The question really is: What do you need the mana for?
Do you just want to get to 5 asap and drop something and it's good, or do you want to actually ramp there?
For just a one-shot 5 mana burst, you can just use Rituals (Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual) and get there turn one (Land, Simian Spirit Guide, Ritual, Ritual, Ritual) or turn two with one less Ritual.
For staying Ramp your fastest is probably turn 3.
Land, mana dork
land, mana dork
land
is 5 mana on turn 3. If you use one Ritual you can get it down to turn 2 with 1 dork and 2 lands.
Another way are land enchantments like Utopia Sprawl and using something like Arbor Elf.
Or the infamous Summer Bloom, but that needs a hand with 5 lands, so....probably not the way to go, unless you want to go full on Amulet Combo and do something else with the Mana than casting Titans. That's not very reliable or consitant for asap 5 mana though.
If you use Birds or Caryatid you get any mana colour, with things like Pentad Prism you can filter as well, or you can use Manamorphose to get your U and W mana out of G/R things, as you said you're most interested in getting WUR mana.
Add in shocks and you can easily play mana dorks and have all the colours you could wish for on turn 3, or with a bit more risk turn 2.
Another option to get ahead is Gemstone Caverns, but that's obviously not all that reliable, unless you're ok with going 2nd more often, if you e.g. need the 5 mana for an instant combo win or something similar.
For reliable fast ramp into something more lasting like e.g. a Batterskull or Baneslayer Angel or other comparable big guy your opponent probably doesn't want to see turn 3, mana dorks or land enchantments are probably the way to go.
I'd say that she looks busted in MartyrProc, where you'll often and easily gain an abundance of life, have Squadron Hawk as sac fodder as well as bunch of recursion effects.
"1WB, Sac a creature: Utter End" really doesn't sound bad.
In any other deck she seems hard to make use of.
For B/W Tokens the 30+ life seems somewhat hard to achieve, unless Sorin is active already, in which case you're probably in a good spot already, while Soul Sisters /might/ play it as a 1 of or so, to get rid of annoying hate at the cost of surplus sisters, but do they really want or need such a clumsy effect for that.
And what do you sac to kill a Night of Souls' Betrayal? One of your already pumped beatsticks? Seems rather costly to me.
Faeries is indeed tepmo (aggro-control) deck not control. It plays reasonable amount of creatures to kill the opponent while disrupting him by removal, counters and/or discard and trying to out-tempo him with that.
Grixis Control on the other hand is control. It has midrange elements as well but it is control deck at heart. It wants to slowly take control over the game by countering or killing opponent's threats and by abusing SCM and Command synergy. It has the ability to put big threat in the play as early as turn 5 and end the game fast but most of the time it plays slow game trying to deal with what opponent throws at you and when it's safe plays its win condition while still controlling the game.
Mono U Tron is like all Tron decks metagame call. It can be very strong in the right meta (infested with combo, control and midrange), very likely the best control deck but overall it's more vulnerable to certain strategies-namely aggro. It has big problems with aggro, much bigger than other control and this is what is keeping it down. It is so more annyoing for it that metagame is very fast right now.
Grixis Control can totally be control.
It's just that it's often more leaning towards midrange than control, but that's more of an issue with classification than the archetype.
True, UTron has issue with aggro, but in Modern it's kinda "pick your poison". It's pretty hard to make a control deck that has good game against everything and when it comes to anything else than combo aggro (wtf was I thinking there...), especially other control decks, UTron just walks over them.
It can be a meta call though, sure.
If there's a ton of aggro in your local meta, you may want a different control deck (e.g. Martyrproc or Grixis).
I didn't put Tron on the list because I thought it was a Ramp deck, i'll add it as well as Tezzerator, forgot that one. However, MrtyrProc is a lifegain-aggro deck, and Twin and Scapeshift are most definitely combo decks with elements of control, therefore I dont think they belong on the poll. This poll is really about decks that focus mostly on control which means I can't put Twin as it's a combo deck.
"At this point your list looks more like "What deck should I play" than an actual objective "What control deck is the best in Modern". :/ "
I've expressed my interest in Faeries, Grixis and Esper to create discussion within the thread, not to sneakily divert from the original post but I understand why it came off that way.
Edit: I've also added Lantern Control to the poll.
