Congratulations on the 5-0, could you provide a little context for what exactly you played against and how the matches went? Were you lucky or unlucky in certain situations, and how might this affect your play in the future? What sideboard cards impressed you, which were lacklustre, and how do you think the synergies you were intending fit into the way things developed? These kinds of considerations are generally helpful for everyone, including the person posting, to contextualize the results. Not all 5-0 results are the same, and there are many useful things to be learnt even from 0-5 performances, so knowing more about how cards, strategies, or attitudes actually lined up in matches is what I try to emphasize.
Where decklists and cards are concerned, I can confirm Natesroom's comment, or even more simple is to use the icons that are found in the toolbar of the "Reply to this Topic" section at the bottom of the page. Should this be confusing there is within a darker gray area, above the space in which to write, a series of editorial images below the warning to respect the terms of service which extends partway across the page - I will recreate their groupings below:
Hovering over each of these gives you their function, and clicking on any one of them auto-generates a code under your current cursor position which appears only during your generation and will enact the chosen function on the text in the middle of the back-to-back square brackets (in which position you will find your cursor immediately thereafter). The first five groups are for typesetting or copyediting considerations, and the last bracketed list is specifically designed for illuminating Magic discussions. It is genuinely a very strong advantage of this this website that these options are available to us in my opinion, and no doubt represents untold hours of coding for some dedicated soul, so let us celebrate it by using them whenever applicable!
One small quirk is that the spelling of cards must be exact down to the character when using the fourth from last of these, as will be demonstrated in the difference between Zap and Zap. In the second of these, I put an extra space before the capital "z", which the program will not recognize - resulting in a link such as the one above here^^^^^, whereas the first functions as intended to display the chosen image. Spelling mistakes are also apt to produce the same result, so when in doubt be sure to use the blue "preview" function below and to the right of the working text box to display a read-only copy of your current post which will produce exactly what you have generated up until that point. You are free to ignore capitalization if you wish, however (though I personally think that this is an Abomination unto the Gods of Proper English Writing). Once you become familiar with the shorthand, you will sometimes find it expedient to write out some individual codes yourself, which has very graciously been allowed for by the word processing, but in general these icons are of excellent utility.
On to your decklist, then! You have created an excellent environment for Lurrus of the Dream-Den, and your high density of self-replacing effects seems to have allowed you to trim on lands and relevantly to have displaced some of your copies of Sun Titan. Have you found yourself being hit more severely by graveyard hate as a result? I find that early game threats that exploit recursion are a liability post-board, where you are rewarding their Rest in Peace effects early in the game rather than passively discouraging it by making it dead in more circumstances. (By this I mean, essentially, are the 3/2 legendary lifelinking bodies pulling their weight in general?) I have a personal aversion to Mishra's Bauble in a deck trying to play "Mainphase Magic" as well, but in your list it seems less relevant than usual because of your aforementioned number of cantrip effects. How clean have you found your mana curve to be, specifically at the 2 and 3 mana points?
Speaking of Mana, as I move to your sideboard I would like to ask how many spells Void Mirror countered for you, and whether the anti-synergy with your Baubles ever came up. I had made note of it as a possible sideboard card, but it seemed a little too narrow in its coverage. If you have the time as well, could you detail how relevant you found Deicide? I assume it is primarily for Heliod, Sun-Crowned, but feel free to mention any other relevant targets which came up or were in mind when you added the card.
Congratulations again, and I look forward to your response!
Fluff - Damping Sphere is strong, but it is a purely passive answer whose taxing effect is symmetrical and doesn't stop many things outright, which is why I am not running it currently. The three lands its first line of text can be literally indispensable for dealing with are 1) Simic Growth Chamber, 2) Urza's Tower and 3) Lotus field - in roughtly that order of popularity and/or relevance in the format. The fact that it can also deal with Castle Garenbrig in the Bounceland Titan decks is pure upside as well, and it has relevance against Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and/or Eldrazi Temple at times, plus very corner-case possible uses against Overgrowth, Abundant Growth, and Utopia Sprawl. Decks using these last three are generally able to play one turn off-curve if they are allowed to resolve one spell per turn, however, so it can hardly be considered high-impact there.
The second line of text is much more situational, and generally isn't worth bringing in against anything other than Storm or AdGrace combo, and it does no more than delay either of those (Storm because they will always board in a bounce spell in the dark, and Ad Nauseam because of their maindeck Teferi, Time Raveler, plus the fact that either deck could have many alternative options to win if they can get to five mana post-board in any event. If you have a particularly difficult multi-spell sequence which you want to disrupt (Bring to Light or Snapcaster Mage are reasonable illustrations of this concept), I could see it coming in if you already have it in the 75, but these (or the Cascade spells Starstorm mentioned) are a losing battle in general for the card, since they will eventually find ways to get around it. To me, it is targeted hate for multi-mana lands and almost nothing else. One last use I have seen is for slowing down the Prowess deck, but my version is so sluggish to finish the game that even there it is a liability in the later turns. Others may have better synergies and a quicker clock to make the tax relevant, so take that for whatever it is worth.
Starstorm- Congratulations on the 4-0, well done! I like the second Seal of Cleansing in your list, and thank you for pointing out the interaction with Urza's Saga - I had not noticed it had a type other than Land. This is a very interesting detail which can notably be exploited with Teferi, Time Raveler! I don't know how good that is, but it seems quite relevant since Tef3ri is also good against the Construct token that it produces. The Patrician's Scorn you mentioned last week may also be more relevant now, as will marginal effects like Cloudchaser Kestrel, War Priest of Thune, Wispmare, Felidar Cub, Dismantling Blow, Fragmentize, Elvish Hexhunter, Dispeller's Capsule, the Duergar Hedge-mage I talked about a little while ago, or more sneakily Echoing Calm. Fracturing Gust and Heliod's Intervention are more realistic and versatile stabilizers against the type of decks the land might tend to associate with, though, so that is where I would legitimately start looking if things lean heavily in the Saga's direction over the next while.
As pertains to your matches, I have nothing much to add to the majority of it except to say great job. I do, however, think that against Izzet Blitz, I would have advised that whenever you bring in Prismatic Ending you should also keep as many Teferi, Time Raveler as possible for the instant-speed synergy. I probably would have trimmed an Emeria or a Titan in the matchup in your position if you really wanted to fit in Sanctifier En-Vec for the Protection from Red blocker it provides. The fact that it is also Protection from Black is the reason why I would have advised bringing it in over Gideon of the Trials versus Jund in your final round, specifically since it also helps contain the Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger you mentioned. Having played with Auriok Champion against Jund in different decks, I can attest to the difficulty they have dealing with a creature that cannot be dealt with via Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Kolaghan's Command or Maelstrom Pulse. Against Jund I also would have been thrilled to bring in Prismatic Ending over the second Gideon (who does all right, but not spectacular in the pairing), since it cleanly answers Wrenn and Six, Tarmogoyf, the problematic Scavenging Ooze, and any escaped Kroxas without much trouble at all, plus providing extra lategame coverage against Liliana of the Veil if you were indeed running the Triome. Since Elite Spellbinder is so vulnerable to the first of these, I would have cut your copies of that instead - Tef3ri's velocity on his-3 is quite important for stabilizing against single large attackers, and turns copies of Wall of Omens into super-Divinations later on. Since Kaldra Compleat is such a good endgame, I think I would have tried to lean into it and Batterskull by instead going:
The Hussar loop is more vulnerable to graveyard hate in this matchup than 3-mana Teferi is, so sadly I would say trimming one is necessary here unless you could accept cutting your Sword of Fire and Ice, but these three spells are very good at helping to win the game, so I would comfortably back them over Gideon of the Trials by a wide margin against Jund.
I hope this makes sense, and wish you all the best!
I would advise against trusting that Prismatic Ending will be able to snag a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove before turn 5 unless you started on a Triome turn 1, but the option to get such coverage once you reach the lategame is nice, and this is exactly the kind of "gravy" you can enjoy in a matchup where the 1-mana version is an effect you want against both Amulet of Vigor and some Engineered Explosives lines. In any event, they often have gotten value from the 2/4 Enchantment Creature already by the time they pass back priority, where the land drop they make after it has resolved has already done some damage. The Confounding Conundrum may help there, but it is only a one-of so you should be expecting more to use it for value with Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter as a means to keep their manabase off-balance.
