You're welcome :). My very first post on these forums was in this topic with a report of GP madrid (post #370 of the topic) which mentions some technical details. Looking at that list, it's quite similar to my current list except that I now play 1 fatestitcher and land more (a fetch currently, might become a dual) instead of silence 2 and 3 and the cantrips were slightly different with more wisps and no pact or revival or anticipate (obviously). To be honest, I think anticipate is a clear 4 off in the current meta because it dodges chalice on 1 and best digs to a wish to get an answer to it. Same reason why I think going below 4 caryatid is bad. Even though it's not hard to win through a chalice on one (if that's all they have), you do need mana dorks out before they do or you can only cast caryatid or unearth fatestitcher.
I read that CoCo apparently has a fairly good matchup against the new eldrazi decks, as well as against burn and infect, so they are probably going to be a reasonable % of the meta. This means you do need an answer to infinite life. Given that I don't play thought scour, wheel of sun and moon isn't an option to mill them out. We can still use it to generate infinite mana and then cast something like villainous wealth to mill them out, but then that requires 2 slots and 2 wishes. It could also be done without the wheel, but that requires a lot of mana which will probably be tricky to achieve with only 2 fatestitchers. Will have to test that.
@Arkaedrian
You have 6 free spells and 3 wisps to get to 2 mana and manamorphose also requires 2 to first be cast. I agree that manamorphose does help to cast more 2 mana spells. A pity that having one in the sideboard doesn't do much as you can't wish for it when you need it hehe.
Lastly, what is the idea behind your mana base? Specifically, 2 lands that don't cast mana dorks and no basic?
It's been a while since I played this deck, but now the meta is warped completely to a fairly interaction-less field of Eldrazi, Affinity and Infect with little BGx and not even that much burn to speak of, this deck seems a pretty great choice. The super fast birds/nobles wish version, that is. Basically, if bolts are not as popular and the terrible matchup BGx (I don't know who you're kidding when you consider BGx anything but the worst possible matchup, even burn is 'better' because you can race anything but eidolon and they don't actually have all that many bolts for your birds) isn't either, then this should be good. It has to be more focussed on comboing because of lacking the value-cruise (ideas unbound isn't exactly value pre-combo..) but other than that, not much changes from the pre-cruise ban lists.
I've played this deck quite a bit, in all kinds of incarnations, so I'd also like to chip in with my vision of how this deck should be built:
The plan to win is simple: accelerate to ascendancy and chain cantrips until you can kill them.
The way to lose is: getting heavily disrupted (aka BGx), locked out (Blood Moon, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Chalice of the Void), running out of cards in hand to profitably loot, being too slow and fizzling when it's do or die time. Currently, the only thing I'm a bit worried about from that list is chalice but if everyone is gunning for Eldrazi, then UR eldrazi seems the best eldrazi deck and they don't run that many chalices.
Now you may think that version x of this deck 'doesn't fizzle' despite all the ‘flexible cards’ or that 'infinite combo y' is awesome, but you have to keep in mind you're trying to combo in the face of disruption (if not, it’s a straight race or easy win, both of which are fine situations to be in with this deck), which generally means you'll be down on cards and mana (dorks) when you have an opening to go for it. I've very often had to combo with only 1 dork out to start with (or discard fatestitcher in the process) and 1 card to spare for looting and then you basically die when you have to suffer card disadvantage or hit too many 2 drops or cards that don't do anything. Therefore, Faithless Looting, cute non-cantrips and cards that don't do anything before winning simply have no place in this deck unless they answer specific problems, such as Silence.
Silence is great because they have to either do something impressive right now, or they're locked out and have to watch you combo out, even when you’re bluffing. Also, it stops a crucial sorcery-speed spell when played on their upkeep, protects your ascendancy played after silence, stops counterspells and ‘counters’ living end and UR storm (play in response to Past in Flames, usually). Fail-case is that it triggers ascendancy for -1 card in hand or sort-of time walks them. It even has the upside of being able to say "Silence, I kill you" and have them scoop in the face of bad jokes and long combos ;).
Another great card I like a lot in this deck is Slaughter Pact. This is both a free spell to start the combo and a main deck fast answer to problems such as Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Eidolon of the Great Revel, etc. Worst case scenario is shooting your own dork to start/continue the combo or being uncastable, but the upsides easily make up for that 1 unlikely scenario in this meta.
Lastly, Noxious Revival seems worth it to be free spell #6 that can get back something good (ideas unbound, ascendancy) both pre combo and while comboing. Being able to put ascendancy back on top end of their turn when tapped out is pretty nice, though you want to board it out in a grindy matchup where you’re likely to go down in cards in hand a lot before being able to combo.
So when building the deck, I’d always have 1 each of those, 4 Glittering Wish and 3 Jeskai Ascendancy. As for creatures, Birds of Paradise is the best mana dork because it costs 1, makes all colors of mana and flies. Other options are Noble Hierarch, Sylvan Caryatid and Fatestitcher. Nobles are birds 5-8 and having a turn 1 accelerator is pretty key, so I’d at least run 2. Caryatids make a reasonable blocker and are fairly guaranteed to live, but cost 2. Getting away with a 2 drop accelerator is much easier when you also have 6 1 drops, so I’d still run 4. Lastly, fatestitcher is insane when comboing, allows to combo out of nowhere, completely taps out the opponent and can still be cast for 4 to tap down attackers to buy time (you wouldn’t believe how many games I’ve won that way..). On the other hand they’re very clunky in hand, so 2 are enough to be able to find one when you go for it. You can also go for a more self-mill version that runs 4, but there’s a limit to how many lands/creatures you can run so I wouldn’t want to run more than 8 combined noble/fatestitcher/caryatid. When comboing every cantrip you cast sees 2 cards at the very least, so if half your deck is a cantrip, every cantrip should find you a new one on average.
So, speaking of cantrips: the best blue cmc 1 cantrips available are obviously Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand and Gitaxian Probe, so those are auto-includes. Other cantrips all have their up- and downsides. Thought Scour costs 1 and is instant, but doesn't offer any selection and without a specific graveyard interaction, the milling also isn't very relevant. I've played versions that do care a lot, but those aren't fast enough in my opinion and also weak to graveyard hate. Just 2 fatestitchers to profitably mill when you already have ideas unbound doesn’t look like incentive enough. There is another case to be made for thought scour, which is the combo kill with Wheel of Sun and Moon and another cantrip to mill someone out who can’t be killed with damage (infinite life combo from abzan company, for example). However, you could probably also play some multi-color singleton for this rather than playing main deck thought scour + wheel side. Cerulean Wisps also costs 1 and is instant, and it adds a mana. When you combo with 1 dork and want to cast ideas unbound, this is pretty important and a big difference with Manamorphose which, while also being ‘free’ requires 2 mana. When you’re already at 2, you probably don’t need the extra mana anymore, but when you’re at 1, you definitely do. Twisted Image is like the others but instead has the upside of potentially killing opposing 0/x creatures. It also has the downside of being uncastable as cantrip if you're the only one with creatures out and no ascendancy in play. The worst-case scenario of being an actual dead card is pretty bad so the upside has to be pretty high to justify it. Generally, you want to play your own bird t1 rather than kill theirs (except in the mirror on the draw, perhaps, but I don't consider the mirror to be very likely) and spellskite doesn't really stop you except when you're forced to go off with Fatestitcher, which you can also solve by wishing for an answer. Quicken allows you to end of turn cast a glittering wish, but this is pretty much magical Christmas land. I’ve played some tournaments with 2 quicken and I never actually did anything other than simply cantrip with it. It’s too mana intensive to actually do that with Wish and if you have Serum Visions or Sleight, you probably just cast them in case you draw a land or creature to play. Visions of Beyond, while appearing to be Ancestral Recall, is basically a 1 mana instant cantrip that, even when trying really hard with thought scour and such, rarely draws 3. Sure, when it does and you resolve your first, you basically win the game, but it’s much more likely to hit 2 mana for ideas unbound than it is to have 20 cards in the gy by the time you cast this. Not to mention this gets wrecked by a Relic of Progenitus badly and even Scavenging Ooze makes it pretty unlikely to work.
In order to significantly increase your chances to win you need to be able to expand your hand for profitable looting and to reliably draw into multiple spells, so you need Ideas Unbound (and Scarscale Ritual in the sideboard). I don’t think going below 4 ideas is wise because you need it quite badly and it’s not even the worst to just cast it to sculpt your hand or to dig for land/anything to set up the combo next turn.
This leaves some room for other spells, like Manamorphose or Anticipate. Here, I like anticipate quite a bit because it digs you to what you need much more efficiently than manamorphose, works better to keep going and is blue. The main advantage to manamorphose is being able to play through blood moon, but blood moon shouldn’t really beat this deck unless it’s very fast, due to all the mana dorks (and a basic island). Sideboard Swan Songs can also answer blood moon.
