Actually, Kinjalli's Sunwing is the MVP of this deck and it's one of the main reasons to run R/W as a deck choice instead of Mono Red or R/B. It is much better than ahn crop crasher in this deck for many reasons:
1. It doesn't die to magma spray or shock because it's a 2/3.
2. It gains tempo since the opp's creatures keep coming into play tapped so not only can they not block that turn but if they have haste they also cannot attack that turn.
3. It's a flier so you can attack with it for 2 damage every turn.
4. It's a must kill for the opp who has to use a removal spell on it because if it stays on the board more than a couple of turns you will probably win the game due to the tempo gain, so it's a target more than other creatures.
It doesn't need to help flip path because all the other 17 creatures in the deck can trigger path to flip, it's job is to gain tempo against the opp.
I don't want to use Dusk // Dawn because I am looking at an instant kill card so it's either Farm // Market or Settle the wreckage the latter which can kill more than one creature, also Dusk doesn't kill a lot of creatures in the dino decks all the 3/3 tokens would survive as would the 3/2 guys and the 3/4 guys, so it doesn't do much, not all dinos, are 4 power creatures. Also, sometimes Dinos have haste so I need an instant card to kill them, a sorcery card would be too late.
I don't have a lot of 5 drops, I have exactly four 5 casting cost cards and exactly five 4 casting cost cards (two which are cast out so they can cycle) so that's 10 cards out of 37 non-land cards which means if I have 3 mana I can cast the other 27 cards in the deck which is obviously most of the deck.
I have taken your advice and have upped the land count to 24 now. Remember that path also works as a pseudo land once it flips since it gives you a mana of any color so if I flip it on turn 4-5 then I'll have the 5th mana on turn 5 or 6 for sure.
Without any mana issues such as not having 2 white or not having 2 red by turn 4 or 5 this deck works like a charm and takes care of a variety of decks easily, as I said before I only lost to a mono-red deck due to my play mistake in game 3, I thought I had him and didn't block and then he burned me to death with lighting strike, and the other losses were to 2 R/G dinos again in games 3 they got the better of me with the bigger creatures, and now I have settle the wreckage in the sideboard to deal with those decks.
I like the hazoret one, I have 3 now so a fourth would finish the playset, also I don't own any Chandras so one would be cool, if the price of the deck is about $35 then it's a great deal.
If it's $40 or more then it's not really worth it too much.
Chandra's price may drop to $20 a piece after these are released though, I believe now it's $30 a piece.
Of course all these cards will rotate in September so they are not a good investment unless you already have these decks and are looking for extra cards like I am.
So, I have been playing this deck for the past couple of weeks at FNM and Standard Showdown and I went 2-1 in three tournaments and I keep changing the deck after every tourney and am looking at going 3-0 this week at FNM or SS.
Without further ado here is the deck in all its glory right now:
So, the only decks that I lost two in the past two weeks have been 1 mono-red deck and 2 R/G dinos decks. Because of that I have added the 2 settle the wreckage in the sideboard which should take care of the dinosaur decks very easily.
This deck plays as a pseudo aggro deck against midrange and control decks and it plays as a midrange deck against aggro decks where I play a lot of removal in the first 4-5 turns and then drop hazoret or glorybringer and beat their face in. It is a strategy that has been working well for me in the past few tourneys, and also I have noticed that this deck takes token decks apart including B/W tokens or W/U tokens.
It is good to drop a turn 2 path sometimes and kill their one token or even a 1/1 or 2/1 creature and then the path just sits there until I can attack with two creatures and flip it. Against aggro decks the paths come out since their creatures usually have haste or first strike so path doesn't do much against those decks but it's a beating against token decks.
Needless to say I have not lost any of the games in which I flipped path, being able to kill a creature a turn for 3 mana is very useful even if it it's a random choice it keeps the opp from attacking with only one creature or even with two, because I can burn the smaller one and then kill the leftover one with path.
Let me know what you think of this deck so far, I am looking to tune it further to the metagame and try to take it to the next big tourney coming up in two weeks at my LGS.
No one has built a good shell for path yet, I've been playing my w/r path deck with success at my lgs for the past two weeks, working on tuning it further.
Right now it has good match ups with almost every deck, just some trouble with r/g dinos but I'm working on solving that before the next fnm.