Speaking of keeping them off-balance, I think your Elite Spellbinder is better than Supreme Verdict at slowing them down and/or finishing the game, and I expect that Gideon of the Trials is also a valuable commodity when aimed at Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (while helping to end the game in his own right). I think, since Field of the Dead left the format, that answering Primeval Titan is essentially even more the flagship threat, which I would rely on Path to Exile and Solitude for. Emeria, the Sky Ruin recurring Sun Titan is still a good synergy, but even without factoring in Bojuka Bog the onus is much more on lowering the curve for the early game here, so I would trim one of each to keep in or add as much relevant early pressure or interaction as possible. Given this set of dynamics with the list above, I would therefore try something like this:
Which lowers your curve by removing one 6, three 4s, three 3s, and a tapland to put in three (scalable) 1s, four 2s, and swap in two slightly better 3s.
Titan decks do not tend to "Go Wide" anymore, except with Urza's Saga, which you will want to interact with "for free" via Wall of Omens+Gideon of the Trials+Skyclave Apparition as much as possible anyway whenever your own lands cannot do the job. In this circumstance, the Sword of Fire and Ice will have some value at beating past the Illusion token while vastly improving your clock via 3/1 flying beatdown or buffing key creatures out of Valakut range until Kaldra Compleat can combine with it in a lategame trump to wreck their house (current versions do not seem to have a better answer than the awkward Dismember to the new Haste Living Weapon). This is clunky, as a strategy, but at least focused. If you DO see Urza's Saga in number, it may be that Teferi, Time Raveler returns to being good again, so watch for that if Gideon underperforms.
[EDIT: I had forgotten to mention Force of Vigor, which needs to be played around cautiously. Exposing 2 Artifacts/Enchantments should be minimized, but I think that we can recover well enough if it does not end the game on the spot.]
Let me know if any of this seems unclear, and try out a few sample hands with the configuration to see what might be affected! You have a lot of spot removal, so try to keep your Path to Exile specifically for Primeval Titan, and use Skyclave Apparition on everything else that moves other than tokens. I think it will go much better for you if you lean hard into being the beatdown (regardless of whether the matchup can actually become favourable). Remember that many lists are now only running 2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, so kill those whenever you can, and that there are now only three basic Forest in many versions since they now have Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth to "fix" around Damping Sphere. things are still not perfected yet, so expect some variation, but I think that overall the most common builds of the matchup have made things a little better for us.
Best of luck, I hope you can face them again next week!
I get it, and the problem of having to "play your way back" into competence is a real one that I have dealt with in the past as well after periods away from the tournament scene. Things should improve for you quickly, though, as you have the good fortune of fully operational Friday Night Magic events.
Speaking of those events, I suspect that Sanctum Prelate may be the swap you are looking for to put in over Teferi, Time Raveler in the Titan Matchup. Setting it to 0 affects literally none of Emeria's key plays, and makes their deck far less consistent at finding answers for a turn-2 Damping Sphere. Despite being 3 mana the Prelate is also far better than Lavinia, Azorius Renegade at pairing with that specific Artifact in the later turns, as in the case of the Blue Legend they could eventually find a way to escape her soft-lock on 0-mana spells while I attempted to beat down with Living Weapon Germs.
On the subject of these Equipment, what do you think you would sideboard out instead if you had a Kaldra Compleat instead of your Sword of Feast and Famine as per your hypothetical list from the last page? Would you keep in the Batterskull? It may be quite a bit worse as a clock than the new 5/5 Indestructible threat, but it does at least provide some measure of offense in the clutch.
I see - you did not get a chance to try out Solitude yet, then. That was one of my questions in terms of removal against the Izzet deck.
Next, I wanted to get your overall impression of what you are trying to do in the Amulet Titan matchup: your sideboard plan seems slightly unfocused in it. Are you trying to find disruption and then beat down, or use sweepers to protect Planeswalkers for the win? In either event, I am fairly certain I would sideboard quite differently. Before you even tell me which of these is the case, the value of Wall of Omens as a cantrip is almost certainly going to contribute to your strategy. This is, in fact, why the card is as good as it is: the Wall is a purely defensive creature that (by virtue of drawing a card) reduces the effective size of your deck ,and is therefore one of the few things that is good against aggro while not being a total liability against combo. There are times when the rate is too much at 2 mana for a fresh card, but there is literally no better option available to White.
If you know what you need in a given situation, every extra chance at drawing it post-board is a resource that becomes more and more important as the matchup becomes worse. I return to my original statement when I first started contributing to this thread - if Wall of Omens is a card you find yourself wanting to cut, it means that Emeria Control is a bad metagame choice. The Walls also do not hold Equipment with any real value for you, and given that you have reduced your number to 3 already, I might recommend that either you play a different deck or you commit the slots to supporting your more relevant Emeria Fish plan (another Elite Spellbinder, another Charming Prince, and a Selfless Spirit seem like they would be more helpful to you, unless Remorseful Cleric or the third Court Hussar seem better).
It seems as though you may have tried to "split the difference" with the cards you switched out in your strategy, which results in much harder games against Titan decks overall, but in any event I would have tried to find room post-board to bring in your Sorcerous Spyglass. Affecting Tolaria West while covering some ground against problems such as Slayers' Stronghold, Walking Ballista, Urza's Saga, and Engineered Explosives has been nearly invaluable to me with Pithing Needle effects in this pairing.
Thank you for mentioning Kataki, War's Wage - it may be a useful tool against Hardened Scales in particular, though there is awkwardness with boarding in a 2/1 against a deck running Walking Ballista. Artifact Lands are a serious thing to hate out, however, if these new duals pave the way for a return of more swarm-style Artifact decks or even perhaps the original Mirrodin cycle of lands at some point. Patrician's Scorn is also excellent to keep in mind, even though I have no idea if the Enchantress deck is quick enough getting off the ground in Modern.
Could we perhaps get an update on the 75 you brought to your tournament, for full context on your report? I have a couple of questions for your sideboarding, but they may be explained by the specifics of your list.
Just for the sake of completeness - I don't know if you got my last message to you, and since you mention playing Gideon, Ally of Zendikar I think you should probably post the list you ended up playing for clarity. How were the copies of Solitude? Did you end up drawing them?
Backing up your sentiment, I just did some testing yesterday and had a similar problem to yours with Stormwing Entity in Murktide Regent. I had previously noticed Fatal Push decks having trouble with Delve spells like Gurmag Angler and Bedlam Reveler, but these have always been weak to either Devout Lightcaster or Celestial Purge effects in the past (as you mention), however now Prismatic Ending is unfortunately exposing me to the same issue post-board. Teferi, Time Raveler is very valuable against these spells, but does not appear in numbers in my list, so Pilgrim's Eye was actually critical to winning against the version I played against, and Subtlety was often actually being held for the 1/1 flyer once my playtest partner and I figured out how important the body was. With Dragon's Rage Channeler now in the mix with Delver of Secrets, I think that there is a critical mass of threats that ignore Wall of Omens in the format, combined with the presence of multiple tempo-killing versions of Counterspell to make Emeria currently a poor choice against the top tier.
My other testing - against RUG Crashing Footfalls Cascade - highlighted this fact for me even more with Force of Negation playing a similar role. I always bias my testing to being on the draw (AKA worst-case scenario only) once first impressions are formed, so these decks are definitely beatable as-is, but I think that if I was to play an FNM this week, I would immediately cut my own list's Wrath of God for the fourth Supreme Verdict, and maybe the Settle the Wreckage as well for a second Tef3ri plus one Detention Sphere for a third even. The ability to ignore or force countermagic just seems too important right now, and I would have to accept my increased share of losses to Meddling Mage, Silverquill Silencer, Surgical Extraction, and the like. In other news, Remorseful Cleric appears better than usual against the suite of threats at present, Sanctum Prelate is good but not great, Kaldra Compleat is a little worse in reality than on paper due to being inflexible, and Raugrin Triome is not too awkward to maindeck in the slow versions if you are running Prismatic Ending (which itself may have performed better than the Prelate and Living Weapon overall).
Expanding out from these statements to the format as a whole, it appears that Lightning Bolt is probably a key part of Modern's best removal suite at the moment (hitting multiple 3-power fliers and going at Loyalty or life total otherwise). Outside of Vanishing Verse, I think that I would most like to pair it with Despark to cover for its weaknesses, while Elspeth Conquers Death seems expensive, but may currently be an excellent game-breaker. The colour combination of these spells would also allow Ajani Vengeant and Nahiri, the Harbinger to smoothly fill out the curve in a creature-light shell, but I don't know where the card advantage to make land drops consistently would come from then given such a spell suite. Painful Truths might just work, but would then incentivise more Lightning Helix-type cards, and I am not sure how that would all come together. Maybe something like this:
This "Mardu Converge Control" list is for theorycraft purposes only, and is ugly as sin on initial impression, but in addition to what I believe might be a strong removal suite contains a solid card advantage shell plus a few interesting synergies that I will leave for the reader to explore. I hope it kicks off some useful discussion.
