I think Karn does everything right in the midrange and control matchups, except produce a threatening body. If we had more incidental artifacts to fuel it, I would be 100% on board. If you can manage to jam multiple copies of Treasure Map, it seems solid.
The current iteration of GB Mid is reminiscent of Jund when Bloodbraid was printed. It was established early that the archetype had the tools to be the best deck of the format, and eventually people tried to strike its Achilles tendon. First with a low to the ground Boros matchup that would hope to steal games before the midrange deck got enough value to stabilize, then Goblin Ruinblaster and Spreading Seas to gimp the midrange deck's tempo, then finally playing two fetches + mana dork + Knight of the Reliquary, hoping to blank the first effective removal spell from Jund by searching up a Sejiri Steppe with Knight and then running away with the game afterward via Ranger of Eos and decently threatening bodies.
The Jund deck responded by gaining a new Achilles at every turn. Fighting off aggro with 1 CMC removal, playing more fetches and Sedraxis Specter to punish Blightning and Spreading Seas, then utilizing the likes of Deathmark, strong manlands, and Garruk Wildspeaker to fight the Naya decks that were loaded with plenty of ways to blank removal, so that there wouldn't be a big fuss to fire off multiple kill spells in a turn.
If we're going to adjust to all the new problems the format throws at us in similar fashion, we need to worry more about how to solve the matchups we face and less about how to do the most powerful thing in a vacuum (ramp into Carnage Tyrant, explore a bunch, etc.) Mono Red has come knocking on the door, and UWr Control has presented itself as a serious opponent, and now finally there are Phoenix/Drake decks that can just steal games if we don't kill Electromancer on time. Tocatli Honor Guard and The Immortal Sun have more than enough game to put us on very few outs, if we're not hedging for those.
Prior to the Boros Midrange decks evolving, I thought Thrashing Brontodon was actually just too inefficient against the format's best targets: History of Benalia, Search for Azcanta, The Eldest Reborn, and Experimental Frenzy.
It felt like you were either giving red the upper hand by letting them play around Brontodon with Chainwhirler, although it wasn't too far off from just being an excellent creature against them. The rest of those archetypes just kind of danced around Brontodon, and now I can see it actually proving worthwhile because of The Immortal Sun and even oddball options like the Two-Card Monte deck. To work around Disinformation Campaign as well, Reclamation Sage would probably be more effective tech, but you would need to have plenty of removal for Honor Guard to not shoot yourself in the foot by playing Sage.
The other evolution needed would be to address the mirror. You can either play into the crapshoot element of hoping to see your manadorks survive long enough to chain Tyrants together, or you could try to punish the curve of the opponent with additional discard elements and go under their endgame with sweepers to throw off their middling options. If not with a card like Angrath, the Flame-Chained, then at least with something that can help you trade one for one against the likes of Vivien Reid
I've been high on Deathgorge Scavenger to help the Phoenix matchup, since it's also just a threatening clock against control that stymies Search from going off soon in the round.
I think every GBx pilot would be remiss to disregard what the opponents are doing now that there is a target on the deck. Adjusting is better than just going even higher over the top with our threats
Cast Downs were a hedge against Tocatli Honor Guard. I wasn't too high on my 75 but only because I wish I had some extra insurance for the mirror (1 more Findbroker and 1 more Eldest Reborn) without sacrificing too much against the more aggressive archetypes
Round 1: GB Mid
Pretty stock. He did GB things, I drew very little action and lost game 1 to multiple walkers
SB Plan:
OUT:
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Cast Down
2 Assassin's Trophy
IN:
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Ritual of Soot
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Find // Finality
1 Vraska's Contempt
Wanted to just pinch him off of having extra creatures aside from Carnage Tyrant, and then edict it. I went over the top of my opponent in game 2 with walkers and he scooped before I could ultimate a Vraska
In game three I got to steal the opponent's Carny T with an Eldest Reborn, and from there I was able to chew up a few of his value spells with Angrath as he wasn't able to curve out properly.
