So onto spells, I'd be really interested to hear how Engineered Explosives has been working out for you.
Engineered Explosives is a very reasonable removal spell on its own. But with Tolaria West it seems like a waste to not run at least 1 copy. Still, I don't tutor for it often, but I feel much better having the option. Even with only two colors it deals with enough things to be worthwhile. It's best at stopping aggressive draws from decks, so sometimes you'll be really thankful to just draw it and get rid of two creatures!
On Echoing Truth, I think it's a great get out of jail for a turn card vs an opponent with hexproff, say with Leyline of Sanctity or Witchbane Orb. I tend to use mine as the effective 5th-8th card, thanks to Merchant Scroll, in conjunction with 4 Leave No Trace. Having 8 answers to Leyline of Sanctity means that I am confident I can draw into one, or multiples if I have to work through counterspells. What I have found is that I would prefer more creature removal in game one, so it usually sits in the sideboard ready for a specific use. That said it's really not a bad choice in the main either and I can see why you like it. Leave No Trace is also really handy vs enchantments like Damping Sphere or to really upset Boggles.
I think Leave No Trace is cool. I have trouble finding space for it though, we'll see. Echoing Truth just has so much utility that I think having 1 in the deck always is important.
There are only 3 Merchant Scroll in my version of the deck because I don't have space for more! Running 21 land, 8 removal spells and 8 cantrips means I end up with a 3-of in the deck. The other spells are quicker and more focused so I like this mix, but equally can see the benefit for running 4 Merchant Scroll and 3 Trapmakers Snare instead. I guess I like the instant speed tutoring a little more to allow me to hold up mana for removal if needed.
I kind of figured this to be the case. I don't find instant speed to be all that relevant, since not a lot of decks have haste threats that we need to deal with.
I would also be really interested to hear how you have been getting on with Mindbreak Trap and Surgical Extraction. How often do you tend to use them?
Mindbreak Trap is a very reasonable hate card against storm, which can be a tough MU since they want their graveyard filled up, and can be fast themselves. I'm a sucker for enabling my tutors, which is why I run it... Can't say I use it all that often though. It's a spot I could look at cutting.
Surgical feels like an important card, although I can't say that it's been amazing. I feel like an out to Emrakul is important, although when I think about the meta the odds of running into Emrakul doesn't seem that high.
I am also keen to find out your sideboarding strategy, what you take out to put things in, etc. I find myself looking at Mesmeric Orb most often unless it is particularly good in the matchup.
My general strategy is identifying if I need to be fast or not. If I need to be fast, Visions From Beyond usually gets cut. I don't sideboard out mill very often.
Against fast decks I side out 3 Visions from beyond, because the card advantage it offers doesn't matter much. The best shot at winning aggressive matchups is to be quick and disruptive. I will bring in 2 creature cards and 1 more echoing truth.
Tron is similar in that you want to be as fast as possible, but you want other sideboard cards. So I'll bring out 4 visions for 2 surgical, 2 stony silence.
Against discard decks I side in 4 Leyline of Sanctity, usually trimming 1 mesmeric orb, 1 visions, 1 crab, and 1 creature removal. (I run 6 creature removal) Generally all of your cards are useful against discard decks, so I try not to cut too much in any one direction.
Against Burn I'll side out hedron crab for Leyline of Sanctity. Most of the time these decks will have searing blaze/blood, so I like to try to deny them that card. Maybe this is wrong.
Against blue decks I'll bring out creature removal to bring in 2 silence and 1 mindbreak trap.
Against anything with Leyline of Sanctity I'll bring in my second echoing truth. But key in this matchups is not boarding out Mesmeric Orb, as it can gain you advantage through Leyline.
Sorry for quick notes, hopefully this gives an idea!
I think in general the meta is pretty hostile to Mindslaver right now, so it's very reasonable to not run it in many metas. Of course, Mindslaver is good when you resolve it against a lot of decks. But much of the time you won't have a good opportunity to. Between fast aggressive decks killing you quickly or slower matchups attacking our lands (often with maindeck field of ruin, in addition to sideboard cards), it's often hard for Mindslaver to close a game out.
The argument for Mindslaver is essentially always, "But it locks the game out and wins!" That's not a good enough reason to just run it. It's such a flashy way to win the game, and it's easy to remember the times when it does. Much harder is remember those times where you could have won a game with another Wurmcoil instead of Mindslaver. But it's also important to ask: "Could I still have won with a different card?" In particular, cards which have more utility against aggro or could have gotten out even without tron. In general I find the answer to this question to be yes. If you're playing the game to 13 mana, you're generally in a pretty commanding position.
We already have inevitability, Mindslaver isn't the only card which gives us that. Walking Ballista can quickly clean up the game if you have 10+ mana. Sure, it's not a hard lock, but cleaning up the game in 2-4 turns is usually good enough.
Currently I'm running 0 slavers in the main and 1 in the sideboard. I do want access to it for my local meta, but I'm okay not having it for game 1.
