I'll be interested in your testing results as well, adding 5 and 6 mana cards not from the sideboard seems a little counterintuitive in this meta, even in a control deck, but you certainly can't argue with the power level of that play.
@Dlanze, You honestly are living in magical christmas land where you're expecting that everything that your deck is meant to do will happen flawlessly when you shouldn't ever expect that. I tested your new list again over Cockatrice against Junk and Bant Eldrazi last night, it had the same exact issues of being dead on board by the time it ever managed to get to the Gifts combo or ended up having the combo pieces ripped from my hand by Thoughtseizes or Thoughtknot Seers. I managed to get lucky and snag one win off of Eldrazi by somehow surviving to cast Cruel and laying down the beats with Creeping Tarpit, but that's only after a really lucky topdecked Damnation and after doing absolutely nothing but playing tapped lands every turn until like turn 6. Every other game was the same miserable thing over and over again, just crawling along playing tapped lands and hoping that the removal would be enough. Again, you're sitting there assuming that every deck you play against will let you live to see the combo go off when they won't and you'll be dead as hell. Anyone that's ever played Modern for more than a year could figure out how to beat your deck if it ever manages to go off.
You also know absolutely nothing about where Cruel Control originated from since you think it's inspired by the DOTP Bolas deck with Power 9 cards. It wasn't. Gabriel Nassif built the deck during LOR-ALA standard as a 5 color control deck and it ran playsets of Cryptic Command and Broken Ambitions and used Negates in the sideboard and then it was piloted again in Extended in 2010 by Wafo-Tapa and Michael Jacob, both of whom used Countermagic to stall the board and more recently, we had Jarret Kong take 1st at an SCG and his list was full of counter magic. Even if all of that somehow wasn't the case, we're all here reporting positive win rates through the use of counterspells along with the usual grixis removal suite and yet you're plugging your ears and pretending like we're morons, Mr. High-and-Mighty.
And lastly, this thread is for a decklist that almost all of our decks are built to emulate in some way. Like all of our decks are pretty similar across the board. That means that since they're so similar, we can trade advice and learn from each others' builds. Your deck is nothing like ours and while that wasn't exactly a bad thing, you've spammed entire pages with posts about how to further your build alone and have done almost nothing aside from saying that cards we use are overrated and require zero brainwork and that we should all just drop what we're doing and what's getting us positive results and start emulating your build. You've provided little to nothing in terms of how to advance the archetype and have only written comments about how we're not playing the way Wizards intended and causing flame wars and devolving the entire thread. The deck isn't Tier 1 right now, no *****, but god damnit that doesn't mean we can't try to keep making it a competitive force. Like I said early on, if you wanted to have a different build, that was fine, but yet you kept trying to force your build down our throats and you kept harping at us for not following your moronic deck philosophy that completely kneecaps a deck for no reason other than to be some sort of Magic hipster that doesn't want to use cards that are proven to be good just because "oh well every filthy netdecker uses them, they're overrated." We gave you suggestions based on how our builds worked because that's the entire point of the ******* thread and because we're used to giving suggestions for decks that work like ours do and you kept getting *****ty with us because we assumed you didn't want to listen either because you were on a budget or because you were new, which neither are true, surprisingly. You also got mod checked because, again, all you do is make a ton of posts back to back about your deck list and provide nothing for the overall conversation. You never post any results from actual FNMs aside from one really short report that had no details on anything, you never bother listening to any of the advice we try to give and you completely write us all off as not understanding your build. Yeah, maybe your deck is running some staple grixis cards, but that doesn't make it a Cruel Control deck if you're sitting there focusing on your expensive combo.
Now please, for the sake of everyone else in this thread trying to discuss the actual decklist, either start posting detailed reports from FNMS and giving detailed arguments about why your mana intensive build works besides just talking about your inane deckbuilding philosophy or go make a 4C Cruel Gifts thread and stop posting here. Or keep posting here and derailing the thread and get banned or something, either works.
