to remand). This is because there are a lot of situations where whether or not the spell is countered won't make much of a difference, this is crazy sounding I know but hear me out. Let's just say I'm up against merfolk in this example
They have 2 lands out, and a hand full of lords
I have 2 remands
If they were mana leaks, they would eventually be resolving lords + other creatures anyways. But remands still set them back the the same number of turns while helping me to draw into my damnation/lands/cruel ultimatum (or w/e) which by then makes whatever they would have otherwise been playing moot.
Countersquall isn't heavy on color requirement at all, we only need 13 blue and 13 black to play it consistently and we're already running 19-21 blue for CC and 16-19 for damnation. It's a very easy spell to cast
Counterflux is a quite a bit more mana intensive than countersquall, but it's still very reliable given that we're already playing CC. The main reason I prefer squall to flux is just the 1 less cmc, this amounts to a huge difference against decks like burn and tron on the draw, that one turn it comes down earlier can single-handedly determine the outcome of a match. There is also the huge difference in cmc when it comes to flashing it back with snapcaster mage, 4cmc is a lot less than 5 cmc.
The playtesting on despise has proven to be pretty bad (still won) but remand would have been better the particular zoo matchesi'm referring to. It was worth the try though
I know that blood moon is a pain but i do not share the idea of changing our entire mana base to fight in case they play it, which should not be entering anyway
With the mana base I'm running, all of the color requirements are met to ensure a high consistency, have you checked out the mana consistency article yet?
to fix that problem you can play Chromatic Lantern if your meta is actually full of it or just play draw go vs those kind of decks with the help of echoing truth that is really good in other matchs ups too.
The reason I think it's more reasonable to run enough basics/fetches to be inherently resistant to blood moon is because we don't have to waste a sideboard slot on a do-nothing card, we would also have to rely on drawing into our 1 chromatic lantern if we did so, not a very strong/consistent game-plan against a card that can single-handedly neuter our entire strategy. Echoing truth in this case would just be card disadvantage, it's bad against a lot of match-ups, it's way too narrow. What match-ups could it be good in besides tokens. It doesn't solve any issues, it just stalls a turn and forces you to zero for one yourself
We can't forget that when we build our mana base we also have to think about sideboards card like Anger of the goods. So running to many basics just to fight a sideboard card that is beatable is not worth imho.
We don't need anger of the gods, creature match-ups are pretty much even to favorable unless you're running too much permission. Anger of the gods would require 19 of your lands to produce red in order to cast it consistently, it's not cross-applicable (bad against a lot of match-ups), and is not even needed in the first place.
Also so far after the changes and bans i have yet to play vs zoo to see how the match fairs but vs faeries we have the upper hand at least with the deck im running. 3 Spell Snares in this meta i think is mandatory.
I've played quite a few matches against zoo, it's a very close match-up, which is why I'm considering despise in the sideboard (more on that further down the post)
A card I strongly to suggest to everyone give it a try is Jace, The Architect of Thought he is just incredibly vs so many agroo decks in the format.
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He can be alright against aggro, but definitely an mvp against splintertwin. My eval on him is that a miser is very reasonable, he can also ultimate into an ultimatum which is nice
And i was looking into some kind of planeswalker so play alongside Jace to help win the Board state. So far i think we can play Tamiyo, Sorin, Chandra from M13 and dont know which other could be an option since neither of the ones i have mention with the exception of tamiyo are actually worth it. Thoughts?
I'm leaning towards tamiyo since she can at least lockdown a tronland, manlands, difficult permanents, and is generally the most impactful walker on the board state. However, we have cruel ultimatum, any other "finisher" of that nature needs to be compared to cruel ultimatum, nothing is as impactful a finisher/control card as cruel ultimatum since it's highly effective against any match-up. Wurmcoil Engine might be better than an ultimatum against RDW but it's practically a do nothing card against a combo deck, Olivia Voldaren/Grave Titan are stellar against aggro decks but once again are underwhelming against control or tron. Cruel Ultimatum is equally devastating against everything whether it be for the lifegain, the card draw, the opponent discard ect.