That's cool that our versions are so similar! I know you run 4x Serum Visions, but I'd still want an extra land in the list, 21 felt too light to me when I was playing. Every land drop is important, even up to 5 mana (sometimes hardcast archive trap is necessary...).
Speaking of lands, did you try Ipnu Rivulet? This card has been so good for me, especially with Tolaria West and Fraying Insanity. It's actually won me a bunch of games I wouldn't have otherwise won. I'd really recommend trying it out if you haven't. Running Ipnu works well with having more lands too, since you don't flood out as much since you can cash in your lands for value.
Do you feel Condemn is better than other creature options, like Profane Memento? The targeting restriction can be kind of awkward for making sure we're actually being efficient with our mana. But I haven't tried it, so I'm curious about your results with it. I've also considered Oust, which has some fun interactions with mill. I feel like some number of creature answers is important though.
Why no 1 Echoing Truth in the maindeck? It's a card I've felt I've needed in games 2-3 every game because you never know if an opponent has Leyline of Sanctity. (I definitely lost a bunch of games to Leylines I didn't expect...) It's not an unreasonable draw either, since it can stall for more time anyway. I feel so much safer having access to it.
Do you like the Serum Visions? I have trouble finding room for them. I feel like the deck is so redundant that I'm not sure they're necessary. They do slow you do a bit, but perhaps that's not an issue. It does help a lot to find sideboard cards though. Have they been crucial for you?
Leave no Trace is cool in the sideboard. It's for Leyline of Sanctity I assume? I thought that Echoing Truths might be enough, although this actually keeps the leyline from coming back down which could be important for games that go longer, as we might want crabs and fraying insanity out.
Stony Silence looks pretty great in the board. Seems like it would help a ton vs. affinity and Tron. I should find room for them in my sideboard.
Overall deck looks great! I know I've just started testing this version, so it's always great to get some confirmation from others that they've been having success too.
Walking ballista is the most value. I would make sure you have 2 walking ballista and 2 field of ruin first, as they will help your deck out immensely. I like 1 Tolaria west if you can buy that too. I would not spend money on Chalice or Snapcaster if you're missing other cards. Engineered Explosives is useful, but if you can't run it, that's okay. It's a sideboard card anyway, so focus on the maindeck first.
Been playing a bunch of this Uw mill version on Cockatrice, and it's been going very well. The deck is consistently very fast, yet has played very well against discard and counters too. Every card is a must answer and has the potential to mill a ton. I've also put more mill cards in here vs. regular lists. This gives a lot more consistency in just having the pieces you need, instead of drawing non-mill spells when you needed to just win the game.
Path to Exile has helped against high CMC delve threats, compared to Fatal Push. It's also so useful to fire off early archive traps to enable Visions of Beyond early.
Ipnu Rivulet has been an all-star at getting those last few cards milled. But to maximize it, you really want to be running 4 Fraying Sanity as well. Having lands which turn into mill 8 is great, and gives you a lot of game against discard and counters. Fraying sanity is also much more effective in this archive trap version. Unlike Glimpse the Unthinkable which mills instantly, you spend mana to get Archive trap in hand. This lets you play them after Fraying insanity without losing any tempo. They also allow the deck to have far more turn 4 kills compared to traditional builds.
I elect not to run any graveyard exile effects in the maindeck. I think they're too narrow for a general metagame, and would rather have more mill or answers for the board.
In this deck, Ensnaring Bridge is unnecessary. By the time you've played your cards, you've likely just won the game. And if you're dead...Well chances are your opponent was too fast for bridge to help anyway.
Having 5 copies of Echoing Truth due to Merchant Scroll has been a godsend against Leyline of Sanctity. Another reason why focusing on traps are so powerful. You can build up a trap hand without losing tempo, find an echoing truth, and close out the game.
Of course, more testing is needed, but this version has felt very good in my initial plays and I'm eager to keep testing it out. If anybody is interested in trying something different, I recommend trying this.
My bad, yeah. I never needed the effect anyway, so I got rid of it. There was a deck tech on SCG this weekend talking about archive trap and shuffles, so I honestly overlooked it.
I do want to have polite discussion. But your guys' responses, whether you mean to or not, have been quite condescending. Just look at the language:
Quote from Bloodyroar »
TLDR; Don't change a decks identity to supplement poor play or an intro level understanding of the decks mechanics.
Quote from boomforest »
Anyway, hope you keep playing the deck, and by all means if you make your changes you talked about and it turns into a simic midrange deck let us know if you find some success.
I suggested one green sideboard card as a potential answer to a tough matchup, yet somehow you jump to "simic midrange deck," which more or less sounds like a summary dismissal of anything I have to say.
I highly doubt the deck is 99% tuned. There simply hasn't been enough people playing the deck to get the amount of data that most other decks have. For example, look at the U-tron thread. It is over 700 pages long, and there are even two relatively divergent lists now. If you assume that this Ux prison deck is already tuned, the deck will never get better.