Round 1: 2-1 Me
Rounds 2 and 3 were both against GB mid as well. In game one of round two, I was able to goad my opponent into swinging into me and leaving no blockers behind, because I was almost dead. I swung into his Vivien and killed it to pump my lone Deathgorge out of Finality range, which I cast to nuke his side of the board. He untaps with 9 lands, plays a 10th, rattles off Chupacabra for my Deathgorge and then a Carny T. I have 8 lands in play before my turn, and my grip is Chupes and The Eldest Reborn... rip a Greenseeker lol. In round 3 I fought to a game three where I just drew much less action than the opponent and couldn't keep up on board after stonewalling for the early and mid game.
Round 2: 2-0 Opponent
Round 3: 2-1 Opponent
Round 4 vs Burn
He leads game one with Ghitu Lavarunner, I play a Memorial and pass, he fires off two Wizard's Lightnings at my face and crashes for 2 more lol. I take my 2nd turn being down 12 to 20. Eventually he peters out after fighting through two copies of Deathgorge and a Findbroker for a 3rd. Frenzy comes down but before he can untap with it I rip a Vraska to take it out and put the game away
OUT:
2 Plaguecrafter
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
1 The Eldest Reborn
1 Find // Finality
IN:
1 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Moment of Craving
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Vraska's Contempt
My opponent was stuck on 3 lands for a few turns and I simply cushioned myself so much that a few Risk Factors ended up being dead against me while I just swung in for 4-5 damage a turn
Round 4: 2-0 Me
Round 5 vs Bant Turns
Game one was decidedly won by Angrath. It just chewed into my opponent's reactive plays and left him needing to tuck it with Teferi, where I could just kill Teferi off with a lonely Dryad Greenseeker. Eventually he was dead on board and hand and topdecked Search for Azcanta before I responded with a Vivien -3 and a Findbroker to supply myself with planeswalker insurance
Game two was decided by early Duress -> Duress. I pinned the opponent into trying to set up Search for Azcanta, only to put him off a few turns with Deathgorge and holding removal. Opponent eventually lands Teferi and when he isn't on an extra turn, he passes with one card up. I have a flipped Treasure Map and after peeking with Greenseeker I see a Spyglass, then crack a Treasure to grab it and cast it. Last card in hand was Negate, which made me need something good to stay alive. Opponent draws dead and three cards from the top I rip Findbroker to buy back the Spyglass and cast it.
At this point, the opponent stonewalls me with one Carny T after the other. My first Plaguecrafter chews away the paralyzed Teferi, and during my opponent's EOT I use Memorial to get it back and take out one of two Tyrants left. Opponent draws dead for a few turns while a topdeck Vivien finds me a Findbroker for another Eldest Reborn. On the backfoot and facing lethal the next turn my opponent topdecks a Settle that gets discarded to Eldest Reborn, and I was able to cap off the game.
Round 5: 2-0 Me
Total record: 3-2 in Matches, 7-3 in Games (11th/30)
The GBx mirror feels a lot like the Modern Tron mirror. You can tailor your 75 to crimp the opponent on plays, or you can just blast at them with one haymaker after the next while hoping for a smoother curve and play sequence than the opponent.
Although Carnage Tyrant has cushion against me if the opponent has creatures to spam the board with, I felt comfortable trying to beat it rather than trying to win the Draw-Your-Endgame-First crapshoot myself.
I also have noticed that the version I play has a lot more gas against UWx due to the multiple discard spells (and Find // Finality to fish up Freebooters that were previously destroyed.) I prefer to gameplan in a similar fashion, and was thinking of some goofy tech for Carnage Tyrant. Detection Tower, Pelakka Wurm, and Star of Extinction come to mind. Star seems good if you're on the Boros Mid that plays The Immortal Sun to generate value against control and GB. Punishing the draws where the opponent just jams all their action has got to be a matchup breaker for sure.
