Ok gang, 11 years later and here we are... Just stumbled onto this thread by chance as I was curious, but man I wish I had known these threads existed 2 years ago when I built this deck. But if anyone somehow still gets notifications for this thread 10 years later, you might be interested to know I made a thing..... https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/4-color-adventureshift/
The key to the puzzle was "Adventure" spells, we really just needed the reverse of the polymorph decks... The same way polymorph decks use instants and sorceries that make creatures, we needed things that are only spells on the stack.
We also got MDFCs in Strixhaven that technically fit the bill as well but they are just so underpowered and unsynergistic that it won't really work to run them, in anything but commander (which does sound fun!)
The last keys to the puzzle were Primal Surge, which has the exact same deckbuilding restriction as spellshift for maximum payoff using minimal slots, and Thassa's Oracle for the instant-kill-at-instant-speed potential.
I've never quite clenched the 5-0 with this list, and it's been tough to know if I could since Spellshift and Primal Surge are bugged together on mtgo. But I have 4-1'd leagues with the deck in MTGO competitive leagues, back when I played the deck more about a year ago. It needs some new tools to make it competitive, but there's a lot of time for them to do so, so for now I'm waiting to see. The deck has been a bit power creeped out and I don't think I'd run it anymore at anything other than FNM or kitchen table Modern. The deck is very successfully a blast though, and very capable of beating any deck in Modern with some finesse and some luck.
I really like your shell Sandman but am curious what you've tried as your wincons. Have you given Sigil of the Empty Throne a shot? I get that it's expensive and does nothing when it ETBs, but so does heliods, and I'm not convinced that spending 4 mana on every 2/1 you generate is going to be the type of value you need or want. If you're foregoing ideal, I wonder if there is another way you could win once you have your hardlock down. Maybe it just doesn't matter.
The one thought I did have that might be crazy for your list, or maybe not, is what about 3x Wheel of Sun and Moon in your deck and splash a Rest in Peace? It imitates a maindeck graveyard hate piece, and you would just natural mill out any opponent after you have nine lives+unlife+solemnity+double shroud. The only issue is it folds pretty hard to any opponent playing an emrakul, like the through the breach decks or enchantress. They just make you sac more and more of your stuff. Also folds to back to nature and fracturing gust, maybe it's too slow. I just have a tough time seeing 3cmc heliod getting the job done against a sea of opponents resources for creatures, massive blockers etc. Wondering if there is an out of the box answer - wanted to say luminarch ascension for a second but that obviously doesnt work with solemnity.
Alrighty boys, I think I've landed on the most versatile and powerful shell of Enduring ideal I've ever played. There was a 3 week span where I landed 14 4-1s out of 19 mtgo leagues, never reaching the 5-0. Then Mill and control ticked up, dropped down to a 3-2 average, and now Tron is on the rise this past week, which has been devastating, but I've found Alpine Moon to make the matchup winnable. I have gotten 6 3-2s in a row with the deck, but the league yesterday I punted away a nearly unlosable game against Obosh Burn by not boarding in a second wincon in Wheel of Sun and Moon and an opponents ragavan exiled my form of the dragon when i had the lock down and 3 less cards in my library, to keep me off the 4-1. (Beat classic affinity 2-0, lost to obosh 1-2, beat hammertime 2-0 easily, beat burn 2-0 easily, lost to jeskai control 0-2).
The biggest all star in the deck, and I've believed this for weeks, is Wargate. It REALLY ties the deck together, and the key is to run plenty of lands. Almost every card in the deck either protects the lock, finds the lock, or races towards enduring ideal. The key interactions that put Wargate above Idyllic Tutor as an option are the fact that it can ramp out lotus bloom (with utopia sprawl as early as t2, enabling turn 3 enduring ideal), and in the control matchup post sideboard it rampant growths out a boseiju to uncounterably go fetch dovescape.
It's hard to describe just how good it has felt. I feel like some of the tension in the deck has always been it jumps straight from 3 drops to 7 drops in good builds, and having what is essentially 8 lotus blooms in the deck has been epicly good. Wargate both ramps out a black lotus AND uses incoming lotus bloom mana incredibly well, but also is a fine target on 2 for shroud. both comes down after you grab your lifelock with some combination of natural piece draws or sterling grove tutors, to snag another sterling grove, and also enables you to really race to the enduring ideal in the matchups where your opponent is threatening some sort of combo, or piece that gets around the lock.