I'm not sure why you seem to suggest that I want to "change everything about the deck." I said that these cards do not seem the best to me: 4th mox opal, tormod's crypt, 2nd chalice, 4th spyglass. This is hardly a drastic alteration to the deck.
In their place, I mentioned a few cards that seemed like they might have potential. Did I say they're must haves? No. Are they worth trying? Possibly. Have you actually tried Search for Azcanta in this deck? I did, and liked what it did for me.
As another example, I mentioned Necrogen Spellbomb giving an interesting line of discarding our opponent's draws. Does this mean I think the deck needs it? I'm not sure. But I think it's still worth considering new lines of attack that a deck could possibly have access to.
Interesting approach, needs testing and further development
Tolaria West too slow, only finds lands btw
Yes, I know Tolaria west only finds lands. When you're building around mostly casting Archive Trap you need ways to get Field of Ruin for a forced shuffle. So TWest are field of ruins 5-8. Having to spend 3 is not ideal, but you need options.
Stream of Consciousness very bad, not only you spend a card just to enable another, it has a negative effect
Stream of Consciousness is a forced shuffle effect that you can tutor with Merchant Scroll. Some forced shuffle is necessary for archive trap. You also can choose zero cards and still force a shuffle, so it never has a negative effect. I'm not convinced it's necessary, but while I'm focusing on archive trap, I want to at least play with an option for forced shuffle. Oops, mistook the alternate cost on archive trap.
Engineered Explosives kills Crab, Profane Memento and Orb, cmc = 2 is a low limit
Yes, explosives kills some of our cards. It's there because you can find it with Tolaria West. We also don't have that many permanents, so it's relatively easy to play around.
Overall very inconsistent and slow as of now, discard and counterspells disrupt too much
I actually think a version like this works better in face of discard and counterspells. With emphasis on the high-value mill cards, you need to resolve fewer mill spells to end the game. Usually you only need 4 cards or 2 cards + Fraying Sanity to end it. Less consistent, yes. Mainly due to the shuffling restriction. But I think you also have far more explosive draws relative to most lists.
You say you don't want to be rude, but then you say directly that I do not understand the deck and am playing it poorly. You can't have it both ways.
The point of a thread is to discuss how to make a deck better. Just because there's a few people playing a deck with some list doesn't mean it's an optimal list. I'm providing opinions from watching a lot of different people play the deck online, as well as my experience from playing it myself.
Why is opal a 4 of? It's easy to just say that is the case because Opal seems like such a good card. Many would say that it's a 4-of in Lantern control too. I mean, they have tons of cheap artifacts and they want the mana. However, thnkr, who gathers a lot of data on the deck, and decided 3 was better than 4: Here's a post analyzing Mox Opal. So no, it's not obvious that Mox Opal should just be an auto 4-of here. And blindly assuming that this should be the case without deeper analysis is foolish. This is an extremely mana hungry deck, and multiple Mox Opals often suck. 1 temporary mana can be helpful, but generally I would rather have more lands.
Chalice in general is a weak card in modern. Having access to at least 1 is important, but I'm still not convinced that multiple are needed in the maindeck. It's easy to pay attention to the times where it was very valuable. But a lot of times it's just not that valuable.
For Tormod's crypt, why should I play a bad card just to enable my other cards in a slow deck? That is not good deck design. There are plenty of cheap artifacts we can still play to opal and whir on. This deck doesn't really have "explosive" draws in the traditional sense. There are also plenty of turns when you can't utilize all of its mana 100% efficiently. So having, say a Pithing Needle, instead of Tormod's crypt could give the same benefits for whir and opal in many cases, while having a lot more utility.
Why is Search for Azcanta too slow? There's a lot of upside to a card like this in the deck. It helps us find the cards we need, which is crucial for a deck like this. Despite having a lot of tutors, we are often at the mercy of our deck. Later it flips and makes it easier to assemble our prison lock. Two mana is not a large investment, and I think there is a lot of upside to running 1 of these.
Yes, I have read this thread. I have watched a lot of videos. I have read responses on Reddit. The problem with all the ways to deal with cryptic decks are just band-aids. Cards like Declaration of Naught don't actually help you win the game. Reactive decks have lots of different possible cards we need ways to deal with. The reactive decks are built to go long. Thrun, the Last Troll stomps cryptic decks, because they can't interact with it on the stack or in play and it wins the game. Control decks are a very real threat in the current meta, so ways to deal with them are necessary. I know [G][G] is a large ask, but I think this deck has a lot of flexibility in its mana the splashes which can be used.
For getting the artifacts that we need, it's not just about getting one bridge or crucible. It's about getting all of the cards that we need, which is quite a few. It's not clear what the optimal number of tutors is, which is why I said that maybe more tutors should be considered.
