In this thread, we'll discuss ideas on how to make a deck that not only controls how many creatures players can have in play (hint:zero), but also how many lands can be in play and cards in hand. The deck aims to abuse Ancestral Vision and Restore Balance by casting them with As Foretold. Then, you can cast them again with a Jace, Telepath Unbound. This allows for a ton of trading resources, and then reloading your hand with ancestral.
Here's where I am so far, about ~15 test matches in. Overall positive results despite some losses coming from misplays early in testing. The main issue facing the deck presently is that having As Foretold ripped from the hand can make it very hard to cast restore balance. Sram's Expertise and Baral's Expertise seem like poor solution, but are options.
Notes on playing:
-Always suspend turn 1 ancestral vision from your opener, you'll have more stuff to cast with As Foretold and you won't even necessarily resolve it. Against non-aggro decks, you'll also be suspending an early restore balance as well.
-Keep land count in play down to 2 ideally, but up to 4 if you must in order to resolve a restore balance/cryptic. Later, you can bounce them back down with fieldmist borderposts. The less lands in play, the more difficult the opponent will find rebuilding.
-Against aggro decks, you'll want to slow your roll towards a restore balance in favour of interacting early.
-Don't be afraid to eot cryptic a land back to hand, and discard lands to limit lands in play after a restore balance. It's almost comical when, mid-game, you bounce an island back to hand to put a post into play - only to skip the land drop that turn. I've had several scoops from control decks with that play.
Very interested to see where others went with this deck concept - what does your build look like? Any thoughts to share with the class?
Hey guys,
like you I'm hyped for the new card and I think it has potential.
I'll test a more tapout style and try to abuse GG + Balance, Balance + As Foretold & Ancestral + As Foretold.
My thoughts regarding the spreading seas and paths are, to ramp the OPP and force him to play more lands into our restore balance, so it gets more devastating, when it resolves.
Obviously card choices can vary, but I think Snapcaster > JvP. The reasoning behind this is to blank opps removal spells and to have more instant speed interaction (path, condemn). Lategame, from the top snapcaster should always be AV or RB.
The other thing I thought about, was to build some sort of super friends (Gideon Jura, Jace aot, Elspeth,..).
Below you'll find my decklist. (constructive criticism is ofc welcome)
One of my mains concerns are the manarocks. Having w/u is sweet, but missing the second fitting one is pretty bad. The other route would be esper, where the manarocks fit better. You'd loose GG, if you dont 4c which would hurt the armageddon plan, but would benefit us with lotv, push and other sweet cards.
I'll test a more tapout style and try to abuse GGT + Balance, Balance + As Foretold & Ancestral + As Foretold.
One of my mains concerns are the manarocks. Having w/u is sweet, but missing the second fitting one is pretty bad. The other route would be esper, where the manarocks fit better. You'd loose GGT, if you dont 4c which would hurt the armageddon plan, but would benefit us with lotv, push and other sweet cards.
Yeah my question is... How do you ensure they dont just play around it? if they stick to 2 lands and single spells, you'll not really get an edge by casting restore balance. How can you discard or sac more lands so that you dont just scoop to affinity, burn, combo (storm exists!) or any planeswalker?
If they hold cards, you play out your non-creature, non-land permanents and gain a board advantage that way. When you cast restore balance, they have to discard any card advantage they have accrued this way. It's not unreasonable to play out 3 lands and scoop them up over the game to just keep borderposts in play. As the game state permits, you can also cryptic back a land once you get the value train rolling. Restore balance is after all just a tool the deck uses to keep resources low through countermagic and removal. I agree that aggro can be a challenge, but remember that a resolved and protected gideon makes you immune to losing.
Playing single spells and trying to beat a 4x Censor 4x ancestral vision 4x cryptic command deck off two lands seems like a questionable strategy - the deck is set up to handle exactly that. Resolved planeswalkers are a problem for sure, Celestial purge is mostly there to address this issue. Notably, the card is weak to gideon, yet I don't have a good solution that does include gideon.