GRTron is ramp into big stuff asap.
UTron is counters into eventual tron and mindslaver lock or big stuff.
Martyrproc isn't Soul Sisters.
Soul Sisters is what you said, a lifegain-aggro deck.
Martyrproc usually doesn't run the sisters, but Martyr of Sands and Proclamation of Rebirth to gain silly amounts of life and recur things for more of that, into eventual beats with Serra Ascendant.
Not counters, sure, but it aims to get the combo above online, or Emeria, for most of the game, at which point it just overwhelms the opponent with value.
Ok, I can somewhat agree with Twin, especially with all it's subtypes that clearly aren't control (Tarmo/Grixis).
Scapeshift is very much a control deck, with a combo finisher, imo, but that's seems like something we could argue about forever, so w/e. ^^
It's fine, it just seemed a bit odd to me, at first glance. :3
Why is Grixis "Control" on the list, but not UTron, UWTron, Martyrproc or Tezzeret Control?
Also I don't agree with not counting (UR)Twin or Scapeshift as control decks.
Just because they kill you with a combo and not Colonnades doesn't mean they don't play a control game most of the time. Isn't 4C Gifts somewhat of a combo deck as well? At least when it comes to Iona it's usually a game won once she resolves. The distinction seems rather arbitrary to me.
At this point your list looks more like "What deck should I play" than an actual objective "What control deck is the best in Modern". :/
OT:
Isn't Faeries more of a Tempo deck? (Actually wondering, because I don't really know.)
Similarly to how Grixis Control is mostly just a midrange deck with a tad more disruption. (Yes there are actual control lists, but many of those labelled control aren't really that. The whole Grixis affair is pretty wishwash atm in Modern though.)
If you want a pure control deck go with UTron or Esper Draw-go, if you feel more like having fun take Cruel Control, imo.
Cruel Control is very different from Grixis Control though.
You don't really run Delve guys, but play draw-go most of the time till you can cast your Ultimatum and finish the job (or go for manland / keranos / Snapcast beats and burn).
They share colours, but not the gameplan.
As to which is the best, I'd say UTron, but that's more bias than based on actual facts. ^^
I'm pretty happy with the list. Sideboard needs a tad more testing, but I like the pyroclasms. I also like the weird setups you can create once you go infinite.
Nice write-up on your version.
I have to be honest: when I first looked at your eggs list when you posted it in the Lantern thread, I thought "This looks nice. He seems to miss a wincon though."
Another deck I'd love to try, but looks horrible to play on Modo. ^^
At least for the sideboard (depending on the meta even main) I'd suggest Mirran Crusader.
Slap a Sword of War and Peace (or Fire and Ice) on him and you have a 4/4 double striking protection beater that'll wreck any BGx deck if not dealt with the sword, and is pretty good on his own already.
I'm not sure if the hexproof guys are the best carriers.
Good against spot removal, but a turn 2 or 3 sweeper would easily wipe your board and leave you with not much action.
And w/o a sword (or the wrong one) they can't really do anything useful. (E.g. Boggle with Fire&Ice vs a Goyf. With a BB token you can at least still swing and grind out some value)
Maybe a few Lingering Souls or Bitterblossom instead of those would be more useful?
I love the basic idea though, I've been trying to think of a way to play with the swords in Modern since quite a while too. ^^
The main issue is that, when relying on the swords too much, you won't be able to deal with much that isn't a fair creature match up.
Without Discard and other disruption you'll just get combo'd out by various decks before getting to swing with a swords equipped guy, while other midrange decks can just Abrupt Decay / Kolaghan's Command / Ancient Grudge, etc. the swords and there goes the gameplan.
Instead of now making the swords more durable or recurring, I'd say making a more or less standard BGx deck with swords in the main sounds more viable.
At least in theory.
I'll admit that that's not even nearly as exciting though. :/
Add some number of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to the deck.
You want Darksteel Citadel, but also the Lich, who needs BBB to cast, so with the Citadel it becomes a 4 drop, in case you don't have a turned on Mox Opal or Drum + Ornithopter (which seems likely with only 3 of each).
I'm a big fan of Sun Droplet as a life gain card. It's like Dragon's Claw but just better pretty much all the time, and once you get multiples your life total shoots up.