Basically, the deck should be land, combo dorks and spells that work both with the combo and to find the combo with very few exceptions. I'll be looking to test something like this in a small scale tournament next week and hopefully a bigger one the week after, before attending GP Bologna:
Because leyline is good against both BGx and burn, I think it’s worth the slots. It also has some applications against other decks that like to target you (gifts decks that also run discard, for example) and you can cast/loot them so it’s not completely dead beyond the opening hand either. The targets are fairly standard except Abzan Charm, which I found to be a nice way to answer problematic big creatures or as draw-2 #2 when comboing. Flesh//Blood I’m not so sure about, but with only 2 fatestitchers and no way to give haste, it’s possible attacking for the win might not work out. This probably depends on whether I find other options to be more compelling and how likely it is I side out the fatestitchers. It also allows you to use fatestitchers to tap out the opponent and then kill them in the 2nd main phase.
Lastly, the mana base. Because you really need 1-2 lands to be able to function at all, I don’t want to go below 16 land. Basic island gives you a basic that casts cantrips and ascendancy through blood moon, gives you a target for Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter and saves on some damage you take (this deck really murders itself). All duals have to be able to cast ascendancy, glittering wish and 1 drop mana dorks as you prioritize those turn 1 and already have a basic island that can only cast cantrips t1 (rarely a keep when you have only basic island in your opener). The 1 mana confluence allows you to combo with fatestitcher alone in some awkward spots (I actually once played a game where I had Island, Breeding Pool and Mana Confluence after a gemstone mine died...) That mana base is actually the same as what I ran in GP Madrid 2014, but it may not be great with the land hate running around now. Can't really imagine anyone wants to GQ us early in the game with mana dorks out, though.
The idea was to have a burn approach and maximize prowess/abbot, so no counterspells main. Atarka's Command is pretty insane in this deck, allowing for fairly easy T3 wins (provided you have 2 creatures out by t2). Unfortunately I had some abysmal draws, both screwing and flooding out in games, but in general the observations were these: Delver is bad in this deck and Abbot is not worth it.
- Delver is bad because it's horribly inconsistent. I've played Delver decks before and even with this many spells, it doesn't flip way too often to consider it a 1 mana 3/2 flying. In more traditional Delver that's ok because you have more control elements and aren't trying to win by T4 like burn, but here it's just a terrible 1/1 too often. It costing blue also made the mana pretty awkward.
- Abbot is nice, but too late (needs land drops too much). Sometimes you run it out T2 just to add a creature to the board but its failrate on T3+ was too high to use as card advantage. The issue is that with so many spells that cost either U or R and not wanting to play land (or being able to), it's easy to screw yourself out of being able to play whatever you flip.
I still liked the sort-of-burn approach, though, so I swapped out Delver for Goblin Guide and Abbot for an even split of Young Pyromancer and Snapcaster Mage. Snapping back Atarka's Command might be my next favorite thing after Cryptic Command ;). The advantages of Snappy are obvious, of course, and it basically seems a better version of Abbot in most situations. Pyromancer similarly has great synergy with the deck and gives an option of going wide against spot removal decks. The mana base changed to -1 Island, -2 Misty -1 Breeding Pool, +1 Stomping Ground, +2 Wooded Foothills, +1 Steam Vents. I'll be testing this version this Thursday.
I realize this makes the deck not UR Delver anymore, but because I saw people discussing the idea of a burn approach, it seemed useful to post here anyway. I normally play Burn in Modern, so I'm trying to figure out whether this deck is better than burn (especially sideboarded). For now I'd still play burn in a serious tournament for sure though.
Game 3: My opening hand is: Surgical Extraction, Chalice of the Void, Egg, Tron Piece, Ghost Quarter, Grove of the Burnwillows, Thragtusk. I can't find any additional Tron pieces, he wrecks one of my lands with Fulminator Mage - I surgical it after I resolved a Chalice of the Void (I tried to resolve another one... but you can't because it's countered due to having zero converted manacost... oeps, my bad!). On his turn he wrecks the Chalice with an Ingot Chewer - he passes the turn I find a second tron piece and have to pass over the turn with 4 mana up. On his turn he cycles a fatty and goes off, 9 power on the board, my turn I can't find the 5th land for Thragtusk and have to pass, he swings... oke deck, GIVE ME SOMETHING! Pass and yet again a whiff (oh, hello, Ulamog!).. no land. Pass and he swings with Violent outburst for exacties...
The second Chalice play probably costed me the game, not hitting any additional land didn't help of course but the Chalice could have postponed the game a bit. The Living End player also had a Beast Within in hand for the second Chalice so in the end the outcome would have been pretty much the same - it's just sloppy play (something that happens when you never play with Chalices).
Any questions let me know!
Thanks for the write-up :). Sucks to hear Chalice is becoming a thing again :(. However, I have a question about that. If I read your report correctly, you resolved a chalice on 0 first and then tried to cast another one for (presumably) x>1, right? If so, that should not have gotten countered. On the stack, x is not zero for cmc, but the actual value used so unless you tried to cast a chalice for 1 after resolving one for 2, it should not have been countered.
After seeing Stormchaser Mage at the prerelease I was wondering whether there was a deck with it and even though a friend correctly reminded me that Treasure Cruise is, in fact, still banned, I feel bad for Islands since twin got banned so I thought of ways to still make it work. Here's what I've come up with so far, dubbing it UR Prowess. Because it has Delver, I'll post it here, though perhaps it really should have its own thread because it's not really looking to play like delver (disrupt while beating down with delver) and more like burn:
I imagine the sideboard could include tools to go to more towards control with pyromancer, blood moon and counterspells. Obviously 18 lands is a bit light for blue moon control with Keranos and cryptics and such.
I didn't include any counterspells in the main because it doesn't play well with Abbot and I'm looking to be a proactive burn deck g1 when they're not loaded up on removal and such yet. Basically, burn has a great g1 vs almost anything and then people bring in the hate, making it quite a bit tougher usually (I play naya, non-nacatl burn normally). This version has card advantage, reach, evasion and a backup (side) plan of switching tactics completely. I also stuck to as many 1-drops/spells as possible to maximize abbot, except searing blaze because that one is clearly awesome (and an easy card to side in matchups where we'd prefer control cards, like combo). I'm only a bit torn on Rift Bolt as even though it works well with prowess and is flexible (kill t1 birds, fx), it plays poorly with abbot's ability. It could become Lava Spike but that card is really one dimensional. Could also cut the bolts and add green for Atarka's Command. Lastly, missing Eidolon of the Great Revel is obviously an issue in plenty matchups but there's no way I can run that with non-damaging spells like serum visions in the deck.
Well, many options, that's for sure. Any thoughts?
Back with some news guys. This deck DEFINITIVELY deserves more attention. Every combo deck we can meet is a bye (Bloom, Living End, Ad Nauseam and other stuff that has not much interaction), and also aggro decks are good matchups. We just lose to very interactive decks (BGx over all), but Young Pyromancer is the real deal. It's incredible if we have Ascendancy on the field, and it's just good when we don't. That card advantage puts us in a real good position to either take time to assemble a fatestitcher kill or a aggro-win. Unfortunately, the biggest problem of the deck remains real: once we are on hellbent, we are dead. Still can't understand why this deck isn't even considered.
p.s. with a proper construction of the deck, it's impossible to fizzle if we have a decent start. 4 ideas unbound are just too powerful, it's just a 2cmc Treasure cruise that doesn't need GY at all (hey, this can even get fatestichers in there too!)
I wouldn't say every combo deck is a bye. I've played against UR storm and bloom titan and they're quite capable of just comboing out faster because we don't always have a T2 or 3 combo. I recently played in a 6 round tournament (in which I ran quite poorly :/) and played against bloom titan and easily beat him, but mainly because he ended up being slow with poor hands/mulligans while I was drawing fine/above average. Silence after bloom is a thing, but other than that they can also just combo us out t2 (or 1 even). I brought in my pyromancers quite often and they were almost always killed on the spot. I could never set up many triggers on the pyromancer because I had fairly horrible draws and unlucky thoughtseizes (right after I sleight into ascendancy, fx). Exactly because going low on cards is so bad, I don't want to run faithless looting. I did flood out horribly in some games this tournament, but that's not quite as common as getting run out of cards. I actually combo'd off against a BUG player with an active liliana thanks to have 1 extra card in hand to be able to loot rather than mill.
Anyway, the deck is not super popular because of Burn and BGx, as Lord Hazanko also mentioned. In the tournament I played there were 6 burn players in a field of 43 people and I was lucky enough not to get paired against one, but it would have been pretty miserable, of course. So I played against Grixis control R1 (loss). G1 horrible flood, g3 I decided to take less dmg by going for a 2nd caryatid rather than mana confluence from sleight and got angered the turn before I could safely combo :().
R2 against mono green stompy (win). You'd think this is an easy matchup but I ended up flooding out horribly game 1 (starting to feel pretty bad at this point). G2 he showed me a hand of 4 forest, kalonian hydra, Mutant's Prey and eternal witness so I easily combo'd him out T3. Then G3 I was desperately looking for an ascendancy while he presented a fairly quick clock. The last possible turn I went ideas unbound, finding ascendancy and playing it to combo out exactly usinga probe for 2 life. I had plenty of outs there (wish, ascendancy, cantrips into ascendancy) but it was still quite possible to just lose.