The deck is certainly still experimental, but seems functional so far! The deck is not trying to end the game with restore balance, but rather use restore balance as a faster, cheaper and better against ramp Supreme Verdict effect. It does suffer some flaws, as I see them: consistency, flooding, speed. Those are the top challenges for the deck as I've encountered so far. Sometimes burn just does get in under you (said all my decks ever, including my burn deck), as does affinity. /shrug
Since decks that focus on winning with 2-3 lands max seem to be a weakness, is it better to run jeskai with Gargadon and kari zevs expertise? I mean expertise, sac to gargadon, restore balance is dirty, and with Ancestral as a draw you have a decent shot at getting at least one balance. Also red gives you the SSG option for lowering your hand size and accelerating at the same time. On the draw, a T2 As foretold > Balance with Gargadon suspended would mean several cards out of each hand, you screw up their mana fixing and you have As foretold to cast stuff so you can sac any other lands to gargadon and restore balance again whemever you get it.
I had been contemplating this exact option. I might test this out as well - UWR has a couple upsides, but the mana is harder.
That being said, I've been testing this version because it's actually doing pretty well just as it is. For instance, last night I got in a few matches against Grixis Shadow (1-2, 2-0, 1-2)and beat up on Naya Zoo (2-0, 2-0).
I'm just loathe to set up the downsides of a more all-in Jeskai build. What happens when you sac your lands to Gargedon and the restore balance is stubborn denialed (grixis shadow had tons of them)? That direction seems very all in to me, and prone to blowouts against other blue decks. My version seems to have decent matchups against other blue decks. How do you perceive the overall risk level of Jeskai to be when going all-in on Restore Balance?
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Seems like you are missing mana rocks - a key aspect to the balance strategy. The collective brutality should likely just be fatal pushes. I'd try -4 lands, -2 damnation (move to sb), -1 crucible, +1 restore balance, +4 fieldmist borderpost, +2 other borderpost. How are you finding the zero mana rock strategy to be working with balance?
4 As Foretold
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 New Gideon
3 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
2 Mana Leak
2 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Collective Brutality
22 Lands
Essentially you are playing almost purely to get as foretold onto 2, at which point you are casting disruption on their turn or your own.
Sequence would be something like
T1 Push/Visions or just land go.
T2 Mana Leak / Remand / Push / Path / Brutality
T3 As foretold + Lotus Bloom -> Liliana / Gideon ( at this point their board presence will be minimal unless they are playing elves or goblins.
OR
T3 As foretold -> Restore Balance ( since your AV will be coming off soon and your hand suddenly looks pretty good )
T4 Anything including Restore Balance, AV, Lotus Bloom ect. ( You could realistically be in a situation where you cast both Liliana and Gideon on the same turn. Or follow up a restore balance with a liliana/gideon lock on the 1 creature they have )
Notes:
Possibly correct to play 4 Remand and 1 leak instead of 3/2 split since opponent having cards in hand should be mostly irrelevant in the face of a restore balance.
Possibly correct to play 4 path to exile over the push split since their additional lands are mostly irrelevant in the face of restore balance.
Cryptic command could even be replaced with Mana Leaks since restore balance makes paying 3 difficult. However the bounce and tap modes on CC are relevant.
Snapcaster is the best blue creature, and since you can have 1 creature in play it makes sense to keep him.
Gideon and Lili after a restore balance on an Empty or 1 creature board will feel pretty good.
Maybe include serum visions so that you can snap visions off lotus bloom under pressure.
Brutality seems good in certain situations, however I wouldn't go 4 of.
Must have a combo of instants and sorceries to really maximise as foretold
Stay away from multi color spells as a nombo with Bloom.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I tried an ashtonkutcher-like UWR build on Cockatrice, and something felt pretty lacking. Winning most of the time with Nahiri wasn't the biggest problem, although it was distressing to see her carry it home without casting a single As Foretold into Restore Balance. Restore Balance forcing me to discard several cards regularly was probably the biggest problem I had with the deck (discarding planeswalkers, removal, and cantrips to it is no fun). Restore Balance is a decent board wipe, but Affinity still tended to outrace it, especially since I tend to play several lands instead of just 3-4. Restore Balance also had a nasty tendency to leave me in topdeck mode, then watch as my opponent cobbled together enough stuff to beat me. (I tested against Affinity, Jund, Melira Company, Bant Eldrazi, Death's Shadow, and probably a few more obscure decks.)