In my testing before this event (with a 3x Carny T/3x Vivien type list) I found that one or two Pelakkas in the side made the opponent's sequence pretty bad on average. They have to rip the right removal for the right targets (Contempt for Wurm and Trophy for Vivien) and if they just overload on both types of removal, then your own Tyrant ends up having very little to oppose it. I really like having 3 Findbrokers and 3 The Eldest Reborn to win the board-clog cheese-fest, so having 3 Tyrant, 3 Vivien, 3 Find // Finality, 3 Findbroker, 3 The Eldest Reborn, 1 Pelakka Wurm, 2 Detection Tower seems to be like the ideal for the mirror. It's just a matter of finding the room for all this stuff lol
As much as the deck can have a well-rounded approach to each matchup by diversifying stock in its creature selection, Mausoleum Secrets is no Traverse the Ulvenwald. If it could grab Carnage Tyrant, Kraul Harpooner, Thrashing Brontodon, Wildgrowth Walker, and Deathgorge Scavenger, then it could actually be a toolbox card. As it stands, the deck also needs additional ways to mill itself at a healthy enough clip to support the use of Mausolem Secrets on time. I just don't see it lining up well in a format that leaves no room for a turn to be wasted.
You should go wreck shop at every PPTQ, RPTQ, PTQ, 5K, GP and beyond with your deck since you think it's this sort of level 0 archetype with an unbeatable gameplan lol. Delusions of grandeur...
Also, not once did I say UB lacked threat density. I said it lacked the options to keep up when it is on the backfoot. With UW, Teferi can just draw you two cards a turn for 5 mana once. For your little Campaign interactions you need to be spending at least 3 times as much mana to keep your defenses up for the time it takes to whittle away your opponent's resources, and still yet you have to answer planeswalkers with something else entirely. The card isn't as backbreaking as you think it is, and it's honestly not conducive to your own growth as a player to let a lack of scientific data decide what a good strategy is
Wow! Thank you so much. I was starting to intuit what you were saying in my gameplay after adding Vraska, Golgari Queen. Deafening Clarion and the other boardwipes have been ruining my day. Often during my games I notice I'm just drawing into a bunch of lands. It's just too punishing to play a deck full of creatures that die to all of the most common boardwipes.
I'm trying to decide if splashing blue for some negate/Chemister's Insight might make this deck worth playing (help me beat control.) Otherwise I'm leaning toward going U/B/g control. It just seems like the counterspells, boardwipes and card draw in the current meta overpower this midrange deck.
What are your opinions? Is U/B control better than this G/B midrange archetype? Or would adding blue/another color or cards make this deck more competitive?
Chemister's Insight has a very distinct push and pull conflict with a lot of GB's common lines. You don't want to net value from a draw spell at 4CMC since you are sandbagging your turn instead of playing proactively. You would rather develop tempo by adding to your board since you are supposed to be the instigator in long games, not the detractor. If somehow you can find the blue splash to be profitable, I would suggest a build that maintains synergy with Muldrotha as a one or two of. It's very low impact the turn it's played, but your chances of winning scale tremendously for every turn past the 2nd one that it's out.
UB control simply doesn't have the tools to keep churning out answers and dealing with the opponent. The Level one of this standard meta is GBx Mid and UWx Teferi Control.
I don't think adding blue to GB helps it win, since most of why it is so good is its versatility in being able to attrition and outlast aggro with its consistent manabase. Adding a bunch of shocks and checklands on top of the GB suite is pressing, and it doesn't improve your percentages quite that much. If you're asking my opinion, I would recommend my list in post #42 lol
Vraska, Golgari Queen is actually unplayable. There isn't much you can feed into her +2 without being considered a net loss of tempo and/or resources. She would be great in a deck that incidentally makes tokens, or something that can always recur free cards eg. Emeria, the Sky Ruin, but there's nothing in a similar vein legal in Standard. Playing a card like Reassembling Skeleton to net some value is a huge tempo loss considering how that card lines up poorly against the format on its own. Anyone advocating that she's fine to just play, tick up without feeding into her plus, and then trying to ultimate, is someone who doesn't have enough data to understand how utterly dead that line of play is.