Test it out and let us know. My initial thought is that as good as it is, it's too slow of life gain unless u have multiples out. If you could remove x charge counters and gain x life that would be different. 1 life a turn when they are slinging bolts just isn't enough. Eidolon, plus 2 bolts which happens a lot, is 8 dmg (saying we cast a fog to prevent combat dmg) for a turn. You gain 1 so it's 7. Next turn they draw more bolts off our mines so now it's another 7. That's 14 and we've gained 2. See what I'm saying. I play burn as my competitive modern deck and so it's what I have to play test against with turbo. I'd have to try it myself but I feel initially that it's not enough without multiples.
2 a turn.
You gain 1 on each upkeep.
But like you said, a single one is pretty underwhelming, whereas 2+ are pretty nuts.
I'm working on the new primer right now, so we can update it regularly. Just tweaking a bit this primer including some new card choices, strategies, corrected typos and such, don't expect big modifications as it's the first time I do this.
Once loaded, I'll be hearing suggestions and corrections, please.
Ivory Crane Netsuke doesn't work.
I tried it, because if you don't use your brain, it looks awesome!
We'll pretty much always have 7 cards in hand at the end of our turn and 4 life per turn is more than anything else does!
I drew it promptly in my first game aaanndd....got not a single lifepoint from it.
Turns out, having 7 cards in hand at the beginning of your upkeep is kinda hard when you go down to 6 each turn, because you have to fog...
So, that's out.
I'm on Sundroplets still atm, but that's mostly because I haven't found anything better yet.
It's...ok.
But only really works in multiples, otherwise it'll be too slow against Burn in many cases.
And if destroyed it loses all it's value.
4 Droplets and 2 Elixirs are kinda ok, but still sketchy. Something more reliable would be nice.
You tap out on turn 4 for getting hexproof and get blown out by Destructive Revelry I rather cast a chalice on 2.
Running the orb doesn't mean you won't be running chalices or putting down a chalice on 2 followed by an orb next turn.
~~~~~
But Burn aside, the orb won't do too much I'm afraid.
Modo and tournaments aside, where people may not expect the orb, everyone who plays you more than once will board in something circumvent it as they would with Leyline.
What decks is it even useful against?
BGx: hardly, by t4 it'll at best block lili's ult or sac....seems quite pointless.
Storm: Chalice on 2 should be enough, orb doesn't prevent empty the cheons nor it being bounced before the grapeshot.
Ad Nauseam: Might prevent one Lightning Storm kill, doesn't help vs Lab Maniac, likely to get bounced.
Scapeshift: Chalice on 4 should suffice, orb alone likely to get bounced.
Podless Pod: can stall them, but doesn't help vs infinite life, finks to the face and reclamation sage is a thing.
Idk, Leyline is already rather mediocre, and a Leyline that doesn't even help vs early discard...seems lose.
@ the table:
You DO want Spellskite vs Scapeshift. Reducing all triggers from 3 to 2 and negating some entirely can be very useful and at least buy you some time.
And maybe even against Ad Nauseam, though they probably have Slaughter Pact for it. Or a bounce effect. If not that's a win though. Spell Snare hits a bunch of Robots tools: Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, Vault Skirge and Whipflare (seems quite good vs Ninja-Bear-Delver). Annul maybe 1 point vs Ad Nauseam, as it counters their mana rocks and Phyrexian Unlife. Reality Shift vs Burn? "Replace a 2/2 | 1/2 | 2/3 that might draw lands with a 2/2...and prevent 2 damage". Seems a bit odd to me to be honest. ^^ And not vs Amulet? At least the first one could be a nice blow out, if the opponent doesn't grab Tolaria West to chain titans, but wants to go for the kill. Echoing Truth seems ok vs Abzan too. Yes, it's bad vs Siege Rhino, but pretty nice against Lingering Souls. Hurkyl's Recall should have 6+ points vs Affinity. Ok, not really, but it's super good there. And pretty useless everywhere else. Hibernation would have a higher score if you had some more decks in your list. Pretty nice vs Elves and Zoo. Relic of Progenitus shrinks Goyfs vs Jund and Abzan, can delay Delver creatures from them and Grixis flavours and works nicely against a variety of odd graveyard strategies that aren't too common overall (dredge, loam decks (assault/pox), storm and anything that uses a bunch of snapcasters).