I look forward to seeing ashtonkutcher's UR and Grixis builds--here's hoping they fix the problems I mentioned above.
I found that ashtonkutcher's lists suffered from a lack of mana rocks to replace lands in play, such as fieldmist borderpost. Restore Balance is not just a sweeper and can't really be played that way. I think there is a finer line the deck can walk when it comes to land control. I've sought to address that in the OP build of UW by keeping borderposts from the Restore Balance cascade combo deck.
I'm sure there will be more iterations to improve, but I think we need to play into the land control aspect of Restore Balance a bit better than Kutcher's lists are.
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I found that ashtonkutcher's lists suffered from a lack of mana rocks to replace lands in play, such as fieldmist borderpost. Restore Balance is not just a sweeper and can't really be played that way. I think there is a finer line the deck can walk when it comes to land control. I've sought to address that in the OP build of UW by keeping borderposts from the Restore Balance cascade combo deck.
I'm sure there will be more iterations to improve, but I think we need to play into the land control aspect of Restore Balance a bit better than Kutcher's lists are.
These mana-rocks are awful and the reason that deck never got off the ground (well, that and consistency issues). Not only do they cost you a mana to cast (meaning you can't cantrip or interact with that mana instead), they make your deck easily hate-able by Stony and Grudge, which are widely-played Modern sideboard cards.
I think the success AF control decks will have will come from being able to cast RB as a sweeper most of the time.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I found that ashtonkutcher's lists suffered from a lack of mana rocks to replace lands in play, such as fieldmist borderpost. Restore Balance is not just a sweeper and can't really be played that way. I think there is a finer line the deck can walk when it comes to land control. I've sought to address that in the OP build of UW by keeping borderposts from the Restore Balance cascade combo deck.
I'm sure there will be more iterations to improve, but I think we need to play into the land control aspect of Restore Balance a bit better than Kutcher's lists are.
These mana-rocks are awful and the reason that deck never got off the ground (well, that and consistency issues). Not only do they cost you a mana to cast (meaning you can't cantrip or interact with that mana instead), they make your deck easily hate-able by Stony and Grudge, which are widely-played Modern sideboard cards.
I think the success AF control decks will have will come from being able to cast RB as a sweeper most of the time.
Can't access the article or any other modernnexus content. Is there a region block or are the server offline from time to time?
How about running some Ghost Quarters in the main to get more value out of Restore Balance while being solid cards themselves? Even more so if combined with some number of Spreading Seas. Not sure if the manabase can give that in a 3 colour build, but in 2 colours it should be possible to accomodate them.
These mana-rocks are awful and the reason that deck never got off the ground (well, that and consistency issues). Not only do they cost you a mana to cast (meaning you can't cantrip or interact with that mana instead), they make your deck easily hate-able by Stony and Grudge, which are widely-played Modern sideboard cards.
I think the success AF control decks will have will come from being able to cast RB as a sweeper most of the time.
I have to say that if you're playing restore balance as a sweeper only, it is going to be worse than Supreme Verdict nearly 100% of the time. The fact that other blue decks can interact with the spell isn't mitigated by being able to cast it turn 3 instead of turn 4 if you draw the two card combo. Moreover, as a control deck, we'll be accruing card advantage and end up discarding to our own restore balance.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not sure this is a real deck, but I can't imagine that the best iteration will be playing a worse supreme verdict.
How about running some Ghost Quarters in the main to get more value out of Restore Balance while being solid cards themselves? Even more so if combined with some number of Spreading Seas. Not sure if the manabase can give that in a 3 colour build, but in 2 colours it should be possible to accomodate them.
I was thinking of trying ghost quarters in place of mana rocks to keep the land count low. ghost quartering yourself gives you the same mana on a given turn but removes a land from play? sounds loose, but so are the mana rocks. Colourless mana is a drawback though.