Here's the list, I highly recommend trying it. I agree with Sandman above that solemnity unlife/nine lives is the best thing this deck wants to be doing, and it isn't close. I am very skeptical however of the idea that we want any kind of creature package, especially since solemnity shuts off the counters from heliod.
Agreed about being torn between unlife and nine lives, unlife absorbs a bit more of a hit late game if opponent literally has a giant army, but nine lives can't just be removed. But then again, nine lives doesn't work if you plan on following it up with form of the dragon, you basically have to grab solemnity next. All that being said, we just got a GREAT new toy to mess around with:
Enduring ideal has been looking for a get out of jail free card/slot for a while, to the point where I felt it was necessary to run supreme verdict to clean creatures up. But this checks all our boxes: enchantment for sphere of safety, cheap and early removal, and high impact ETB effect. By the time the opponent's creatures come back, even if only exiled with like 2 or 3 counters, we should have a bit more defense online.
PLUS with Solemnity out first, it's a permanent wrath.
Really hoping we get something like Sterling Grove to push this deck over the edge - it's been bottom tier for way too long, and the only ways I've found to make it work really make it lose its identity (to get results I've had to just slot the wincon in a spell control package. Which is lame.)
Solitary Confinement seems like an obvious include now as a potential target, but not sure. Confinement+Dovescape should normally be enough, but do we already have better options in that slot? Not totally sold yet... Grabbing a Phyrexian unlife to fog for a turn against flyers before grabbing form the following turn and going back to a positive lifetotal is just as versatile versus flyers, plus having form of the dragon to play around abrupt decay still seems key enough.
Having unlife + form of the dragon + overwhelming splendor + dovescape already covers all of our bases, but am I missing something? Does confinement plus another card plus dovescape easily make a 3-card slot that's tighter without losing the tools for those corner cases?
blast zone can also be ticked up the necessary amount to take out confinement quite easily (wheras with splendor+dovescape they cant tick it at all), as can opponent just discarding our hand, and a topdecked enduring ideal means confinement is a dead target, as confinement will just sac itself. Can anyone think of a better way to abuse this card? Or is it just deceptively bad like I suspect?
This esper list is the build I've been tweaking lately, but the meta feels so diverse lately, that I can't come up with any easy includes. Every game I play, I feel like I should be playing a totally different shell. All these tiny static ability planeswalkers are SO annoying to deal with, every one of them shuts down something we are trying to do, and we can only answer them on the stack. Mainboarding Suppression Field does NOTHING versus the planeswalkers that can both A.) statically shut down our counterspells, B.) Enable their own counterspells, and C.) Bounce our enchantments once we resolve ideal. We don't have creatures to pressure them with (maybe we need to run a few creeping tar pits?) and so I am now running a few copies of The Elderspell in the sideboard. The problem is, they have a diverse range of threats. And, it feels like the only answer to a diverse meta is counterspells, which do nothing if they resolve their threats. So, what's faster than a counterspell (and cheaper) to answer those kinds of things? Early turn discard. Hence my Esper build feeling half decent. I'm torn deciding what's correct for # of inquisition and thoughtsieze vs. # of counterspells.
This list is by no means correct, it's just the insane ramblings of someone trying to make an enduring ideal shell work in a companion meta. The only thing I can think of for creatures is that Fatal Push goes way up in value. I used to run 4 Drown in the Loch, but honestly, less decks fill up their graveyard incidentally than ever before as far as I can tell. I find it being at best a 1 cmc answer, and a dead card, VERY often. Have considering relegating it to the sideboard. And, probably will soon.
To back up a bit, I run 3 shells right now, 2 of them Bant, and one Esper, with the esper feeling like the most jack-of-all-trades of them all. List below.
Before I show that list, want to hit on the Bant builds I tried.
In my permanent based bant shell, I have been running [[Wargate]] as a way to drop a Lotus Bloom onto the battlefield on turn 3, then untap with 7 and ideal on turn 4. In that shell, I run more of the Phyrexian Unlife and Solemnity combo. (because I can survive to 6 mana, wargate into the other piece. Again, 3feri is a PROBLEM there.)
In my spell based Bant Shell, it's pretty much still the list I posted above.