The rest looks solid, aside from the rather narrow list of decks you compare those against, but that could just be your local meta. ^^
Commandeer - steals karn and many other things that will negate the card disadvantage. It is a free trump card that can save the day. I would only run 1 copy in the board however as in most situations it would not be as useful. Although it would be fun to start a list of good targets:
Against Tron I'd rather bring Mindbreak Trap or Bribery than Commandeer I think. At least against Gx Tron.
Ad Nauseam is somewhat unreliable, depends on how careful they play, if they look for a Pact of Negation (also a sideboard option, btw) before attempting the combo.
U Tron usually only runs 1 Ugin anyway, so it's not overly strong there, plus they have Repeal. It's cute vs Gx Tron though.
Nabbing a Lili sounds nice vs Jund, if they leave your hand intact enough for Commandeer + 2 blue cards. And even then, they may not have a creature out and might Abrupt Decay it next turn, which then still a 2 for 3.
Against Junk with Lingering Souls that plan sounds even more situational.
Scapeshift has a pretty good chance of keeping 1+ counter up when going off, which makes Commandeer tricky again.
Vs Amulet it seems decent, as long as you have a threat out already and can afford trading 3 for 1.
If you know they don't have Hive Mind, you could just take their Titan instead though.
Against counters...it depends. Seems only worth it if you want to play out a super important threat (not really the case for most delver decks) or it's a counter war over a very important piece of the opponent.
Vs normal counter Disrupting Shoal will make a much better impression.
Against Cryptic specifically it can be really sweet, or a very costly Dispel.
Overall....I'm not sure how great it really is.
In a Delver deck with Day's Undoing maybe, as you want to empty your hand quickly anyway and trading 3-1 or 3-2 isn't that terrible if you keep your board and can refill your hand the next turn.
But Gx Tron aside, it's not really an optimal answer I think.
It's a pretty fun one though, I'll give it that. ^^
Black adds pressure that the mono red list missing.
the discard and land denial plans are great.
Kolaghan's Command is amazing.
Chalice of the Void is really mvp post side.
What do you usually set the Chalice at?
With the large amount of 1 cmc cards that popular option seems somewhat risky, though I can see it work at 2 to e.g. stop the bigger burn spells, counters and other shenanigans.
I disagree with you on most counts. Giving "all value" decks 7 cards is fine because they can never spend their cards on time. I've had a lot of success with Undoing decks against BGx and think the card hoses them. At least, it does in my experience. Twin is also one of the best matchups (something like 80-20).
I'm sure play mistakes are a big part of your lack of success; as stated, these decks are incredibly challenging. That's the main reason I have trouble playing non-grow decks; I like to be challenged.
As for other grow decks in Modern, I recommend Counter-Cat or Monkey Grow. As far as I know, other ones don't exist.
So it's just me being a scrubby scrub.
That's pretty good news then. ^^
I guess I'll just gotta keep trying and get more games under my belt.
Pyroclasm seems risky in a build with only 11 threats of which 7 die to it.
While Ghast does come back, it'll summoning sickness again most likely.
Maybe cards like Forked Bolt and Electrickery would work better against Lingering Souls, while also still wiping a lot of other threats of the battlefield.
And against Snapcaster decks you can ping of their guy w/o loosing your own board in the process.
Additionally, if you want to go Tempo, I'd suggest maybe dropping a land or two and removing any >3 cmc cards while adding more threats. (maybe 1 swamp -> mountain and potentially drop the manland? it's only doing so much as a 1 of and could be a hindering speedbump in your tempo plan. or, if you want it as a threat in grindier games, up the count and see if it's an issue or not)
I'd add either aggressive threats, like Monastery Swiftspear, or value engines like Bob or Pack Rat, so that, during topdeck wars, you can turn your useless discard into Pack Rats.
Potentially Bob main, rats in the side for games where either Bob or Swiftspears or so don't shine.
Vs Tron I'd just say: Be Tempo. Drop threats, disrupt their hand, beat them before they do anything meaningful.
Crumble is probably too expensive and does too little in a build like this.
But with the combination of discard and 11 threats (+1-2 maybe, if you shave some lands) it could probably do a nice job at playing something between a tempo and/or midrange game.