How about running some Ghost Quarters in the main to get more value out of Restore Balance while being solid cards themselves? Even more so if combined with some number of Spreading Seas. Not sure if the manabase can give that in a 3 colour build, but in 2 colours it should be possible to accomodate them.
I was thinking of trying ghost quarters in place of mana rocks to keep the land count low. ghost quartering yourself gives you the same mana on a given turn but removes a land from play? sounds loose, but so are the mana rocks. Colourless mana is a drawback though.
That's the super fringe case, I thought of it way more as a simple tool to disrupt greedy mana bases and give some game against Tron and other land reliant decks, while the drawback of missing a landdrop is mitigated by Restore Balance.
Not sure if that's good enough, but if you end up in only 2 colours it seems worth it to try out.
Path to Exile obviously also has nice synergy with RB, but is there anything else that white offers besides maybe Nahiri?
These mana-rocks are awful and the reason that deck never got off the ground (well, that and consistency issues). Not only do they cost you a mana to cast (meaning you can't cantrip or interact with that mana instead), they make your deck easily hate-able by Stony and Grudge, which are widely-played Modern sideboard cards.
I think the success AF control decks will have will come from being able to cast RB as a sweeper most of the time.
I have to say that if you're playing restore balance as a sweeper only, it is going to be worse than Supreme Verdict nearly 100% of the time. The fact that other blue decks can interact with the spell isn't mitigated by being able to cast it turn 3 instead of turn 4 if you draw the two card combo. Moreover, as a control deck, we'll be accruing card advantage and end up discarding to our own restore balance.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not sure this is a real deck, but I can't imagine that the best iteration will be playing a worse supreme verdict.
If you focus your game around accruing card advantage, of course RB will be bad. So focus your game instead around assembling your key cards, impacting the board, and establishing win conditions. My RBs generally cause opponents to sac their creatures, discard 1 or more cards, AND lose 1 or more lands. Cards like Faithless Looting, Greater Gargadon, and Collective Brutality are all important for making Balance as one-sided as possible; clunky card advantage tools like Cryptic Command are exactly the sort of card you should stay far from.
Being able to wipe the field as of turn 3, and for 0 mana from that point on, makes RB much better than Verdict either way. It allows us to spend our extra mana flashing back Looting, tapping out for a 'walker, or chaining cantrips into a win condition. Spending a whole four mana simply "not dying" is awful.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
There are 2 ways to build the deck: focus on balance and trying to abuse that or just play a singleton balance as a tutor target for tolaria west.
I've tested both quite a bit and I found the second to be FAR superior. As foretold into balance is nice but to focus on abusing it is too flimsy. The problem mostly is that the cards that make balance better like manarocks and greater gargadon don't with well with as foretold. Secondly you rely very much on a flimsy combo then which can easily be interrupted by counters or discard.
Better is just to play 3 As foretold, 4 ancestral vision, 1 restore balance and 3 tolaria west. Key is to play enough 1 and 2 drop instants so as foretold gives great value outside the suspend spells too. A free suspend spell is nice but it get's really strong when you get a free serum visions, removal, spreading seas and snapcaster mage in the next 2 turns. By keeping the As foretold and suspend card package minimal too the deck isn't too reliant on the combo either, against some decks you just take out as foretold and restore balance. The lists I see here that focus more on restore balance just suck because they rely too much on the As foretold and getting the right balance setup (which is quite hard against burn or decks with lots of graveyard value).
Just not sure which colors you want to be in besides blue. UW, UB, UR and UBR all have their merits. Because of tolaria wests i prefer sticking to 2 colors and I think I like white best as it provides the strongest sideboard. But all the color combinations are possible.
No, you can't use Snapcaster Mage to flashback a Restore Balance or Ancestral Vision since they have no cmc. As Foretold, I've had confirmed by multiple judges, does not get around this since both snapcaster and as foretold offer (different) alternative costs and can't be used together.
This is why I have tried Jace, Telepath Unbound since he doesn't use flashback, but instead just lets you cast it from a different zone than your hand ('yard). This does work with As Foretold. The downside is that it has to sit in play for a turn and not die to fatal push or bolt, which can be difficult.