Another sideboard possibility would be despise over stone rain/sowing salt. It should be better than remand/mana leak against the aethervial and/or zoo decks and can have strong role against tron at the same time. It's obviously not as good against tron as stone rain would be, but if it's good enough while providing a significant boost the zoo, merfolk, and voice of resurgence matchups then I'm totally going to make the switch. Probably going to take about ten serious matches against each before I can reach a verdict though, I also don't think we really need despise against the decks remand is bad against
If you are thinking about Despise why just not run Thoughtseize and avoid issues?
I already do run thoughtseize as a 4 of in the board, seize is just a versatile and efficient card against so many match-ups that I couldn't imagine not running it, it's also an MVP against tron. Thoughtseize however is really bad against the aggressive creature strategies. Although I think zoo/merfolk/aether vial match-ups don't really need sideboard slots (We should be worrying about Burn and Tron the most), it would be nice to have a cross-applicable card that can really swing the aggressive MU in our favor while also giving us a solid g2 plan against TRON.
Let's face it, against zoo and merfolk, the chances of you actually using a 2 cmc counterspell against them effectively are pretty low. They can dump out up to 3 cats before mana leak is online, merfolk also has aether vial to ensure that none of their creatures actually run into a counterspell (which is why I don't like heavy permission lists anymore). So against strategies like this we're looking at
-4 Remand
+ 4 Despise: To bypass aethervial and to rebalance the discrepancy of mana efficiency between mana leak and 1-2 cmc powerhouses (thoughtseize would amount to far too much damage)
Anger of the Gods in this case is only good for this match-up alone and doesn't even do too much against goyf, merfolk can also slam enough lords to make AOTG moot. Aotg is also extremely mana instensive, once again we need 19 red sources to consistently cast it on t3. If you aren't running 19 red and don't plan on playing it t3, just run another damnation.
Against tron: Spell snare, lightning bolt, and IoK are very underwhelming (we do need early interaction though so cutting them just because of tron is out of the question). So post-board in my case would look like this
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
+ 4 Despise: Hits every one of their relevant win-cons (also good against creature strategies)
+ 4 Thoughtseize: Hits every one of their relevant win-cons (also good against combo and control strategies)
However like I said, it's going to take extensive playtesting before I switch to despise from Stone Rain since it would have to prove to be effective against tron although it initially sounds like it would be on paper. If despise is effective, then I will have condensed the sideboard slots to cover more than just one match-up (by giving us a serious upper-hand against zoo/merfolk), since stone rain is pretty much just a narrow tron hoser (it's a necessary evil though).
Slightly Unfavorable (4-6)
Storm
Kiki Pod
Creatureless combo decks (ad nauseum)
UB mill (could be even)
Even
RdW
Zoo
Pod
Bogle (maybe slightly favorable)
Splintertwin (slightly favorable if running spot discard main)
Merfolk (unless you're too permission heavy)
Slightly Favorable (6-4)
8Rack
Mono Green Devotion
Melira Pod
Affinity
Faeries
UWR Midrange
Living End
Favorable
UWR Control
Esper Control
On sideboarding in general, I build it as if i'm going into a completely unknown meta, so I prefer them to be as cross-applicable as possible.
Spellkite: Mostly tech against burn, but is also good against bogle and infect
Countersquall: Burn, Control, Combo (non splintertwin), Tron, mirror, storm
Rakdos Charm: 8rack, twin, tron(ish), Living end, loam, 4c gifts, affinity, storm, (a lot of matchups are covered with this gem)
Thoughtseize: Control, UWR, combo, twin, mirror, TRON, storm
Stone Rain: ... TRON
Despise: Zoo, Merfolk, TRON (big maybe, blind speculation so far)
You can actually still draw the land before you bolt goblin guide. He attacks, the trigger hits the stack, you draw the land and can bolt him before the transition into the damage phase. What's really important about these aggressive match-ups is how quickly we can disrupt their tempo, every bit of damage is crucial to the game's outcome.