Control decks are notoriously hard to play, they are not easy to use and even if you get a proven decklist that 5-0'd some tourney it doesn't mean you will get even close to that result by playing that list.
The chances are that you don't understand why the cards are in the deck and how to use those cards, I know many people think that because they can play aggro decks and midrange decks that they can just pick up a pure control deck (U/W) and have the same results but that is an illusion.
Right now U/W has the BEST cards to run a pure control deck, I've said this before and I'll say it again...we have 3 playable Wrath cards such as slaughter the strong, settle the wreckage and fumigate. All 3 of these cards are playable and all 3 should be played in some version of this control deck.
The deck also has some of the BEST spot removal in the history of the game, are you kidding me? We have baffling end, cast out, ixalan's binding and thopter arrest to take care of creatures, planeswalkers or even enchantments and artifacts.
As a control player for more than 20 years this is an awesome time to be playing U/W control and I am quite surprised that people are making such a big deal about other decks instead of focussing on playing this deck to the best of their ability and testing it enough that they can beat any matchup.
I mean you can play 4 cast out, 4 baffling end, 4 settle the wreckage and 4 fumigates in a deck and if you get a bad draws, bad start or mana flood/screw you will lose against and aggro deck...it just happens, but if you do have a deck with those 16 removal spells then theoretically you should be winning every single game against an aggro deck due to the number of removal...and I'm not even counting any counterspells that you may have to deny the opponent threats.
Any deck can be beaten right now and any deck played by a good player can go 5-0 and wipe the board with the competition, what you have to do is choose your deck and play it...don't change cards in it every day whenever you think a new card may be better and don't change decks every 2-3 weeks, or add a color or whatever and then complain that the deck doesn't work.
The deck works, it's YOU who doesn't work!
Learn the deck, learn the card, learn the metagame and the interactions and how to respond to any threats being cast and then you will see that you can win any match up with this deck.
If you play kefnet the mindful and can fit 3 of them in the deck you can still play golden guardian as a blocker and an alternate win condition, he can fight with kefnet, flip into the land and then you can make 4/4 tokens every turn.
That's the win condition I am using for my U/B tempo deck and it works.
Looks legit, as I said Search for azcanta is a must for this deck since it's a control deck and I'd probably also play a couple of Negates main board, but I guess having negates in the sideboard and duress is also what I said a couple of days ago.
It is very important to use duress and remove dangerous cards that are not creatures since you don't have many answers to them once they hit the board such as planeswalkers.
I'm not a big fan of whirler virtuoso main deck in this build at all, I'd rather play Gonti main deck since it is a lot stronger or even play more spells instead.
Also I think this deck needs search for azcanta main deck, at least 3 as well as three magma sprays or pushes.
Not sure that whirler virtuoso is needed at all since the deck plays like a control deck in the first few turns and doesn't want small creatures except for siphoner, after that the next creatures should be the 5 casting cost ones.
Siphoner also works great with search for azcanta to help you get to those answers faster. Of course you don't have to flip search and can keep it online for most of the game, if you need the extra mana then you can flip it.
I have spammed this deck the last couple nights against assortments of aggro decks. Mono Red, Mardu Vehicles, Mono Black, and B/R. Game 1 seems abysmal. Sideboarded games are obviously a lot better, but still don't feel great without turn 1 Authority of the Consuls. I am just not sure how this deck is 5-0ing without Baffling End.
Post your decklist and then we can figure out why you are losing game 1 in all those matchups. It's true that it's an uphill battle to win against aggro decks in game 1 but it's not impossible, I have won maybe 50% of game 1's against aggro decks in the past, so it's not as abysmal as you make it seem.
Also I have never played authority of the consuls in any of my sideboard plans, I go for having early counters (essence scatter, negate, supreme will) and drop down creatures such as sunscourge champion or vizier of deferment to block and kill attacking creatures until I can get 4 lands for settle or 5 lands for fumigate.
So, I am not playing this deck but I did play against it last FNM and last Standard Showdown. AT the SS event I won 2-0 because this deck has too many lands that come in to play tapped so by the time my opp got to 5 mana he was stalled on each of his turns but his land coming into play tapped so I managed to beat him down.
I was playing a R/W aggro deck and when he cast Siphoner I killed it, then the only cards he played in one game were 2 Vraska's Contempts on two of my creatures and I managed to beat him with the other creatures.