That build has been doing OK but it feels like every deck EXCEPT ours got a big spicy companion to go along with it. I've racked my brain trying to make one work, and came up short. The only one we could MAYBE run would be the 80 card one, and we don't have the kinds of ETB effects to go along with it. It is SO UNBELIEVABLY hard to run 1-for-1 spells against creatures AND planeswalkers, when your opponent starts with an 8 card hand, and you can't thoughtsieze their combo piece! It's aggravating, because I will control the board to the point where if they didn't have a companion, they would be topdecking for an answer while we topdeck for our answers, while we play lands, and then once they resolve a few things we have hopefully land dropped, resolved lotus bloom etc., into the win. But now, they just wait until it's safe (they topdeck thoughtsieze or something) and then Lurrus and we are out of answers. Companions feel VERY broken and I'm quite uncertain what the answer is. Answer to Lurrus is still not clear to me - on one hand, running paths and Condemns feels decent when they can't recur their creatures, and fatal push seems dead. The insane thing is, fatal push SHOULD be INCREDIBLE on paper against a deck that ONLY runs permanents with cmc 2 or less. But they just replay their spells from the yard and then we lose... Path, or condemn is probably right. I just can't wait until Lurrus gets banned. When it does, I will revisit my ideal list. I'll post an update, but hopefully these insane ramblings have given you at least a few deckbuilding ideas.
Final notes: The meta has slowed down a LOT. Things we didn't have the mana for before, we do now. I've cast Plasm Capture without dying many more times now than in the past, and ramped to ideal that way. If you try green in your list, it's a good option. And another thing: Lotus field was a HUGE piece of our deck, but with 4 mana karn and 3feri being so common, it almost feels imperative that we find another card in its place. I have really been hoping I could just drop lotus bloom, and that Plasm Capture would fill that void. The problem is, when I need to use it as a counter and have no spendy permanents to drop the next turn, it feels like a waste. Maybe we just go the draw into 7 lands plan? Hard to say. Lotus Bloom was also a card that was a dead draw mid game and made the deck clunky, so who knows? maybe Growth Spiral helps? If any thoughts on the ramp plan, I'd love to hear them. Arbor Elf + Utopia Sprawl is hard to do in 3 colors in my opinion, and too many slots in a deck that needs to control. Honestly, maybe Thryx, the Sudden Storm just fits into our deck as a value spell, to attack down planeswalkers at the least? On curve, if you get to 5 mana, and we are on the counterspell plan, having the option to either counter something, or end of turn flash in a 4/5 flyer that lets us Ideal if we draw a land, feels really powerful in this slower meta. I'll try maindecking a few and let you know how it goes.
One piece I have been considering is Wishclaw Talisman for my Esper Control build. Even just running it as a 1 of. Setting up with 5 or 6 mana up for an eventual 8 mana ideal might be OK if the meta stays slow? It's just a thought. Feels better than it looks on paper, when I've run it in other shells.
Happy brewing! Let me know your thoughts on any of this if you have any.
I've been replacing Sphinx of the Final Word in my UW builds with Thryx, The Sudden Storm in my sideboards, and it's gotten to the point where I've almost maindecked one. It's a GREAT way to boost from 5 or 6 mana to a next turn uncounterable ideal in the control matchups, and the current meta is much slower. I like to get to 6 mana, pass, wait for my opponent to play something with about one counter open, then I bait the Thryx EOT and if they answer, I hope to draw into a land and win (or else all but guarantee the win, if Thryx resolves.) Or, in a pinch, often times they'll tap out for something (or put Teferi on the stack) and it feels half decent to respond with Thryx at 5 mana, and know if that top card is a 6th land you have an early uncounterable ideal. Plus, solid pressure in the air. If you're having trouble in the snow control or UW control matchup, it's a pretty solid card to consider to speed things up slightly, and give you something they absolutely must answer.
Sidenote: they often will take out their creature removal against UW Ideal, if you present enough enchantments and no creatures in game 1. This makes Thryx even better. Sphinx of the Final Wordis also a fine option but frankly, can feel a little "win-more" and expensive. Give Thryx a shot.
The thread is alive boys!! I've been trying to get really, really weird with this deck, mostly for fun but to see if cards like Growth Spiral or Plasm Capture can have a place in some versions of the build. I've had some moderate success!