That is kind, and I will wait on more data, but I think it will be quite important to change three things on the homepage as soon as possible in order to keep it relevant.
1) Make the switch of Seal of Cleansing for Disenchant on my primer list. The synergies with Sun Titan, Detention Sphere, Mistveil Plains and the tapout plan are far too important for the minimal downside of its on-the-board representation during their turns. The mainphase sequencing is also a very nearly irrelevant concern, and as a board control shell Emeria benefits less than usual from hidden information. Consequently, the Enchantment is now my first choice for sideboard Artifact/Enchantment disruption (until the format dictates otherwise).
2) Put a copy of Sanctum Prelate in over an Aven Mindcensor. It has offered interaction at an affordable rate in matchups that were formerly a "cross your fingers and hope" gameplan for me. In addition, for new players of the archetype it highlights the preferred style of solutions that Emeria, The Sky Ruin wants to focus on, and completely outclasses any countermagic-based plan against noncreature combo, in my estimation, at the cost of only a single slot (though more will surely follow). Finally, it has proved to be situationally backbreaking in the Blitz, Xerox (Phoenix), and Burn matchups, which is an enormously relevant subsection of the metagame right now. Ignoring this powerful new tool may prove frankly irresponsible in the long-term.
3) Add Kaldra Compleat to the "Other Spells" list for Stoneforge Mystic builds (with a provisional 3/5 rating, in my opinion). The 7-mana drawback is real, but the power level is incredible, and offers a completely unique angle of attack only partly mimicked by Batterskull, whose dynamics are also extremely different. The baseline option of a 5/5 Haste Equipment threat cannot be ignored, and access to it can completely change the texture of games or matchups. Since some may wonder about it, it would be foolish not to bring it up on the homepage as well.
Finally: I have tested (and played) against the mono-red Prowess deck more than the U/R versions, so I have to do some catch-up work when I can, but when real sessions get back up and running to re-calibrate strategy guides instead of try out new cards I hope that I will be able to get you a matchup guide with my updated list against the deck sometime next week.
Fluff, thank you for the offer. I think that might be premature in some respects since I haven't formed a solid opinion on Kaldra Compleat yet, and though I would like to remove the 3 Aven Mindcensor for 2 Sanctum Prelate and a Prismatic Ending at present, the testing has not been sufficient to justify these exchanges across the board.
That being said, my confidence that the Prelate will make the final 75 in some number is high enough that I would support swapping one Mindcensor for a copy so that people can begin to gauge the effectiveness of the 2/2 for themselves - without making the existing matchup guides obsolete. In a different issue, I am confident that the sideboard can immediately swap Seal of Cleansing in over Disenchant with significant upside in all relevant interactions where the write-ups are concerned.
Moving back to the subject of Prismatic Ending, I realized last night that I needed to re-evaluate my position on the Triomes (specifically Raugrin Triome) with an eye towards increasing its strength and versatility. I remain unconvinced that physically cycling a land is something I would ever wish to do unless it were under extreme duress, but the idea of switching out one Hallowed Fountain for access to a third colour (which would then enable exiling permanents of 3 mana post-board) represents a very serious advantage at very low opportunity cost, similar to that which justified exchanging the fourth Plains-Island for the Mistveil Plains, and thereafter the third for a Prairie Stream. My hope is that at that point the marginal positive value that can be accrued from its Cycling, from Crucible of Worlds, or from Sun Titan will help compensate for always entering tapped.
I do worry that it may be another case of Idyllic Grange, and Irrigated Farmland, which were both simply not worth the drawbacks given the marginal benefit they provided. On the positive side, however, red mana offers access to new actual lines of play without putting an uncastable spell in the deck in its absence, and in testing the other two lands I found that I very rarely sequence to take two damage from any nonbasic after the first access to blue mana is enabled, and often not at all if I draw a Flooded Strand. In sum, I am cautiously optimistic in this respect. Extracting maximum value from every Plains we put in play is still very much on-theme for the deck, so I will be testing that angle as well once I can guarantee the viability of the more important new cards in Prelate, Kaldra, and obviously Prismatic Ending.
Incidentally, Chained to the Rocks could then become a vague possibility in the shell, though why this would be preferable over On Thin Ice is beyond me at the moment, and can probably safely be dismissed as an option. If multiple Raugrin Triome are included, Duergar Hedge-Mage also stands a remote chance of resolving some random compound issues for the deck, while things like Worldly Counsel, Unified Front or Exert Influence and (more relevantly) Engineered Explosives also gain a little more power should anyone choose to run them. The same is also true of Goblin Replica and Pyrite Spellbomb, but I hold less hope for any of these than the Explosives, and little enough even there unless recurring it for zero with Sun Titan becomes a relevant advantage.
In order to be slightly more exhaustive, If an Indatha Triome were assumed as well, there could be a bizarro-world "Next Level White" build of the deck using Golos, Tireless Pilgrim with a very fragile manabase where things like Bringer of the White Dawn, Obelisk of Urd, [EDIT: sorry, that should readObelisk of Alara]Kenrith, the Returned King, Chamber Sentry, the Mythoi from Ikoria, all of the hybrid Lorwyn Firespout and Ravnica Batwing Brume cards, the remainder of the Steamcore Weird cycle, and a host of off-colour cycling abilities from Shards of Alara would become available to the shell, not to mention Flashback and Unearth costs of all types - where Lingering Souls and things like Viscera Dragger come to mind. This is almost certainly going beyond the deep end of Modern viability, but if anyone was looking for a mad idea to go spend deckbuilding time on I wish them all the best. Magic can appeal to people in many ways, so maybe I should have mentioned the option back when the Triomes were first spoiled.
I hope this has been helpful, and if testing backs up my intuition I promise to re-write any sideboarding guides as necessary, Fluff.
If this reaches you in time, I really think you ought to try out maindecking your three Solitude by reducing your Wrath of God and Supreme Verdict count. I know that the sweepers are extraordinarily powerful in the shell, but your pressure is far more valuable so being able to contribute to it may prove far more important. If this is not the case, you should be able to tell pretty quickly, and the surprise value of the new card will only compensate for a power reduction in the short term so I would strike while the iron is hot. In either event, your experiences will let others know what the issues would be with such a strategy, and would be a valuable addition to this thread. (If you have particular matchups where sweepers are indispensable in the lategame, I would in other circumstances recommend you try something like Martial Coup or Realm-Cloaked Giant, but for today I would say the time is now to just keep as many threats as you can by replacing all your sweepers with the new Evoke mythic. A good rule of thumb in Magic generally is to test early, and test in numbers so that better opinions can be formed and applied as swiftly as possible.)
The rest of this post will likely not be relevant to tonight, so if you are in a hurry please read it later when you have the time. In terms of 23 things to pitch, I agree that this is sufficient number to support the card, but my comment is a direct extrapolation from near-decades of playing with pitch spells in a variety of formats. They tend to have an issue with deciding which cards to get rid of, since the decision is made on casting and the results of their resolution can dramatically alter whether the right decision was made. The upshot is that the more options for fodder a deck has in the absolute deckbuilding sense, the better the pitch spells become. I will accept pitching my game-breaking Ancestral Recall against a control deck to Force of Will if that is what it takes to avoid losing the game on turn one when playing a list that has just barely enough blue chaff to "support" the latter card, but the more pieces of cardboard I can put in my deck that can take the load off my premium cards in any given matchup, the less often I have to make these kinds of plays. The issue is far less obvious, but just as real in Modern. If I Mulligan, or if I have a draw which relied on a Stoneforge Mystic or a Wall of Omens to smooth out my curve, I will more often have to pitch a Sun Titan which might have won me the game if I need to Solitude early, given my relatively high count of colourless cards, lands, and Court Hussar. My point is simply that mono-white would have to do so less often.
Next, on infinite lifegain and the Heliod/Ballista combo, the reason why I think my advice will not be viable for you is that my stance in the matchup is radically different due to the presence of Mistveil Plains in my list. Your deck has a 2/3/2+2 curve that cannot afford more "Enters the Battlefield Tapped" lands than you are currently playing (which is one reason why I think my list has some advantages in the abstract - I get to comfortably play as if I have up to 7 taplands and take less damage from my manabase as a result. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Emeria, the Sky Ruin has much more of a cost in decks where its primary drawback has fewer sequencing options that will disrupt the curve, as is the case when pressure is your primary win condition. Attrition therefore suits the card far better as a strategy whenever possible). In any event, I try to actively encourage my opponents to combo for infinite life, since that will then expose them to removal and sweepers for value and/or tempo plays, and decking doesn't care about how much life they have when their total amount of mana is capped at around 30 mana's worth of plays before Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter start to intentionally run them out of basics. Your Ashiok and Gideon are reasonable options for decking as well, but the problem with them is that they take up a spell slot that can be interacted with far more easily, and sometimes cost you games by not beating their combos.