R3 against Esper Mentor (loss). He went T3 thoughtseize take my ascendancy after I just got it into snap thoughtseize a turn or 2 later to take my freshly found wish. Sigh. These thoughtseizes :/. Even then it was fairly close and I could have topdecked my way out of it, but didn't. G2 I am going down in cards fast thanks to discard but still have 1 wish. He scours 2 lingering souls into his gy and later, after some dileberation, delves them away to play tasigur. I have 7 mana at this point and figure Sigarda can race him, provided that he doesn't find a new lingering souls, but he does.
R4 against BUG control (win). This was fairly interesting to win despite getting disrupted a lot. Raven's crime, liliana and decay on my first ascendancy put me to 2 cards in hand, 2 land in play and a fatestitcher in my gy after untapping and drawing. I kept a Sleight after his last liliana activation which chained me into ideas unbound and easy comboing after that. G2 I had a pyromancer, which he golgari charmed in reponse to me trying to combo, but I could go infinite with sprout swarm and mill him out via wheel of sun and moon.
R5 vs Grixis Delver (loss). He has T1 delver into blind flip in all 3 games. G1 on the play I could easily take it because I had the T3 combo, but G2 he snares my caryatid and can't get much going while he's clocking me. I should perhaps have run out 1 of the pyromancers in hand first, but I was going to miss my 3rd land drop. G3 I misplay by topdecking ascendancy and therefore not wishing for a 2nd (took guttural response instead) so I got owned by a thoughtseize. My reasoning was poor because getting 2nd ascendancy protects against both 1 counter Or 1 thoughtseize whereas the response only protects against 1 counter. Due to the delver I have no time and die.
R6 vs bloom titan (win). He plays a bit of an odd version with eldrazi in his deck, which is good for me. He ends up mulling once and twice in g1 and 2 into unplayable hands (thanks in part to his eldrazi) while I combo off easily.
I never faced blood moon (the grixis players both didn't play in a way that led me to believe that they had it) so Manamorphose mainly cycled for me and once generated mana to kickstart infinite sprout swarming. Maybe 8 manadorks is good enough to not care too much about blood moon, but without manamorphose, getting caught by blood moon without a manadork + island in play, I'm basically just dead. That manamorphose costs 2 is pretty annoying when trying to start to combo, but being otherwise 'free' makes it a fine card to have.
I think the main reason why this deck isn't played more is because it essentially auto loses to Burn, and even more so BGx. Playing against BGx is just the most miserable experience. They hate you from every single angle. I don't know if i've ever won a match against them. Now that Jund is more popular, there is seriously no hope.
Anyway, I still play the deck a lot because it's a super fun deck, and I just love playing oddball combo way too much.
My list is a bit different than what i'm seeing on here though, so ill post it for reference.
So right off the bat, some of the things different here:
More manadorks: I just really like having the exra dorks to more consistently have 1 or 2 in my opening hand. It makes exploding into your combo faster, and lets you eat a few bolts easier.
No Manamorphose: there is just no point in playing that card. Took it out ages ago, and rarely, if ever fizzle. You just don't need it.
No Thought Scour: Thought Scour is fine, but if your not playing Visions of Beyond, I don't see a point for it. You're just putting yourself at risk of binning an Ascendancy, and rarely get lucky enough to been a Stitcher. IMO they just don't do enough, and have a possibility of actually just screwing you up, more than helping.
4 Ideas Unbound, and 4 Anticipate: Both of these cards have been priceless additions to the deck for me. Both before and during the combo. Ideas gives you a way to dig hard through your deck pre combo, and to bin Stitchers. And while your comboing, it's basically just a 2 mana Treasure Cruise. Anticipate fills a similar role, of digging for whatever you need pre combo, be it dorks, Ascendancy, a wish, sideboard cards, whatever, and doing a fine job of finding sufficient gas mid combo as well.
Any particular reason why you play a 3/3 split of 1 mana dorks? I'd say birds are strictly better because they make all colors of mana and fly. I won a game in the tournament because my only non-defender creature without summoning sickness was a birds that could fly over his blocker (no fatestitchers left in the deck).
Manamorphose isn't there to prevent fizzling, imho, it's there to not lose to blood moon, dig and occasionally build mana while comboing. The only thing I dislike is it costing 2.
I disagree about thought scour. Milling random cards of the top makes it more likely you find ascendancy because the chances you mill cards other than ascendancy are much bigger. Additional upside is milling fatestitcher for which you have no other way on a particular turn. It's a pretty common play to serum visions scry a fatestitcher on top and then mill it with scour so the mill isn't even always random. You could run noxious revival as an additional 0 mana play that gets stuff back for more synergy.
I could see anticipate being ok, but costing 2 I don't like. Mana is usually tight when under pressure and can easily lose you the game because you can't start. It's probably a better fit with more manadorks like you run, but when those get bolted/pyroclasmed you're really in a hole.
I agree with you, Lord Hazanko. Vanish is just overcosted and mostly redundant when you already have ritual available, though I've definitely run into situation where a 2nd draw spell to wish for would be nice. In that regard, I actually figured Abzan Charm might be a nice wish option that is basically a split card exile linvala or draw 2 (replacing Fiery Justice. There's even the cornercase scenario in which the counters make something large enough to survive bolt in response (yeah, that was far-fetched :P).
The issues are that under linvala, there are only 4 lands that produce black + the manamorphoses and the lose 2 life when drawing cards could be painful in a deck that is already bleeding life left and right. Exiling is pretty nice, though, and almost everything big and scary has 3+ power. Those that don't probably die to Abrupt Decay (like ooze) so that's covered as well. The only thing it doesn't cover, that fiery justice does cover, is a board of Scavenging Ooze + Qasali Pridemage + Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, which is definitely not unheard of (though also not very common). Fortunately, even that board can be overcome with just decay because the only thing that really has to die is pridemage.
I've been fishing with this list a bit and I really like it. The Ideas Unbound have been awesome (I used to play only 1, with 4 Visions of Beyond) and easy to cast with 4 birds in the deck. I think that makes Ideas the correct choice mainly (birds), because mana is much less a concern than a version with just Sylvan Caryatid and Fatestitcher. I also like it a lot that this deck doesn't really care all that much about its GY. Sure, fatestitchers are great, but not strictly needed. Against BGx I would also side all stitchers out in favor of the pyromancers to make any GY hate dead (though most of that hate is probably in the form of Ooze, so not really dead).
I cut 1 manamorphose because when fishing, I literally never needed it and costing 2 can be the difference between starting up the combo and not. Of course this card shines when you do get disrupted and is essential against Blood Moon so I only cut 1 for the 2nd Silence. Silence is a great maindeck way to stop almost all disruption on your combo turn while not being completely dead when comboing (costs 1 and triggers ascendancy) and it's one of the best ways to deal with the answers of BGx (upkeep silence against discard, pre-ascendancy silence to stop decay) and randomly hoses UR Storm and Living End.
From the side I'm interested in seeing how pyromancer + Sprout Swarm will work out as it gives a load of tokens (infinite with ascendancy at some point) which should be good against BGx. Swarm can be discarded, but beyond that it's pretty good value. I'm also playing Sigarda to overload them. The last threat they can't answer will kill them. Wheel is there to not die to infinite life, which is a thing again these days. It also allows you to win in your 2nd main after tapping them out with fatestitchers and can circumvent the combat step against Deflecting Palm. All wishable cards in the side are either combo-enabling (ascendancy, ritual) or high-impact answers to problems. Whether Reunion is good enough against burn is doubtful, but often 1 turn is the difference between life and death and this version is fast enough. G2 I will probably side out the birds so that makes it less good, but then it might be correct to just board it in so you don't have to wish first.
Lastly, the manabase is built such that all my fetches can get all lands with basic land types (very important to be able to get the basic island for both life and blood moon reasons) and is looking to fix all mana in lands by turn 2, unless life is a huge concern and I aim to play a T2 caryatid anyway, then I might go for island into stomping ground.
Faithless looting is only good when you actively want certain cards in your graveyard, like in grishoalbrand. This is not the case here (at all) and I would much rather cast Serum Visions or Sleight of Hand to set up my next turns. In modern you can't throw cards away without real gain or you get buried by attrition decks like BGx. Not even UR Storm runs faithless looting over Desperate Ravings, because it's strictly card disadvantage and even the possibility of discarding Past in Flames is not good enough to run it. Sure, some lists do, but the pros don't and when asked (once asked Jensen about this in the comments of his CFB article on it) the reason is precisely that.
I started posting in the Blue Moon topic with this list because that's much more what this deck is trying to do with tutelage. Mill is the eventual wincon with the option of being fast (with Swans) and not the necessity, so there's no place for do-nothing cards like Hedron Crab and such. Spite could be nice, but it being sorcery makes it unplayable, imho. Looting does become better with spite because then there's some value in discarding instants/sorceries, but in the current version I prefer skred and no looting.