I've been playing the original iGrow version (with the minor sb tweak) from Jordan's tournament report article.
While I really love the deck's interaction, synergy and difficulty when it comes to decision making, I gotta agree that it seems to often...not quite "get there".
Of course some is normal variance (the amounts of 5+ land hands Undoing likes to give me is somewhat silly), but against the relatively mid-range-y Modo meta is seemed to kind of lack punch.
Where games against aggro and combo are mostly just "hope to finish them before dying" (especially Twin is troublesome with Exarchs mucking up the ground for ages and only Flame Slash being effective removal), the midrange decks tend to be able to outlast this deck.
Yes, it's great to fill up on interaction with 2 creatures in play, but giving a decks that are basically "all the value cards - the pile" a fresh 7 to let them deal with the board and refill their card pool isn't great.
And not always is holding the Undoing an option, when they e.g. have a just bounced Angler and a bunch of removal in their hand or it's topdeck time, which is never fun vs BGx.
So, while incredibly fun to play, I don't exactly see the deck's great match-ups yet, though I can at least say that I rarely lost 2-0.
At the very least it was an interesting deck to learn and made me realize that I really love playing Tempo, it's like playing Control, but with a Delver on the board to actually clock them and not just durdle around.
Maybe I should take a look at Monkey-Grow (though I'm not fond of monkeys) or Counter-Cat (dat manabase though. .__.), even though they don't draw as many cards.
As a sidenote: If the consistency issues (or perhaps just my play mistakes ^^) could be eased up some, I'd love to get this one on paper to actually start playing more than just online.
At the moment it just seems a bit too...cute? to throw that much money at it.
Do you just want to get to 5 asap and drop something and it's good, or do you want to actually ramp there?
For just a one-shot 5 mana burst, you can just use Rituals (Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual) and get there turn one (Land, Simian Spirit Guide, Ritual, Ritual, Ritual) or turn two with one less Ritual.
For staying Ramp your fastest is probably turn 3.
Land, mana dork
land, mana dork
land
is 5 mana on turn 3. If you use one Ritual you can get it down to turn 2 with 1 dork and 2 lands.
Another way are land enchantments like Utopia Sprawl and using something like Arbor Elf.
Or the infamous Summer Bloom, but that needs a hand with 5 lands, so....probably not the way to go, unless you want to go full on Amulet Combo and do something else with the Mana than casting Titans. That's not very reliable or consitant for asap 5 mana though.
If you use Birds or Caryatid you get any mana colour, with things like Pentad Prism you can filter as well, or you can use Manamorphose to get your U and W mana out of G/R things, as you said you're most interested in getting WUR mana.
Add in shocks and you can easily play mana dorks and have all the colours you could wish for on turn 3, or with a bit more risk turn 2.
Another option to get ahead is Gemstone Caverns, but that's obviously not all that reliable, unless you're ok with going 2nd more often, if you e.g. need the 5 mana for an instant combo win or something similar.
For reliable fast ramp into something more lasting like e.g. a Batterskull or Baneslayer Angel or other comparable big guy your opponent probably doesn't want to see turn 3, mana dorks or land enchantments are probably the way to go.
"1WB, Sac a creature: Utter End" really doesn't sound bad.
In any other deck she seems hard to make use of.
For B/W Tokens the 30+ life seems somewhat hard to achieve, unless Sorin is active already, in which case you're probably in a good spot already, while Soul Sisters /might/ play it as a 1 of or so, to get rid of annoying hate at the cost of surplus sisters, but do they really want or need such a clumsy effect for that.
And what do you sac to kill a Night of Souls' Betrayal? One of your already pumped beatsticks? Seems rather costly to me.
Grixis Control can totally be control.
It's just that it's often more leaning towards midrange than control, but that's more of an issue with classification than the archetype.
True, UTron has issue with aggro, but in Modern it's kinda "pick your poison". It's pretty hard to make a control deck that has good game against everything and when it comes to anything else than
comboaggro (wtf was I thinking there...), especially other control decks, UTron just walks over them.It can be a meta call though, sure.
If there's a ton of aggro in your local meta, you may want a different control deck (e.g. Martyrproc or Grixis).
GRTron is ramp into big stuff asap.