Finally, I have not yet tested against Burn with the new Equipment package, and since I had favourable impressions of a sideboarded Shadowspear in the past I may revert to a copy for precisely the reasons you mentioned given the loss of one Batterskull. I have noticed that the number of 1-toughness creatures has dramatically reduced as a response to the presence of Gut Shot and Lava Dart, though, so perhaps I will have to consider dropping down to 2 Mortarpod in the near future. I would then have to decide whether the maindeck Shadowspear would be better than the second Batterskull, because given the drawback of Kaldra Compleat being a seven-mana play I have been slightly concerned about my curve these past few days - even despite its indestructibility. The point may be moot, however, because upon reflection Sanctum Prelate has far too high an upside and too broad an application to ignore, which affects the Burn and Prowess matchups directly and significantly. My complete 75 with current recommended sideboard, therefore, is as follows as of Modern Horizons 2:
Should the 1-mana equipment make it into the sideboard, it will probably at this point be in favour of the Blessed Alliance, because it covers the same primary targets of Bogles and Burn, with applications against Infect, while being approximately as cheap and offering interaction for two important keywords (Hexproof and Indestructible). As a tiny bonus, it also allows Germs to attack for 1, and makes an extra 1/1 if Batterskull and sufficient mana are available. I will likely be testing the list as-is with these things in mind until paper tournaments open up.
You made two very good points I want to address: first Solitude vs Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This is an interaction that had completely escaped my attention, and affects my rating by a few percentage points. I still think that the guaranteed 2-for-1 negative exchange rate is too costly for an effect which will remain otherwise unavailable until turn 5 at minimum in my card economy-conscious build, but if there was a specific problem that threatened extremely early lethal attacks more often I would now be certain of it as a justifiable inclusion maindeck. For builds without Stoneforge Mystic filling the 5-drop slot with access to Batterskull as a bridge, this is almost assuredly better in the abstract than Gideon Jura, Cavalier of Dawn, and Geist-Honored Monk (with a far higher base power level, barring other synergies). It may ultimately find its best home in mono-white in any event, which will have far better options on a consistent basis as to what to pitch to it, much like the advantage Legacy Merfolk enjoys when casting Force of Will and Force of Negation. In your build, the Flash body is already a resource of interest, and I wonder whether you might consider removing your sweepers for it instead of your Path/Gideon/Teferi? You might at this point have reached critical mass for spot removal to move the sweepers to the sideboard, making you better against control, and using Equipment, Pressure, trading in combat, Evoke, and the Hussar trick with Teferi, Time Raveler to make your Emeria, the Sky Ruin trigger.
(As an extensive aside on that issue, with significantly more aggressive creatures in your deck, you will need to enable far fewer Emeria activations to win the game, which is actually the reason I have built my deck the way it is by focusing on the aggro matchups. This has bearing on your possible confusion when you were discussing how you felt against Burn compared to Blitz. Feel free to tell me if I am wrong, but based on your list the effective "window" for winning the most games occurs during turns 6-12 for you, and decreases in comparison to mine every turn after that. Mine almost literally cannot win games before turn 7, which assumes that a Stoneforge Mystic was sent immediately to fetch Kaldra Compleatand survived to put it into play. Since this is not a bet I am comfortable making, my "window" begins on turn 8, and my chances of winning increase relative to every other deck in the format afterwards, which can hypothetically extend outward indefinitely if necessary. This is a double-edged sword when it comes to the kinds of plays you and I have incentive to make, where yours can look to stabilize or contain an issue for two to four turns - consider Elite Spellbinder and Skyclave Apparition for instance - while mine wants to assume permanent containment of an issue with minimal risk and maximal 1-for-1 guarantees whenever possible otherwise. This means that even though I am generally not as threatened by a typical Prowess turn as you are, I nearly always need to deal with three or even four waves of their explosive turns, where you cut off at least one and more likely two of these waves by threatening lethal well before I do. The inverse is my most likely culprit for the discrepancy in our Burn dynamic, where if I can achieve stability with a Lone Missionary or a Blessed Alliance to drag things out at 2-for-1 rate, the game becomes a quick concession. At an average maximum rate of 2 damage per turn after turn 7, I only have to show them a Batterskull when their hand is empty, and their next draw step must provide lethal lest the Germ coming back every turn spell a soft-lock they have no burst card advantage to dig out of. Of the two Burn is, in truth, the more difficult of the two decks due to the capacity you mention of purely pointing seven Lightning Bolt at a life total, but their resilience is far, far lower than Prowess, and in practice they are mathematically guaranteed to draw a string of useless Creatures or Lands at some point. My job in the matchup is therefore extremely easy: survive until the math wins. With Prowess, the shoe is on the other foot. I have to assume that I must be able to deal with every single corner case, on any given turn. A single 2-for-1 is essentially never enough to pull me into or keep me in the lead. The difference lies in the type of losses that we can each accept. When I lose a game to Burn, they had it all and there was nothing I could do. When I lose to Prowess after turn 3, I know that I had the game in hand somewhere along the line and fumbled an excellent matchup.)
As for your second critical point, I actually cannot think of why Sanctum Prelate slipped my mind, other than perhaps the fact that I had it filed under "Legacy and Vintage playable only" for so long. This was a massive oversight, and I thank you for bringing it up. It actually competes with Kaldra Compleat for number one most impactful new card in the base-white board control archetype, covering a huge number of unfair cards and forcing interaction for may other fair ones. I will now have to think it over, but it may in fact pull far more weight than my two sideboard Containment Priest at the moment. It is a touch expensive for the sideboard at three mana, and the downside of shutting off Wrath of God against Collected Company decks is real, but I strongly suspect that its combination of high-power and high-flexibility on a recursion-ready body likely more than compensate for these issues by interacting with massive headaches such as Bring to Light, Scapeshift, Ad Nauseam, Gifts Ungiven, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and even Karn Liberated.
Returning to the format in general at the moment, I believe that even with his excellent Protection body Sanctifier En-Vec is currently poorly positioned against the current graveyard threats, as is (unfortunately) Containment Priest, though I will point out that my Mortarpod-heavy build makes the latter's anti-synergies very rare indeed. I also like that you mentioned public enemy number one in Living End, where Curator of Mysteries, Striped Riverwinder, and Windcaller Aven make a bit of a mockery of the colour restrictions of the first while the wording of Living Death would laugh at even an infinite series of flash 2/2 Human Clerics. The preferred interaction in this instance remains Remorseful Cleric in my opinion, whose evasive body you might appreciate more with your Equipment. I have found that two in play is the magic number that generally guarantees a game win (so that they cannot cycle more creatures as they hold priority after they force one to activate by putting their global reanimation on the stack) but finding even one begins a game-changing dynamic by crippling their first swarm of monsters while returning itself to play for free after the resolution of a Battlefield/Graveyard swap.
Next up, Seal of Cleansing has been great for me, and I would mention that it (and Aura of Silence) can combine with your sideboard Shadowspear to deal with Heliod, Sun-Crowned. I have not yet considered whether that will be viable with your current sideboard plan in the matchup, but it is worth the time to say it if you haven't had the chance to evaluate the interaction yet. The two enchantments also work very well with tapout sequencing in that they protect you from early Walking Ballista combo attempts while you set up stabilizing plays and/or find equipment to interact, for whatever that is worth to you. I have found anecdotally that the Aura is particularly irritating for them, typically making their damage combo prohibitively expensive until after their manabase comes under threat from Emeria/Titan recursion of Ghost Quarter effects, but you are far more susceptible to infinite lifegain, so perhaps the threat is too great from Spike Feeder in your case.
On the Skyclave Apparition/Detention Sphere debate, besides the cost restriction and the chances of card advantage - which I do think are mildly relevant considerations - there are two major points of difference. First that putting an Illusion in play with a sweeper is a much more frequent danger for my list, and second that I weigh the fragility of a creature much more strenuously than that of an enchantment in attrition-based control. The "nontoken" clause is also very unfortunate on the 2/2 at times, but I agree that the creature's permanent exile effect is stronger and that your deck makes use of the body much better. Your version has more 2-drops and more board presence with fewer sweepers, so this also means that Prismatic Ending should more be a supplement to your exile suite (essentially, you specifically may have less need of the "cheapness" factor that was so impressive to me, particularly now that you are also running Solitude. If this is true, perhaps you could test a singleton Deputy of Detention to see if its trigger is more worthwhile?
Let me know how it all works out for you, and good luck in your next tournament!