That being said the payoff for a flipped jace is huge. Being able to flashback all the visions essentially doubles the draw power of the deck and should not be underestimated. There is some chance this is best saved for the SB against other reactive decks when they board out removal. I'm still liking them in the maindeck, though.
In other news I've been trying the postless version and it just doesn't use Restore Balance that well. Locking opponents out of lands has been a powerful line of play for the borderpost version that just doesn't really work in that build.
I have tried out builds posted by other users here, and keep going back to the borderpost version. /shrug
I think people who have not tried my builds here are not seeing how well the deck chains everything together once the engine is online. Each piece of the engine is fantastic on its own, so no issues with drawing part of the engine. Once you have Jace, Telepath Unbound and As Foretold in play, you end up drawing 3 cards a turn, and each as foretold simply accelerates this. Or, you simply cast restore balance every turn to keep them on 2 lands and no creatures in play. I encourage people to try the OP build out - I think the ability to lock out the game shouldn't be ignored.
That list looks good. I'd be a bit concerned about running too many myths since they are really bad early in multiples. My most recent list had ghost quarters instead of the borderposts. The quarters will allow us to pick which land has the go, while reducing our comparative land count for the balances. I've not really had a chance to test this out much, however.
I just got my paper balances, as foretold and jaces in today, so I'm working on the lowest to the ground list possible. My intent is to try building as far into Restore Balance as possible, and bring it closer to UW control if it doesn't work as well.
I have not seriously considered sleight of hand in this list, how has that card been for you? I guess 4 spell pierce makes sense, I just didn't want to give up cryptic command I guess
What's the plan with SB snapcaster?
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While I understand the appeal of borderposts, flip-jaces and myths, they do not seem good in the deck. I've been fiddling with builds that are similar to the one or two that 5-0'd mtgo leagues; my biggest struggle has been clunky starts and flooding out with lands and irrelevant cards.
For reference, here's the list that mine is based on:
Being a uw control deck that uses 1-2 copies of Balance to lock up the game, negate opp's land advantage from early paths and/or wrath works better than going all-in on the Balance plan because there are too many decks that will either recover or do enough leading up to it being cast. One of this build's strengths is that it is virtually creatureless, which blanks opposing removal and guarantees balance will clear out creatures...flip-jace is powerful and I am sympathetic to the desire to use Myth Realized, but their inclusion seems like a lateral move concerning the potential strengths of using As Foretold in UW control in a format where Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile and/or Fatal Push are in 2 out of 3 matches. Borderposts are also less than ideal because stony silence is one of the reasons to play a deck with white in it.
Kari Zev's Expertise into Restore Balance seems bad, unless I am mistaken. Let's see: a) cast Kari Zev's Expertise to gain control of a creature, b) cast Restore Balance and equate creatures, and c) pass turn, such that, they end up with two more creatures than they would have otherwise. No?
P.S. - thanks for links to these exciting videos and resetting this thread.
Without the borderpost-centric build, you pretty much need Greater Gargadon if you want Restore Balance to be more than a fancy wrath. Having Gargadon come in against a helpless opponent is the entire appeal of the combo.
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Welcome to brewing with As Foretold.
In this thread, we'll discuss ideas on how to make a deck that not only controls how many creatures players can have in play (hint:zero), but also how many lands can be in play and cards in hand. The deck aims to abuse Ancestral Vision and Restore Balance by casting them with As Foretold. Then, you can cast them again with a Jace, Telepath Unbound. This allows for a ton of trading resources, and then reloading your hand with ancestral.
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Horizon Canopy
4x Island
1x Plains
3x Polluted Delta
2x Myth Realized
4x As Foretold
4x Fieldmist Borderpost
4x Path to Exile
4x Censor
2x Logic Knot
4x Cryptic Command
4x Restore Balance
4x Serum Visions
3x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1x Snapcaster Mage
3x Gideon of the Trials
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Fragmentize
2x Celestial Purge
1x Disenchant
4x Spreading Seas
4x Supreme Verdict
Here's where I am so far, about ~15 test matches in. Overall positive results despite some losses coming from misplays early in testing. The main issue facing the deck presently is that having As Foretold ripped from the hand can make it very hard to cast restore balance. Sram's Expertise and Baral's Expertise seem like poor solution, but are options.