The best of GBx variants are going to scale well against Control, which means playing less Explore doofuses and more utility threats. It's just wrong to not be playing at least 3 Deathgorge Scavenger in your 75, because of how versatile and effective it is in medium to long games. Their plan is to usually just allow your inconsequential creatures get in the red zone for a while, set up Deafening Clarion + Ionize, then turn a corner. In order to fight that, you need cards that make up for the net loss and still put enough pressure on control to be dealt with immediately.
The logic behind why a build with many Explore creatures can be such a good way to net value is because you can cash in with them by either drawing lands to replace them or by milling your dead draws (Spot removal vs Control or expensive value spells vs aggro) in game ones. However, after you board out your dead cards, is your deck REALLY well designed if you actually want to mill through some of your cards? Mostly everything needs to be high-impact, and so if you only have a few specific cards you want to draw into and are milling through dead draws on the regular, your explore creatures pulling their weight means your deck sucks when they can't always draw lands, because of the lack of efficacy from the cards you build around them with.
Conversely, if your deck is lined with all effective plays, then your ability to run out Explore creatures very rarely benefits you because they are just poorly scaled vanilla beaters compared to the Steel Leaf decks that have value spells for the late game in the board. Since control wants to stiff-arm your weaker creatures, then Cleansing Nova or Settle your Carnage Tyrant(s), you are only playing into their plan by shoving fodder onto the board for them to wipe. Avoiding this strategy is similar to when UW control in the last standard decided they didn't necessarily need to play Torrential Gearhulk, since Teferi and/or Approach were enough to win games, so if they eschewed Torrential from their main it would likely blank opposing Abrades, Disintegrations, etc. The creatures I line my main with all fulfill the same plan of trying to avoid needing to absolutely flood the board to pressure lethal damage, only to help the opponent play around your threat density accordingly.
Jadelight Ranger is the exception to this rule of course, as she can be very effective on her own. There are just too many good plays in the 1 to 2 CMC slots for the deck to go in that direction and reliably maintain some form of net value in the long term without resolving multiple 5+ CMC bombastic endgame spells.
I have been crushing recently with this 75 recently, and built it after determining that certain UWx Control players try to milk the round clock by securing a game one win with Expansion // Explosion. It's easy to just get scumbagged into trying to win with so many dead draws reserved for aggro matchups, like the Dead Weights and Chupacabras of the world. Maindeck Angrath helps to correct those scenarios. He is also just generally good at chewing into opposing resources at a steady and speedy clip, as most mirrors usually maintain a ratio of one impact spell per turn, barring multiple Duress in one game. Therefore, their grip is usually stocked for Angrath to melt if they can't answer him immediately.
With a critical threat density from the spread of three different planeswalkers (Legendary spam can be very punishing) and double Eldest Reborn, your plan actually puts a clock on the control and mirror matches, so you can just freely jam spell after spell and keep the opponent on the backfoot, rather than durdle around playing through Nova Cleansing/Settle the Wreckage like generic Golgari midrange
This ensures that you can constantly pressure the opponent, or use Find // Finality and Arguel's Blood Fast for sweet, cheap value, or use Spyglass for very important information. It feels like you have so many ways to dunk on their wincons (and Spyglass/Scavenger to mitigate Search for Azcanta) that you don't need Trophy and V Contempt, which by their reactive nature help the opponent gas their hands up with counterspells before sticking a walker.