UTron is counters into eventual tron and mindslaver lock or big stuff.
Martyrproc isn't Soul Sisters.
Soul Sisters is what you said, a lifegain-aggro deck.
Martyrproc usually doesn't run the sisters, but Martyr of Sands and Proclamation of Rebirth to gain silly amounts of life and recur things for more of that, into eventual beats with Serra Ascendant.
Not counters, sure, but it aims to get the combo above online, or Emeria, for most of the game, at which point it just overwhelms the opponent with value.
Ok, I can somewhat agree with Twin, especially with all it's subtypes that clearly aren't control (Tarmo/Grixis).
Scapeshift is very much a control deck, with a combo finisher, imo, but that's seems like something we could argue about forever, so w/e. ^^
It's fine, it just seemed a bit odd to me, at first glance. :3
Right, I knew I forgot one!
Also I don't agree with not counting (UR)Twin or Scapeshift as control decks.
Just because they kill you with a combo and not Colonnades doesn't mean they don't play a control game most of the time. Isn't 4C Gifts somewhat of a combo deck as well? At least when it comes to Iona it's usually a game won once she resolves. The distinction seems rather arbitrary to me.
At this point your list looks more like "What deck should I play" than an actual objective "What control deck is the best in Modern". :/
OT:
Isn't Faeries more of a Tempo deck? (Actually wondering, because I don't really know.)
Similarly to how Grixis Control is mostly just a midrange deck with a tad more disruption. (Yes there are actual control lists, but many of those labelled control aren't really that. The whole Grixis affair is pretty wishwash atm in Modern though.)
If you want a pure control deck go with UTron or Esper Draw-go, if you feel more like having fun take Cruel Control, imo.
Cruel Control is very different from Grixis Control though.
You don't really run Delve guys, but play draw-go most of the time till you can cast your Ultimatum and finish the job (or go for manland / keranos / Snapcast beats and burn).
They share colours, but not the gameplan.
As to which is the best, I'd say UTron, but that's more bias than based on actual facts. ^^
1 x Mana Confluence
1 x Tendo Ice Bridge
1 x Glimmervoid
4 x Urza's Mine
4 x Urza's Power Plant
4 x Urza's Tower
3 x Darksteel Citadel
1 x Plains
Creatures
2 x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 x Wurmcoil Engine
2 x Mind Stone
4 x Chromatic Sphere
4 x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 x Chromatic Star
2 x Thirst for Knowledge
4 x Open the Vaults
4 x Mox Opal
4 x Ichor Wellspring
4 x Prophetic Prism
4 x Ancient Stirrings
2 x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 x Pyroclasm
1 x Rest for the Weary
2 x Erase
1 x Repeal
3 x Torpor Orb
1 x Engineered Explosives
1 x Phyrexian Unlife
2 x Nihil Spellbomb
2 x Aura of Silence
It looks pretty neat.
Less combo-y, disregarding the infinite loops of many eggs lists to just slam Emrakul and turn it sideways.
Nice write-up on your version.
I have to be honest: when I first looked at your eggs list when you posted it in the Lantern thread, I thought "This looks nice. He seems to miss a wincon though."
Another deck I'd love to try, but looks horrible to play on Modo. ^^
Slap a Sword of War and Peace (or Fire and Ice) on him and you have a 4/4 double striking protection beater that'll wreck any BGx deck if not dealt with the sword, and is pretty good on his own already.
I'm not sure if the hexproof guys are the best carriers.
Good against spot removal, but a turn 2 or 3 sweeper would easily wipe your board and leave you with not much action.
And w/o a sword (or the wrong one) they can't really do anything useful. (E.g. Boggle with Fire&Ice vs a Goyf. With a BB token you can at least still swing and grind out some value)
Maybe a few Lingering Souls or Bitterblossom instead of those would be more useful?
I love the basic idea though, I've been trying to think of a way to play with the swords in Modern since quite a while too. ^^
The main issue is that, when relying on the swords too much, you won't be able to deal with much that isn't a fair creature match up.
Without Discard and other disruption you'll just get combo'd out by various decks before getting to swing with a swords equipped guy, while other midrange decks can just Abrupt Decay / Kolaghan's Command / Ancient Grudge, etc. the swords and there goes the gameplan.