Though I would currently assume Starstorm's tempo/disruption and clock are more relevant, my recommended list for those who wish to maximise the grind which Emeria inherently rewards, below is my current (workshopped and minimally-tested) build. The full 75 should now be the following as of the release of Modern Masters 2:
As of this moment, I have more or less completely conceded land-based strategies in the sideboard, with my maindeck Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter effects backed up by Sun Titan and Crucible of Worlds taking the brunt of the charge on that front. Ultimately, without Zur's Weirding it was clear that Aven Mindcensor was insufficiently consistent unless more sideboard space was devoted to support him, and I have thus returned to the old standby of "maindeck or bust" in ramp matchups. The banning of Field of the Dead was a very large part of this decision, as things have calmed down significantly in those matchups since its departure.
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S. : One final word is in favour of the Sanctifier, whose Protection abilities and exile clause from the Library are powerful enough that I will bump him up in priority for testing.
First, congratulations on the FNM results (both the fact that you got to play them, and the combined 7-2 record). Well done !
Next, I am very glad to be of service, and very much hope the thread will pick up again. In these uncertain times the unsettled environment goes some way towards incentivising your aggressive variant by providing free wins when untested strategies stumble, and so I expect my recommended builds will (or should) take a back seat until the ability to tune for a specific metagame begins to reward the inevitability strategy once more.
Thank you as well for your takes on cards, specifically Elite Spellbinder and Skyclave Apparition. Stress-testing significant numbers of these was something I was not certain I would be able to justify, and your maindeck inclusion of them for real events will give a much better impression than playtesting ever could.
In terms of responding to specific suggestions, please do not feel obligated to cover everything I mention, I simply wanted to provide a jumping-off point for anyone questioning whether these are initially viable, and a forum for anyone with actual games with them to weigh in on. If you haven't played with a card, just ignore it and others will either defend or dismiss it based on their experiences.
Speaking of real experiences, I was able to invite a few friends over for a testing session, which gives a little more context for some Modern Horizons 2 cards. First, I will have to disagree with your evaluation of Kaldra Compleat, as it can absolutely replace Batterskull in some versions. I value lifegain and my curve highly enough in my build that I have made a 1/1 split of them at the moment, where before I had been very happy with 2 copies of the New Phyrexia Living Weapon, but the indestructible exiling First Strike and Trample combination particularly excels as a one-man wrecking crew against non-white midrange or a fantastically high-impact clock versus control or combo - pressuring Planeswalkers immediately and being extraordinarily difficult to remove barring exile effects. Some builds may definitely want access to it as an equipment more than any other enhancement.
In a different dynamic, Out of Time and Prismatic Ending (the first maindecked and the second as a singleton out of the sideboard) were exceedingly potent as delaying tactics versus Red Prowess. Despite its disadvantages (which have convinced me to reduce its numbers again, particularly given the awkward Phasing and Living Weapon interaction) the enchantment coming down on turn three was incredibly relevant, being the difference between staying alive to stabilise on the draw against two or three Prowess creatures or dying with an uncast Supreme Verdict in hand. The fact that it is killable is actually a bonus in may situations, as the Seal of Cleansing effects can then be used to interact with the board during the opponent's attack step by providing blockers at instant-speed. All in all, however, it was not ultimately enough for me to include the card, but I could see a world where Modern was aggressive enough that I would want the effect more than the Doomskar that offers the only other such option on 3 mana.
Prismatic Ending, on the other hand, is rock solid and has impressed me quite a bit. A one-mana option which is essentially a Sorcery-speed Isolate with Kicker equal to your number of total colours played is a real boon, and it can even hit the zero CMC nonland permanents that the instant irritatingly never could. With Teferi, Time Raveler in the deck already, its coverage was almost identical at baseline, and could exile Dark Confidant and Scavenging Ooze with equal ease early in the game (something which I stress would be a liability to do with either Path to Exile or Skyclave Apparition, and a frequent impossibility with the latter on the draw at 3 mana). The fact that I could also lower my curve against Bomat Courier, Champion of the Parish, Glistener Elf, Death's Shadow, Monastery Swiftspear, or Birds of Paradise while covering my bases against Aether Vial, Amulet of Vigor, and Hardened Scales, plus scaling up (even minimally) to Stoneforge Mystic, Meddling Mage, Tarmogoyf, Scourge of the Skyclaves, or even such curve-balls as Pyromancer Ascension, Bitterblossom, Suppression Field, Torpor Orb, and much more, all of this combined to a highly favourable first impression. As of now, the spell has earned a permanent place in my expanded sideboard rotation, and may ultimately prove to be one of the more impactful inclusions there in slower gameplans. Though I was never much bothered by the cards, it is also worth mentioning that Chalice of the Void set to any number at all becomes a near complete non-issue whenever Prismatic Ending is available, and it even provides a very cute theoretical extra answer to Blood Moon in my strictly two-colour shell.
Last up in the options I have seriously considered for updating my build are the two blue cantrip enchantments at CMC 2, Confounding Conundrum and Dress Down. Both of them critically provide their effects at card parity, and so have warranted further inquiries even with their less-than-ideal blue casting cost early. The first was a very promising layer of protection against Titan decks, where blunting their acceleration by any means possible granted extra draw steps and pulled the games back into reach. The second I have no experience at all with, but will remember as a card advantage play that can be accrued for free on the attack step or on ETB by Sun Titan. I have no idea yet what deck the effect might be best against, but even if only by removing Haste and the protection ability from a Reality Smasher or the first trigger of Thought-Knot Seer the card will surely have applications at the very least versus Eldrazi Tron.
These nine cards are the ones I considered to be true contenders for my more grindy gameplan, and the ones I have actually put effort towards evaluating since my last posted decklist here. Skyclave Apparition and Elite Spellbinder may also sometimes feature in particular metagames for me, but have drawbacks on the order of Out Of Time which will require contextual justification or a clear transformative strategy in my opinion. In order of playability, then, I believe as of now that the eight remaining spells are therefore ranked:
1-Kaldra Compleat (Immediate auto-include due to power level alone, pending verification over the next month.)
2-Prismatic Ending (Immediate sideboard contender due to versatility and cost, possibly in numbers or even maindeckable in extremis.)
3-Containment Priest (Immediate sideboard contender on versatility and coverage of high-intensity threats, depending on format texture.)
4-Blossoming Calm (Medium power-level, low-versatility targeted effect interaction and lifegain, boosted by premium flexibility and cost.)
5-Dress Down (Medium power-level, high versatility creature interaction, including applications versus some combo and inherent synergy.)
6-Sanctifier En-Vec (High power-level, lower-versatility creature-based graveyard hate sideboard contender, depending on format.)
7-Confounding Conundrum (Medium power-level and low versatility permanent-based interaction for multiple land per turn ramp, corner-case applications elsewhere and synergy with Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, Path to Exile, Winds of Abandon and Settle the Wreckage.)
8-Archon of Emeria (Medium power-level, high-versatility evasive creature-based additional option with curve-disrupting upside, high cost for effect.)
Skyclave likely falls between number 2 and number 3 on that list, and Spellbinder between number 3 and number 6. The rest of the cards I mentioned were simply to note the possibilities now available to alternative builds. More blue-heavy curves using Realmwright and attempting to support Glint-Nest Crane or Arcanist's Owl are likely more interested in the existence of Chrome Courier, for instance. I should also clarify that Solitude seems sadly to be too much card disadvantage for my tastes, though it is obviously a very strong combination with Ephemerate (which is true of the entire cycle, in truth). The same trick with Grief is another reason why I am certain paper tournaments may be extremely volatile for some time yet, as there will need to be some major adjustments to its presence if it can be made viable, regardless of the fact that land-based attrition is at a marked advantage versus its specific form of interaction.
Hoping this finds you all well, and let me know if you disagree with any specifics!
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S. : As an edit, I should mention that Seal of Cleansing has now officially replaced Disenchant for me as well, which I had previously attempted to do illegally when the card was printed in Eternal Masters.
I am very glad to see that things have started to pick up again here, I was saddened when so many jumped ship to a different platform as I felt that this site's value as an archive was always an important feature that other forums lacked. Checking up on what felt like a ghost town was getting depressing, but I think now that there is more activity as the pandemic winds down I must thank Fluff for keeping the thread alive!
Modern's landscape has changed quite a bit during that time, and I have a few cards that I tested with and/or theorycrafted as potential alternatives for Emeria Control, but a word to the wise would be to wait until things settle down into a steady metagame once more - I have no idea whether Emeria is even viable at the moment, since its preferred prey (Midrange) could well be pushed out of the format entirely by the new power level of Modern Masters 2. In any event, the following paragraphs are intended as a kickoff point for discussion of any developments which occurred during the shutdown, in preparation for tuning and updating lists to the paper environment that may soon to be re-opened.