While I normally wouldn't take one matchup far more seriously than the others, I feel UWx is the only contender (because of the efficacy of Chemister's Insight) that puts us in check before the new Standard meta is completely solved for now. While I feel this deck has a lot of pull in the new meta because it's easy to tune for the mirror (with the above 75 you can sub out your Jadelights against the baseline GB decks and play Ritual of Soots & Find // Finality for attrition, and use your Scavengers to whittle away their long game) the one thing that is scary is getting clocked game one vs control or just a fast Ghalta deck, ergo the Price of Fame SB tech (which is somehow also relevant versus Angels.) While I'm still not keen on playing double Vraska's Contempt main, it seems like a necessary evil against aforementioned Ghalta/Angels matchups, while still being a good card across the board. Would like a smoother curve, but I'll settle for this one for now.
The Jund deck responded by gaining a new Achilles at every turn. Fighting off aggro with 1 CMC removal, playing more fetches and Sedraxis Specter to punish Blightning and Spreading Seas, then utilizing the likes of Deathmark, strong manlands, and Garruk Wildspeaker to fight the Naya decks that were loaded with plenty of ways to blank removal, so that there wouldn't be a big fuss to fire off multiple kill spells in a turn.
If we're going to adjust to all the new problems the format throws at us in similar fashion, we need to worry more about how to solve the matchups we face and less about how to do the most powerful thing in a vacuum (ramp into Carnage Tyrant, explore a bunch, etc.) Mono Red has come knocking on the door, and UWr Control has presented itself as a serious opponent, and now finally there are Phoenix/Drake decks that can just steal games if we don't kill Electromancer on time. Tocatli Honor Guard and The Immortal Sun have more than enough game to put us on very few outs, if we're not hedging for those.
Prior to the Boros Midrange decks evolving, I thought Thrashing Brontodon was actually just too inefficient against the format's best targets: History of Benalia, Search for Azcanta, The Eldest Reborn, and Experimental Frenzy.
It felt like you were either giving red the upper hand by letting them play around Brontodon with Chainwhirler, although it wasn't too far off from just being an excellent creature against them. The rest of those archetypes just kind of danced around Brontodon, and now I can see it actually proving worthwhile because of The Immortal Sun and even oddball options like the Two-Card Monte deck. To work around Disinformation Campaign as well, Reclamation Sage would probably be more effective tech, but you would need to have plenty of removal for Honor Guard to not shoot yourself in the foot by playing Sage.
The other evolution needed would be to address the mirror. You can either play into the crapshoot element of hoping to see your manadorks survive long enough to chain Tyrants together, or you could try to punish the curve of the opponent with additional discard elements and go under their endgame with sweepers to throw off their middling options. If not with a card like Angrath, the Flame-Chained, then at least with something that can help you trade one for one against the likes of Vivien Reid
I've been high on Deathgorge Scavenger to help the Phoenix matchup, since it's also just a threatening clock against control that stymies Search from going off soon in the round.
I think every GBx pilot would be remiss to disregard what the opponents are doing now that there is a target on the deck. Adjusting is better than just going even higher over the top with our threats
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Deathgorge Scavenger
2 District Guide
3 Jadelight Ranger
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Golgari Findbroker
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Angrath, the Flame-Chained
1 Vivien Reid
2 Vraska, Relic Seeker
1 Treasure Map
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Cast Down
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Vraska's Contempt
1 Find // Finality
1 Field of Ruin
2 Memorial to Folly
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Dragonskull Summit
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
5 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Kitesail Freebooter
1 Banefire
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Moment of Craving
3 Duress
2 Ritual of Soot
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Find // Finality
1 Vraska's Contempt
1 Price of Fame
Cast Downs were a hedge against Tocatli Honor Guard. I wasn't too high on my 75 but only because I wish I had some extra insurance for the mirror (1 more Findbroker and 1 more Eldest Reborn) without sacrificing too much against the more aggressive archetypes
Round 1: GB Mid
Pretty stock. He did GB things, I drew very little action and lost game 1 to multiple walkers
SB Plan:
OUT:
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Cast Down
2 Assassin's Trophy
IN:
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Ritual of Soot
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Find // Finality
1 Vraska's Contempt
Wanted to just pinch him off of having extra creatures aside from Carnage Tyrant, and then edict it. I went over the top of my opponent in game 2 with walkers and he scooped before I could ultimate a Vraska
In game three I got to steal the opponent's Carny T with an Eldest Reborn, and from there I was able to chew up a few of his value spells with Angrath as he wasn't able to curve out properly.