Anyway, my point is that this deck needs more mass removal spells such as Hour of devastation main deck or find some way to get better mana using lands or using some artifacts that generate mana.
Also I think that Chandra is very useful even against red aggro decks and shouldn't be taken out after the first game, but Vraska's contempt is a bit too slow against aggro so it's better to have lower casting cost removal spells as a one on one, or more mass removal spells such as Hour of devastation. I think duress and negate are a lot more useful against aggro decks than 4 casting cost removal spells.
Sorry for having to ask here, but is there anywhere that the Esper builds are discussed here? I have really loved playing the deck, but am pretty committed to the black cards in it. Thanks in advance!
There are some lists posted a while back, maybe if you go back 6-9 pages you will see some Esper lists but the mods decided to focus this thread on U/W control so that's why it is the way it is.
But in the endgame Aftermath Market is very essential.
I'll post later my sideboard againts our meta in our local gamestore.
Nice, I wanted to go up to 3 thaumatic compass in my build too but I just couldn't find anything to take out so that's why I stuck with 2.
I am a huge proponent of that card ever since Ixalan came out so I'm glad you're doing so good with it. Once you hit 7 lands you can cast it for 2 mana and flip it the same turn to keep some creatures at bay, and if you have 3 flipped ones then it's pretty hard for the opp to get anything through unless they're playing a token deck.
I might even try to run 3 from now on and see how that works out in my deck.
As for your sideboard, I don't think that forsake the worldly is needed anymore, it would be good to play Ixalan's binding instead, that's what I'm doing. It's one mana more expensive and not an instant but it hits more than just enchantments/artifacts, it also hits planeswalkers which is really good.
...
I can pre-evaluate cards before they become famous and played in popular decks.
path of mettle is such a card, it is a mid-game card that is meant to be flipped on turns 6-9 and help to end the game or do the last few points of damage to the opp much like ramunap ruins was used. It's not meant to be flipped over on turns 3-5 unless you need to use the extra mana ability.
Which brings me to the quoted text above, if you have a deck where most of your creatures are 1 drops or 2 drops it means that by the time you will get to cast path and flip it you will already have won the game, or you will not have any creatures on the board because you opp will have killed them. A 1/1 or 2/2 will simply not survive more than one turn, so if you draw path of turn 5-6 and want to cast it and flip you won't be able to because you won't have any creatures on the board to attack with, or maybe you'll have one only.
Path was not meant to be played in an aggro deck, but in a "big red" or mid-range deck that can flip it any turn past turn 5, so having creatures that come down on turn 4 or 5 and can survive past turn 5-6 means that path will get flipped on those turns. That is the reason why this card works in a deck with Hazoret at 4 mana and Glorybringer at 5 mana and both of those cards can flip it.
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Do you have source information for this? Because the development information for this card found here says:
This card was, in my opinion, the weirdest card in the set. It made sense from a flavor standpoint. The playtest name of this card was "Hallway of Traps," and you had to be quick and vigilant to get through the hallway. When you got to the top of the tower, you could shoot things down with the activated abilities. Despite the story the card was telling, the card looked super weird to me. I built a lot of decks with this card and actually found it to be versatile. I had to choose carefully what creatures I would put in my decks, and sometimes the triggered ability on the front half wouldn't do anything, but after it flipped (which was surprisingly easy), I had a mode that was strong against aggro decks and a mode that was strong against control decks. The real world has had success in building decks with this card, which is always a good feeling for the person who did the most playtesting and iteration on it.
Further, the information for Relentless Raptor says:
Not all Dinosaurs are big and expensive. This card was aimed at an aggressive deck with a low curve, but with its 3/3 body it still had a Dinosaur feel to it. It plays particularly well with Path of Mettle.
My reading of this doesn't seem to support your contention that it is not meant to be used in aggro decks. Without source documentation, stating your interpretation so definitively also doesn't seem helpful.
Sorry, I'm going to stick to just posting deck lists and not arguing with people.
I've made my point on path of mettle, if you don't agree with my opinion that's fine, I don't have anything else to say about the card, or anything to prove.
I wanted people to try a new deck that's W/R and can make a good use of the card, instead of just putting it in any R/W build with no rhyme or reason.