@Cody Yeah, Keranos gets destroyed by Nahiri decks, but I think aside from that one outlier he's pretty strong even in the MB just because he's a threat no other deck can really answer once he resolves. I usually board him out against UW control decks anyways just because of Leyline of Sanctity and lay down the beats from Batterskull and manlands.
@On Filigree Familiar, I didn't realize it before, but I really, really like this card. It's no Kitchen Finks, but it does a pretty nice impression of one and it does card draw which is pretty nice. I'm almost tempted to try shifting my SB around a little to try it out, it might be kind of nice.
I don't think anyone here begrudges a unique decklist or a unique take that has results to back it up (even FNM), after all it's why we have Jeskai Harbinger and many other decks in the format.
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
The better "mana base" for the version of "Cruel Control" promoted in this thread is streamlined blue to be able to cast Cryptic Command 4th turn. That is technically what I was doing with my current build and would have got there in my own eventually, but now moderators have gotten involved saying I am spamming or something and have now attempted to tell me what I should put in my decklist to be competitive; basically inferring that they want me to make it some "counterspell","discard" based deck based on a very stereotypical pool of cards (that have been statistically deduced to be in the meta and also of which I was aware of before ever posting here), as opposed to developing my Gifts Ungiven combo in this thread.
I know why they think I should do that, but that is also why there is a "sideboard" ... you don't have to main those cards.
I think this is the crux of the issue, perhaps the Gifts players could offer better advice and be more receptive to your deck building goals and ideals? I would assume they have much more experience running singletons and theorizing about optimal combos with gifts than most posters here.
I don't think anyone here begrudges a unique decklist or a unique take that has results to back it up (even FNM), after all it's why we have Jeskai Harbinger and many other decks in the format.
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
I have tried to sit back and wade through this in the the hopes that you would come around to reason. I don't want to sound harsh but increasingly as you post it is becoming evident that you either haven't competed [even at FNM] in this meta game specifically, or magic generally in any significant way. Alternatively you have some...unique... FNM store, kitchen table, PPTQ, online metagame where your deck will work, and if you have the results to back it up then you have my sincerest apologies.
But for now you continue to use this thread as a thought exercise in goldfishing/theorycrafting and "on a budget" sounding board, which is not the intent, please make a grixis gifts thread in the deck creation forum. I don't want to discourage you from playing the game as it is a beautiful and fantastic game, and you seem determined to contribute in a positive way, but this thread is quickly derailing and devolving.
To your many and varied deck lists and ideas, it is not unheard of for esper for example to dedicate the entire sideboard for a gifts package, why don't you try to start with the best approximation you can get of cruel control, pilot it with results, even siding in a gifts package then report back?
This way we have some actual advice to give, and you have real world results? you seem to be getting closer at any rate. Can you tell use who/where you are play testing these builds currently?
To other Cruel Control Players:
Is Keranos, God of Storms still a reasonable sideboard card in this meta? If so, where are we bringing it in, grindy matches?
This thread seems pretty dead lately.
Is the deck really that bad right now, or is the community of UWR delver/Tempo that small.
Or did the majority of the UWR control players just switch to Nahiri, because its better or more competitive.
I would love to see this thread alive once again.
I think it's a combination of a lot of things you mentioned,also there is a thread for the prowess version in deck creation, probably could be merged? I imagine it was split for a reason though even though the philosophy is similar.
It probably just isn't piloted that much currently
my experience with delver decks is you would optimally want to hit certain benchmarks:
~ 14 creatures
From my experience I have to say that 14 is not enough. I always hated it when I played games that lastet like 10 turns and I only see 1-3 creatures during that whole game. I did a lot of research on Mtgtop8 comparing UWR Delver and Boremandos decks that fared well at big tournaments and found out that most of them run 15-17 creatures even though they're Delver decks and most decks with Geist of Saint Traft run 3-4 copies of him. Same goes for Snappy.