When it comes to basics, I figured we need an out to blood moon, which basically means that we need enough of each source to cast any spell in the deck even if moon is out on the board. CC = 3 islands and ultimatum = 3 swamps/2islands. It works out well since I can easily fetch them g2 against twin/blood moon decks, effectively turning blood moon into a pseudo-extraction card that you can play around
The singleton mountain is just there to have the option to take less damage if and when the situation calls for it
Another sideboard possibility would be despise over stone rain/sowing salt. It should be better than remand/mana leak against the aethervial and/or zoo decks and can have strong role against tron at the same time. It's obviously not as good against tron as stone rain would be, but if it's good enough while providing a significant boost the zoo, merfolk, and voice of resurgence matchups then I'm totally going to make the switch. Probably going to take about ten serious matches against each before I can reach a verdict though, I also don't think we really need despise against the decks remand is bad against
You also have to take into consideration which lands allow you to play a t1 bolt, iok, visions, spell snare ect. It's recommended to have 14 untapped sources for whatever t1 play you want with a 90% consistency rating. Let's take your mana base for example, your opponent opens up with a t1 goblin guide or wild nacatle, you're more likely to have to wait until t2 to bolt him with only 11 ways to play a bolt on t1 (9 of which ironically result in a self shock anyways). This could be prevented by just shocking yourself with a fetch land but instead you have sulfur falls and a reflecting pool, the spell you're sitting on and can't cast results in the same amount of damage you otherwise would have taken with a fetch/shock. Furthermore, by having to wait that extra turn, you also lose out on your t2 play be it a mana leak, think twice, augur, terminate ect, and as a result you end up taking an additional 3 damage that you did not have to or you can even wind up in such a tempo disadvantage that it's near impossible to recover from since its effect is likely to snowball from there.
I would also like to point out that preventing a theoretical 2 damage by running 2 reflecting pool over 2 marsh flats doesn't seem worth it, add on top of that the possibility of reflecting pool not being able to produce the colored mana you need since you haven't previously planted said land.
Yes I'm aware that not every spell has to be played on curve, but if you don't plan on consistently playing a spell on curve, then you might as well play a more expensive/powerful spell in place of it. Just remember that this format is fast, brutal, and unforgiving. It is crucial that we're able to interact as early as possible, just the difference of being able to t1 IOK a tron deck's expedition map or bolting away that noble hierarch//delver/nacatl will change the entire outcome of the match
I'm sticking to 8 fetches because
. The sake of using mana efficiently, thus preventing more damage/losses that would otherwise accrue overtime
. Color consistency
. Resilience to blood moon
. Opens up more options of play
What we do have is a much better game against infect(edicts), bogle(edicts), control, blue tempo decks, and combo decks. Totally worth the trade-off if you ask me
Blood moon is getting popular as a maindeck option again though, repeal is really good to handle it while being a great way to dismantle the ineffectiveness of IoK later on in the game. Electrolyze might be officially dead and I'm considering just running far // away over it, making a few matchups better and at the expense of having a few worse match-ups. Another card that has good synergy with spot discard, allowing us to disrupt the early game with it while not losing its effectiveness late game. Repeal and Far // Away + IoK and Seize isn't the most efficient line of play, but in the mid-late game efficiency doesn't matter as much as versatility anyways. There are also the snapcater dance shenanigans to keep in mind too.
Grixis will always have a better control my than Uwr btw
I say just forgo the few bad match-ups preboard and then use cross-applicable post board cards that can also give you an edge over the even to favorable mu's. The bad match-ups are still winnable g1 too, but in order to make them better we would have to jam in specific hate cards. The only way around this I can think of is the play either Seas or Shadow of Doubt mainboard since they at least cycle against the matchups they do nothing against, but that's just so inefficient it could end up hurting a lot
I think we need to worry more-so about the unfavorable mu's (tron and burn) rather than try to win-more in match-ups we already do well against
I agree with most of the points you made except this one, after playing around with reef for a while, I just feel that I'd rather be using my lands to do other things rather than tick up reef. It's great against the blue mirrors, but it can a liability against anything else. It's a pet card of mine, but I don't think that it's an auto-include. Gonna try it out again though and be a bit more critical of how it determines the outcome of each mu. In order to power out a t5 or 6 ultimatum with reef, your oppponent has to literally sit there and do nothing to warrant your interaction with them (which costs the same mana required to tick it up). If you were able to goldfish with an early ultimatum, I highly doubt that it was because of dreadship reef.