It was not my purpose or intention to start a war with just a deck list and explanation of the cards in it.
As per the forum rules I won't argue with any mod about even card choices, I don't want any more infractions.
So I'm done with this commentary and this discussion.
Path of mettle is there to flip and help with the mana and also start to do damage to the opponent, I have 15 creatures that can help flip Path so it will happen probably every game.
I played Path to Mettle in Rw Aggro at the start of the format in a deck where every single creature triggered Path of Mettle.
You will not flip Path of Mettle every game. I didn't flip it every game I played it and I played 25 creatures.
On top of that, the creatures that are triggering Path in this deck are 2, 4, and 5 mana -- instead of 1,2 and 3 (and Hazoret).
path of mettle is such a card, it is a mid-game card that is meant to be flipped on turns 6-9 and help to end the game or do the last few points of damage to the opp much like ramunap ruins was used. It's not meant to be flipped over on turns 3-5 unless you need to use the extra mana ability.
Path of Mettle is for hyper aggro decks that need reach to close out a game. If you are using big mana creatures like Glorybringer, you dont need the ping damage from Metzali, Tower of Triumph. I have never played with Path. But I can read the card understand that is what it is for.
I totally agree that fast red needs to push the last points of damage through, but so does any red deck. We don't have unlimited burn spells so even with big creatures I still need to do the last damage points somehow. That's why all red decks played ramunap ruins before they got banned.
My point was about how often you can flip path with small creatures as opposed to big ones.
I did play FNM yesterday to a 2-1 record and every game that I cast path out I was able to flip it, sometimes with khenra and relentless raptor but half the time I flipped it with hazoret and glorybringer on turns 8-9. Exactly like I expected it would happen.
I played 3 rounds, and 8 games and I think that I cast and flipped path in about 4-5 of the games.
Good post and thanks for being civil and talking about card choices instead of attacking my person in some way.
1. It doesn't die to magma spray or shock because it's a 2/3.
2. It gains tempo since the opp's creatures keep coming into play tapped so not only can they not block that turn but if they have haste they also cannot attack that turn.
3. It's a flier so you can attack with it for 2 damage every turn.
4. It's a must kill for the opp who has to use a removal spell on it because if it stays on the board more than a couple of turns you will probably win the game due to the tempo gain, so it's a target more than other creatures.
It doesn't need to help flip path because all the other 17 creatures in the deck can trigger path to flip, it's job is to gain tempo against the opp.
I don't want to use Dusk // Dawn because I am looking at an instant kill card so it's either Farm // Market or Settle the wreckage the latter which can kill more than one creature, also Dusk doesn't kill a lot of creatures in the dino decks all the 3/3 tokens would survive as would the 3/2 guys and the 3/4 guys, so it doesn't do much, not all dinos, are 4 power creatures. Also, sometimes Dinos have haste so I need an instant card to kill them, a sorcery card would be too late.
I don't have a lot of 5 drops, I have exactly four 5 casting cost cards and exactly five 4 casting cost cards (two which are cast out so they can cycle) so that's 10 cards out of 37 non-land cards which means if I have 3 mana I can cast the other 27 cards in the deck which is obviously most of the deck.
I have taken your advice and have upped the land count to 24 now. Remember that path also works as a pseudo land once it flips since it gives you a mana of any color so if I flip it on turn 4-5 then I'll have the 5th mana on turn 5 or 6 for sure.
Without any mana issues such as not having 2 white or not having 2 red by turn 4 or 5 this deck works like a charm and takes care of a variety of decks easily, as I said before I only lost to a mono-red deck due to my play mistake in game 3, I thought I had him and didn't block and then he burned me to death with lighting strike, and the other losses were to 2 R/G dinos again in games 3 they got the better of me with the bigger creatures, and now I have settle the wreckage in the sideboard to deal with those decks.
If it's $40 or more then it's not really worth it too much.
Chandra's price may drop to $20 a piece after these are released though, I believe now it's $30 a piece.
Of course all these cards will rotate in September so they are not a good investment unless you already have these decks and are looking for extra cards like I am.
So, I have been playing this deck for the past couple of weeks at FNM and Standard Showdown and I went 2-1 in three tournaments and I keep changing the deck after every tourney and am looking at going 3-0 this week at FNM or SS.
