MTG Salvation

Thanks for the reply. Do you mind posting your deck list? I love BUG but could never make it work.

Search has been pretty good for me. I could definitely see going down to 1 though and I think I will test that out. Flood hasn't been a huge issue since once you flip Search you can start impulsing.

Ya, staying on curve with FoR seems like the main draw to it. I will miss the random Spreading Seas locks though. They will get to search up whichever color they need now. Part of me wants to do a split but that's probably worse than picking one plan...

I've heard other people say Gearhulk is probably the best option. I played Batterskull in this slot for a while since it synergizes with Search for Azcanta. The problem was that it could grind really well but didn't make a big impact (my whole deck grinds well so I don't need more grind power). I feel like Scarab God is similar. I'm not too keen on playing opt over serum visions though. And 12 instants seems like too few. I just got Grave Titan so I will test it a little more before looking into Gearhulk. Thanks for the tip on Scarab God haha!

Ashiok has been really good for me. I've been thinking about including Liliana the Last Hope somewhere in the 75. LotV just isn't in my price range right now and I'm not convinced she would work well with the deck. I have a lot of Counter magic which Liliana doesn't play nicely with.

Thanks for your suggestions! I'd love to see your deck and compare.

Hi everyone. I have been working on this deck for a little while now and it's a lot of fun. I am looking for general suggestions on it since I'm not 100% sure of my meta right now. I recently moved and am still learning the local meta. The one event I played I went 1-2 beating Blue Moon and losing to Jund and Jund Elves. The Jund match was close and Jund Elves was a train wreck for me.

This deck seems to do well against other control. It did well against Death's Shadow but has been struggling a bit with Jund. It is weak to fast aggro but Collective Brutality helps a lot here. It usually does OK against Combo too. I really like the concept of the deck and don't want to alter it a lot, I am mostly looking for small tweaks.



The primary game plan of the deck is to control the opponent until I can play a planeswalker and take over the game through the advantage the walkers provide.

I want to point out some seemingly sub optimal choices right now. Bojuka Bog and Nephalia Drownyard are cards that I'm back and forth on. Nephalia Drownyard paired with Ashiok is a potent clock that helps against Lantern Control and other Prison strategies. It is also a good way to force action against control decks because of the long term inevitability. A meta without prison or control doesn't need the Drownyard but my last store had Lantern so I liked keeping it in. It will come out if my meta is light on control and prison. Bojuka Bog has helped a couple times against graveyard strategies to slow them down but it's not the most potent GY hate. If I were to cut one it would be Bojuka Bog and I would likely add another Tectonic Edge.

Speaking of Tectonic Edge: should this be Field of Ruin? The card seems better in UW control where they have Path to Exile to help strip out all of their basics. Tec Edge seemed better in my deck. Thoughts on this?

Ashiok is another card that may seem strange but it seems to be powerful in a lot of matchups. Ashiok needs a lot of support to get started but if you can provide protection then you can take over the game pretty quickly.

Grave Titan is another filler card right now that I am trying out. I think that The Scarab God or Torrential Gearhulk might be better options. Opinions on these two replacements for Grave Titan?

What are your opinions on the deck? Do you have any suggestions to improve it?
Thanks for your help!

Hi 8hlftls, I play a similar deck and I have been doing alright with it. I will post my deck at the bottom.

Some suggestions for your deck in particular: First of all the mana base.
If you are only playing two colors you probably have room in your mana base for Utility lands such as Tectonic Edge, Field of Ruin, Bojuka Bog, etc. Depending on the decks you think you will face I would play 3-5 land hate lands and 0-2 other lands like Bojuka Bog, there is a mill land, etc.
You are only playing 22 lands which I think is far too few. I play 25 and it works really well for me. I don't think you need 4 Watery Grave, I only play 2. You probably don't need 4 Sunken Hollow either. You want to play as many basics as possible because of things like Blood Moon. I play 8 basics.

Looking at your spells, I think someone once told you to always play 4x of your cards. This is more true for aggro than control. That's because control usually plays card filtering and Drawing like Serum Visions, Search for Azcanta, Think Twice. Control decks do this because they need the right answer at the right time. Since Modern is so wide open we need to play lots of different answers and we need to be able to get to them efficiently.
I can think of lots of matchups where Geth's Verdict is really useless (think Lingering Souls). So 4 is too many. The same probably goes for Agony Warp and Countersquall (which sucks because I love these cards!). I think the best advice is to try to find the cards that are useful in lots of different scenarios. Some examples of this are: Dimir Charm and Collective Brutality. They are modal and almost always relevant.

Here is my list. It has a different game plan than yours but hopefully you can get some ideas from it.


Now, if you are looking for a more tier list, I would suggest UW control or UBW Control. White offers a lot to the control archetype. But if you want to keep pursuing UB then I'd love to discuss! Let me know what you think of my deck too.