I would say the deck has "some" tools against Tron, not "a lot." The main issue is that some disruption not backed up by a clock or a lock is a recipe for losing against Tron. They have a wide array of threats which need to be dealt with, and it's hard to find the proper ones in time. Yes, Bribery is not fast. But it's a card that is very likely to win the game. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is indestructible, and cannot be stopped by oblivion stone like you say. Karn is their only out.
So, when I say "want to end the game with land destruction," I mean not in the literal sense that this is actually what I do. But rather, with crucible this is my favorite type of line to take. I identify that it's too slow, so I don't do it if I can't profit from it.
For Necrogen Spellbomb I said anything except instants. You can repeatedly activate it in their draw step by recurring it with ruins. This limits them to the handsize they currently have.
I literally say Nephalia Drownyard is probably bad, and somehow you seem to think I'm suggesting this is for sure a card the deck needs. There's a very real upside in having the ability to mill from 4 cards a turn to 7 cards a turn, since you have a way to end the game almost twice as fast as before.
Again, discussion is about ideas. Not everything is going to be great, but without innovation and change, nothing gets better. I'm hardly changing the core deck by wanting to change a few cards in the list.
Hi all. Been following this deck a bit and starting to play it, starting from the SCG list. Some observations I have:
4 mox opal is too much. They're useful, but frequently come online relatively late. And drawing multiple has hurt me so much more vs. just having more land. I think the deck wants only 2-3 opals, with 1-2 extra lands in their place.
1 chalice of the void is the most you want in the maindeck. We have lots of CMC we care about (0 for jar, 1 for map, 2 for spyglass, 3 for bridge). Witchbane can lock out burn, so I don't think chalice actually has much purpose.
Maindeck Tormod's Crypt is awful. It's a sideboard card. It's especially redundant with Grafdigger's Cage.
I've been trying Search for Azcanta in this deck. I think it's pretty useful. We have a lot of conditional cards and a lot of high value ones too.
Cryptic command decks are a very serious problem for this deck. I'm very tempted to run green for maybe Ancient stirrings in the maindeck and Thrun, the Last Troll in the sideboard. Thrun thrashes the cryptic decks.
I think the deck wants at least one pithing needle. There seems to be a nonzero number of times where you want to whir for X=1. 4 spyglass between main and side seems excessive.
Tron is a horrible matchup. We're just too slow to impact them. Even if you get a ghost quarter, we can't usually back it up with anything else. For this reason, I feel like it's okay to just not really worry about the matchup. You can't beat everything in Modern. But if you do want a card, I think Bribery is your best option. You need something which actually wins the game vs. them, not just slows them down.
I always want to end the game by trying to mana lock people out of the game, but that never seems to work due to just being too slow. It's sometimes hard to predict all the ways people have as outs for the game too. I'm almost tempted to include Nephalia Drownyard alongside Ipnu Rivulet to speed up the end game clock. It is costly as an uncolored source though. We can easily run River of Tears for no downside to have the black when we need it. Probably bad though.
On the matter of black, Necrogen Spellbomb seems like a neat way to lock people out of playing anything except instants.
Most people stopped running Batterskull because of the increase in Kolaghan's Command and Fatal Push. I still run into a lot of path to exiles though, so I run Batterskulls.
Snapcaster mage can be useful early as a 2/1 body, and has utility as the game goes longer. It's nice to have against control too.
Hi all! I don't have much experience with mill; however, I've been doing some reading and brainstorming. Mill has been underpowered, so I was thinking about an alternate approach to the deck. Sort of a "turbo-trap" version.
When looking at mill, the considerations for cards are how many total cards are milled (card efficiency) vs. their cost (mana efficiency). In this regard, Archive Trap is the best on both accounts. With Field of Ruin available for forced shuffling, I was curious how building around this might look. Here's a first draft that I came up with:
I know that this is relatively far from the established norm, and this is more about considering a new type of concept. I've been playing the build a bit, and it has the potential for much faster wins compared to standard builds, even having to pay mana for your spells. For example, T2: Find archive trap, T3: Fraying insanity, T4: Field of ruin + Find another archive trap and win.
White is included instead of black for path, which gives more shuffle effects. Although nobody will search once they know what you're up to. But I think it's probably reasonable (and maybe better) to run black for the classic Glimpse the unthinkable and Crypt Incursion.
Finding search effects is quite important, which is why the inclusion of the 4 tolaria wests. They can sure be clunky at times, but they're necessary for a build like this.
I'm really unsure on Mesmeric Orb. I included it since it feels like one of the better spells vs. control or decks with discard. But maybe it's just mediocre. I'm also even unsure about hedron crab in a build like this. Archive trap does so many cards in one go that the mill from crab frequently doesn't matter.
I included Ipnu because I had many games where I seemed to flood out, so I think it helps keep your consistency while also giving you options later.
Again, I stress that this is more a concept list. When reading I didn't see much discussion of heavy merchant scroll and trapmaker's snare lists, so I thought it was worth bringing up.
