Ya, the idea is that both gideons are legendary creatures and so is kalitas. I'm also very happy to have the 14th turn 1 black source and 20th turn 2 black source. Those numbers make it "ideal" based on that Frank Karsten article. I may have more black sources than needed since I'm playing Urborgs but turn 1 has been rough recently so I'd like to improve that a little bit.
Kalitas is intentionally in the sideboard to get around removal after it's been boarded out. He's only there for aggro and graveyard decks - decks that are light on removal. Against dredge I board out my Smallpox anyway. It's OK to play a few creatures in a smallpox deck especially since we have so many tokens to sacrifice too. And even if I'm forced to sacrifice Kalitas to Smallpox I still get a token from the creature my opponent sacrificed. I'm not sold on him yet but I want to test him out.
I would gladly play the fourth thoughtseize (or perhaps a duress) in the sideboard but I feel like we have more important things to sideboard for. I'm not completely opposed to play 4 TS main but I feel like I board them out a lot so I'll try the surgicals for now. Mana Tithe as a 1 of was always great for me so that will be what I fall back on if Surgical doesn't feel right.
I know that RIP / Surgical isn't the best combo. Hopefully that doesn't hurt me too much. Luckily the only match ups I want both are against something like Dredge - decks that abuse their graveyard to the max. Otherwise I only use one or the other for most match ups.
It's tough to say what you want to do game 1 against an unknown opponent. The main thing is you usually want 3 lands and something to do the first few turns. So Serum Visions / Thoughtseize / Fatal Push / Counterspells are things you want to look for. You can't keep a hand of 4 lands / Jace / Cryptic / Damnation. You'll never do anything with that. You need hands that do something even if it's just a serum that can dig for more stuff.
Against Jund your opening hand it's too important since it's going to be discarded quickly. Serum Visions is great becuase you can set up your top decks and they can't get Thoughtseized off the top of your deck haha. You'll also want some removal for their creatures if you can.
Same with 8rack. Your opener isn't too important. Just try to set up your plays with Serum Visions. Planeswalkers are great in the match up so try to defend them from discard spells with counterspells of your own.
For Dredge you want graveyard hate in your opener (pretty straight forward, I know). If you can discard their first faithless looting effect and counter their second you should be OK to start setting things up. If you can't stop their lootings you need graveyard hate.
The cards I'm debating are all of the 1-ofs spells.
Not sure if I should play Surgical main or maybe a Mana Tithe. I like playing 8 one mana "discard spells" (I would include Surgical and Tithe here) but the 4th Thoughtseize sounds too painful.
Gideon of the Trials has been good but I've played very few games with him so far. I like him over Tombstalker right now because of RIP.
Disenchant and Kalitas are sideboard slots I was unsure about. Disenchant has been great locally but the meta may be pretty different at regionals. Kalitas seems good against a lot of the top decks.
My deck struggles a lot with Planeswalkers (espeically Liliana, the Last Hope) / Blood Moon / Ensnaring Bridge. So having an out to all three is really nice. I would prefer some split of Disenchant and Celestial Purge though since both are much better cards being 2 cmc and they don't cost life.
The trade off is that I want at least two ways to beat each of my "problem cards" and I only need 3 sideboard slots if I run 1 of each of my hate cards. I would prefer 2 Disenchant / 2 Purge but then I have to cut something else... Unmaking is fine against Tron too which is a pretty close match up.
The most popular board wipe is Terminus which unfortunately hits Ormendahl.
I played Kaya for one night Friday and boarded her out in 3/4 matches so that wasn't fun. I'll try her again this week but I'm starting to get pretty skeptical. She will probably just end up in my "if the meta goes crazy" box haha. I could see her working in a very specific meta but right now my local meta is more midrange.
Someone mentioned that she could be a sideboard card but I'm not a fan of her there. What is she realistically replacing? She doesn't outright win any match ups (Think RIP / Stony / Surgical type cards) so I don't think she fits in the sideboard. She reminds me a lot of Liliana, the Last Hope. She could fit in the right meta but probably won't be a staple.
I totally agree, based on your threat base you can skew your deck to beat any match up. My meta must look much different from yours since there is almost no aggro around here right now.
Bitterblossom is amazing against control and it's much harder to be blown out where Ormendahl, Profane Prince can be pathed. I could also see Gideons in the sideboard to replace your bridges with in slow games. even against Path decks where he is a little worse than average you can still make gideon a token producer or an anthem.
I think a bridge build can work but there should be a way to turn the corner quickly. I'm not suggesting we need to goldfish a win on turn X, that's not the point of the deck. But once you've discarded your opponent's hand and dealt with their board you want to win quickly before they top deck well. I would argue we sit between Midrange and Control. Blue based control decks can wait forever to win but we need to win quickly since we can't interact with the top of the deck.