Notes on playing:
-Always suspend turn 1 ancestral vision from your opener, you'll have more stuff to cast with As Foretold and you won't even necessarily resolve it. Against non-aggro decks, you'll also be suspending an early restore balance as well.
-Keep land count in play down to 2 ideally, but up to 4 if you must in order to resolve a restore balance/cryptic. Later, you can bounce them back down with fieldmist borderposts. The less lands in play, the more difficult the opponent will find rebuilding.
-Against aggro decks, you'll want to slow your roll towards a restore balance in favour of interacting early.
-Don't be afraid to eot cryptic a land back to hand, and discard lands to limit lands in play after a restore balance. It's almost comical when, mid-game, you bounce an island back to hand to put a post into play - only to skip the land drop that turn. I've had several scoops from control decks with that play.
Very interested to see where others went with this deck concept - what does your build look like? Any thoughts to share with the class?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
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like you I'm hyped for the new card and I think it has potential.
I'll test a more tapout style and try to abuse GG + Balance, Balance + As Foretold & Ancestral + As Foretold.
My thoughts regarding the spreading seas and paths are, to ramp the OPP and force him to play more lands into our restore balance, so it gets more devastating, when it resolves.
Obviously card choices can vary, but I think Snapcaster > JvP. The reasoning behind this is to blank opps removal spells and to have more instant speed interaction (path, condemn). Lategame, from the top snapcaster should always be AV or RB.
The other thing I thought about, was to build some sort of super friends (Gideon Jura, Jace aot, Elspeth,..).
Below you'll find my decklist. (constructive criticism is ofc welcome)
4x Restore Balance
4x As Foretold
4x Path to Exile
1x Condemn
4x Serum Visions
2x Supreme Verdict
4x Spreading Seas
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Blessed Alliance
4x Greater Gargadon
4x Veinfire Borderpost
4x Fieldmist Borderpost
4x Flooded Strand
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Steam Vents
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Hallowed Fountain
3x Island
1x Plains
1x Mountain
2x Tolaria West
One of my mains concerns are the manarocks. Having w/u is sweet, but missing the second fitting one is pretty bad. The other route would be esper, where the manarocks fit better. You'd loose GG, if you dont 4c which would hurt the armageddon plan, but would benefit us with lotv, push and other sweet cards.
How does Golgari Grave-Troll fit into this game plan?
Playing single spells and trying to beat a 4x Censor 4x ancestral vision 4x cryptic command deck off two lands seems like a questionable strategy - the deck is set up to handle exactly that. Resolved planeswalkers are a problem for sure, Celestial purge is mostly there to address this issue. Notably, the card is weak to gideon, yet I don't have a good solution that does include gideon.
The deck is certainly still experimental, but seems functional so far! The deck is not trying to end the game with restore balance, but rather use restore balance as a faster, cheaper and better against ramp Supreme Verdict effect. It does suffer some flaws, as I see them: consistency, flooding, speed. Those are the top challenges for the deck as I've encountered so far. Sometimes burn just does get in under you (said all my decks ever, including my burn deck), as does affinity. /shrug
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
That being said, I've been testing this version because it's actually doing pretty well just as it is. For instance, last night I got in a few matches against Grixis Shadow (1-2, 2-0, 1-2)and beat up on Naya Zoo (2-0, 2-0).
I'm just loathe to set up the downsides of a more all-in Jeskai build. What happens when you sac your lands to Gargedon and the restore balance is stubborn denialed (grixis shadow had tons of them)? That direction seems very all in to me, and prone to blowouts against other blue decks. My version seems to have decent matchups against other blue decks. How do you perceive the overall risk level of Jeskai to be when going all-in on Restore Balance?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
4 As Foretold
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 New Gideon
3 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
2 Mana Leak
2 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Collective Brutality
22 Lands
Essentially you are playing almost purely to get as foretold onto 2, at which point you are casting disruption on their turn or your own.
Sequence would be something like
T1 Push/Visions or just land go.