True, looting has upsides, but so does scour :). Best about scour is being able to EoT scour into milling a stitcher and comboing off out of nowhere, or being able to string together instants in response to Abrupt Decay to build mana or sculpt your hand to re-combo. Best of looting is T1 draw good stuff discard sticher(s) or cast/flashback looting to turn dead cards into gas while comboing.
Without something like Visions of Beyond to power up, scour is not at peak performance, of course, but I still like it as a cantrip above looting because I prefer to prepare for the worst case scenario which involves disruption. If I don't get disrupted, it's basically irrelevant which spells you cast as you will easily combo. When they do disrupt you, it's pretty painful to go down on cards and eventually be forced to combo off without being able to profitably loot. In all games I've ever played with the deck, not being able to combo comfortably due to small hand size has made me fizzle Way, WAY more often than bricking on a ton of land/dorks. This is also not surprising because the latter scenario suggests you've drawn many cards and were unlucky enough to hit clumps of land/creatures rather than spells, which is not as likely as hitting even 1 serum visions, sleight, ideas unbound or wish (to get ritual), which almost guarantees you won't fizzle.
I think that Ideas Unbound over Visions is solid because it's always a draw 3 and doesn't get hit by splash gy hate. Hitting 20 cards in the bin has always been a little bit tricky and really hard with any kind of GY hate going on. I didn't run Manamorphose in my last list, so I have some cuts to make, hehe. Definitely a bit painful to also work in Silence, though 1 maindeck could be good enough.
I've tried Quicken before (which is an easy cut in my list, come to think of it) because it's a nice idea on paper, but it never panned out for me. I don't think I've ever cast a sorcery at instant speed with it and it takes a very specific scenario for it to be good. Something like EoT wish into ascendancy into combo, but this isn't even really broken or anything because you could also just topdeck ascendancy and combo so they can't tap out anyway. It could also help cast instant Serum visions or something in reponse to removal, but this also seems rather corner case (and would imply you should build your whole deck to have as many instants as possible anyway). It's a solid 'meh' from me :p.
I think YP is most likely pretty good against BGx tbh. It forces them to spend removal on it rather than ascendancy because they also can't deal with a ton of tokens that eat liliana or chump goyf all day long. With ascendancy it's a quick kill, of course. Pretty excited to try that out instead of the high variance leylines.
I chose deprive over the rest because I wanted a (fairly cheap) hard counter that doesn't cost UUU. The problem with remand and leak is that they become dead in the late game (as in, actually stopping someone from resolving something) which you pretty much inevitably will reach. In Twin, remand is much better because it draws you to your combo while disrupting them, but I'm not so sure it's good here. To be honest, I actually was inspired by old blue moon lists to go for deprive. Being able to cast it T2 is nice (against combo, fx) but I don't intend to normally. The draw on remand is tempting, of course, but I'm not convinced that a little synergy is worth it here.
Izzet charm always seems awesome on paper but I agree it's never actually awesome (well, unless it counters something like liliana or loots away dead blood moons/lands). Maybe 1 is enough (I had 4 in a previous list, which was definitely overkill) but the synergy with swans, tutelage and blood moon (which is definitely not great in all matchups or even all games of good matchups) make me want to run 2.
Grim instead of jace is a thought, for sure, but with 4 bolt, 4 skred, 2 izzet charm, dismember, harvest pyre, electrolyze and anger, what is supposed to survive :P? Jace has synergy with tutelage, provides a 5th snapcaster effect and provides card advantage in general (as planeswalker) with the ultimate also being relevant. I'd try him out before dismissing him :).
Maybe the games were atypical against grixis control, but I felt pretty good in the matchup, to be honest. They can barely deal with tutelage and we can easily deal with their creatures. Just make sure to counter any (snap) command and they lose so many cards due to lack of targets for their removal that it's not too hard to grind them out. Blood moon can also get them. Just be careful with your swans. If they go bolt into terminate while you get 0 value, you're in trouble.
I've also been posting in the Mill topics but this deck feels much more like Blue Moon than dedicated mill, so I'll try my luck here. This is the list that I won an FNM with:
I've not had the heart to test this in something other than FNM (I play URb twin in PPTQs and such these days) but my last outing felt pretty good, drawing with Grixis control (bit unlucky to get mana screwed game 2, the matchup felt good) and beating Titanshift and UR twin. This list is not all-in on disrupting mana, it's more about control with the option of screwing the mana or outright ruining their deck. I like Sphinx's Tutelage here because it is a very light wincon that isn't even completely useless by itself (it loots) and works well with the rest of the deck that tries to make the game go long. Being an enchantment also makes it fairly hard to remove for most decks. The snow mana base with skred allows for a good answer to big creatures, doesn't cause much damage to oneself and combo's pretty nicely with Swans of Bryn Argoll. I've found that as long as you draw more cards than the opponent, it's ok for them to also draw cards. When tutelage is online, having them draw cards while milling them is fine, of course.
You typically need around 20 triggers for tutelage which is really not a lot when Skred is factored in, also because the proces of milling implies you're drawing cards. Because the deck is full of typical control cards, except tutelage, it's not a typical mill deck with tons of dead cards (i.e., dedicated mill cards that don't impact the board) and as such it plays pretty much like blue moon.
The mana base seems ok to me, except that there's a conflict between getting cryptic online and fetching only snow lands. It's impossible to have cryptic on T4 while also having double red for anger or double/snap bolt/skred, so that means you either have to fetch the steam vents and have skred be slower, or have either cryptic or anger slower. What you go for depends on your hand and matchup, so this hasn't bothered me much yet. This does make me want to stick to only 1 cryptic, despite playing so many islands (and cryptic being awesome).
The tron matchup is aweful (I once went T3 blood moon into T4 sowing salt, on the play, and still lost) so that's why I have Bribery in addition to sowing salt. Fetching up their Emrakul when protected from a karn or o-stone should be game and also circumvents the whole shuffle-the-gy-back problem with milling them. Tron seems a horrible matchup for blue moon in general, so that isn't really specifically my list's weakness.
I'd play 4 thought scour over the lootings (blue, instant, cantrip and you already have 4 ideas unbound to discard fatestitcher from hand as setup) and cut the wisps for 4th sleight, but other than that it looks pretty solid. I've never tried 4 ideas unbound, don't they clog up your hand? I also don't like the forest very much (it doesn't cast ascendancy), but blood moon is a bit of an issue and you do have manamorphose.
The main problem with this deck is getting low on cards due to their removal/discard etc which makes comboing much harder. This is (one of the) reason(s) that BGx is such a tough matchup because they attack you from all angles (hand, board, gy). Before claiming this deck is insane and butchers all: test against BGx ;). Also, how did you win? Did you win through disruption or did they tap out at inopportune moments? It's really quite different when you have to fight through disruption, but because many people have no idea what you're doing (even if they know what you're playing), the deck can just beat up on ignorance rather than it really being good. I've played the deck a while and against people who know what's going on (especially when they're on BGx) it's really very hard to combo off. I've never tested young pyro vs BGx (always had leyline) but I can imagine it's much better over a long game and less all-in.
I really liked silence in a build with many manadorks so that you can be very fast and have mana for silence + ascendancy + start combo. This depends on your meta, though. If you run into tons of bolts and pyroclasms/angers then that's obviously not going to work out very well. Such a build also has to run quite few lands (15-16) so your opening hands are rough. The new mulligan rule will help a lot with that :D.
As for your last question: it depends. I normally board in an answer but also leave at least one in the side so that I can either cantrip my way to one or tutor one. This is particularly relevant against things like chalice (make sure you have an answer main, so it must be abrupt decay) or eidolon of the great revel (so that you can draw it and not die due to taking millions).
Last Thursday I played another FNM and actually won it :).
I played the deck as in my previous post with a few changes to the main deck:
-1 Swans, -1 Surgical, -1 Looting, -1 Pyroclasm; +1 Spell Snare, +1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, +1 Cryptic Command, +1 Electrolyze.
Sideboard:
-1 Cryptic, -1 Rending Volley, -1 Shatterstorm; +1 Bribery, +1 Vandalblast, +1 surgical extraction.
Round 1 I drew against Grixis control after winning game 1 handily (though slowly, as I couldn't find a tutelage for a while). Being able to kill 5 toughness delve creatures with ease proved key in the matchup (and countering kolaghan's commands) which made him run out of threats with tons of useless removal in hand. Unfortunately I kept a 2-lander game 2 and missed my 3rd land drop, which in the end made me just a hair too slow to keep up and avoid losing that game before time ran out.
Round 2 I played vs UR twin won 2-1. G1 he couldn't combo out because I could easily skred or counter his combo creatures while we were both discarding blood moons (pretty funny to do that 1 after another). In the end I ended up outdrawing him with my swans and milling him out.