Without further ado here is the deck in all its glory right now:
9 Mountain
5 Plains
4 Inspiring Vantage
3 Stone Quarry
3 Field of Ruin
Creatures(21)
4 Relentless Raptor
4 Kinjalli's Sunwing
4 Glorybringer
4 Earthshaker Khenra
3 Hazoret the fervent
2 Kari zev, skyship raider
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Spray
3 Abrade
Enchantments(5)
3 Path of mettle
2 cast out
1 skysovereign, consul flagship
1 hour of devastation
1 huatli, warrior poet
2 settle the wreckage
2 sweltering suns
2 chandra's defeat
2 Bishop of rebirth
2 aethersphere harvester
2 crook of condemnation
So, the only decks that I lost two in the past two weeks have been 1 mono-red deck and 2 R/G dinos decks. Because of that I have added the 2 settle the wreckage in the sideboard which should take care of the dinosaur decks very easily.
This deck plays as a pseudo aggro deck against midrange and control decks and it plays as a midrange deck against aggro decks where I play a lot of removal in the first 4-5 turns and then drop hazoret or glorybringer and beat their face in. It is a strategy that has been working well for me in the past few tourneys, and also I have noticed that this deck takes token decks apart including B/W tokens or W/U tokens.
It is good to drop a turn 2 path sometimes and kill their one token or even a 1/1 or 2/1 creature and then the path just sits there until I can attack with two creatures and flip it. Against aggro decks the paths come out since their creatures usually have haste or first strike so path doesn't do much against those decks but it's a beating against token decks.
Needless to say I have not lost any of the games in which I flipped path, being able to kill a creature a turn for 3 mana is very useful even if it it's a random choice it keeps the opp from attacking with only one creature or even with two, because I can burn the smaller one and then kill the leftover one with path.
Let me know what you think of this deck so far, I am looking to tune it further to the metagame and try to take it to the next big tourney coming up in two weeks at my LGS.
Thanks!
No one has built a good shell for path yet, I've been playing my w/r path deck with success at my lgs for the past two weeks, working on tuning it further.
Right now it has good match ups with almost every deck, just some trouble with r/g dinos but I'm working on solving that before the next fnm.
The chances are that you don't understand why the cards are in the deck and how to use those cards, I know many people think that because they can play aggro decks and midrange decks that they can just pick up a pure control deck (U/W) and have the same results but that is an illusion.
Right now U/W has the BEST cards to run a pure control deck, I've said this before and I'll say it again...we have 3 playable Wrath cards such as slaughter the strong, settle the wreckage and fumigate. All 3 of these cards are playable and all 3 should be played in some version of this control deck.
The deck also has some of the BEST spot removal in the history of the game, are you kidding me? We have baffling end, cast out, ixalan's binding and thopter arrest to take care of creatures, planeswalkers or even enchantments and artifacts.
The card draw is decent with having access to champion of wits, hieroglyphic illuminations and glimmer of genius as well as the bomb that is search for azcanta.
Last but not least alternate win conditions such as torrential gearhulk, nezahal primal tide, azor the lawbringer and so on we can choose exactly what we want to end the game with, in case approach doesn't show up.
As a control player for more than 20 years this is an awesome time to be playing U/W control and I am quite surprised that people are making such a big deal about other decks instead of focussing on playing this deck to the best of their ability and testing it enough that they can beat any matchup.
I mean you can play 4 cast out, 4 baffling end, 4 settle the wreckage and 4 fumigates in a deck and if you get a bad draws, bad start or mana flood/screw you will lose against and aggro deck...it just happens, but if you do have a deck with those 16 removal spells then theoretically you should be winning every single game against an aggro deck due to the number of removal...and I'm not even counting any counterspells that you may have to deny the opponent threats.
Any deck can be beaten right now and any deck played by a good player can go 5-0 and wipe the board with the competition, what you have to do is choose your deck and play it...don't change cards in it every day whenever you think a new card may be better and don't change decks every 2-3 weeks, or add a color or whatever and then complain that the deck doesn't work.
The deck works, it's YOU who doesn't work!
Learn the deck, learn the card, learn the metagame and the interactions and how to respond to any threats being cast and then you will see that you can win any match up with this deck.
That's the win condition I am using for my U/B tempo deck and it works.