T2 Mana Leak / Remand / Push / Path / Brutality
T3 As foretold + Lotus Bloom -> Liliana / Gideon ( at this point their board presence will be minimal unless they are playing elves or goblins.
OR
T3 As foretold -> Restore Balance ( since your AV will be coming off soon and your hand suddenly looks pretty good )
T4 Anything including Restore Balance, AV, Lotus Bloom ect. ( You could realistically be in a situation where you cast both Liliana and Gideon on the same turn. Or follow up a restore balance with a liliana/gideon lock on the 1 creature they have )
Notes:
Possibly correct to play 4 Remand and 1 leak instead of 3/2 split since opponent having cards in hand should be mostly irrelevant in the face of a restore balance.
Possibly correct to play 4 path to exile over the push split since their additional lands are mostly irrelevant in the face of restore balance.
Cryptic command could even be replaced with Mana Leaks since restore balance makes paying 3 difficult. However the bounce and tap modes on CC are relevant.
Snapcaster is the best blue creature, and since you can have 1 creature in play it makes sense to keep him.
Gideon and Lili after a restore balance on an Empty or 1 creature board will feel pretty good.
Maybe include serum visions so that you can snap visions off lotus bloom under pressure.
Brutality seems good in certain situations, however I wouldn't go 4 of.
Must have a combo of instants and sorceries to really maximise as foretold
Stay away from multi color spells as a nombo with Bloom.
This week I have been working with UR and Grixis shells, which I think are improvements over the other color combinations. More to come!
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I look forward to seeing ashtonkutcher's UR and Grixis builds--here's hoping they fix the problems I mentioned above.
I'm sure there will be more iterations to improve, but I think we need to play into the land control aspect of Restore Balance a bit better than Kutcher's lists are.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I think the success AF control decks will have will come from being able to cast RB as a sweeper most of the time.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Can't access the article or any other modernnexus content. Is there a region block or are the server offline from time to time?
We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not sure this is a real deck, but I can't imagine that the best iteration will be playing a worse supreme verdict.
edit: I was thinking of trying ghost quarters in place of mana rocks to keep the land count low. ghost quartering yourself gives you the same mana on a given turn but removes a land from play? sounds loose, but so are the mana rocks. Colourless mana is a drawback though.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
That's the super fringe case, I thought of it way more as a simple tool to disrupt greedy mana bases and give some game against Tron and other land reliant decks, while the drawback of missing a landdrop is mitigated by Restore Balance.
Not sure if that's good enough, but if you end up in only 2 colours it seems worth it to try out.
Path to Exile obviously also has nice synergy with RB, but is there anything else that white offers besides maybe Nahiri?
Being able to wipe the field as of turn 3, and for 0 mana from that point on, makes RB much better than Verdict either way. It allows us to spend our extra mana flashing back Looting, tapping out for a 'walker, or chaining cantrips into a win condition. Spending a whole four mana simply "not dying" is awful.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I've tested both quite a bit and I found the second to be FAR superior. As foretold into balance is nice but to focus on abusing it is too flimsy. The problem mostly is that the cards that make balance better like manarocks and greater gargadon don't with well with as foretold. Secondly you rely very much on a flimsy combo then which can easily be interrupted by counters or discard.
Better is just to play 3 As foretold, 4 ancestral vision, 1 restore balance and 3 tolaria west. Key is to play enough 1 and 2 drop instants so as foretold gives great value outside the suspend spells too. A free suspend spell is nice but it get's really strong when you get a free serum visions, removal, spreading seas and snapcaster mage in the next 2 turns. By keeping the As foretold and suspend card package minimal too the deck isn't too reliant on the combo either, against some decks you just take out as foretold and restore balance. The lists I see here that focus more on restore balance just suck because they rely too much on the As foretold and getting the right balance setup (which is quite hard against burn or decks with lots of graveyard value).
Just not sure which colors you want to be in besides blue. UW, UB, UR and UBR all have their merits. Because of tolaria wests i prefer sticking to 2 colors and I think I like white best as it provides the strongest sideboard. But all the color combinations are possible.