Progressing forward from Ikoria, then, where the last word was that the Yorion, Sky Nomad builds sacrificed a good deal for the unquestioned benefits of a synergistic companion, I will begin my recap by stating that Zendikar Rising offered mostly supplemental sideboard options in the thematic Archon of Emeria, in the non-Lukka half of Mila, Crafty Companion and in the extremely intriguing Confounding Conundrum as a splash-colour piece of ramp/fetchland interaction. The real meat of the set (unless a rogue build can count Lithoform Engine as a viable effect which might mimic Panharmonicon in certain ways) is found in Skyclave Apparition. My personal preferences aside, the card is very, very strong, and may warp deckbuilding accordingly. I currently have it as a unique sideboard option to combat Heliod/Ballista, but mileage may vary (as evidenced by Starstorm's blink-happy variant above - how is it working for you so far ?).
Next, in Core Set 2021, a very interesting alternative to Remorseful Cleric is now available in Containment Priest, whose anti-synergies with our own Emerias and Titans may be mitigated by its strength and versatility as a surprise play, and could also be sacrificed or otherwise removed once sufficient value has been accrued from the body. Speaking of Flash plays, Niambi, Esteemed Speaker is a variant on Whitemane Lion that some blue-heavy builds may entertain. The last significant card, for my money, is found in Angelic Ascension as an alternative extra piece of immediate hard removal for resilient creatures or planeswalkers - albeit one with a hefty drawback.
Kaldheim offered more or less a similar range of cards to our palette, though in light of recent developments Halvar, God of Battle and his associated Sword of the Realms may be of minimal consideration for more Equipment-themed builds in the future. Similarly being affected by new cards is my evaluation of Doomskar as a possible turn-3 play, which would now require far more to justify its inclusion. Another marginal effect from the set (though one covering a much broader swath of corner cases) is found in Reidane, God of the Worthy and her back half of Valkmira, Protector's Shield. In strange Snow builds, there is a far more substantial addition than these in Search For Glory to enable some kinds of toolboxes, where The Raven's Warning or Niko Defies Destiny might possibly be justifiable (these last being underwhelming otherwise). Speaking of Niko Aris, though the double-blue cost excludes it from viability in my eyes, others may find its ability to scale well a valuable asset in longer games, on a conveniently 3-CMC permanent.
In Strixhaven, the Learn mechanic notably gave an ETB looting effect to white on the 2-drop Professor of Symbology, which may be enough on its own as a curve pseudo-analogue to Wall of Omens to open up a variant of the Yorion builds, giving maindeck filtering for Wraths in matchups where these are dead, and incidentally providing access to "card advantage" in the form of Environmental Sciences, Introduction to Prophecy, Expanded Anatomy, Introduction to Annihilation, Mascot Exhibition, Academic Probation, Reduce to Memory, and the lessons of all other colours as well for those lists running Triomes to freeroll. The mechanic bears one small additional notable bonus, since the Yorion builds I tested had difficulty reliably seeing their sideboard cards, the power of the Professor might incentivize Sparring Regimen and possibly even Divide by Zero or Rise of Extus as extra ways to mitigate this effect by gaining reliable access to "pre-boarding" through a critical mass of Learn cards. Study Break is likely too narrow, however, and Guiding Voice would be a real leap to me.
Moving on in the same set, Divine Gambit is a risky though cheap piece of spell-based exile for a range of permanents, and on that note I was much more interested in the flexibility provided by Devastating Mastery. Both, however, proved unreliable to me in the absence of other support. These were at their best in Mono-white builds, though, which brings me to a the consistent small-time value of Pilgrim of the Ages, which was probably good enough to supplement Pilgrim's Eye in that specific configuration. That spirit, however, was much less of a new effect for the shell than another in Strict Proctor, whose power will sadly not fit ideally in attrition decks. His inclusion is for that reason discretionary as a sideboard choice, where a Death and Taxes-style pivot may be viable to some. In that vein, Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa's invitational card of Elite Spellbinder is a near-revolutionary new effect in White's colour identity, and may in fact be what the Flickerwisp versions are in the market for. In other builds, his value and pressure are less reliable, and yet he remains available should the need arise.
Second, the sideboard fodder. Void Mirror for cost-cheating, Cursed Totem against a wide variety of creatures, Sanctifier En-Vec and Tormod's Cryptkeeper against graveyards, Seal of Cleansing against Artifacts and Enchantments, Seal of Removal against creatures and as a value play, Blossoming Calm against Burn, Storm, and Discard, Dress Down against all manner of synergies - the whole gamut is legitimately now up for grabs. Incidentally, I will also note that the utility of Lose Focus may offer a very interesting new tool in stack wars, which may become more prevalent in the wake of a timeless classic's return: Counterspell. It is this card's reprinting which more than anything else influences my doubt as to Emeria's position going forward.
Fourth and most importantly, however, are the direct competition for maindeck slots, beginning with Kaldra Compleat (as already mentioned by Fluff and Starstorm). The fifth point of power and the ability Haste make the card an absolutely unparalleled clock for any Stoneforge Mystic archetype, and I have (regretfully) already put one of my two Batterskull on the chopping block in anticipation of its presence. The keyword potpourri it also features is (once sufficient thought is devoted to it) also not at all bad at stabilizing the board, and I will be very surprised if the combination of these two factors does not earn it a permanent place in my maindeck. Others, who do not share my aversion to tempo removal plays from the opposition, will possibly find Sword of Hearth and Home to be an asset, which may well be a very good one in Solitude-centric variants fuelled by Squadron Hawk. Timeless Dragon represents yet another Mono-White option which can fetch nonbasic plains in splash builds, and adds incrementally to the count of Dragons required to make Orator of Ojutai a possible contender someday. Prismatic Ending is a surprisingly effective and cheap answer to everything from Hangarback Walker to Wrenn and Six, and three-colour versions of Emeria may find it to be a much better singleton than the Oblivion Ring that sometimes makes appearances there. Finally, the shockingly powerful Out of Time is a very real supplement or even alternative to Wraths, critically coming down a turn earlier, and synergizing very oddly indeed with Sun Titan. In combination with this last and with Detention Sphere and Aura of Silence or Seal of Cleansing, the effect becomes both abusable at instant-speed, and possibly even repeatable ad infinitum.
I think this covers the cards I have dealt with directly, as well as those which I felt had potential applications in the base W/u Emeria shell.
Please feel free to tell me of anything else I overlooked during the period mentioned, and I hope we may have events to anticipate soon!
I have recently built an independent version of this deck to bring out to a weekly paper tournament. Here in Saskatchewan we have been fairly lucky in that the pandemic never got too severe (more due to lower population density than anything else, I would guess), and some local stores are cautiously returning to in-person events on a limited scale.
In any event, my experience with the format is negligible (two actual FNMs from quite a while ago, plus casual exposure from assorted online articles), so if anyone had suggestions on the following list I would be grateful. My take is based on three major philosophies: 1) - remaining completely spell-based to blank removal, and to minimize nightmare scenarios where Spell Mastery becomes awkward to achieve through pressure, 2) - deliberately optimizing mana and cost requirements with painless untapped sources wherever possible (and specifically remaining base-black until the lategame by avoiding GG costs before 6 CMC), 3) - maximizing the Vintage-restricted mode of Dark Petition as much as possible due to points #1 and #2, largely by selecting the 3-drops to synergize best with it and by gaining access to the sideboard with Mastermind's Acquisition.
The first two are a split that is essentially forced by the relative strength of the maindeck against creatures. The next two are interaction with non-creature, non-planeswalker permanents. After these Golgari Charm has always impressed me in contol decks across multiple formats, and The Elderspell is the type of card that is sometimes necessary against Superfriends strategies. Next up are five spells that can be cast off of a Dark Ritual effect, beginning with two different answers to Uro or Omnath, with different strengths and weaknesses against various combo decks. Two situational sweepers follow these to supplement the maindeck Reckoning, the first excellent against Mono-Black Aggro and the second much better against Spirits. Finally, I am hoping the Ashiok will be a good answer to the "Oops - All Spells" deck running around. Moving up the curve, I included one more alternative exile-based sweeper to supplement the relatively thin four-drops of the maindeck, and the same logic aplies to the only "early" GG spell which acts as a versatile piece of interaction that can be prioritized in post-board mana development while providing a serious threat to opposing control manabases. The extra copy of the deck's namesake spell is in the sideboard to play around Niv to Light's maindeck Slaughter Games in combination with Acquisition, and last but not least Ugin's global reset button with upside needs little explanation.