G2 I had a very good hand but he had Keranos, which I couldn't counter with dispel, negate, etc. I think I might have had a chance had I landed a tutelage but I couldn't find one so he ground me out.
G3 he was stuck on 3 and when he was tapped low, I resolved my own Keranos which was pretty much game. He did go on and it even nearly became a draw until I could threaten to just turn on keranos and kill him, to which he scooped. I sided in Bribery in this matchup to steal Keranos but never saw it. On the one hand it's amazing to steal their keranos, on the other hand it's a bit risky vs Cryptic as it then just becomes a tutor for them. Clearly not something you can just run out t5 without protection. I had Vedalken Shackles in play which prevented him from comboing out or doing anything, really. In this game I also had Jace and flipped him. He flashed back some serum visions for me which was ok, but not insane. I do like him better than Swan #4 because that is just too clunky and I rarely want to tap out for swans T4 anyway so there's no rush to find one.
Round 3 vs Titanshift with prismatic omen. I mulled down to 5, he went to 6 g1. He then opened with steam vents into basic mountain, trying to cast izzet charm to loot. I spell snared that and topdecked a blood moon which I figured was going to be pretty strong. It indeed was as he never got non-red mana anymore in that game.
G2 I mess up trying to resolve my blood moon by not fetching before casting it and then in a sort of panic trying to fetch with the moon on the stack. This allowed him to easily counter the moon. Later I see that he has 2 swan songs in hand so that didn't matter perhaps, but it was still pretty bad. He tries to go for a titan, which I counter and surgically extract as I have no counters or removal in hand anymore. He immediately topdecks scapeshift and wins.
G3 I have full control after resolving Blood Moon 1 and 2. I sowing salt his valakuts and counter + luckily mill all his remaining titans, which leaves him with tribe elders and swan song tokens to kill me, which predictably didn't work.
I'm actually really starting to like this deck. I feel that Skred adds a lot to the deck by having a cheap instant that can kill almost anything, provided you get to land drop 4+. Before getting to the late game, the deck can counter or bolt early stuff and obviously blood moon wrecks decks left and right. I do have to test more vs BGx (especially Jund) and perhaps tron, though that isn't played all that much anyway.
Here is my Esper Mill that i have been playing in my local meta and online on cockatrice it has been performing extremely well.
Tron pre sideboard is a hard to near impossible win, and RDW is a 50/50 race 1st game and 2cd/3rd you have an edge.
any other aggro deck and you laugh because they are just too slow
Goyf/taigur are annoying decks to deal with, but if you play smart..
Path is beast and activates archive trap late game
Orb is a god vs tron/control decks.
and the reason behind both crypt/ravenous (crypt works if you have time and need the life, trap works vs low creature decks that you need there graveyard gone ASAP)
I have this weeks Modern Monday Update (3-1)
G/U Polymorph Emerkul (2-0, leyline/surgical own)
Jund 0-2 (first game close, second game mana screw)
Scapeshift/Valakut 2-0 (two easy fast wins)
Jund/junk? 2-1 (1st game close, 2cd/3rd game mind funerals made it a quick win)
Breaking//entering>Glimpse (cheaper to buy, cant be spell burst/spell snared)
I read that CoCo apparently has a fairly good matchup against the new eldrazi decks, as well as against burn and infect, so they are probably going to be a reasonable % of the meta. This means you do need an answer to infinite life. Given that I don't play thought scour, wheel of sun and moon isn't an option to mill them out. We can still use it to generate infinite mana and then cast something like villainous wealth to mill them out, but then that requires 2 slots and 2 wishes. It could also be done without the wheel, but that requires a lot of mana which will probably be tricky to achieve with only 2 fatestitchers. Will have to test that.
@Arkaedrian
You have 6 free spells and 3 wisps to get to 2 mana and manamorphose also requires 2 to first be cast. I agree that manamorphose does help to cast more 2 mana spells. A pity that having one in the sideboard doesn't do much as you can't wish for it when you need it hehe.
Lastly, what is the idea behind your mana base? Specifically, 2 lands that don't cast mana dorks and no basic?
I've played this deck quite a bit, in all kinds of incarnations, so I'd also like to chip in with my vision of how this deck should be built:
The plan to win is simple: accelerate to ascendancy and chain cantrips until you can kill them.
The way to lose is: getting heavily disrupted (aka BGx), locked out (Blood Moon, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Chalice of the Void), running out of cards in hand to profitably loot, being too slow and fizzling when it's do or die time. Currently, the only thing I'm a bit worried about from that list is chalice but if everyone is gunning for Eldrazi, then UR eldrazi seems the best eldrazi deck and they don't run that many chalices.
Now you may think that version x of this deck 'doesn't fizzle' despite all the ‘flexible cards’ or that 'infinite combo y' is awesome, but you have to keep in mind you're trying to combo in the face of disruption (if not, it’s a straight race or easy win, both of which are fine situations to be in with this deck), which generally means you'll be down on cards and mana (dorks) when you have an opening to go for it. I've very often had to combo with only 1 dork out to start with (or discard fatestitcher in the process) and 1 card to spare for looting and then you basically die when you have to suffer card disadvantage or hit too many 2 drops or cards that don't do anything. Therefore, Faithless Looting, cute non-cantrips and cards that don't do anything before winning simply have no place in this deck unless they answer specific problems, such as Silence.
Silence is great because they have to either do something impressive right now, or they're locked out and have to watch you combo out, even when you’re bluffing. Also, it stops a crucial sorcery-speed spell when played on their upkeep, protects your ascendancy played after silence, stops counterspells and ‘counters’ living end and UR storm (play in response to Past in Flames, usually). Fail-case is that it triggers ascendancy for -1 card in hand or sort-of time walks them. It even has the upside of being able to say "Silence, I kill you" and have them scoop in the face of bad jokes and long combos ;).
Another great card I like a lot in this deck is Slaughter Pact. This is both a free spell to start the combo and a main deck fast answer to problems such as Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Eidolon of the Great Revel, etc. Worst case scenario is shooting your own dork to start/continue the combo or being uncastable, but the upsides easily make up for that 1 unlikely scenario in this meta.
Lastly, Noxious Revival seems worth it to be free spell #6 that can get back something good (ideas unbound, ascendancy) both pre combo and while comboing. Being able to put ascendancy back on top end of their turn when tapped out is pretty nice, though you want to board it out in a grindy matchup where you’re likely to go down in cards in hand a lot before being able to combo.
So when building the deck, I’d always have 1 each of those, 4 Glittering Wish and 3 Jeskai Ascendancy. As for creatures, Birds of Paradise is the best mana dork because it costs 1, makes all colors of mana and flies. Other options are Noble Hierarch, Sylvan Caryatid and Fatestitcher. Nobles are birds 5-8 and having a turn 1 accelerator is pretty key, so I’d at least run 2. Caryatids make a reasonable blocker and are fairly guaranteed to live, but cost 2. Getting away with a 2 drop accelerator is much easier when you also have 6 1 drops, so I’d still run 4. Lastly, fatestitcher is insane when comboing, allows to combo out of nowhere, completely taps out the opponent and can still be cast for 4 to tap down attackers to buy time (you wouldn’t believe how many games I’ve won that way..). On the other hand they’re very clunky in hand, so 2 are enough to be able to find one when you go for it. You can also go for a more self-mill version that runs 4, but there’s a limit to how many lands/creatures you can run so I wouldn’t want to run more than 8 combined noble/fatestitcher/caryatid. When comboing every cantrip you cast sees 2 cards at the very least, so if half your deck is a cantrip, every cantrip should find you a new one on average.
So, speaking of cantrips: the best blue cmc 1 cantrips available are obviously Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand and Gitaxian Probe, so those are auto-includes. Other cantrips all have their up- and downsides. Thought Scour costs 1 and is instant, but doesn't offer any selection and without a specific graveyard interaction, the milling also isn't very relevant. I've played versions that do care a lot, but those aren't fast enough in my opinion and also weak to graveyard hate. Just 2 fatestitchers to profitably mill when you already have ideas unbound doesn’t look like incentive enough. There is another case to be made for thought scour, which is the combo kill with Wheel of Sun and Moon and another cantrip to mill someone out who can’t be killed with damage (infinite life combo from abzan company, for example). However, you could probably also play some multi-color singleton for this rather than playing main deck thought scour + wheel side.
Cerulean Wisps also costs 1 and is instant, and it adds a mana. When you combo with 1 dork and want to cast ideas unbound, this is pretty important and a big difference with Manamorphose which, while also being ‘free’ requires 2 mana. When you’re already at 2, you probably don’t need the extra mana anymore, but when you’re at 1, you definitely do.
Twisted Image is like the others but instead has the upside of potentially killing opposing 0/x creatures. It also has the downside of being uncastable as cantrip if you're the only one with creatures out and no ascendancy in play. The worst-case scenario of being an actual dead card is pretty bad so the upside has to be pretty high to justify it. Generally, you want to play your own bird t1 rather than kill theirs (except in the mirror on the draw, perhaps, but I don't consider the mirror to be very likely) and spellskite doesn't really stop you except when you're forced to go off with Fatestitcher, which you can also solve by wishing for an answer.