Instead of now making the swords more durable or recurring, I'd say making a more or less standard BGx deck with swords in the main sounds more viable.
At least in theory.
I'll admit that that's not even nearly as exciting though. :/
You want Darksteel Citadel, but also the Lich, who needs BBB to cast, so with the Citadel it becomes a 4 drop, in case you don't have a turned on Mox Opal or Drum + Ornithopter (which seems likely with only 3 of each).
2 a turn.
You gain 1 on each upkeep.
But like you said, a single one is pretty underwhelming, whereas 2+ are pretty nuts.
Ivory Crane Netsuke doesn't work.
I tried it, because if you don't use your brain, it looks awesome!
We'll pretty much always have 7 cards in hand at the end of our turn and 4 life per turn is more than anything else does!
I drew it promptly in my first game aaanndd....got not a single lifepoint from it.
Turns out, having 7 cards in hand at the beginning of your upkeep is kinda hard when you go down to 6 each turn, because you have to fog...
So, that's out.
I'm on Sundroplets still atm, but that's mostly because I haven't found anything better yet.
It's...ok.
But only really works in multiples, otherwise it'll be too slow against Burn in many cases.
And if destroyed it loses all it's value.
4 Droplets and 2 Elixirs are kinda ok, but still sketchy. Something more reliable would be nice.
Running the orb doesn't mean you won't be running chalices or putting down a chalice on 2 followed by an orb next turn.
~~~~~
But Burn aside, the orb won't do too much I'm afraid.
Modo and tournaments aside, where people may not expect the orb, everyone who plays you more than once will board in something circumvent it as they would with Leyline.
What decks is it even useful against?
BGx: hardly, by t4 it'll at best block lili's ult or sac....seems quite pointless.
Storm: Chalice on 2 should be enough, orb doesn't prevent empty the cheons nor it being bounced before the grapeshot.
Ad Nauseam: Might prevent one Lightning Storm kill, doesn't help vs Lab Maniac, likely to get bounced.
Scapeshift: Chalice on 4 should suffice, orb alone likely to get bounced.
Podless Pod: can stall them, but doesn't help vs infinite life, finks to the face and reclamation sage is a thing.
Idk, Leyline is already rather mediocre, and a Leyline that doesn't even help vs early discard...seems lose.
You DO want Spellskite vs Scapeshift. Reducing all triggers from 3 to 2 and negating some entirely can be very useful and at least buy you some time.
And maybe even against Ad Nauseam, though they probably have Slaughter Pact for it. Or a bounce effect. If not that's a win though.
Spell Snare hits a bunch of Robots tools: Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, Vault Skirge and Whipflare (seems quite good vs Ninja-Bear-Delver).
Annul maybe 1 point vs Ad Nauseam, as it counters their mana rocks and Phyrexian Unlife.
Reality Shift vs Burn? "Replace a 2/2 | 1/2 | 2/3 that might draw lands with a 2/2...and prevent 2 damage". Seems a bit odd to me to be honest. ^^ And not vs Amulet? At least the first one could be a nice blow out, if the opponent doesn't grab Tolaria West to chain titans, but wants to go for the kill.
Echoing Truth seems ok vs Abzan too. Yes, it's bad vs Siege Rhino, but pretty nice against Lingering Souls.
Hurkyl's Recall should have 6+ points vs Affinity. Ok, not really, but it's super good there. And pretty useless everywhere else.
Hibernation would have a higher score if you had some more decks in your list. Pretty nice vs Elves and Zoo.
Relic of Progenitus shrinks Goyfs vs Jund and Abzan, can delay Delver creatures from them and Grixis flavours and works nicely against a variety of odd graveyard strategies that aren't too common overall (dredge, loam decks (assault/pox), storm and anything that uses a bunch of snapcasters).
The rest looks solid, aside from the rather narrow list of decks you compare those against, but that could just be your local meta. ^^
Against Tron I'd rather bring Mindbreak Trap or Bribery than Commandeer I think. At least against Gx Tron.
Ad Nauseam is somewhat unreliable, depends on how careful they play, if they look for a Pact of Negation (also a sideboard option, btw) before attempting the combo.
U Tron usually only runs 1 Ugin anyway, so it's not overly strong there, plus they have Repeal. It's cute vs Gx Tron though.