Round 1: 2-1 Me
Rounds 2 and 3 were both against GB mid as well. In game one of round two, I was able to goad my opponent into swinging into me and leaving no blockers behind, because I was almost dead. I swung into his Vivien and killed it to pump my lone Deathgorge out of Finality range, which I cast to nuke his side of the board. He untaps with 9 lands, plays a 10th, rattles off Chupacabra for my Deathgorge and then a Carny T. I have 8 lands in play before my turn, and my grip is Chupes and The Eldest Reborn... rip a Greenseeker lol. In round 3 I fought to a game three where I just drew much less action than the opponent and couldn't keep up on board after stonewalling for the early and mid game.
Round 2: 2-0 Opponent
Round 3: 2-1 Opponent
Round 4 vs Burn
He leads game one with Ghitu Lavarunner, I play a Memorial and pass, he fires off two Wizard's Lightnings at my face and crashes for 2 more lol. I take my 2nd turn being down 12 to 20. Eventually he peters out after fighting through two copies of Deathgorge and a Findbroker for a 3rd. Frenzy comes down but before he can untap with it I rip a Vraska to take it out and put the game away
OUT:
2 Plaguecrafter
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
1 The Eldest Reborn
1 Find // Finality
IN:
1 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Moment of Craving
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Vraska's Contempt
My opponent was stuck on 3 lands for a few turns and I simply cushioned myself so much that a few Risk Factors ended up being dead against me while I just swung in for 4-5 damage a turn
Round 4: 2-0 Me
Round 5 vs Bant Turns
Game one was decidedly won by Angrath. It just chewed into my opponent's reactive plays and left him needing to tuck it with Teferi, where I could just kill Teferi off with a lonely Dryad Greenseeker. Eventually he was dead on board and hand and topdecked Search for Azcanta before I responded with a Vivien -3 and a Findbroker to supply myself with planeswalker insurance
OUT:
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Cast Down
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Vraska's Contempt
IN:
1 Kitesail Freebooter
1 Banefire
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 The Eldest Reborn
3 Duress
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Find // Finality
Game two was decided by early Duress -> Duress. I pinned the opponent into trying to set up Search for Azcanta, only to put him off a few turns with Deathgorge and holding removal. Opponent eventually lands Teferi and when he isn't on an extra turn, he passes with one card up. I have a flipped Treasure Map and after peeking with Greenseeker I see a Spyglass, then crack a Treasure to grab it and cast it. Last card in hand was Negate, which made me need something good to stay alive. Opponent draws dead and three cards from the top I rip Findbroker to buy back the Spyglass and cast it.
At this point, the opponent stonewalls me with one Carny T after the other. My first Plaguecrafter chews away the paralyzed Teferi, and during my opponent's EOT I use Memorial to get it back and take out one of two Tyrants left. Opponent draws dead for a few turns while a topdeck Vivien finds me a Findbroker for another Eldest Reborn. On the backfoot and facing lethal the next turn my opponent topdecks a Settle that gets discarded to Eldest Reborn, and I was able to cap off the game.
Round 5: 2-0 Me
Total record: 3-2 in Matches, 7-3 in Games (11th/30)
The GBx mirror feels a lot like the Modern Tron mirror. You can tailor your 75 to crimp the opponent on plays, or you can just blast at them with one haymaker after the next while hoping for a smoother curve and play sequence than the opponent.