^^This^^
Which is the beauty of Cruel Control, it has tempo/combo elements to it without actually being a tempo/combo deck. Cruel Control is secretly a combo deck, the combo being Lands + Cruel Ultimatum
Yup. IoK is boss and the perfect out to any nut draw
Have you tried spreading seas? Hear me out, zoo usually only has one sacred foundry and temple garden that they fetch for (while running few lands in the first place). Seas is very debilitating to their game-plan and they even cantrip, it's a great card against decks with greedy mana bases, running very few lands, or TRON. Zoo has a greedy mana base and they're typically not running more than 19-21 lands. I know that aotg and deathmark are better against zoo than seas would ever be, but they don't do anything for the tron match-up which is one we really need to lock down. It also does work in the burn match-up, considering they're a deck that's more than content to sit on 1 to 2 lands and count to twenty with all of their burn spells. Seas can be a significant to debilitating kink in their flow, often buying more than a few turns
90%: 1 in every ten games, you can't cast x for 1 or more turns
85%: 1 in every 7-8 games, you can't cast x for 1 or more turns
80%: 1 in ever five games, you can't cast x for 1 or more turns
Just a few lands off can really hurt your consistency, I feel that the biggest reason for a loss (for control in general) is having less consistency than the opponent.
On the sideboard again, Spreading Seas is a lot better than despise since it's really good at disrupting both zoo and tron. Stone rain is strictly better than Seas against tron, but it's not as good against zoo. Just a thought on cross-applicable sideboard options
On another note there is also spreading seas, maindeckable and helps against tron/burn and can make the even zoo matchup favorable
It's true that iok is pretty bad as a topdeck, however this gets mitigated with the bounce option from cc, far // away, and remand. Still, you can't really expect a 1 cmc spell to turn a game around if you're behind, it would be pretty broken otherwise. Spell snare suffers from the same issue (as well as any non CC permission spell) but not quite to the same extent as IoK if you're both in topdeck mode, however it hits way less relevant spells than IoK would.
We don't need anger of the gods, creature match-ups are pretty much even to favorable unless you're running too much permission. Anger of the gods would require 19 of your lands to produce red in order to cast it consistently, it's not cross-applicable (bad against a lot of match-ups), and is not even needed in the first place.
True aotg does that, but electrolyze already does a pretty good job at ensuring we don't get 2 for 1'd and it's never bad to see against any matchup. We're playing cruel ultimatum, so it doesn't really matter if they have a few stragglers laying around by the time we cast it, which is the main reason why I don't see the need to actually exile persist/undying creatures with such a silver bullet spell. My gameplan against pod/aggro/tempo decks is to try and control it, but for the most part just disrupting their crucial tempo pieces is more than enough by the time Ultimatum is online. It's possible to dominate/control these types of decks with cards like AOTG and firespout, but they're just so tunnel-visioned and these aren't match-ups we should really be afraid of. If I knew the meta while expecting a lot of pod/critter decks then I would totally bring these cards in the 75, but they're not all necessary.
I used to think remand wasn't where we want to be either, but it doesn't matter if the spell ends up back in their hand so much if we're forcing them to discard it via ultimatum anyways. It's a counterspell opponents can't hold up an additional 3 mana to play around, and it helps us to draw into our resources/lands and the namesake card. By the time they resolve a few spells of theirs, ultimatum should be online thanks to the consistency provided by remand, making whatever they resolve moot. Remand also doesn't have to always equate to tempo, combo decks and the U/x tron decks play it as well since they're confident that their bomb will always overpower their opponent's resolved threats (usually the case) and remand helps them get there. This also applies to Cruel Ultimatum
Another thing I'd like to note is that it usually doesn't matter whether or not the spell goes back to the hand. It's very rare that I wish my remands were mana leaks and I generally wish my leaks were remands (hence me switching to remand). This is because there are a lot of situations where whether or not the spell is countered won't make much of a difference, this is crazy sounding I know but hear me out. Let's just say I'm up against merfolk in this example
They have 2 lands out, and a hand full of lords
I have 2 remands
If they were mana leaks, they would eventually be resolving lords + other creatures anyways. But remands still set them back the the same number of turns while helping me to draw into my damnation/lands/cruel ultimatum (or w/e) which by then makes whatever they would have otherwise been playing moot.