If you want to be competitive, switch to elves. That deck can build into a very reasonable Modern deck. But you can always play anything you want. The problem with a deck like this is that it's just too slow. Coat of arms is sure neat, but Modern decks are going to be putting way too much pressure on you before the card can matter. Lots of decks have hate for artifacts too, either maindeck or sideboard, which makes it unreliable. And without these effects the rats do almost nothing.
Went 3-1 at FNM last night. Played casual mono black deck 2-0, UW control 2-0, UWR control 1-2, and Skred Red 2-0. I only lost to UWR because G1 I didn't draw a single threat the entire game, despite the game going for at least 15 turns. And G3 we were low on time so I was playing too fast and made crucial errors at the end.
Play of the night was against UW control. I had a ballista on 3 and a wurmcoil, with him at 10 and a wall of omens in play. End of turn I pump ballista, going to 1 mana open. He responds with cryptic command on my wurmcoil. Knowing that I wanted tempo and not to tap out next turn, I dismembered my wurmcoil and shot it with ballista to kill it. This got me two tokens, and countered the draw from his cryptic command.
I haven't played against control since field of ruin, but it makes those matchups so much harder for us. We actually are forced to play fair games of Magic against them. The UW deck actually had 4 spreading seas and 4 field of ruin.
Perhaps the mass damage effect you want against elves is Flamebreak. No exile for your creatures, no regeneration for them, and even damages everybody to help speedup your clock. It will be less than ideal against flying creatures though.
Another trick is Drown in Sorrow, since creatures just go away if they're at 0 or negative toughness. Though it's less good against multiple lords.
Engineered Explosives is a very reasonable removal spell on its own. But with Tolaria West it seems like a waste to not run at least 1 copy. Still, I don't tutor for it often, but I feel much better having the option. Even with only two colors it deals with enough things to be worthwhile. It's best at stopping aggressive draws from decks, so sometimes you'll be really thankful to just draw it and get rid of two creatures!
I think Leave No Trace is cool. I have trouble finding space for it though, we'll see. Echoing Truth just has so much utility that I think having 1 in the deck always is important.
I kind of figured this to be the case. I don't find instant speed to be all that relevant, since not a lot of decks have haste threats that we need to deal with.
Mindbreak Trap is a very reasonable hate card against storm, which can be a tough MU since they want their graveyard filled up, and can be fast themselves. I'm a sucker for enabling my tutors, which is why I run it... Can't say I use it all that often though. It's a spot I could look at cutting.
Surgical feels like an important card, although I can't say that it's been amazing. I feel like an out to Emrakul is important, although when I think about the meta the odds of running into Emrakul doesn't seem that high.
My general strategy is identifying if I need to be fast or not. If I need to be fast, Visions From Beyond usually gets cut. I don't sideboard out mill very often.
Against fast decks I side out 3 Visions from beyond, because the card advantage it offers doesn't matter much. The best shot at winning aggressive matchups is to be quick and disruptive. I will bring in 2 creature cards and 1 more echoing truth.
Tron is similar in that you want to be as fast as possible, but you want other sideboard cards. So I'll bring out 4 visions for 2 surgical, 2 stony silence.
Against discard decks I side in 4 Leyline of Sanctity, usually trimming 1 mesmeric orb, 1 visions, 1 crab, and 1 creature removal. (I run 6 creature removal) Generally all of your cards are useful against discard decks, so I try not to cut too much in any one direction.
Against Burn I'll side out hedron crab for Leyline of Sanctity. Most of the time these decks will have searing blaze/blood, so I like to try to deny them that card. Maybe this is wrong.
Against blue decks I'll bring out creature removal to bring in 2 silence and 1 mindbreak trap.
Against anything with Leyline of Sanctity I'll bring in my second echoing truth. But key in this matchups is not boarding out Mesmeric Orb, as it can gain you advantage through Leyline.
Sorry for quick notes, hopefully this gives an idea!
The argument for Mindslaver is essentially always, "But it locks the game out and wins!" That's not a good enough reason to just run it. It's such a flashy way to win the game, and it's easy to remember the times when it does. Much harder is remember those times where you could have won a game with another Wurmcoil instead of Mindslaver. But it's also important to ask: "Could I still have won with a different card?" In particular, cards which have more utility against aggro or could have gotten out even without tron. In general I find the answer to this question to be yes. If you're playing the game to 13 mana, you're generally in a pretty commanding position.
We already have inevitability, Mindslaver isn't the only card which gives us that. Walking Ballista can quickly clean up the game if you have 10+ mana. Sure, it's not a hard lock, but cleaning up the game in 2-4 turns is usually good enough.
Currently I'm running 0 slavers in the main and 1 in the sideboard. I do want access to it for my local meta, but I'm okay not having it for game 1.
That's cool that our versions are so similar! I know you run 4x Serum Visions, but I'd still want an extra land in the list, 21 felt too light to me when I was playing. Every land drop is important, even up to 5 mana (sometimes hardcast archive trap is necessary...).