Quicken allows you to end of turn cast a glittering wish, but this is pretty much magical Christmas land. I’ve played some tournaments with 2 quicken and I never actually did anything other than simply cantrip with it. It’s too mana intensive to actually do that with Wish and if you have Serum Visions or Sleight, you probably just cast them in case you draw a land or creature to play.
Visions of Beyond, while appearing to be Ancestral Recall, is basically a 1 mana instant cantrip that, even when trying really hard with thought scour and such, rarely draws 3. Sure, when it does and you resolve your first, you basically win the game, but it’s much more likely to hit 2 mana for ideas unbound than it is to have 20 cards in the gy by the time you cast this. Not to mention this gets wrecked by a Relic of Progenitus badly and even Scavenging Ooze makes it pretty unlikely to work.
In order to significantly increase your chances to win you need to be able to expand your hand for profitable looting and to reliably draw into multiple spells, so you need Ideas Unbound (and Scarscale Ritual in the sideboard). I don’t think going below 4 ideas is wise because you need it quite badly and it’s not even the worst to just cast it to sculpt your hand or to dig for land/anything to set up the combo next turn.
This leaves some room for other spells, like Manamorphose or Anticipate. Here, I like anticipate quite a bit because it digs you to what you need much more efficiently than manamorphose, works better to keep going and is blue. The main advantage to manamorphose is being able to play through blood moon, but blood moon shouldn’t really beat this deck unless it’s very fast, due to all the mana dorks (and a basic island). Sideboard Swan Songs can also answer blood moon.
Basically, the deck should be land, combo dorks and spells that work both with the combo and to find the combo with very few exceptions. I'll be looking to test something like this in a small scale tournament next week and hopefully a bigger one the week after, before attending GP Bologna:
2 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Island
1 Mana Confluence
3 Gemstone Mine
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Fatestitcher
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Noxious Revival
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Cerulean Wisps
1 Silence
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Anticipate
4 Glittering Wish
3 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Scarscale Ritual
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Wear // Tear
1 Flesh // Blood
1 Abzan Charm
4 Leyline of Sanctity
Because leyline is good against both BGx and burn, I think it’s worth the slots. It also has some applications against other decks that like to target you (gifts decks that also run discard, for example) and you can cast/loot them so it’s not completely dead beyond the opening hand either. The targets are fairly standard except Abzan Charm, which I found to be a nice way to answer problematic big creatures or as draw-2 #2 when comboing. Flesh//Blood I’m not so sure about, but with only 2 fatestitchers and no way to give haste, it’s possible attacking for the win might not work out. This probably depends on whether I find other options to be more compelling and how likely it is I side out the fatestitchers. It also allows you to use fatestitchers to tap out the opponent and then kill them in the 2nd main phase.
Lastly, the mana base. Because you really need 1-2 lands to be able to function at all, I don’t want to go below 16 land. Basic island gives you a basic that casts cantrips and ascendancy through blood moon, gives you a target for Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter and saves on some damage you take (this deck really murders itself). All duals have to be able to cast ascendancy, glittering wish and 1 drop mana dorks as you prioritize those turn 1 and already have a basic island that can only cast cantrips t1 (rarely a keep when you have only basic island in your opener). The 1 mana confluence allows you to combo with fatestitcher alone in some awkward spots (I actually once played a game where I had Island, Breeding Pool and Mana Confluence after a gemstone mine died...) That mana base is actually the same as what I ran in GP Madrid 2014, but it may not be great with the land hate running around now. Can't really imagine anyone wants to GQ us early in the game with mana dorks out, though.
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
2 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Sulfur Falls
Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Stormchaser Mage
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
2 Vapor Snag
2 Forked Bolt
2 Twisted Image
4 Atarka's Command
2 Spreading Seas
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Destructive Revelry
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Roast
2 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce
1 Electrickery
1 Feed the Clan
1 Grim Lavamancer
The idea was to have a burn approach and maximize prowess/abbot, so no counterspells main. Atarka's Command is pretty insane in this deck, allowing for fairly easy T3 wins (provided you have 2 creatures out by t2). Unfortunately I had some abysmal draws, both screwing and flooding out in games, but in general the observations were these: Delver is bad in this deck and Abbot is not worth it.
- Delver is bad because it's horribly inconsistent. I've played Delver decks before and even with this many spells, it doesn't flip way too often to consider it a 1 mana 3/2 flying. In more traditional Delver that's ok because you have more control elements and aren't trying to win by T4 like burn, but here it's just a terrible 1/1 too often. It costing blue also made the mana pretty awkward.
- Abbot is nice, but too late (needs land drops too much). Sometimes you run it out T2 just to add a creature to the board but its failrate on T3+ was too high to use as card advantage. The issue is that with so many spells that cost either U or R and not wanting to play land (or being able to), it's easy to screw yourself out of being able to play whatever you flip.
I still liked the sort-of-burn approach, though, so I swapped out Delver for Goblin Guide and Abbot for an even split of Young Pyromancer and Snapcaster Mage. Snapping back Atarka's Command might be my next favorite thing after Cryptic Command ;). The advantages of Snappy are obvious, of course, and it basically seems a better version of Abbot in most situations. Pyromancer similarly has great synergy with the deck and gives an option of going wide against spot removal decks. The mana base changed to -1 Island, -2 Misty -1 Breeding Pool, +1 Stomping Ground, +2 Wooded Foothills, +1 Steam Vents. I'll be testing this version this Thursday.
I realize this makes the deck not UR Delver anymore, but because I saw people discussing the idea of a burn approach, it seemed useful to post here anyway. I normally play Burn in Modern, so I'm trying to figure out whether this deck is better than burn (especially sideboarded). For now I'd still play burn in a serious tournament for sure though.
Thanks for the write-up :). Sucks to hear Chalice is becoming a thing again :(. However, I have a question about that. If I read your report correctly, you resolved a chalice on 0 first and then tried to cast another one for (presumably) x>1, right? If so, that should not have gotten countered. On the stack, x is not zero for cmc, but the actual value used so unless you tried to cast a chalice for 1 after resolving one for 2, it should not have been countered.
2 Island
2 Mountain
2 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Stormchaser Mage
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
Spells
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
2 Forked Bolt
2 Vapor Snag
2 Twisted Image
4 Searing Blaze
I imagine the sideboard could include tools to go to more towards control with pyromancer, blood moon and counterspells. Obviously 18 lands is a bit light for blue moon control with Keranos and cryptics and such.
I didn't include any counterspells in the main because it doesn't play well with Abbot and I'm looking to be a proactive burn deck g1 when they're not loaded up on removal and such yet. Basically, burn has a great g1 vs almost anything and then people bring in the hate, making it quite a bit tougher usually (I play naya, non-nacatl burn normally). This version has card advantage, reach, evasion and a backup (side) plan of switching tactics completely. I also stuck to as many 1-drops/spells as possible to maximize abbot, except searing blaze because that one is clearly awesome (and an easy card to side in matchups where we'd prefer control cards, like combo). I'm only a bit torn on Rift Bolt as even though it works well with prowess and is flexible (kill t1 birds, fx), it plays poorly with abbot's ability. It could become Lava Spike but that card is really one dimensional. Could also cut the bolts and add green for Atarka's Command. Lastly, missing Eidolon of the Great Revel is obviously an issue in plenty matchups but there's no way I can run that with non-damaging spells like serum visions in the deck.
Well, many options, that's for sure. Any thoughts?
I wouldn't say every combo deck is a bye. I've played against UR storm and bloom titan and they're quite capable of just comboing out faster because we don't always have a T2 or 3 combo. I recently played in a 6 round tournament (in which I ran quite poorly :/) and played against bloom titan and easily beat him, but mainly because he ended up being slow with poor hands/mulligans while I was drawing fine/above average. Silence after bloom is a thing, but other than that they can also just combo us out t2 (or 1 even). I brought in my pyromancers quite often and they were almost always killed on the spot. I could never set up many triggers on the pyromancer because I had fairly horrible draws and unlucky thoughtseizes (right after I sleight into ascendancy, fx). Exactly because going low on cards is so bad, I don't want to run faithless looting. I did flood out horribly in some games this tournament, but that's not quite as common as getting run out of cards. I actually combo'd off against a BUG player with an active liliana thanks to have 1 extra card in hand to be able to loot rather than mill.
Anyway, the deck is not super popular because of Burn and BGx, as Lord Hazanko also mentioned. In the tournament I played there were 6 burn players in a field of 43 people and I was lucky enough not to get paired against one, but it would have been pretty miserable, of course. So I played against Grixis control R1 (loss). G1 horrible flood, g3 I decided to take less dmg by going for a 2nd caryatid rather than mana confluence from sleight and got angered the turn before I could safely combo :().