Countersquall isn't heavy on color requirement at all, we only need 13 blue and 13 black to play it consistently and we're already running 19-21 blue for CC and 16-19 for damnation. It's a very easy spell to cast
Counterflux is a quite a bit more mana intensive than countersquall, but it's still very reliable given that we're already playing CC. The main reason I prefer squall to flux is just the 1 less cmc, this amounts to a huge difference against decks like burn and tron on the draw, that one turn it comes down earlier can single-handedly determine the outcome of a match. There is also the huge difference in cmc when it comes to flashing it back with snapcaster mage, 4cmc is a lot less than 5 cmc.
The playtesting on despise has proven to be pretty bad (still won) but remand would have been better the particular zoo matchesi'm referring to. It was worth the try though
With the mana base I'm running, all of the color requirements are met to ensure a high consistency, have you checked out the mana consistency article yet?
U/R Tempo, Splinter twin, and just about every r/x deck sides it in, it's a really strong play and it's very common
The reason I think it's more reasonable to run enough basics/fetches to be inherently resistant to blood moon is because we don't have to waste a sideboard slot on a do-nothing card, we would also have to rely on drawing into our 1 chromatic lantern if we did so, not a very strong/consistent game-plan against a card that can single-handedly neuter our entire strategy. Echoing truth in this case would just be card disadvantage, it's bad against a lot of match-ups, it's way too narrow. What match-ups could it be good in besides tokens. It doesn't solve any issues, it just stalls a turn and forces you to zero for one yourself
We don't need anger of the gods, creature match-ups are pretty much even to favorable unless you're running too much permission. Anger of the gods would require 19 of your lands to produce red in order to cast it consistently, it's not cross-applicable (bad against a lot of match-ups), and is not even needed in the first place.
I've played quite a few matches against zoo, it's a very close match-up, which is why I'm considering despise in the sideboard (more on that further down the post)
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He can be alright against aggro, but definitely an mvp against splintertwin. My eval on him is that a miser is very reasonable, he can also ultimate into an ultimatum which is nice
I'm leaning towards tamiyo since she can at least lockdown a tronland, manlands, difficult permanents, and is generally the most impactful walker on the board state. However, we have cruel ultimatum, any other "finisher" of that nature needs to be compared to cruel ultimatum, nothing is as impactful a finisher/control card as cruel ultimatum since it's highly effective against any match-up. Wurmcoil Engine might be better than an ultimatum against RDW but it's practically a do nothing card against a combo deck, Olivia Voldaren/Grave Titan are stellar against aggro decks but once again are underwhelming against control or tron. Cruel Ultimatum is equally devastating against everything whether it be for the lifegain, the card draw, the opponent discard ect.
I say you should post it so we can get a better idea of where you're coming from
I already do run thoughtseize as a 4 of in the board, seize is just a versatile and efficient card against so many match-ups that I couldn't imagine not running it, it's also an MVP against tron. Thoughtseize however is really bad against the aggressive creature strategies. Although I think zoo/merfolk/aether vial match-ups don't really need sideboard slots (We should be worrying about Burn and Tron the most), it would be nice to have a cross-applicable card that can really swing the aggressive MU in our favor while also giving us a solid g2 plan against TRON.