Nabbing a Lili sounds nice vs Jund, if they leave your hand intact enough for Commandeer + 2 blue cards. And even then, they may not have a creature out and might Abrupt Decay it next turn, which then still a 2 for 3.
Against Junk with Lingering Souls that plan sounds even more situational.
Scapeshift has a pretty good chance of keeping 1+ counter up when going off, which makes Commandeer tricky again.
Vs Amulet it seems decent, as long as you have a threat out already and can afford trading 3 for 1.
If you know they don't have Hive Mind, you could just take their Titan instead though.
Against counters...it depends. Seems only worth it if you want to play out a super important threat (not really the case for most delver decks) or it's a counter war over a very important piece of the opponent.
Vs normal counter Disrupting Shoal will make a much better impression.
Against Cryptic specifically it can be really sweet, or a very costly Dispel.
Overall....I'm not sure how great it really is.
In a Delver deck with Day's Undoing maybe, as you want to empty your hand quickly anyway and trading 3-1 or 3-2 isn't that terrible if you keep your board and can refill your hand the next turn.
But Gx Tron aside, it's not really an optimal answer I think.
It's a pretty fun one though, I'll give it that. ^^
What do you usually set the Chalice at?
With the large amount of 1 cmc cards that popular option seems somewhat risky, though I can see it work at 2 to e.g. stop the bigger burn spells, counters and other shenanigans.
So it's just me being a scrubby scrub.
That's pretty good news then. ^^
I guess I'll just gotta keep trying and get more games under my belt.
While Ghast does come back, it'll summoning sickness again most likely.
Maybe cards like Forked Bolt and Electrickery would work better against Lingering Souls, while also still wiping a lot of other threats of the battlefield.
And against Snapcaster decks you can ping of their guy w/o loosing your own board in the process.
Additionally, if you want to go Tempo, I'd suggest maybe dropping a land or two and removing any >3 cmc cards while adding more threats. (maybe 1 swamp -> mountain and potentially drop the manland? it's only doing so much as a 1 of and could be a hindering speedbump in your tempo plan. or, if you want it as a threat in grindier games, up the count and see if it's an issue or not)
I'd add either aggressive threats, like Monastery Swiftspear, or value engines like Bob or Pack Rat, so that, during topdeck wars, you can turn your useless discard into Pack Rats.
Potentially Bob main, rats in the side for games where either Bob or Swiftspears or so don't shine.
Vs Tron I'd just say: Be Tempo. Drop threats, disrupt their hand, beat them before they do anything meaningful.
Crumble is probably too expensive and does too little in a build like this.
But with the combination of discard and 11 threats (+1-2 maybe, if you shave some lands) it could probably do a nice job at playing something between a tempo and/or midrange game.
While I really love the deck's interaction, synergy and difficulty when it comes to decision making, I gotta agree that it seems to often...not quite "get there".
Of course some is normal variance (the amounts of 5+ land hands Undoing likes to give me is somewhat silly), but against the relatively mid-range-y Modo meta is seemed to kind of lack punch.
Where games against aggro and combo are mostly just "hope to finish them before dying" (especially Twin is troublesome with Exarchs mucking up the ground for ages and only Flame Slash being effective removal), the midrange decks tend to be able to outlast this deck.
Yes, it's great to fill up on interaction with 2 creatures in play, but giving a decks that are basically "all the value cards - the pile" a fresh 7 to let them deal with the board and refill their card pool isn't great.
And not always is holding the Undoing an option, when they e.g. have a just bounced Angler and a bunch of removal in their hand or it's topdeck time, which is never fun vs BGx.
So, while incredibly fun to play, I don't exactly see the deck's great match-ups yet, though I can at least say that I rarely lost 2-0.
At the very least it was an interesting deck to learn and made me realize that I really love playing Tempo, it's like playing Control, but with a Delver on the board to actually clock them and not just durdle around.
Maybe I should take a look at Monkey-Grow (though I'm not fond of monkeys) or Counter-Cat (dat manabase though. .__.), even though they don't draw as many cards.
As a sidenote: If the consistency issues (or perhaps just my play mistakes ^^) could be eased up some, I'd love to get this one on paper to actually start playing more than just online.
At the moment it just seems a bit too...cute? to throw that much money at it.