R2 against mono green stompy (win). You'd think this is an easy matchup but I ended up flooding out horribly game 1 (starting to feel pretty bad at this point). G2 he showed me a hand of 4 forest, kalonian hydra, Mutant's Prey and eternal witness so I easily combo'd him out T3. Then G3 I was desperately looking for an ascendancy while he presented a fairly quick clock. The last possible turn I went ideas unbound, finding ascendancy and playing it to combo out exactly usinga probe for 2 life. I had plenty of outs there (wish, ascendancy, cantrips into ascendancy) but it was still quite possible to just lose.
R3 against Esper Mentor (loss). He went T3 thoughtseize take my ascendancy after I just got it into snap thoughtseize a turn or 2 later to take my freshly found wish. Sigh. These thoughtseizes :/. Even then it was fairly close and I could have topdecked my way out of it, but didn't. G2 I am going down in cards fast thanks to discard but still have 1 wish. He scours 2 lingering souls into his gy and later, after some dileberation, delves them away to play tasigur. I have 7 mana at this point and figure Sigarda can race him, provided that he doesn't find a new lingering souls, but he does.
R4 against BUG control (win). This was fairly interesting to win despite getting disrupted a lot. Raven's crime, liliana and decay on my first ascendancy put me to 2 cards in hand, 2 land in play and a fatestitcher in my gy after untapping and drawing. I kept a Sleight after his last liliana activation which chained me into ideas unbound and easy comboing after that. G2 I had a pyromancer, which he golgari charmed in reponse to me trying to combo, but I could go infinite with sprout swarm and mill him out via wheel of sun and moon.
R5 vs Grixis Delver (loss). He has T1 delver into blind flip in all 3 games. G1 on the play I could easily take it because I had the T3 combo, but G2 he snares my caryatid and can't get much going while he's clocking me. I should perhaps have run out 1 of the pyromancers in hand first, but I was going to miss my 3rd land drop. G3 I misplay by topdecking ascendancy and therefore not wishing for a 2nd (took guttural response instead) so I got owned by a thoughtseize. My reasoning was poor because getting 2nd ascendancy protects against both 1 counter Or 1 thoughtseize whereas the response only protects against 1 counter. Due to the delver I have no time and die.
R6 vs bloom titan (win). He plays a bit of an odd version with eldrazi in his deck, which is good for me. He ends up mulling once and twice in g1 and 2 into unplayable hands (thanks in part to his eldrazi) while I combo off easily.
I never faced blood moon (the grixis players both didn't play in a way that led me to believe that they had it) so Manamorphose mainly cycled for me and once generated mana to kickstart infinite sprout swarming. Maybe 8 manadorks is good enough to not care too much about blood moon, but without manamorphose, getting caught by blood moon without a manadork + island in play, I'm basically just dead. That manamorphose costs 2 is pretty annoying when trying to start to combo, but being otherwise 'free' makes it a fine card to have.
Any particular reason why you play a 3/3 split of 1 mana dorks? I'd say birds are strictly better because they make all colors of mana and fly. I won a game in the tournament because my only non-defender creature without summoning sickness was a birds that could fly over his blocker (no fatestitchers left in the deck).
Manamorphose isn't there to prevent fizzling, imho, it's there to not lose to blood moon, dig and occasionally build mana while comboing. The only thing I dislike is it costing 2.
I disagree about thought scour. Milling random cards of the top makes it more likely you find ascendancy because the chances you mill cards other than ascendancy are much bigger. Additional upside is milling fatestitcher for which you have no other way on a particular turn. It's a pretty common play to serum visions scry a fatestitcher on top and then mill it with scour so the mill isn't even always random. You could run noxious revival as an additional 0 mana play that gets stuff back for more synergy.
I could see anticipate being ok, but costing 2 I don't like. Mana is usually tight when under pressure and can easily lose you the game because you can't start. It's probably a better fit with more manadorks like you run, but when those get bolted/pyroclasmed you're really in a hole.
The issues are that under linvala, there are only 4 lands that produce black + the manamorphoses and the lose 2 life when drawing cards could be painful in a deck that is already bleeding life left and right. Exiling is pretty nice, though, and almost everything big and scary has 3+ power. Those that don't probably die to Abrupt Decay (like ooze) so that's covered as well. The only thing it doesn't cover, that fiery justice does cover, is a board of Scavenging Ooze + Qasali Pridemage + Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, which is definitely not unheard of (though also not very common). Fortunately, even that board can be overcome with just decay because the only thing that really has to die is pridemage.
I've been fishing with this list a bit and I really like it. The Ideas Unbound have been awesome (I used to play only 1, with 4 Visions of Beyond) and easy to cast with 4 birds in the deck. I think that makes Ideas the correct choice mainly (birds), because mana is much less a concern than a version with just Sylvan Caryatid and Fatestitcher. I also like it a lot that this deck doesn't really care all that much about its GY. Sure, fatestitchers are great, but not strictly needed. Against BGx I would also side all stitchers out in favor of the pyromancers to make any GY hate dead (though most of that hate is probably in the form of Ooze, so not really dead).
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Stomping Ground
1 Island
1 Mana Confluence
3 Gemstone Mine
Creatures (12)
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Fatestitcher
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thought Scour
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Silence
4 Glittering Wish
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Manamorphose
3 Jeskai Ascendancy
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Sprout Swarm
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Scarscale Ritual
1 Abzan Charm
1 Wear // Tear
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Heroes' Reunion
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Guttural Response
I cut 1 manamorphose because when fishing, I literally never needed it and costing 2 can be the difference between starting up the combo and not. Of course this card shines when you do get disrupted and is essential against Blood Moon so I only cut 1 for the 2nd Silence. Silence is a great maindeck way to stop almost all disruption on your combo turn while not being completely dead when comboing (costs 1 and triggers ascendancy) and it's one of the best ways to deal with the answers of BGx (upkeep silence against discard, pre-ascendancy silence to stop decay) and randomly hoses UR Storm and Living End.
From the side I'm interested in seeing how pyromancer + Sprout Swarm will work out as it gives a load of tokens (infinite with ascendancy at some point) which should be good against BGx. Swarm can be discarded, but beyond that it's pretty good value. I'm also playing Sigarda to overload them. The last threat they can't answer will kill them. Wheel is there to not die to infinite life, which is a thing again these days. It also allows you to win in your 2nd main after tapping them out with fatestitchers and can circumvent the combat step against Deflecting Palm. All wishable cards in the side are either combo-enabling (ascendancy, ritual) or high-impact answers to problems. Whether Reunion is good enough against burn is doubtful, but often 1 turn is the difference between life and death and this version is fast enough. G2 I will probably side out the birds so that makes it less good, but then it might be correct to just board it in so you don't have to wish first.
Lastly, the manabase is built such that all my fetches can get all lands with basic land types (very important to be able to get the basic island for both life and blood moon reasons) and is looking to fix all mana in lands by turn 2, unless life is a huge concern and I aim to play a T2 caryatid anyway, then I might go for island into stomping ground.
I started posting in the Blue Moon topic with this list because that's much more what this deck is trying to do with tutelage. Mill is the eventual wincon with the option of being fast (with Swans) and not the necessity, so there's no place for do-nothing cards like Hedron Crab and such. Spite could be nice, but it being sorcery makes it unplayable, imho. Looting does become better with spite because then there's some value in discarding instants/sorceries, but in the current version I prefer skred and no looting.
Without something like Visions of Beyond to power up, scour is not at peak performance, of course, but I still like it as a cantrip above looting because I prefer to prepare for the worst case scenario which involves disruption. If I don't get disrupted, it's basically irrelevant which spells you cast as you will easily combo. When they do disrupt you, it's pretty painful to go down on cards and eventually be forced to combo off without being able to profitably loot. In all games I've ever played with the deck, not being able to combo comfortably due to small hand size has made me fizzle Way, WAY more often than bricking on a ton of land/dorks. This is also not surprising because the latter scenario suggests you've drawn many cards and were unlucky enough to hit clumps of land/creatures rather than spells, which is not as likely as hitting even 1 serum visions, sleight, ideas unbound or wish (to get ritual), which almost guarantees you won't fizzle.
I think that Ideas Unbound over Visions is solid because it's always a draw 3 and doesn't get hit by splash gy hate. Hitting 20 cards in the bin has always been a little bit tricky and really hard with any kind of GY hate going on. I didn't run Manamorphose in my last list, so I have some cuts to make, hehe. Definitely a bit painful to also work in Silence, though 1 maindeck could be good enough.
I've tried Quicken before (which is an easy cut in my list, come to think of it) because it's a nice idea on paper, but it never panned out for me. I don't think I've ever cast a sorcery at instant speed with it and it takes a very specific scenario for it to be good. Something like EoT wish into ascendancy into combo, but this isn't even really broken or anything because you could also just topdeck ascendancy and combo so they can't tap out anyway. It could also help cast instant Serum visions or something in reponse to removal, but this also seems rather corner case (and would imply you should build your whole deck to have as many instants as possible anyway). It's a solid 'meh' from me :p.