Anyone have any other ideas of some sweet cards green could offer? Didn't want to install a ramp package unless the ramp also served a purpose, Plasm Capture seemed like a good idea - either growth spiral into it to cast it turn 3, or cast it turn 4, and hopefully cast it on something 3cmc at some point to allow ideal the next turn. Maybe I need more removal/interaction that is cheap? I could cut the condescends, and add the paths back in, they just don't play nice together so I run one or the other, and condemn in place of paths to fight creature decks. Only creature I'm sad to see is bob with a condemn in hand, b/c opponents won't attack with it. One note is that I'm almost NEVER sad to have Condescend in my hand, even if there's something scary on the field, as it lets me dig 2 deep to find an answer worst case, and best case it counters too. People like to use their mana, even late game, and with 1 in hand you might as well dump your mana into it anyways. It gets a bad rap but i like it.
I've also built an Esper Control build that is quite nice - I run a single tutor to close out those long games, and the targeted discard is a nice touch to clear the way for enduring ideal or pick off an early problem. I'll post a list eventually, but that one I'm actually tuning in a serious, non-silly way. This Bant control list is just Fun, it's typically not going to be competitive (at least not yet.)
Let me know any thoughts, I'm diving back in and there is SO much room to be creative with the enduring ideal wincon.
They're closing the form!?!? Nooo!!! It's been an honor boys. Can someone save this thread somewhere else? There's a plethora of useful info here for the deck that I have not seen ANYWHERE else. For those looking to try to make this deck work, it's been amazing and would be amazing if saved somewhere else (is that possible?) I certainly found it invaluable. Is MTGsalvation going offline!?
Hall of Heliod's Generosity is a HUGE upgrade as far as consistency. WAY better than mistveil - some decks I could see running it as a 3 or 4-of and cutting down on pieces. At LEAST a 1 of, potentially with mistveil as well? Makes the mistveil-mill plan a little worse, but you can always still shoe in a 1-of mistveil if that's really your plan/what you feel you need. I'm going to try 4-of and see how it goes!
Debating replacing my Starfield of Nyx with another card, and changing 4 lands for this, yes its legendary which sucks but at least a 2-of if not 3 seems good.
Sidenote, I replaced starfield with Wheel of Sun and Moon for both graveyard hate, milling as last resort, and the option to still get cards stuck in your hand directly to the library to stop opponents' GY hate. Going well so far, not to mention stops yourself from getting Supreme Verdicted.
We are naturally fairly resilient to (at least prison shells are) Generous Gift elephants, worth replacing or trying?. I also have my eye on Exclude - seems good.
Blast Zone is becoming a problem in my traditional builds, pushing me even more towards my UW control build (Which I'll add is doing really well lately.) It seems like every deck that can afford to run it is - it's essentially a slotless Engineered Explosives with no real drawback for decks that dont care about a splash of colorless.
That being said, maybe it's something we could afford to play in a control shell? Food for thought. Secondly, with my UW control shell, I'm REALLY excited but also worried about Dovin's Veto, it allows me to resolve enduring ideal and fetch dovescape against blue decks or just be a good card against blue, but it also gets through Dovescape to counter a copy of enduring ideal, which in some matchups might be enough to slow us down. I feel in an enduring ideal control shell, it helps us more than them - UW control getting 1 turn before another enduring ideal trigger doesn't exactly save them from what we're trying to do, and similar decks don't run blue white usually -can't see it hurting me more than it hurts them. But, thoughts? That's at least WAY better for us than someone printing uncounterable removal.
For Tron, I think I'm realizing my best sideboard card is by far (2) Nevermore naming Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or World breaker. Every time I play tron, I miss playing my Zur's Weirding + Axis of Mortality wincon. ALthough those are really the only 2 problem cards post-lock, they are HUGE problems if we cant answer them - everything we do is basically useless until we get them to zero life if they can blow up our board and then recover with a million mana.
With the new London Mulligan rule, might it be smart to play some draw spells and more unlife+solemnity with any of the builds of this deck? Just a thought, to take advantage of the increased combo potential with the new rule. Thoughts?