3 Augur of Bolas
3 Snapcaster Mage
Instants (18)
3 Cryptic Command
3 Electrolyze
1 Far // Away
4 Remand
3 Think Twice
4 Lightning Bolt
Sorcery (10)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Damnation
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Creeping Tarpit
1 Sunken Ruins
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
4 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
3 Island
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Thoughtseize
3 Countersquall
3 Spellskite
1 Rakdos Charm
4 Stone Rain or Despise
Let's face it, against zoo and merfolk, the chances of you actually using a 2 cmc counterspell against them effectively are pretty low. They can dump out up to 3 cats before mana leak is online, merfolk also has aether vial to ensure that none of their creatures actually run into a counterspell (which is why I don't like heavy permission lists anymore). So against strategies like this we're looking at
-4 Remand
+ 4 Despise: To bypass aethervial and to rebalance the discrepancy of mana efficiency between mana leak and 1-2 cmc powerhouses (thoughtseize would amount to far too much damage)
Anger of the Gods in this case is only good for this match-up alone and doesn't even do too much against goyf, merfolk can also slam enough lords to make AOTG moot. Aotg is also extremely mana instensive, once again we need 19 red sources to consistently cast it on t3. If you aren't running 19 red and don't plan on playing it t3, just run another damnation.
Against tron: Spell snare, lightning bolt, and IoK are very underwhelming (we do need early interaction though so cutting them just because of tron is out of the question). So post-board in my case would look like this
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
+ 4 Despise: Hits every one of their relevant win-cons (also good against creature strategies)
+ 4 Thoughtseize: Hits every one of their relevant win-cons (also good against combo and control strategies)
However like I said, it's going to take extensive playtesting before I switch to despise from Stone Rain since it would have to prove to be effective against tron although it initially sounds like it would be on paper. If despise is effective, then I will have condensed the sideboard slots to cover more than just one match-up (by giving us a serious upper-hand against zoo/merfolk), since stone rain is pretty much just a narrow tron hoser (it's a necessary evil though).
A quick match-up analysis (pre board)
Unfavorable (3-7)
Tron (any variant)
Burn (maybe 4-6)
Infect (maybe 4-6)
Slightly Unfavorable (4-6)
Storm
Kiki Pod
Creatureless combo decks (ad nauseum)
UB mill (could be even)
Even
RdW
Zoo
Pod
Bogle (maybe slightly favorable)
Splintertwin (slightly favorable if running spot discard main)
Merfolk (unless you're too permission heavy)
Slightly Favorable (6-4)
8Rack
Mono Green Devotion
Melira Pod
Affinity
Faeries
UWR Midrange
Living End
Favorable
UWR Control
Esper Control
On sideboarding in general, I build it as if i'm going into a completely unknown meta, so I prefer them to be as cross-applicable as possible.
Spellkite: Mostly tech against burn, but is also good against bogle and infect
Countersquall: Burn, Control, Combo (non splintertwin), Tron, mirror, storm
Rakdos Charm: 8rack, twin, tron(ish), Living end, loam, 4c gifts, affinity, storm, (a lot of matchups are covered with this gem)
Thoughtseize: Control, UWR, combo, twin, mirror, TRON, storm
Stone Rain: ... TRON
Despise: Zoo, Merfolk, TRON (big maybe, blind speculation so far)
When it comes to basics, I figured we need an out to blood moon, which basically means that we need enough of each source to cast any spell in the deck even if moon is out on the board. CC = 3 islands and ultimatum = 3 swamps/2islands. It works out well since I can easily fetch them g2 against twin/blood moon decks, effectively turning blood moon into a pseudo-extraction card that you can play around
The singleton mountain is just there to have the option to take less damage if and when the situation calls for it
I would also like to point out that preventing a theoretical 2 damage by running 2 reflecting pool over 2 marsh flats doesn't seem worth it, add on top of that the possibility of reflecting pool not being able to produce the colored mana you need since you haven't previously planted said land.
Yes I'm aware that not every spell has to be played on curve, but if you don't plan on consistently playing a spell on curve, then you might as well play a more expensive/powerful spell in place of it. Just remember that this format is fast, brutal, and unforgiving. It is crucial that we're able to interact as early as possible, just the difference of being able to t1 IOK a tron deck's expedition map or bolting away that noble hierarch//delver/nacatl will change the entire outcome of the match
I'm sticking to 8 fetches because
. The sake of using mana efficiently, thus preventing more damage/losses that would otherwise accrue overtime
. Color consistency
. Resilience to blood moon
. Opens up more options of play