Speaking of lands, did you try Ipnu Rivulet? This card has been so good for me, especially with Tolaria West and Fraying Insanity. It's actually won me a bunch of games I wouldn't have otherwise won. I'd really recommend trying it out if you haven't. Running Ipnu works well with having more lands too, since you don't flood out as much since you can cash in your lands for value.
Do you feel Condemn is better than other creature options, like Profane Memento? The targeting restriction can be kind of awkward for making sure we're actually being efficient with our mana. But I haven't tried it, so I'm curious about your results with it. I've also considered Oust, which has some fun interactions with mill. I feel like some number of creature answers is important though.
Why no 1 Echoing Truth in the maindeck? It's a card I've felt I've needed in games 2-3 every game because you never know if an opponent has Leyline of Sanctity. (I definitely lost a bunch of games to Leylines I didn't expect...) It's not an unreasonable draw either, since it can stall for more time anyway. I feel so much safer having access to it.
Do you like the Serum Visions? I have trouble finding room for them. I feel like the deck is so redundant that I'm not sure they're necessary. They do slow you do a bit, but perhaps that's not an issue. It does help a lot to find sideboard cards though. Have they been crucial for you?
Why only 3 Merchant Scroll? Do you feel you have enough mill otherwise? At the very least I'd go 3 trapmaker's snare/4 merchant scroll so you have more access to Echoing Truth.
Leave no Trace is cool in the sideboard. It's for Leyline of Sanctity I assume? I thought that Echoing Truths might be enough, although this actually keeps the leyline from coming back down which could be important for games that go longer, as we might want crabs and fraying insanity out.
Stony Silence looks pretty great in the board. Seems like it would help a ton vs. affinity and Tron. I should find room for them in my sideboard.
Overall deck looks great! I know I've just started testing this version, so it's always great to get some confirmation from others that they've been having success too.
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Profane Memento
1 Echoing Truth
4 Path to Exile
// Mill
4 Mesmeric Orb
4 Hedron Crab
4 Fraying Sanity
4 Archive Trap
4 Trapmaker's Snare
4 Visions of Beyond
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Field of Ruin
4 Tolaria West
3 Island
4 Ipnu Rivulet
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Profane Memento
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
4 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Been playing a bunch of this Uw mill version on Cockatrice, and it's been going very well. The deck is consistently very fast, yet has played very well against discard and counters too. Every card is a must answer and has the potential to mill a ton. I've also put more mill cards in here vs. regular lists. This gives a lot more consistency in just having the pieces you need, instead of drawing non-mill spells when you needed to just win the game.
Path to Exile has helped against high CMC delve threats, compared to Fatal Push. It's also so useful to fire off early archive traps to enable Visions of Beyond early.
Ipnu Rivulet has been an all-star at getting those last few cards milled. But to maximize it, you really want to be running 4 Fraying Sanity as well. Having lands which turn into mill 8 is great, and gives you a lot of game against discard and counters. Fraying sanity is also much more effective in this archive trap version. Unlike Glimpse the Unthinkable which mills instantly, you spend mana to get Archive trap in hand. This lets you play them after Fraying insanity without losing any tempo. They also allow the deck to have far more turn 4 kills compared to traditional builds.
Tolaria West has been very useful. Usually it searches up Field of Ruin to enable Archive Trap, but in several games I've picked up an Ipnu Rivulet to close out the game or an Engineered Explosives to not die. It can be slow, but the consistency is well worth it.
I elect not to run any graveyard exile effects in the maindeck. I think they're too narrow for a general metagame, and would rather have more mill or answers for the board.
In this deck, Ensnaring Bridge is unnecessary. By the time you've played your cards, you've likely just won the game. And if you're dead...Well chances are your opponent was too fast for bridge to help anyway.
Having 5 copies of Echoing Truth due to Merchant Scroll has been a godsend against Leyline of Sanctity. Another reason why focusing on traps are so powerful. You can build up a trap hand without losing tempo, find an echoing truth, and close out the game.
Of course, more testing is needed, but this version has felt very good in my initial plays and I'm eager to keep testing it out. If anybody is interested in trying something different, I recommend trying this.
I suggested one green sideboard card as a potential answer to a tough matchup, yet somehow you jump to "simic midrange deck," which more or less sounds like a summary dismissal of anything I have to say.
I highly doubt the deck is 99% tuned. There simply hasn't been enough people playing the deck to get the amount of data that most other decks have. For example, look at the U-tron thread. It is over 700 pages long, and there are even two relatively divergent lists now. If you assume that this Ux prison deck is already tuned, the deck will never get better.
I'm not sure why you seem to suggest that I want to "change everything about the deck." I said that these cards do not seem the best to me: 4th mox opal, tormod's crypt, 2nd chalice, 4th spyglass. This is hardly a drastic alteration to the deck.