My traditional builds were not putting up enough wins, so I have resorted to this blue white control shell and just slotted in enduring ideal + winconsto try it out. It's semi budget, no cryptic etc. I went 2-2, but should have gone 3-1 easily, my last turn of my last game I cracked off enduring ideal with a Solemnity and a Leyline of Sanctity on board, panicked and grabbed Phyrexian Unlife hoping they wouldn't topdeck ench. removal... they topdecked it. If I would have grabbed Overwhelming Splendor i would have gone to 1 life from their 2 goblin guides and it would have shut them off from winning. It was burn, and they brought in Cindervines, which overwhelming splendor just so happens to hose. So, all in all, the deck had every right to go 3-1, I just misplayed it.
At any rate, my matches at this week's FNM were as follows:
Grixis Arclight Pheonix (Lost): Lost games 1 and 3, was able to beat them with sideboard tech G2 (Damping Sphere, Tormod's Crypt)
Izzet Wizard Burn/Aggro (Won): Won 2 games, and then won a for-fun game. Phyrexian unlife + solemnity both games was a lock, one of the two games I got it the old fashioned way.
Elves (Won): Wraths, wraths, and paths. Easily took elves down, they didn't have a chance. And since I no longer play tons of enchantments, did not fold to reclamation sage. Survived until enduring ideal both games, grabbed overwhelming splendor g2 to shut off rec sage, he scooped. 2-0.
Basically Mono-red Burn (Lost, but not deck's fault, mine): (with light up the stages etc, splashed green for sideboard)
Game 1 I drew literally 2 lands, then a 3rd before I died, over multiple turns (even managed to counter 2 bolts.) Died horribly, deck underperformed. Then, game 2 without a leyline I phyrexian unlifed and drew the game on, enduring idealed, won. Game 3, got horribly close, made the mistake laid out above (went for unlife lock, but knowing they had cindervines, didn't grab overwhelming splendor and lost.)
I believe cindervines is actually good for us, in a niche way. Anyone who slots it out for Destructive Revelry can get got by splendor, and got by anyone who runs Suppression Field in the traditional builds (although why you wouldn't sideboard it out is still beyond me against burn.)
Would a Jace/Teferi control build be strictly better than what I've made? Probably. But this is still plenty spicy and even people who have seen enduring ideal don't totally expect it. Plus, the roughly 10 slot wincon for this build is muuuuuuch cheaper than running those planeswalkers, so I'd say the consistency loss is worth it if you really love enduring ideal.
What I've learned from this is that UW control shell might be better in this creature heavy meta, and/or I would reccomend in any build running 3-4 Supreme Verdict and possibly Terminus or Settle the Wreckage. Settle might be kind of bad against prison, but also consider that it hits a graveyard heavy meta hard.
The key to the puzzle was "Adventure" spells, we really just needed the reverse of the polymorph decks... The same way polymorph decks use instants and sorceries that make creatures, we needed things that are only spells on the stack.
We also got MDFCs in Strixhaven that technically fit the bill as well but they are just so underpowered and unsynergistic that it won't really work to run them, in anything but commander (which does sound fun!)
The last keys to the puzzle were Primal Surge, which has the exact same deckbuilding restriction as spellshift for maximum payoff using minimal slots, and Thassa's Oracle for the instant-kill-at-instant-speed potential.
I've never quite clenched the 5-0 with this list, and it's been tough to know if I could since Spellshift and Primal Surge are bugged together on mtgo. But I have 4-1'd leagues with the deck in MTGO competitive leagues, back when I played the deck more about a year ago. It needs some new tools to make it competitive, but there's a lot of time for them to do so, so for now I'm waiting to see. The deck has been a bit power creeped out and I don't think I'd run it anymore at anything other than FNM or kitchen table Modern. The deck is very successfully a blast though, and very capable of beating any deck in Modern with some finesse and some luck.
The one thought I did have that might be crazy for your list, or maybe not, is what about 3x Wheel of Sun and Moon in your deck and splash a Rest in Peace? It imitates a maindeck graveyard hate piece, and you would just natural mill out any opponent after you have nine lives+unlife+solemnity+double shroud. The only issue is it folds pretty hard to any opponent playing an emrakul, like the through the breach decks or enchantress. They just make you sac more and more of your stuff. Also folds to back to nature and fracturing gust, maybe it's too slow. I just have a tough time seeing 3cmc heliod getting the job done against a sea of opponents resources for creatures, massive blockers etc. Wondering if there is an out of the box answer - wanted to say luminarch ascension for a second but that obviously doesnt work with solemnity.