Although Carnage Tyrant has cushion against me if the opponent has creatures to spam the board with, I felt comfortable trying to beat it rather than trying to win the Draw-Your-Endgame-First crapshoot myself.
I also have noticed that the version I play has a lot more gas against UWx due to the multiple discard spells (and Find // Finality to fish up Freebooters that were previously destroyed.) I prefer to gameplan in a similar fashion, and was thinking of some goofy tech for Carnage Tyrant. Detection Tower, Pelakka Wurm, and Star of Extinction come to mind. Star seems good if you're on the Boros Mid that plays The Immortal Sun to generate value against control and GB. Punishing the draws where the opponent just jams all their action has got to be a matchup breaker for sure.
In my testing before this event (with a 3x Carny T/3x Vivien type list) I found that one or two Pelakkas in the side made the opponent's sequence pretty bad on average. They have to rip the right removal for the right targets (Contempt for Wurm and Trophy for Vivien) and if they just overload on both types of removal, then your own Tyrant ends up having very little to oppose it. I really like having 3 Findbrokers and 3 The Eldest Reborn to win the board-clog cheese-fest, so having 3 Tyrant, 3 Vivien, 3 Find // Finality, 3 Findbroker, 3 The Eldest Reborn, 1 Pelakka Wurm, 2 Detection Tower seems to be like the ideal for the mirror. It's just a matter of finding the room for all this stuff lol
Also, not once did I say UB lacked threat density. I said it lacked the options to keep up when it is on the backfoot. With UW, Teferi can just draw you two cards a turn for 5 mana once. For your little Campaign interactions you need to be spending at least 3 times as much mana to keep your defenses up for the time it takes to whittle away your opponent's resources, and still yet you have to answer planeswalkers with something else entirely. The card isn't as backbreaking as you think it is, and it's honestly not conducive to your own growth as a player to let a lack of scientific data decide what a good strategy is
Chemister's Insight has a very distinct push and pull conflict with a lot of GB's common lines. You don't want to net value from a draw spell at 4CMC since you are sandbagging your turn instead of playing proactively. You would rather develop tempo by adding to your board since you are supposed to be the instigator in long games, not the detractor. If somehow you can find the blue splash to be profitable, I would suggest a build that maintains synergy with Muldrotha as a one or two of. It's very low impact the turn it's played, but your chances of winning scale tremendously for every turn past the 2nd one that it's out.
UB control simply doesn't have the tools to keep churning out answers and dealing with the opponent. The Level one of this standard meta is GBx Mid and UWx Teferi Control.
I don't think adding blue to GB helps it win, since most of why it is so good is its versatility in being able to attrition and outlast aggro with its consistent manabase. Adding a bunch of shocks and checklands on top of the GB suite is pressing, and it doesn't improve your percentages quite that much. If you're asking my opinion, I would recommend my list in post #42 lol
The best of GBx variants are going to scale well against Control, which means playing less Explore doofuses and more utility threats. It's just wrong to not be playing at least 3 Deathgorge Scavenger in your 75, because of how versatile and effective it is in medium to long games. Their plan is to usually just allow your inconsequential creatures get in the red zone for a while, set up Deafening Clarion + Ionize, then turn a corner. In order to fight that, you need cards that make up for the net loss and still put enough pressure on control to be dealt with immediately.
The logic behind why a build with many Explore creatures can be such a good way to net value is because you can cash in with them by either drawing lands to replace them or by milling your dead draws (Spot removal vs Control or expensive value spells vs aggro) in game ones. However, after you board out your dead cards, is your deck REALLY well designed if you actually want to mill through some of your cards? Mostly everything needs to be high-impact, and so if you only have a few specific cards you want to draw into and are milling through dead draws on the regular, your explore creatures pulling their weight means your deck sucks when they can't always draw lands, because of the lack of efficacy from the cards you build around them with.