Well, I haven't testet a lot with this new aggressive build yet but I'll post some results. I'll play it this Friday at Modern FNM and hopefully get to play a few matches with it online until then...
I wonder how much running over 15 creatures will affect our Delver though. I used to run 15 creatures and eventually dropped back down to 14 as i want to maximize my chance of flipping my delvers as honestly if he doesn't flip he is a pretty terrible card. There are game where you may only see 3 creatures like you said, but if my hand / draws are filled with removal and control to back up those 3 creatures it is all i need, the only time that seeing 3 creatures is bad is if it is 3 Swiftspears and you only have countermagic.. this is just bad. If in those 3 creatures i see 1 or more delver / Geist i am almost certain to win. running 3-4 copies of Snapcasters i believe is more reserved for Grixis builds where they are utalizing their GY's to a larger extent then us where as alot of our Jeskai players in this forum are more aggressive with proactive spells that double as reactive (Lightning Bolt) and we only need to use Snappy a couple times.
I played last night with my current list played 3 or 4 games (i forgot exactly) and faced 2 different decks. I faced a Naya Land Destruction deck, out of all games i only lost twice both times i just couldn't draw land. the other deck was a Grixis Delver deck of which i won every game.. I have to much removal for them to keep up and once Geist hits they have nothing to stop you. For reference my list is below.
My mana base is kinda painful and i would like to get the new lands and/or a Sulfur falls in here. I also dont know how much i would want to cut in my Land as under 8 fetches might be to low for card filtering.
Well overall you have if I counted correctly:
I'm assuming also you don't have access to scalding tarn
Potential 23 Blue pips- 15 Blue sources "14" turn 1(really 8 if we exclude gitax and slip)
16 Red pips- 13 red sources- 7 turn 1
13 White pips- 13 White sources- 4 Turn 1
Seems to me you are fetching for blue/red most often turn one: I would probably shave a hallowed fountain, fairy conclave and a mountain for 3 UR fastland or a 2/1 split with Seachrome coast and maybe change one polluted delta to a red fetch in case you need basic mountain?
A 2/1 split would keep the same amount of white sources and add one blue (16) and one red (14)
Maybe exchange the glacier for another fastland of your choice. There is always Frank Karsten's article on mana bases but this exchange seems fine to me to tinker with
Just so we're on the same page, playing Emerge Unscathed after blockers are declared only stops your attacker from being damaged, but it remains blocked, right?
Correct, you've allowed them to establish a legal block, but it would still have protection from X and prevent damage.
doing it prior to the declare blocker step means they wouldn't have a legal blocking target.
How feasible is splashing green for Fog and new Tamiyo? what could i cut? fog is a 1 mana timewalk against affinity and infect, and also helpful on burn. my point is to survive long enough to ult tamiyo and have omniscience
It's fine. Idk how good tamiyo will be, that sounds like a different deck altogether
I however am splashing a steam vents for crumble to dusts and slaughter games in the board.
What about Keranos, or is that getting too greedy?
I'm a fan of unglued basics myself, to poor to foil out a magic deck haha, the deck regular is expensive enough!
Once you have the deck, you gotta do something with all the store cred it racks up haha. Who cares about other decks? The only other deck I would've really invested in in paper (Twin) got banned. People on this thread are really serious about Esper, and the culture is super addictive.
I would never have tried to foil out a deck, but then I realized that all I really wanna do in Modern is play Esper haha. And why not do it in style? Once you find the Modern deck, you stop worrying that much about other ones.
Edit: That said, if you don't feel strongly towards this deck, I would not advise foiling it out.
I hear you, I could actually do it easily, but I have such finite time to play that it makes it not worth it (getting older sucks what is responsibility anyway?), and much like most of you all I'm kind of OCD about foil/non-foil all or none I say unless its your only copy of said card etc. So instead of poor I'm rather just "time poor".