The biggest all star in the deck, and I've believed this for weeks, is Wargate. It REALLY ties the deck together, and the key is to run plenty of lands. Almost every card in the deck either protects the lock, finds the lock, or races towards enduring ideal. The key interactions that put Wargate above Idyllic Tutor as an option are the fact that it can ramp out lotus bloom (with utopia sprawl as early as t2, enabling turn 3 enduring ideal), and in the control matchup post sideboard it rampant growths out a boseiju to uncounterably go fetch dovescape.
It's hard to describe just how good it has felt. I feel like some of the tension in the deck has always been it jumps straight from 3 drops to 7 drops in good builds, and having what is essentially 8 lotus blooms in the deck has been epicly good. Wargate both ramps out a black lotus AND uses incoming lotus bloom mana incredibly well, but also is a fine target on 2 for shroud. both comes down after you grab your lifelock with some combination of natural piece draws or sterling grove tutors, to snag another sterling grove, and also enables you to really race to the enduring ideal in the matchups where your opponent is threatening some sort of combo, or piece that gets around the lock.
Here's the list, I highly recommend trying it. I agree with Sandman above that solemnity unlife/nine lives is the best thing this deck wants to be doing, and it isn't close. I am very skeptical however of the idea that we want any kind of creature package, especially since solemnity shuts off the counters from heliod.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bant-enchantment-prison-splashing-red/
Out of Time (link)
Enduring ideal has been looking for a get out of jail free card/slot for a while, to the point where I felt it was necessary to run supreme verdict to clean creatures up. But this checks all our boxes: enchantment for sphere of safety, cheap and early removal, and high impact ETB effect. By the time the opponent's creatures come back, even if only exiled with like 2 or 3 counters, we should have a bit more defense online.
PLUS with Solemnity out first, it's a permanent wrath.
Really hoping we get something like Sterling Grove to push this deck over the edge - it's been bottom tier for way too long, and the only ways I've found to make it work really make it lose its identity (to get results I've had to just slot the wincon in a spell control package. Which is lame.)
We also got http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/soul-snare-3/, something to consider.
EDIT: LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO Sterling Grove is legal babyyyy! Enduring ideal/pillowfort may just be viable finally after all! We are getting there!
http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/sterling-grove/
And finally:
We got an Eidolon of Blossoms but one that dodges creature removal!
http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/enchantresss-presence-2/
Out of time is going to be great with solemnity as well. So far, we've gotten quite a bit of help!
Having unlife + form of the dragon + overwhelming splendor + dovescape already covers all of our bases, but am I missing something? Does confinement plus another card plus dovescape easily make a 3-card slot that's tighter without losing the tools for those corner cases?
blast zone can also be ticked up the necessary amount to take out confinement quite easily (wheras with splendor+dovescape they cant tick it at all), as can opponent just discarding our hand, and a topdecked enduring ideal means confinement is a dead target, as confinement will just sac itself. Can anyone think of a better way to abuse this card? Or is it just deceptively bad like I suspect?
This list is by no means correct, it's just the insane ramblings of someone trying to make an enduring ideal shell work in a companion meta. The only thing I can think of for creatures is that Fatal Push goes way up in value. I used to run 4 Drown in the Loch, but honestly, less decks fill up their graveyard incidentally than ever before as far as I can tell. I find it being at best a 1 cmc answer, and a dead card, VERY often. Have considering relegating it to the sideboard. And, probably will soon.
To back up a bit, I run 3 shells right now, 2 of them Bant, and one Esper, with the esper feeling like the most jack-of-all-trades of them all. List below.
Before I show that list, want to hit on the Bant builds I tried.
In my permanent based bant shell, I have been running [[Wargate]] as a way to drop a Lotus Bloom onto the battlefield on turn 3, then untap with 7 and ideal on turn 4. In that shell, I run more of the Phyrexian Unlife and Solemnity combo. (because I can survive to 6 mana, wargate into the other piece. Again, 3feri is a PROBLEM there.)
In my spell based Bant Shell, it's pretty much still the list I posted above.
Here's my Esper Build for now.