Myth Realized + Liliana of the veil is great because you can force them to discard their fatal push, etc. Raven's Crime is an interesting card. I'll have to add it to the primer and try it out.
Bridge is a powerful card but it actively hurts you in a lot of match ups. In my opinion Gideon is the most powerful card in the deck and you can't play him because of the bridges. Sorin is also on the top of the list of powerful cards. I haven't been able to test Kaya yet (they just arrived yesterday) but I'm not convinced she can replace Sorin / Gideon. Her ultimate provides a bit of reach but on an empty board Gideon can win in three turns which just can't be matched by Kaya unless you heavily build around her.
I just want to add - I think building around Kaya is a trap. You need 20 cards in exile to win the game and that's completely on your opponent to get that many cards unless you start milling. But at that point it's a different deck. Some decks (like BW Smallpox for example!) only draw one card a turn and have no (or very little) card advantage. You'll never get to 20 cards against those decks before turn 20 (accounting for lands) and very few modern games last that long.
I think Bridge is more of a sideboard card for when you know it locks up the game. There are too many match ups where Bridge is just meaningless (Storm / Burn / Tron / UWx) and a few where it's easily dealt with (BGx). That way you can still play Gideon and Sorin and you can always board them out. I think token strategies have to have anthems to be viable in an open meta. Otherwise they are just too slow.
Without Gideon or Sorin the tokens strategy isn't very powerful. the real draw to Bitterblossom is that you can give your tokens a boost with Gideon emblem / Sorin +1. Otherwise I think Bitterblossom on its own is too weak. I often end up losing if BB is my only threat.
I think it's correct to use only 3 drops when playing bridge like you're doing. Maybe Kaya is enough to regain health from BB.
Why do you want to use wrench mind? It feels like our deck is already really well positioned against control - or any deck that wants to keep a full hand. So Wrench mind doesn't seem too necessary.
Thanks for posting your list! It's definitely different.
From my experience Jund and the Rock are good match ups. Assassin's trophy / Blood braid elf / Liliana of the veil are the cards you want to stop if you can. BBE is why thoughtseize is important for the deck. You can't counter both the BBE and the cascade spell.
Humans is tough, especially if you're new to blue control decks. They will probably have an answer for your Damnation so don't rely on them to win the game for you.
Liliana, the Last Hope is a card I was thinking is worth testing. She plays a lot of roles: she can get back creatures or if you protect her long enough she can just win the game with her ultimate. Her +1 is pretty good too.
Another card that I really enjoyed when playing UB was Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. I won't tell you she's amazing but I had a lot of fun, and she's pretty cheap too.
Cards I cut are 1 snapcaster / Clique / Search for Azcanta / Polluted Delta / 1 Cryptic / Thoughtseize / Liliana / SB: Explosives / SB: Surgical
Expensive cards that are still in the deck are: Snapcaster / Cryptic / Damnation / Jace (but it sounds like you already have Jace).
I think at minimum the deck needs a couple of each of the cards in this list. These are your main sources of card advantage (Glimmer of Genius is a pretty bad card). The deck could potentially survive without Snapcaster Mage but you would want more Cryptics / Damnations to supplement that. After you have this list Polluted Delta and Search for Azcanta are probably the most important upgrades to get.
Thanks for more ideas. I will add most of these though I'm not going to add any new cards like Angel of Grace just because I feel that a primer shouldn't speculate on new cards. We can discuss those in the comments.
Kalitas is intentionally in the sideboard to get around removal after it's been boarded out. He's only there for aggro and graveyard decks - decks that are light on removal. Against dredge I board out my Smallpox anyway. It's OK to play a few creatures in a smallpox deck especially since we have so many tokens to sacrifice too. And even if I'm forced to sacrifice Kalitas to Smallpox I still get a token from the creature my opponent sacrificed. I'm not sold on him yet but I want to test him out.
I would gladly play the fourth thoughtseize (or perhaps a duress) in the sideboard but I feel like we have more important things to sideboard for. I'm not completely opposed to play 4 TS main but I feel like I board them out a lot so I'll try the surgicals for now. Mana Tithe as a 1 of was always great for me so that will be what I fall back on if Surgical doesn't feel right.
I know that RIP / Surgical isn't the best combo. Hopefully that doesn't hurt me too much. Luckily the only match ups I want both are against something like Dredge - decks that abuse their graveyard to the max. Otherwise I only use one or the other for most match ups.
Good luck at the GP! A report would be great!
Against Jund your opening hand it's too important since it's going to be discarded quickly. Serum Visions is great becuase you can set up your top decks and they can't get Thoughtseized off the top of your deck haha. You'll also want some removal for their creatures if you can.
Same with 8rack. Your opener isn't too important. Just try to set up your plays with Serum Visions. Planeswalkers are great in the match up so try to defend them from discard spells with counterspells of your own.