I think YP is most likely pretty good against BGx tbh. It forces them to spend removal on it rather than ascendancy because they also can't deal with a ton of tokens that eat liliana or chump goyf all day long. With ascendancy it's a quick kill, of course. Pretty excited to try that out instead of the high variance leylines.
I chose deprive over the rest because I wanted a (fairly cheap) hard counter that doesn't cost UUU. The problem with remand and leak is that they become dead in the late game (as in, actually stopping someone from resolving something) which you pretty much inevitably will reach. In Twin, remand is much better because it draws you to your combo while disrupting them, but I'm not so sure it's good here. To be honest, I actually was inspired by old blue moon lists to go for deprive. Being able to cast it T2 is nice (against combo, fx) but I don't intend to normally. The draw on remand is tempting, of course, but I'm not convinced that a little synergy is worth it here.
Izzet charm always seems awesome on paper but I agree it's never actually awesome (well, unless it counters something like liliana or loots away dead blood moons/lands). Maybe 1 is enough (I had 4 in a previous list, which was definitely overkill) but the synergy with swans, tutelage and blood moon (which is definitely not great in all matchups or even all games of good matchups) make me want to run 2.
Grim instead of jace is a thought, for sure, but with 4 bolt, 4 skred, 2 izzet charm, dismember, harvest pyre, electrolyze and anger, what is supposed to survive :P? Jace has synergy with tutelage, provides a 5th snapcaster effect and provides card advantage in general (as planeswalker) with the ultimate also being relevant. I'd try him out before dismissing him :).
Maybe the games were atypical against grixis control, but I felt pretty good in the matchup, to be honest. They can barely deal with tutelage and we can easily deal with their creatures. Just make sure to counter any (snap) command and they lose so many cards due to lack of targets for their removal that it's not too hard to grind them out. Blood moon can also get them. Just be careful with your swans. If they go bolt into terminate while you get 0 value, you're in trouble.
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
10 Snow-Covered Island
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Steam Vents
1 Desolate Lighthouse
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Swans of Bryn Argoll
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Spells
4 Skred
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Dispel
1 Spell Snare
4 Serum Visions
1 Dismember
1 Harvest Pyre
2 Deprive
2 Izzet Charm
3 Sphinx's Tutelage
2 Blood Moon
1 Electrolyze
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Cryptic Command
2 Rending Volley
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Blood Moon
1 Bribery
1 Negate
1 Spellskite
1 Sowing Salt
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Batterskull
1 Vandalblast
I've not had the heart to test this in something other than FNM (I play URb twin in PPTQs and such these days) but my last outing felt pretty good, drawing with Grixis control (bit unlucky to get mana screwed game 2, the matchup felt good) and beating Titanshift and UR twin. This list is not all-in on disrupting mana, it's more about control with the option of screwing the mana or outright ruining their deck. I like Sphinx's Tutelage here because it is a very light wincon that isn't even completely useless by itself (it loots) and works well with the rest of the deck that tries to make the game go long. Being an enchantment also makes it fairly hard to remove for most decks. The snow mana base with skred allows for a good answer to big creatures, doesn't cause much damage to oneself and combo's pretty nicely with Swans of Bryn Argoll. I've found that as long as you draw more cards than the opponent, it's ok for them to also draw cards. When tutelage is online, having them draw cards while milling them is fine, of course.
You typically need around 20 triggers for tutelage which is really not a lot when Skred is factored in, also because the proces of milling implies you're drawing cards. Because the deck is full of typical control cards, except tutelage, it's not a typical mill deck with tons of dead cards (i.e., dedicated mill cards that don't impact the board) and as such it plays pretty much like blue moon.
The mana base seems ok to me, except that there's a conflict between getting cryptic online and fetching only snow lands. It's impossible to have cryptic on T4 while also having double red for anger or double/snap bolt/skred, so that means you either have to fetch the steam vents and have skred be slower, or have either cryptic or anger slower. What you go for depends on your hand and matchup, so this hasn't bothered me much yet. This does make me want to stick to only 1 cryptic, despite playing so many islands (and cryptic being awesome).
The tron matchup is aweful (I once went T3 blood moon into T4 sowing salt, on the play, and still lost) so that's why I have Bribery in addition to sowing salt. Fetching up their Emrakul when protected from a karn or o-stone should be game and also circumvents the whole shuffle-the-gy-back problem with milling them. Tron seems a horrible matchup for blue moon in general, so that isn't really specifically my list's weakness.
The main problem with this deck is getting low on cards due to their removal/discard etc which makes comboing much harder. This is (one of the) reason(s) that BGx is such a tough matchup because they attack you from all angles (hand, board, gy). Before claiming this deck is insane and butchers all: test against BGx ;). Also, how did you win? Did you win through disruption or did they tap out at inopportune moments? It's really quite different when you have to fight through disruption, but because many people have no idea what you're doing (even if they know what you're playing), the deck can just beat up on ignorance rather than it really being good. I've played the deck a while and against people who know what's going on (especially when they're on BGx) it's really very hard to combo off. I've never tested young pyro vs BGx (always had leyline) but I can imagine it's much better over a long game and less all-in.
I really liked silence in a build with many manadorks so that you can be very fast and have mana for silence + ascendancy + start combo. This depends on your meta, though. If you run into tons of bolts and pyroclasms/angers then that's obviously not going to work out very well. Such a build also has to run quite few lands (15-16) so your opening hands are rough. The new mulligan rule will help a lot with that :D.
As for your last question: it depends. I normally board in an answer but also leave at least one in the side so that I can either cantrip my way to one or tutor one. This is particularly relevant against things like chalice (make sure you have an answer main, so it must be abrupt decay) or eidolon of the great revel (so that you can draw it and not die due to taking millions).
I played the deck as in my previous post with a few changes to the main deck:
-1 Swans, -1 Surgical, -1 Looting, -1 Pyroclasm; +1 Spell Snare, +1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, +1 Cryptic Command, +1 Electrolyze.
Sideboard:
-1 Cryptic, -1 Rending Volley, -1 Shatterstorm; +1 Bribery, +1 Vandalblast, +1 surgical extraction.
Round 1 I drew against Grixis control after winning game 1 handily (though slowly, as I couldn't find a tutelage for a while). Being able to kill 5 toughness delve creatures with ease proved key in the matchup (and countering kolaghan's commands) which made him run out of threats with tons of useless removal in hand. Unfortunately I kept a 2-lander game 2 and missed my 3rd land drop, which in the end made me just a hair too slow to keep up and avoid losing that game before time ran out.
Round 2 I played vs UR twin won 2-1. G1 he couldn't combo out because I could easily skred or counter his combo creatures while we were both discarding blood moons (pretty funny to do that 1 after another). In the end I ended up outdrawing him with my swans and milling him out.
G2 I had a very good hand but he had Keranos, which I couldn't counter with dispel, negate, etc. I think I might have had a chance had I landed a tutelage but I couldn't find one so he ground me out.
G3 he was stuck on 3 and when he was tapped low, I resolved my own Keranos which was pretty much game. He did go on and it even nearly became a draw until I could threaten to just turn on keranos and kill him, to which he scooped. I sided in Bribery in this matchup to steal Keranos but never saw it. On the one hand it's amazing to steal their keranos, on the other hand it's a bit risky vs Cryptic as it then just becomes a tutor for them. Clearly not something you can just run out t5 without protection. I had Vedalken Shackles in play which prevented him from comboing out or doing anything, really. In this game I also had Jace and flipped him. He flashed back some serum visions for me which was ok, but not insane. I do like him better than Swan #4 because that is just too clunky and I rarely want to tap out for swans T4 anyway so there's no rush to find one.
Round 3 vs Titanshift with prismatic omen. I mulled down to 5, he went to 6 g1. He then opened with steam vents into basic mountain, trying to cast izzet charm to loot. I spell snared that and topdecked a blood moon which I figured was going to be pretty strong. It indeed was as he never got non-red mana anymore in that game.
G2 I mess up trying to resolve my blood moon by not fetching before casting it and then in a sort of panic trying to fetch with the moon on the stack. This allowed him to easily counter the moon. Later I see that he has 2 swan songs in hand so that didn't matter perhaps, but it was still pretty bad. He tries to go for a titan, which I counter and surgically extract as I have no counters or removal in hand anymore. He immediately topdecks scapeshift and wins.
G3 I have full control after resolving Blood Moon 1 and 2. I sowing salt his valakuts and counter + luckily mill all his remaining titans, which leaves him with tribe elders and swan song tokens to kill me, which predictably didn't work.
I'm actually really starting to like this deck. I feel that Skred adds a lot to the deck by having a cheap instant that can kill almost anything, provided you get to land drop 4+. Before getting to the late game, the deck can counter or bolt early stuff and obviously blood moon wrecks decks left and right. I do have to test more vs BGx (especially Jund) and perhaps tron, though that isn't played all that much anyway.
Just fyi, your breaking CAN be Spell Snared because a split card, when on the stack, only counts as the part that you cast so it's a blue and black cmc 2 spell.
http://magiccards.info/rule/708-split-cards.html