Conversely, if your deck is lined with all effective plays, then your ability to run out Explore creatures very rarely benefits you because they are just poorly scaled vanilla beaters compared to the Steel Leaf decks that have value spells for the late game in the board. Since control wants to stiff-arm your weaker creatures, then Cleansing Nova or Settle your Carnage Tyrant(s), you are only playing into their plan by shoving fodder onto the board for them to wipe. Avoiding this strategy is similar to when UW control in the last standard decided they didn't necessarily need to play Torrential Gearhulk, since Teferi and/or Approach were enough to win games, so if they eschewed Torrential from their main it would likely blank opposing Abrades, Disintegrations, etc. The creatures I line my main with all fulfill the same plan of trying to avoid needing to absolutely flood the board to pressure lethal damage, only to help the opponent play around your threat density accordingly.
Jadelight Ranger is the exception to this rule of course, as she can be very effective on her own. There are just too many good plays in the 1 to 2 CMC slots for the deck to go in that direction and reliably maintain some form of net value in the long term without resolving multiple 5+ CMC bombastic endgame spells.
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Deathgorge Scavenger
2 District Guide
3 Jadelight Ranger
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Golgari Findbroker
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Angrath, the Flame-Chained
1 Vivien Reid
2 Vraska, Relic Seeker
1 Treasure Map
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Fungal Infection
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Assassin's Trophy
1 Vraska's Contempt
1 Price of Fame
1 Find // Finality
1 Field of Ruin
2 Memorial to Folly
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Dragonskull Summit
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
5 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Kitesail Freebooter
1 Banefire
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Moment of Craving
3 Duress
2 Ritual of Soot
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Find // Finality
2 Vraska's Contempt
With a critical threat density from the spread of three different planeswalkers (Legendary spam can be very punishing) and double Eldest Reborn, your plan actually puts a clock on the control and mirror matches, so you can just freely jam spell after spell and keep the opponent on the backfoot, rather than durdle around playing through Nova Cleansing/Settle the Wreckage like generic Golgari midrange
You can actually take this 75 and go
-3 Ravenous Chupacabra
-2 Assassin's Trophy
-2 Fungal Infection
-1 Vraska's Contempt
-1 Price of Fame
then sub in
1 Find // Finality
1 Kitesail Freebooter
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
3 Duress
1 The Eldest Reborn
1 Banefire
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
The end result for your postboard plan vs. Control:
3 Kitesail Freebooter
3 Deathgorge Scavenger
2 District Guide
3 Jadelight Ranger
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Golgari Findbroker
3 Duress
1 Banefire
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Angrath, the Flame-Chained
1 Vivien Reid
2 Vraska, Relic Seeker
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
1 Treasure Map
2 The Eldest Reborn
2 Find // Finality
1 Field of Ruin
2 Memorial to Folly
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Dragonskull Summit
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
5 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
This ensures that you can constantly pressure the opponent, or use Find // Finality and Arguel's Blood Fast for sweet, cheap value, or use Spyglass for very important information. It feels like you have so many ways to dunk on their wincons (and Spyglass/Scavenger to mitigate Search for Azcanta) that you don't need Trophy and V Contempt, which by their reactive nature help the opponent gas their hands up with counterspells before sticking a walker.
While I normally wouldn't take one matchup far more seriously than the others, I feel UWx is the only contender (because of the efficacy of Chemister's Insight) that puts us in check before the new Standard meta is completely solved for now. While I feel this deck has a lot of pull in the new meta because it's easy to tune for the mirror (with the above 75 you can sub out your Jadelights against the baseline GB decks and play Ritual of Soots & Find // Finality for attrition, and use your Scavengers to whittle away their long game) the one thing that is scary is getting clocked game one vs control or just a fast Ghalta deck, ergo the Price of Fame SB tech (which is somehow also relevant versus Angels.) While I'm still not keen on playing double Vraska's Contempt main, it seems like a necessary evil against aforementioned Ghalta/Angels matchups, while still being a good card across the board. Would like a smoother curve, but I'll settle for this one for now.