I can't help but notice that that's a French GPT. The MTG online player also had a French name. This guy may very well be the online pilot. For the Wafo theorists, he's also obviously French, so they could perhaps know each other if Wafo is related to this in some fashion. Though, that's all hearsay.
Hello guy's,
I'm the one who won the GPT. But i'm not the oneline Player. I was on Amalek0's list but i try this one After it was discused here. So, i don't know if this list is related to Wafo or Not.
I can't say mutch more about that list, exept that i Like secure the waste a lot. It added lot's of tempo plans and work very well with snap. For a delver lover like me, this is all i need.
As you can see english is not eazy for me. So i don't post here. But I'm a daily reader and want to thanks all of you for Posting here.
First Congrats! Nice win!
Second, what was the Sorin for, or your thought process behind it?
Filigree Familiar also has corner case blocking advantages too
I think this is the crux of the issue, perhaps the Gifts players could offer better advice and be more receptive to your deck building goals and ideals? I would assume they have much more experience running singletons and theorizing about optimal combos with gifts than most posters here.
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
I have tried to sit back and wade through this in the the hopes that you would come around to reason. I don't want to sound harsh but increasingly as you post it is becoming evident that you either haven't competed [even at FNM] in this meta game specifically, or magic generally in any significant way. Alternatively you have some...unique... FNM store, kitchen table, PPTQ, online metagame where your deck will work, and if you have the results to back it up then you have my sincerest apologies.
But for now you continue to use this thread as a thought exercise in goldfishing/theorycrafting and "on a budget" sounding board, which is not the intent, please make a grixis gifts thread in the deck creation forum. I don't want to discourage you from playing the game as it is a beautiful and fantastic game, and you seem determined to contribute in a positive way, but this thread is quickly derailing and devolving.
To your many and varied deck lists and ideas, it is not unheard of for esper for example to dedicate the entire sideboard for a gifts package, why don't you try to start with the best approximation you can get of cruel control, pilot it with results, even siding in a gifts package then report back?
This way we have some actual advice to give, and you have real world results? you seem to be getting closer at any rate. Can you tell use who/where you are play testing these builds currently?
To other Cruel Control Players:
Is Keranos, God of Storms still a reasonable sideboard card in this meta? If so, where are we bringing it in, grindy matches?
I think it's a combination of a lot of things you mentioned,also there is a thread for the prowess version in deck creation, probably could be merged? I imagine it was split for a reason though even though the philosophy is similar.
It probably just isn't piloted that much currently
or is it too slow/ clunky, etc?
Well overall you have if I counted correctly:
I'm assuming also you don't have access to scalding tarn
Potential 23 Blue pips- 15 Blue sources "14" turn 1(really 8 if we exclude gitax and slip)
16 Red pips- 13 red sources- 7 turn 1
13 White pips- 13 White sources- 4 Turn 1
Seems to me you are fetching for blue/red most often turn one: I would probably shave a hallowed fountain, fairy conclave and a mountain for 3 UR fastland or a 2/1 split with Seachrome coast and maybe change one polluted delta to a red fetch in case you need basic mountain?
A 2/1 split would keep the same amount of white sources and add one blue (16) and one red (14)
Maybe exchange the glacier for another fastland of your choice. There is always Frank Karsten's article on mana bases but this exchange seems fine to me to tinker with
It's a great read at any rate: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/
Correct, you've allowed them to establish a legal block, but it would still have protection from X and prevent damage.
doing it prior to the declare blocker step means they wouldn't have a legal blocking target.
This is my understanding although I'm not a judge
What about Keranos, or is that getting too greedy?
I hear you, I could actually do it easily, but I have such finite time to play that it makes it not worth it (getting older sucks what is responsibility anyway?), and much like most of you all I'm kind of OCD about foil/non-foil all or none I say unless its your only copy of said card etc. So instead of poor I'm rather just "time poor".
First Congrats! Nice win!
Second, what was the Sorin for, or your thought process behind it?