Looks legit, as I said Search for azcanta is a must for this deck since it's a control deck and I'd probably also play a couple of Negates main board, but I guess having negates in the sideboard and duress is also what I said a couple of days ago.
It is very important to use duress and remove dangerous cards that are not creatures since you don't have many answers to them once they hit the board such as planeswalkers.
I'm not a big fan of whirler virtuoso main deck in this build at all, I'd rather play Gonti main deck since it is a lot stronger or even play more spells instead.
Not sure that whirler virtuoso is needed at all since the deck plays like a control deck in the first few turns and doesn't want small creatures except for siphoner, after that the next creatures should be the 5 casting cost ones.
Siphoner also works great with search for azcanta to help you get to those answers faster. Of course you don't have to flip search and can keep it online for most of the game, if you need the extra mana then you can flip it.
How do you do this every turn, it costs -3 loyalty to use each turn so Angrath will be dead after 2 turns of doing this.
Post your decklist and then we can figure out why you are losing game 1 in all those matchups. It's true that it's an uphill battle to win against aggro decks in game 1 but it's not impossible, I have won maybe 50% of game 1's against aggro decks in the past, so it's not as abysmal as you make it seem.
Also I have never played authority of the consuls in any of my sideboard plans, I go for having early counters (essence scatter, negate, supreme will) and drop down creatures such as sunscourge champion or vizier of deferment to block and kill attacking creatures until I can get 4 lands for settle or 5 lands for fumigate.
I was playing a R/W aggro deck and when he cast Siphoner I killed it, then the only cards he played in one game were 2 Vraska's Contempts on two of my creatures and I managed to beat him with the other creatures.
Anyway, my point is that this deck needs more mass removal spells such as Hour of devastation main deck or find some way to get better mana using lands or using some artifacts that generate mana.
Also I think that Chandra is very useful even against red aggro decks and shouldn't be taken out after the first game, but Vraska's contempt is a bit too slow against aggro so it's better to have lower casting cost removal spells as a one on one, or more mass removal spells such as Hour of devastation. I think duress and negate are a lot more useful against aggro decks than 4 casting cost removal spells.
There are some lists posted a while back, maybe if you go back 6-9 pages you will see some Esper lists but the mods decided to focus this thread on U/W control so that's why it is the way it is.
Nice, I wanted to go up to 3 thaumatic compass in my build too but I just couldn't find anything to take out so that's why I stuck with 2.
I am a huge proponent of that card ever since Ixalan came out so I'm glad you're doing so good with it. Once you hit 7 lands you can cast it for 2 mana and flip it the same turn to keep some creatures at bay, and if you have 3 flipped ones then it's pretty hard for the opp to get anything through unless they're playing a token deck.
I might even try to run 3 from now on and see how that works out in my deck.
As for your sideboard, I don't think that forsake the worldly is needed anymore, it would be good to play Ixalan's binding instead, that's what I'm doing. It's one mana more expensive and not an instant but it hits more than just enchantments/artifacts, it also hits planeswalkers which is really good.
Congrats on the top 4 and top 8 with this deck!
Sorry, I'm going to stick to just posting deck lists and not arguing with people.
I've made my point on path of mettle, if you don't agree with my opinion that's fine, I don't have anything else to say about the card, or anything to prove.
I wanted people to try a new deck that's W/R and can make a good use of the card, instead of just putting it in any R/W build with no rhyme or reason.
It was not my purpose or intention to start a war with just a deck list and explanation of the cards in it.
As per the forum rules I won't argue with any mod about even card choices, I don't want any more infractions.
So I'm done with this commentary and this discussion.
I totally agree that fast red needs to push the last points of damage through, but so does any red deck. We don't have unlimited burn spells so even with big creatures I still need to do the last damage points somehow. That's why all red decks played ramunap ruins before they got banned.
My point was about how often you can flip path with small creatures as opposed to big ones.
I did play FNM yesterday to a 2-1 record and every game that I cast path out I was able to flip it, sometimes with khenra and relentless raptor but half the time I flipped it with hazoret and glorybringer on turns 8-9. Exactly like I expected it would happen.
I played 3 rounds, and 8 games and I think that I cast and flipped path in about 4-5 of the games.
Good post and thanks for being civil and talking about card choices instead of attacking my person in some way.