Main:
Side:
That build has been doing OK but it feels like every deck EXCEPT ours got a big spicy companion to go along with it. I've racked my brain trying to make one work, and came up short. The only one we could MAYBE run would be the 80 card one, and we don't have the kinds of ETB effects to go along with it. It is SO UNBELIEVABLY hard to run 1-for-1 spells against creatures AND planeswalkers, when your opponent starts with an 8 card hand, and you can't thoughtsieze their combo piece! It's aggravating, because I will control the board to the point where if they didn't have a companion, they would be topdecking for an answer while we topdeck for our answers, while we play lands, and then once they resolve a few things we have hopefully land dropped, resolved lotus bloom etc., into the win. But now, they just wait until it's safe (they topdeck thoughtsieze or something) and then Lurrus and we are out of answers. Companions feel VERY broken and I'm quite uncertain what the answer is. Answer to Lurrus is still not clear to me - on one hand, running paths and Condemns feels decent when they can't recur their creatures, and fatal push seems dead. The insane thing is, fatal push SHOULD be INCREDIBLE on paper against a deck that ONLY runs permanents with cmc 2 or less. But they just replay their spells from the yard and then we lose... Path, or condemn is probably right. I just can't wait until Lurrus gets banned. When it does, I will revisit my ideal list. I'll post an update, but hopefully these insane ramblings have given you at least a few deckbuilding ideas.
Final notes: The meta has slowed down a LOT. Things we didn't have the mana for before, we do now. I've cast Plasm Capture without dying many more times now than in the past, and ramped to ideal that way. If you try green in your list, it's a good option. And another thing: Lotus field was a HUGE piece of our deck, but with 4 mana karn and 3feri being so common, it almost feels imperative that we find another card in its place. I have really been hoping I could just drop lotus bloom, and that Plasm Capture would fill that void. The problem is, when I need to use it as a counter and have no spendy permanents to drop the next turn, it feels like a waste. Maybe we just go the draw into 7 lands plan? Hard to say. Lotus Bloom was also a card that was a dead draw mid game and made the deck clunky, so who knows? maybe Growth Spiral helps? If any thoughts on the ramp plan, I'd love to hear them. Arbor Elf + Utopia Sprawl is hard to do in 3 colors in my opinion, and too many slots in a deck that needs to control. Honestly, maybe Thryx, the Sudden Storm just fits into our deck as a value spell, to attack down planeswalkers at the least? On curve, if you get to 5 mana, and we are on the counterspell plan, having the option to either counter something, or end of turn flash in a 4/5 flyer that lets us Ideal if we draw a land, feels really powerful in this slower meta. I'll try maindecking a few and let you know how it goes.
One piece I have been considering is Wishclaw Talisman for my Esper Control build. Even just running it as a 1 of. Setting up with 5 or 6 mana up for an eventual 8 mana ideal might be OK if the meta stays slow? It's just a thought. Feels better than it looks on paper, when I've run it in other shells.
Happy brewing! Let me know your thoughts on any of this if you have any.
Sidenote: they often will take out their creature removal against UW Ideal, if you present enough enchantments and no creatures in game 1. This makes Thryx even better. Sphinx of the Final Wordis also a fine option but frankly, can feel a little "win-more" and expensive. Give Thryx a shot.
List below:
Lands:
Spells:
Sideboard:
Maybe board:
Anyone have any other ideas of some sweet cards green could offer? Didn't want to install a ramp package unless the ramp also served a purpose, Plasm Capture seemed like a good idea - either growth spiral into it to cast it turn 3, or cast it turn 4, and hopefully cast it on something 3cmc at some point to allow ideal the next turn. Maybe I need more removal/interaction that is cheap? I could cut the condescends, and add the paths back in, they just don't play nice together so I run one or the other, and condemn in place of paths to fight creature decks. Only creature I'm sad to see is bob with a condemn in hand, b/c opponents won't attack with it. One note is that I'm almost NEVER sad to have Condescend in my hand, even if there's something scary on the field, as it lets me dig 2 deep to find an answer worst case, and best case it counters too. People like to use their mana, even late game, and with 1 in hand you might as well dump your mana into it anyways. It gets a bad rap but i like it.
I've also built an Esper Control build that is quite nice - I run a single tutor to close out those long games, and the targeted discard is a nice touch to clear the way for enduring ideal or pick off an early problem. I'll post a list eventually, but that one I'm actually tuning in a serious, non-silly way. This Bant control list is just Fun, it's typically not going to be competitive (at least not yet.)