Testing so far has made me very happy with the cycling spells in particular, in addition to the variety of options present on average for the first big refill, mostly rendered possible with value-added Escalation of Collective Brutality. A couple of points of concern are whether more significant lifegain is required (Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet has always been the default here), and whether an alternative win condition is necessary for the maindeck (Ob Nixilis Reignited might be the only viable option given my preferences, though the weak board presence of Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage could possibly fit extremely well with the endgame I am trying to set up).
There is only so much that goldfishing a dynamic control deck can do, though, and I generally anticipate losing badly for the first few weeks until I get a handle on the major points of interaction for the format. On the other hand the shell is very strong in the abstract, and the decision trees will certainly be engaging enough that I am committing to it for the next month or so.
I welcome any thoughts on these matters, or indeed any related issues!
Congratulations on the 5-0, could you provide a little context for what exactly you played against and how the matches went? Were you lucky or unlucky in certain situations, and how might this affect your play in the future? What sideboard cards impressed you, which were lacklustre, and how do you think the synergies you were intending fit into the way things developed? These kinds of considerations are generally helpful for everyone, including the person posting, to contextualize the results. Not all 5-0 results are the same, and there are many useful things to be learnt even from 0-5 performances, so knowing more about how cards, strategies, or attitudes actually lined up in matches is what I try to emphasize.
Where decklists and cards are concerned, I can confirm Natesroom's comment, or even more simple is to use the icons that are found in the toolbar of the "Reply to this Topic" section at the bottom of the page. Should this be confusing there is within a darker gray area, above the space in which to write, a series of editorial images below the warning to respect the terms of service which extends partway across the page - I will recreate their groupings below:
(B/I/U/Abc) (bullet/number/item list) (picture/link/size/colour) (left/center/right indent) (spoiler/quote/smiley) (dice/card/cards/deck/mana symbols)
Hovering over each of these gives you their function, and clicking on any one of them auto-generates a code under your current cursor position which appears only during your generation and will enact the chosen function on the text in the middle of the back-to-back square brackets (in which position you will find your cursor immediately thereafter). The first five groups are for typesetting or copyediting considerations, and the last bracketed list is specifically designed for illuminating Magic discussions. It is genuinely a very strong advantage of this this website that these options are available to us in my opinion, and no doubt represents untold hours of coding for some dedicated soul, so let us celebrate it by using them whenever applicable!
One small quirk is that the spelling of cards must be exact down to the character when using the fourth from last of these, as will be demonstrated in the difference between Zap and Zap. In the second of these, I put an extra space before the capital "z", which the program will not recognize - resulting in a link such as the one above here^^^^^, whereas the first functions as intended to display the chosen image. Spelling mistakes are also apt to produce the same result, so when in doubt be sure to use the blue "preview" function below and to the right of the working text box to display a read-only copy of your current post which will produce exactly what you have generated up until that point. You are free to ignore capitalization if you wish, however (though I personally think that this is an Abomination unto the Gods of Proper English Writing). Once you become familiar with the shorthand, you will sometimes find it expedient to write out some individual codes yourself, which has very graciously been allowed for by the word processing, but in general these icons are of excellent utility.
On to your decklist, then! You have created an excellent environment for Lurrus of the Dream-Den, and your high density of self-replacing effects seems to have allowed you to trim on lands and relevantly to have displaced some of your copies of Sun Titan. Have you found yourself being hit more severely by graveyard hate as a result? I find that early game threats that exploit recursion are a liability post-board, where you are rewarding their Rest in Peace effects early in the game rather than passively discouraging it by making it dead in more circumstances. (By this I mean, essentially, are the 3/2 legendary lifelinking bodies pulling their weight in general?) I have a personal aversion to Mishra's Bauble in a deck trying to play "Mainphase Magic" as well, but in your list it seems less relevant than usual because of your aforementioned number of cantrip effects. How clean have you found your mana curve to be, specifically at the 2 and 3 mana points?
Speaking of Mana, as I move to your sideboard I would like to ask how many spells Void Mirror countered for you, and whether the anti-synergy with your Baubles ever came up. I had made note of it as a possible sideboard card, but it seemed a little too narrow in its coverage. If you have the time as well, could you detail how relevant you found Deicide? I assume it is primarily for Heliod, Sun-Crowned, but feel free to mention any other relevant targets which came up or were in mind when you added the card.
Congratulations again, and I look forward to your response!
-Stéphane Gérard
Fluff - Damping Sphere is strong, but it is a purely passive answer whose taxing effect is symmetrical and doesn't stop many things outright, which is why I am not running it currently. The three lands its first line of text can be literally indispensable for dealing with are 1) Simic Growth Chamber, 2) Urza's Tower and 3) Lotus field - in roughtly that order of popularity and/or relevance in the format. The fact that it can also deal with Castle Garenbrig in the Bounceland Titan decks is pure upside as well, and it has relevance against Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and/or Eldrazi Temple at times, plus very corner-case possible uses against Overgrowth, Abundant Growth, and Utopia Sprawl. Decks using these last three are generally able to play one turn off-curve if they are allowed to resolve one spell per turn, however, so it can hardly be considered high-impact there.
The second line of text is much more situational, and generally isn't worth bringing in against anything other than Storm or AdGrace combo, and it does no more than delay either of those (Storm because they will always board in a bounce spell in the dark, and Ad Nauseam because of their maindeck Teferi, Time Raveler, plus the fact that either deck could have many alternative options to win if they can get to five mana post-board in any event. If you have a particularly difficult multi-spell sequence which you want to disrupt (Bring to Light or Snapcaster Mage are reasonable illustrations of this concept), I could see it coming in if you already have it in the 75, but these (or the Cascade spells Starstorm mentioned) are a losing battle in general for the card, since they will eventually find ways to get around it. To me, it is targeted hate for multi-mana lands and almost nothing else. One last use I have seen is for slowing down the Prowess deck, but my version is so sluggish to finish the game that even there it is a liability in the later turns. Others may have better synergies and a quicker clock to make the tax relevant, so take that for whatever it is worth.
Starstorm- Congratulations on the 4-0, well done! I like the second Seal of Cleansing in your list, and thank you for pointing out the interaction with Urza's Saga - I had not noticed it had a type other than Land. This is a very interesting detail which can notably be exploited with Teferi, Time Raveler! I don't know how good that is, but it seems quite relevant since Tef3ri is also good against the Construct token that it produces. The Patrician's Scorn you mentioned last week may also be more relevant now, as will marginal effects like Cloudchaser Kestrel, War Priest of Thune, Wispmare, Felidar Cub, Dismantling Blow, Fragmentize, Elvish Hexhunter, Dispeller's Capsule, the Duergar Hedge-mage I talked about a little while ago, or more sneakily Echoing Calm. Fracturing Gust and Heliod's Intervention are more realistic and versatile stabilizers against the type of decks the land might tend to associate with, though, so that is where I would legitimately start looking if things lean heavily in the Saga's direction over the next while.
As pertains to your matches, I have nothing much to add to the majority of it except to say great job. I do, however, think that against Izzet Blitz, I would have advised that whenever you bring in Prismatic Ending you should also keep as many Teferi, Time Raveler as possible for the instant-speed synergy. I probably would have trimmed an Emeria or a Titan in the matchup in your position if you really wanted to fit in Sanctifier En-Vec for the Protection from Red blocker it provides. The fact that it is also Protection from Black is the reason why I would have advised bringing it in over Gideon of the Trials versus Jund in your final round, specifically since it also helps contain the Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger you mentioned. Having played with Auriok Champion against Jund in different decks, I can attest to the difficulty they have dealing with a creature that cannot be dealt with via Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Kolaghan's Command or Maelstrom Pulse. Against Jund I also would have been thrilled to bring in Prismatic Ending over the second Gideon (who does all right, but not spectacular in the pairing), since it cleanly answers Wrenn and Six, Tarmogoyf, the problematic Scavenging Ooze, and any escaped Kroxas without much trouble at all, plus providing extra lategame coverage against Liliana of the Veil if you were indeed running the Triome. Since Elite Spellbinder is so vulnerable to the first of these, I would have cut your copies of that instead - Tef3ri's velocity on his-3 is quite important for stabilizing against single large attackers, and turns copies of Wall of Omens into super-Divinations later on. Since Kaldra Compleat is such a good endgame, I think I would have tried to lean into it and Batterskull by instead going:
-2 Elite Spellbinder
-1 Court Hussar
+2 Prismatic Ending
+1 Sanctifier En-Vec
The Hussar loop is more vulnerable to graveyard hate in this matchup than 3-mana Teferi is, so sadly I would say trimming one is necessary here unless you could accept cutting your Sword of Fire and Ice, but these three spells are very good at helping to win the game, so I would comfortably back them over Gideon of the Trials by a wide margin against Jund.
I hope this makes sense, and wish you all the best!