In their place, I mentioned a few cards that seemed like they might have potential. Did I say they're must haves? No. Are they worth trying? Possibly. Have you actually tried Search for Azcanta in this deck? I did, and liked what it did for me.
As another example, I mentioned Necrogen Spellbomb giving an interesting line of discarding our opponent's draws. Does this mean I think the deck needs it? I'm not sure. But I think it's still worth considering new lines of attack that a deck could possibly have access to.
Yes, I know Tolaria west only finds lands. When you're building around mostly casting Archive Trap you need ways to get Field of Ruin for a forced shuffle. So TWest are field of ruins 5-8. Having to spend 3 is not ideal, but you need options.
Stream of Consciousness is a forced shuffle effect that you can tutor with Merchant Scroll. Some forced shuffle is necessary for archive trap. You also can choose zero cards and still force a shuffle, so it never has a negative effect. I'm not convinced it's necessary, but while I'm focusing on archive trap, I want to at least play with an option for forced shuffle.Oops, mistook the alternate cost on archive trap.Yes, explosives kills some of our cards. It's there because you can find it with Tolaria West. We also don't have that many permanents, so it's relatively easy to play around.
I actually think a version like this works better in face of discard and counterspells. With emphasis on the high-value mill cards, you need to resolve fewer mill spells to end the game. Usually you only need 4 cards or 2 cards + Fraying Sanity to end it. Less consistent, yes. Mainly due to the shuffling restriction. But I think you also have far more explosive draws relative to most lists.
The point of a thread is to discuss how to make a deck better. Just because there's a few people playing a deck with some list doesn't mean it's an optimal list. I'm providing opinions from watching a lot of different people play the deck online, as well as my experience from playing it myself.
Why is opal a 4 of? It's easy to just say that is the case because Opal seems like such a good card. Many would say that it's a 4-of in Lantern control too. I mean, they have tons of cheap artifacts and they want the mana. However, thnkr, who gathers a lot of data on the deck, and decided 3 was better than 4: Here's a post analyzing Mox Opal. So no, it's not obvious that Mox Opal should just be an auto 4-of here. And blindly assuming that this should be the case without deeper analysis is foolish. This is an extremely mana hungry deck, and multiple Mox Opals often suck. 1 temporary mana can be helpful, but generally I would rather have more lands.
Chalice in general is a weak card in modern. Having access to at least 1 is important, but I'm still not convinced that multiple are needed in the maindeck. It's easy to pay attention to the times where it was very valuable. But a lot of times it's just not that valuable.
For Tormod's crypt, why should I play a bad card just to enable my other cards in a slow deck? That is not good deck design. There are plenty of cheap artifacts we can still play to opal and whir on. This deck doesn't really have "explosive" draws in the traditional sense. There are also plenty of turns when you can't utilize all of its mana 100% efficiently. So having, say a Pithing Needle, instead of Tormod's crypt could give the same benefits for whir and opal in many cases, while having a lot more utility.
Why is Search for Azcanta too slow? There's a lot of upside to a card like this in the deck. It helps us find the cards we need, which is crucial for a deck like this. Despite having a lot of tutors, we are often at the mercy of our deck. Later it flips and makes it easier to assemble our prison lock. Two mana is not a large investment, and I think there is a lot of upside to running 1 of these.
Yes, I have read this thread. I have watched a lot of videos. I have read responses on Reddit. The problem with all the ways to deal with cryptic decks are just band-aids. Cards like Declaration of Naught don't actually help you win the game. Reactive decks have lots of different possible cards we need ways to deal with. The reactive decks are built to go long. Thrun, the Last Troll stomps cryptic decks, because they can't interact with it on the stack or in play and it wins the game. Control decks are a very real threat in the current meta, so ways to deal with them are necessary. I know [G][G] is a large ask, but I think this deck has a lot of flexibility in its mana the splashes which can be used.
For getting the artifacts that we need, it's not just about getting one bridge or crucible. It's about getting all of the cards that we need, which is quite a few. It's not clear what the optimal number of tutors is, which is why I said that maybe more tutors should be considered.
I would say the deck has "some" tools against Tron, not "a lot." The main issue is that some disruption not backed up by a clock or a lock is a recipe for losing against Tron. They have a wide array of threats which need to be dealt with, and it's hard to find the proper ones in time. Yes, Bribery is not fast. But it's a card that is very likely to win the game. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is indestructible, and cannot be stopped by oblivion stone like you say. Karn is their only out.
So, when I say "want to end the game with land destruction," I mean not in the literal sense that this is actually what I do. But rather, with crucible this is my favorite type of line to take. I identify that it's too slow, so I don't do it if I can't profit from it.
For Necrogen Spellbomb I said anything except instants. You can repeatedly activate it in their draw step by recurring it with ruins. This limits them to the handsize they currently have.