Let me know any thoughts, I'm diving back in and there is SO much room to be creative with the enduring ideal wincon.
Debating replacing my Starfield of Nyx with another card, and changing 4 lands for this, yes its legendary which sucks but at least a 2-of if not 3 seems good.
Sidenote, I replaced starfield with Wheel of Sun and Moon for both graveyard hate, milling as last resort, and the option to still get cards stuck in your hand directly to the library to stop opponents' GY hate. Going well so far, not to mention stops yourself from getting Supreme Verdicted.
That being said, maybe it's something we could afford to play in a control shell? Food for thought. Secondly, with my UW control shell, I'm REALLY excited but also worried about Dovin's Veto, it allows me to resolve enduring ideal and fetch dovescape against blue decks or just be a good card against blue, but it also gets through Dovescape to counter a copy of enduring ideal, which in some matchups might be enough to slow us down. I feel in an enduring ideal control shell, it helps us more than them - UW control getting 1 turn before another enduring ideal trigger doesn't exactly save them from what we're trying to do, and similar decks don't run blue white usually -can't see it hurting me more than it hurts them. But, thoughts? That's at least WAY better for us than someone printing uncounterable removal.
For Tron, I think I'm realizing my best sideboard card is by far (2) Nevermore naming Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or World breaker. Every time I play tron, I miss playing my Zur's Weirding + Axis of Mortality wincon. ALthough those are really the only 2 problem cards post-lock, they are HUGE problems if we cant answer them - everything we do is basically useless until we get them to zero life if they can blow up our board and then recover with a million mana.
At any rate, my matches at this week's FNM were as follows:
Grixis Arclight Pheonix (Lost): Lost games 1 and 3, was able to beat them with sideboard tech G2 (Damping Sphere, Tormod's Crypt)
Izzet Wizard Burn/Aggro (Won): Won 2 games, and then won a for-fun game. Phyrexian unlife + solemnity both games was a lock, one of the two games I got it the old fashioned way.
Elves (Won): Wraths, wraths, and paths. Easily took elves down, they didn't have a chance. And since I no longer play tons of enchantments, did not fold to reclamation sage. Survived until enduring ideal both games, grabbed overwhelming splendor g2 to shut off rec sage, he scooped. 2-0.
Basically Mono-red Burn (Lost, but not deck's fault, mine): (with light up the stages etc, splashed green for sideboard)
Game 1 I drew literally 2 lands, then a 3rd before I died, over multiple turns (even managed to counter 2 bolts.) Died horribly, deck underperformed. Then, game 2 without a leyline I phyrexian unlifed and drew the game on, enduring idealed, won. Game 3, got horribly close, made the mistake laid out above (went for unlife lock, but knowing they had cindervines, didn't grab overwhelming splendor and lost.)
I believe cindervines is actually good for us, in a niche way. Anyone who slots it out for Destructive Revelry can get got by splendor, and got by anyone who runs Suppression Field in the traditional builds (although why you wouldn't sideboard it out is still beyond me against burn.)
7x Island
5x Plains
1x Mistveil Plains
4x Nimbus Maze
4x Prairie Stream
4x Glacial Fortress
Spells:
2x Condemn
1x Render Silent
1x Spell burst
4x Condescend
4x Path to exile
3x Wall of Omens
2x Search for Azcanta
2x Detention Sphere
1x Phyrexian Unlife
1x Glimmer of Genius
1x Settle the Wreckage
4x Supreme Verdict
4x Enduring ideal
1x Form of the Dragon
2x Dovescape
1x Overwhelming Splendor
1x Solemnity
1x Starfield of Nyx
4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Sphinx of the Final Word
4x Damping Sphere
4x Tormod's Crypt
Would a Jace/Teferi control build be strictly better than what I've made? Probably. But this is still plenty spicy and even people who have seen enduring ideal don't totally expect it. Plus, the roughly 10 slot wincon for this build is muuuuuuch cheaper than running those planeswalkers, so I'd say the consistency loss is worth it if you really love enduring ideal.
What I've learned from this is that UW control shell might be better in this creature heavy meta, and/or I would reccomend in any build running 3-4 Supreme Verdict and possibly Terminus or Settle the Wreckage. Settle might be kind of bad against prison, but also consider that it hits a graveyard heavy meta hard.