For Dredge you want graveyard hate in your opener (pretty straight forward, I know). If you can discard their first faithless looting effect and counter their second you should be OK to start setting things up. If you can't stop their lootings you need graveyard hate.
The cards I'm debating are all of the 1-ofs spells.
Not sure if I should play Surgical main or maybe a Mana Tithe. I like playing 8 one mana "discard spells" (I would include Surgical and Tithe here) but the 4th Thoughtseize sounds too painful.
Gideon of the Trials has been good but I've played very few games with him so far. I like him over Tombstalker right now because of RIP.
Disenchant and Kalitas are sideboard slots I was unsure about. Disenchant has been great locally but the meta may be pretty different at regionals. Kalitas seems good against a lot of the top decks.
Let me know what you all think.
The trade off is that I want at least two ways to beat each of my "problem cards" and I only need 3 sideboard slots if I run 1 of each of my hate cards. I would prefer 2 Disenchant / 2 Purge but then I have to cut something else... Unmaking is fine against Tron too which is a pretty close match up.
I played Kaya for one night Friday and boarded her out in 3/4 matches so that wasn't fun. I'll try her again this week but I'm starting to get pretty skeptical. She will probably just end up in my "if the meta goes crazy" box haha. I could see her working in a very specific meta but right now my local meta is more midrange.
Someone mentioned that she could be a sideboard card but I'm not a fan of her there. What is she realistically replacing? She doesn't outright win any match ups (Think RIP / Stony / Surgical type cards) so I don't think she fits in the sideboard. She reminds me a lot of Liliana, the Last Hope. She could fit in the right meta but probably won't be a staple.
Bitterblossom is amazing against control and it's much harder to be blown out where Ormendahl, Profane Prince can be pathed. I could also see Gideons in the sideboard to replace your bridges with in slow games. even against Path decks where he is a little worse than average you can still make gideon a token producer or an anthem.
Myth Realized + Liliana of the veil is great because you can force them to discard their fatal push, etc. Raven's Crime is an interesting card. I'll have to add it to the primer and try it out.
I just want to add - I think building around Kaya is a trap. You need 20 cards in exile to win the game and that's completely on your opponent to get that many cards unless you start milling. But at that point it's a different deck. Some decks (like BW Smallpox for example!) only draw one card a turn and have no (or very little) card advantage. You'll never get to 20 cards against those decks before turn 20 (accounting for lands) and very few modern games last that long.
I think Bridge is more of a sideboard card for when you know it locks up the game. There are too many match ups where Bridge is just meaningless (Storm / Burn / Tron / UWx) and a few where it's easily dealt with (BGx). That way you can still play Gideon and Sorin and you can always board them out. I think token strategies have to have anthems to be viable in an open meta. Otherwise they are just too slow.
I think it's correct to use only 3 drops when playing bridge like you're doing. Maybe Kaya is enough to regain health from BB.
Why do you want to use wrench mind? It feels like our deck is already really well positioned against control - or any deck that wants to keep a full hand. So Wrench mind doesn't seem too necessary.
Thanks for posting your list! It's definitely different.
From my experience Jund and the Rock are good match ups. Assassin's trophy / Blood braid elf / Liliana of the veil are the cards you want to stop if you can. BBE is why thoughtseize is important for the deck. You can't counter both the BBE and the cascade spell.
Humans is tough, especially if you're new to blue control decks. They will probably have an answer for your Damnation so don't rely on them to win the game for you.
Another card that I really enjoyed when playing UB was Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. I won't tell you she's amazing but I had a lot of fun, and she's pretty cheap too.
A budget build might look something like this:
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Artifact (2)
2 Nihil Spellbomb
Land (24)
4 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Field of Ruin
6 Island
4 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Instant (16)
4 Fatal Push
1 Spell Snare
1 Cast Down
2 Mana Leak
2 Countersquall
1 Remand
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Cryptic Command
1 Glimmer of Genius
4 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Damnation
Planeswalker (4)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Dispel
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Extirpate
2 Countersquall
3 Unmoored Ego
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
Cards I cut are 1 snapcaster / Clique / Search for Azcanta / Polluted Delta / 1 Cryptic / Thoughtseize / Liliana / SB: Explosives / SB: Surgical
Expensive cards that are still in the deck are: Snapcaster / Cryptic / Damnation / Jace (but it sounds like you already have Jace).
I think at minimum the deck needs a couple of each of the cards in this list. These are your main sources of card advantage (Glimmer of Genius is a pretty bad card). The deck could potentially survive without Snapcaster Mage but you would want more Cryptics / Damnations to supplement that. After you have this list Polluted Delta and Search for Azcanta are probably the most important upgrades to get.
I tried to reserve the primer for tested cards and keep comments for speculation on new cards.