I literally say Nephalia Drownyard is probably bad, and somehow you seem to think I'm suggesting this is for sure a card the deck needs. There's a very real upside in having the ability to mill from 4 cards a turn to 7 cards a turn, since you have a way to end the game almost twice as fast as before.
Again, discussion is about ideas. Not everything is going to be great, but without innovation and change, nothing gets better. I'm hardly changing the core deck by wanting to change a few cards in the list.
4 mox opal is too much. They're useful, but frequently come online relatively late. And drawing multiple has hurt me so much more vs. just having more land. I think the deck wants only 2-3 opals, with 1-2 extra lands in their place.
1 chalice of the void is the most you want in the maindeck. We have lots of CMC we care about (0 for jar, 1 for map, 2 for spyglass, 3 for bridge). Witchbane can lock out burn, so I don't think chalice actually has much purpose.
Maindeck Tormod's Crypt is awful. It's a sideboard card. It's especially redundant with Grafdigger's Cage.
I've been trying Search for Azcanta in this deck. I think it's pretty useful. We have a lot of conditional cards and a lot of high value ones too.
Ensnaring Bridge and Crucible of Worlds are so important. It may be worth playing more tutors. Maybe Fabricate or Trophy Mage even.
Cryptic command decks are a very serious problem for this deck. I'm very tempted to run green for maybe Ancient stirrings in the maindeck and Thrun, the Last Troll in the sideboard. Thrun thrashes the cryptic decks.
I think the deck wants at least one pithing needle. There seems to be a nonzero number of times where you want to whir for X=1. 4 spyglass between main and side seems excessive.
Tron is a horrible matchup. We're just too slow to impact them. Even if you get a ghost quarter, we can't usually back it up with anything else. For this reason, I feel like it's okay to just not really worry about the matchup. You can't beat everything in Modern. But if you do want a card, I think Bribery is your best option. You need something which actually wins the game vs. them, not just slows them down.
I always want to end the game by trying to mana lock people out of the game, but that never seems to work due to just being too slow. It's sometimes hard to predict all the ways people have as outs for the game too. I'm almost tempted to include Nephalia Drownyard alongside Ipnu Rivulet to speed up the end game clock. It is costly as an uncolored source though. We can easily run River of Tears for no downside to have the black when we need it. Probably bad though.
On the matter of black, Necrogen Spellbomb seems like a neat way to lock people out of playing anything except instants.
Snapcaster mage can be useful early as a 2/1 body, and has utility as the game goes longer. It's nice to have against control too.
When looking at mill, the considerations for cards are how many total cards are milled (card efficiency) vs. their cost (mana efficiency). In this regard, Archive Trap is the best on both accounts. With Field of Ruin available for forced shuffling, I was curious how building around this might look. Here's a first draft that I came up with:
4 Archive Trap
4 Trapmaker's Snare
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Fraying Sanity
3 Hedron Crab
3 Mesmeric Orb
// The rest
3 Visions of Beyond
4 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
2 Profane Memento
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Echoing Truth
4 Field of Ruin
4 Tolaria West
2 Island
4 Ipnu Rivulet
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Profane Memento
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
4 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
I know that this is relatively far from the established norm, and this is more about considering a new type of concept. I've been playing the build a bit, and it has the potential for much faster wins compared to standard builds, even having to pay mana for your spells. For example, T2: Find archive trap, T3: Fraying insanity, T4: Field of ruin + Find another archive trap and win.
White is included instead of black for path, which gives more shuffle effects. Although nobody will search once they know what you're up to. But I think it's probably reasonable (and maybe better) to run black for the classic Glimpse the unthinkable and Crypt Incursion.
Finding search effects is quite important, which is why the inclusion of the 4 tolaria wests. They can sure be clunky at times, but they're necessary for a build like this.
I'm really unsure on Mesmeric Orb. I included it since it feels like one of the better spells vs. control or decks with discard. But maybe it's just mediocre. I'm also even unsure about hedron crab in a build like this. Archive trap does so many cards in one go that the mill from crab frequently doesn't matter.
I included Ipnu because I had many games where I seemed to flood out, so I think it helps keep your consistency while also giving you options later.
Again, I stress that this is more a concept list. When reading I didn't see much discussion of heavy merchant scroll and trapmaker's snare lists, so I thought it was worth bringing up.
Play of the night was against UW control. I had a ballista on 3 and a wurmcoil, with him at 10 and a wall of omens in play. End of turn I pump ballista, going to 1 mana open. He responds with cryptic command on my wurmcoil. Knowing that I wanted tempo and not to tap out next turn, I dismembered my wurmcoil and shot it with ballista to kill it. This got me two tokens, and countered the draw from his cryptic command.
I haven't played against control since field of ruin, but it makes those matchups so much harder for us. We actually are forced to play fair games of Magic against them. The UW deck actually had 4 spreading seas and 4 field of ruin.
Another trick is Drown in Sorrow, since creatures just go away if they're at 0 or negative toughness. Though it's less good against multiple lords.