Are you sure you can snap a suspend spell? This link seems to contradict that.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22508-Snapcaster-Mage-Ancestral-Visions
This is why I have tried Jace, Telepath Unbound since he doesn't use flashback, but instead just lets you cast it from a different zone than your hand ('yard). This does work with As Foretold. The downside is that it has to sit in play for a turn and not die to fatal push or bolt, which can be difficult.
That being said the payoff for a flipped jace is huge. Being able to flashback all the visions essentially doubles the draw power of the deck and should not be underestimated. There is some chance this is best saved for the SB against other reactive decks when they board out removal. I'm still liking them in the maindeck, though.
In other news I've been trying the postless version and it just doesn't use Restore Balance that well. Locking opponents out of lands has been a powerful line of play for the borderpost version that just doesn't really work in that build.
I have tried out builds posted by other users here, and keep going back to the borderpost version. /shrug
I think people who have not tried my builds here are not seeing how well the deck chains everything together once the engine is online. Each piece of the engine is fantastic on its own, so no issues with drawing part of the engine. Once you have Jace, Telepath Unbound and As Foretold in play, you end up drawing 3 cards a turn, and each as foretold simply accelerates this. Or, you simply cast restore balance every turn to keep them on 2 lands and no creatures in play. I encourage people to try the OP build out - I think the ability to lock out the game shouldn't be ignored.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I just got my paper balances, as foretold and jaces in today, so I'm working on the lowest to the ground list possible. My intent is to try building as far into Restore Balance as possible, and bring it closer to UW control if it doesn't work as well.
I have not seriously considered sleight of hand in this list, how has that card been for you? I guess 4 spell pierce makes sense, I just didn't want to give up cryptic command I guess
What's the plan with SB snapcaster?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
For reference, here's the list that mine is based on:
3 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
2 Mystic Gate
3 Plains
1 Tectonic Edge
3 Tolaria West
2 CREATURES
2 Snapcaster Mage
23 INSTANTS and SORC.
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Censor
3 Cryptic Command
1 Negate
4 Path to Exile
1 Restore Balance
2 Spell Snare
2 Supreme Verdict
10 OTHER SPELLS
3 As Foretold
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Detention Sphere
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gideon Jura
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Dispel
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Meddling Mage
2 Negate
3 Rest in Peace
1 Spell Queller
1 Stony Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Vendilion Clique
Being a uw control deck that uses 1-2 copies of Balance to lock up the game, negate opp's land advantage from early paths and/or wrath works better than going all-in on the Balance plan because there are too many decks that will either recover or do enough leading up to it being cast. One of this build's strengths is that it is virtually creatureless, which blanks opposing removal and guarantees balance will clear out creatures...flip-jace is powerful and I am sympathetic to the desire to use Myth Realized, but their inclusion seems like a lateral move concerning the potential strengths of using As Foretold in UW control in a format where Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile and/or Fatal Push are in 2 out of 3 matches. Borderposts are also less than ideal because stony silence is one of the reasons to play a deck with white in it.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/35277_Video-Nahiri-Foretold-Balance-In-Modern.html
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/against-the-odds-as-foretold-modern
I think that combining them can be a good idea and here is what I have in mind:
3x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Greater Gargadon
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Planeswalker (4)
4x Nahiri, the Harbinger
Enchantment (4)
4x As Foretold
Sorcery (17)
4x Ancestral Vision
4x Restore Balance
4x Serum Visions
2x Kari Zev's Expertise
Instant (10)
4x Path to Exile
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Anticipate
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Arid Mesa
1x Steam Vents
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Hallowed Fountain
4x Spirebluff Canal
3x Tolaria West
1x Island
1x Mountain
1x Plains
4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Stony Silence
2x Wear // Tear
2x Negate
2x Anger of the Gods
(more Kari Zev's Expertise/L.Bolt or Idyllic Tutor).
P.S. - thanks for links to these exciting videos and resetting this thread.
also if you have Greater Gargadon suspended you can sac' the creature in response to Restore Balance (or just Path/Bolt it).
Without the borderpost-centric build, you pretty much need Greater Gargadon if you want Restore Balance to be more than a fancy wrath. Having Gargadon come in against a helpless opponent is the entire appeal of the combo.