-Stéphane Gérard
I would advise against trusting that Prismatic Ending will be able to snag a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove before turn 5 unless you started on a Triome turn 1, but the option to get such coverage once you reach the lategame is nice, and this is exactly the kind of "gravy" you can enjoy in a matchup where the 1-mana version is an effect you want against both Amulet of Vigor and some Engineered Explosives lines. In any event, they often have gotten value from the 2/4 Enchantment Creature already by the time they pass back priority, where the land drop they make after it has resolved has already done some damage. The Confounding Conundrum may help there, but it is only a one-of so you should be expecting more to use it for value with Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter as a means to keep their manabase off-balance.
Speaking of keeping them off-balance, I think your Elite Spellbinder is better than Supreme Verdict at slowing them down and/or finishing the game, and I expect that Gideon of the Trials is also a valuable commodity when aimed at Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle (while helping to end the game in his own right). I think, since Field of the Dead left the format, that answering Primeval Titan is essentially even more the flagship threat, which I would rely on Path to Exile and Solitude for. Emeria, the Sky Ruin recurring Sun Titan is still a good synergy, but even without factoring in Bojuka Bog the onus is much more on lowering the curve for the early game here, so I would trim one of each to keep in or add as much relevant early pressure or interaction as possible. Given this set of dynamics with the list above, I would therefore try something like this:
-3 Teferi, Time Raveler
-3 Supreme Verdict
-1 Sun Titan
-1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
+2 Damping Sphere
+2 Gideon of the Trials
+1 Seal of Cleansing
+1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
+1 Confounding Conundrum
+1 Sorcerous Spyglass
Which lowers your curve by removing one 6, three 4s, three 3s, and a tapland to put in three (scalable) 1s, four 2s, and swap in two slightly better 3s.
Titan decks do not tend to "Go Wide" anymore, except with Urza's Saga, which you will want to interact with "for free" via Wall of Omens+Gideon of the Trials+Skyclave Apparition as much as possible anyway whenever your own lands cannot do the job. In this circumstance, the Sword of Fire and Ice will have some value at beating past the Illusion token while vastly improving your clock via 3/1 flying beatdown or buffing key creatures out of Valakut range until Kaldra Compleat can combine with it in a lategame trump to wreck their house (current versions do not seem to have a better answer than the awkward Dismember to the new Haste Living Weapon). This is clunky, as a strategy, but at least focused. If you DO see Urza's Saga in number, it may be that Teferi, Time Raveler returns to being good again, so watch for that if Gideon underperforms.
[EDIT: I had forgotten to mention Force of Vigor, which needs to be played around cautiously. Exposing 2 Artifacts/Enchantments should be minimized, but I think that we can recover well enough if it does not end the game on the spot.]
Let me know if any of this seems unclear, and try out a few sample hands with the configuration to see what might be affected! You have a lot of spot removal, so try to keep your Path to Exile specifically for Primeval Titan, and use Skyclave Apparition on everything else that moves other than tokens. I think it will go much better for you if you lean hard into being the beatdown (regardless of whether the matchup can actually become favourable). Remember that many lists are now only running 2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, so kill those whenever you can, and that there are now only three basic Forest in many versions since they now have Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth to "fix" around Damping Sphere. things are still not perfected yet, so expect some variation, but I think that overall the most common builds of the matchup have made things a little better for us.
Best of luck, I hope you can face them again next week!
-Stéphane Gérard
I get it, and the problem of having to "play your way back" into competence is a real one that I have dealt with in the past as well after periods away from the tournament scene. Things should improve for you quickly, though, as you have the good fortune of fully operational Friday Night Magic events.
Speaking of those events, I suspect that Sanctum Prelate may be the swap you are looking for to put in over Teferi, Time Raveler in the Titan Matchup. Setting it to 0 affects literally none of Emeria's key plays, and makes their deck far less consistent at finding answers for a turn-2 Damping Sphere. Despite being 3 mana the Prelate is also far better than Lavinia, Azorius Renegade at pairing with that specific Artifact in the later turns, as in the case of the Blue Legend they could eventually find a way to escape her soft-lock on 0-mana spells while I attempted to beat down with Living Weapon Germs.
On the subject of these Equipment, what do you think you would sideboard out instead if you had a Kaldra Compleat instead of your Sword of Feast and Famine as per your hypothetical list from the last page? Would you keep in the Batterskull? It may be quite a bit worse as a clock than the new 5/5 Indestructible threat, but it does at least provide some measure of offense in the clutch.
Wishing you good luck again this week,
-Stéphane Gérard
I see - you did not get a chance to try out Solitude yet, then. That was one of my questions in terms of removal against the Izzet deck.
Next, I wanted to get your overall impression of what you are trying to do in the Amulet Titan matchup: your sideboard plan seems slightly unfocused in it. Are you trying to find disruption and then beat down, or use sweepers to protect Planeswalkers for the win? In either event, I am fairly certain I would sideboard quite differently. Before you even tell me which of these is the case, the value of Wall of Omens as a cantrip is almost certainly going to contribute to your strategy. This is, in fact, why the card is as good as it is: the Wall is a purely defensive creature that (by virtue of drawing a card) reduces the effective size of your deck ,and is therefore one of the few things that is good against aggro while not being a total liability against combo. There are times when the rate is too much at 2 mana for a fresh card, but there is literally no better option available to White.
If you know what you need in a given situation, every extra chance at drawing it post-board is a resource that becomes more and more important as the matchup becomes worse. I return to my original statement when I first started contributing to this thread - if Wall of Omens is a card you find yourself wanting to cut, it means that Emeria Control is a bad metagame choice. The Walls also do not hold Equipment with any real value for you, and given that you have reduced your number to 3 already, I might recommend that either you play a different deck or you commit the slots to supporting your more relevant Emeria Fish plan (another Elite Spellbinder, another Charming Prince, and a Selfless Spirit seem like they would be more helpful to you, unless Remorseful Cleric or the third Court Hussar seem better).
It seems as though you may have tried to "split the difference" with the cards you switched out in your strategy, which results in much harder games against Titan decks overall, but in any event I would have tried to find room post-board to bring in your Sorcerous Spyglass. Affecting Tolaria West while covering some ground against problems such as Slayers' Stronghold, Walking Ballista, Urza's Saga, and Engineered Explosives has been nearly invaluable to me with Pithing Needle effects in this pairing.
I hope this is useful to you,
-Stéphane Gérard
Thank you for mentioning Kataki, War's Wage - it may be a useful tool against Hardened Scales in particular, though there is awkwardness with boarding in a 2/1 against a deck running Walking Ballista. Artifact Lands are a serious thing to hate out, however, if these new duals pave the way for a return of more swarm-style Artifact decks or even perhaps the original Mirrodin cycle of lands at some point. Patrician's Scorn is also excellent to keep in mind, even though I have no idea if the Enchantress deck is quick enough getting off the ground in Modern.
Could we perhaps get an update on the 75 you brought to your tournament, for full context on your report? I have a couple of questions for your sideboarding, but they may be explained by the specifics of your list.
Hoping this finds you well,
-Stéphane Gérard
Just for the sake of completeness - I don't know if you got my last message to you, and since you mention playing Gideon, Ally of Zendikar I think you should probably post the list you ended up playing for clarity. How were the copies of Solitude? Did you end up drawing them?
Backing up your sentiment, I just did some testing yesterday and had a similar problem to yours with Stormwing Entity in Murktide Regent. I had previously noticed Fatal Push decks having trouble with Delve spells like Gurmag Angler and Bedlam Reveler, but these have always been weak to either Devout Lightcaster or Celestial Purge effects in the past (as you mention), however now Prismatic Ending is unfortunately exposing me to the same issue post-board. Teferi, Time Raveler is very valuable against these spells, but does not appear in numbers in my list, so Pilgrim's Eye was actually critical to winning against the version I played against, and Subtlety was often actually being held for the 1/1 flyer once my playtest partner and I figured out how important the body was. With Dragon's Rage Channeler now in the mix with Delver of Secrets, I think that there is a critical mass of threats that ignore Wall of Omens in the format, combined with the presence of multiple tempo-killing versions of Counterspell to make Emeria currently a poor choice against the top tier.
My other testing - against RUG Crashing Footfalls Cascade - highlighted this fact for me even more with Force of Negation playing a similar role. I always bias my testing to being on the draw (AKA worst-case scenario only) once first impressions are formed, so these decks are definitely beatable as-is, but I think that if I was to play an FNM this week, I would immediately cut my own list's Wrath of God for the fourth Supreme Verdict, and maybe the Settle the Wreckage as well for a second Tef3ri plus one Detention Sphere for a third even. The ability to ignore or force countermagic just seems too important right now, and I would have to accept my increased share of losses to Meddling Mage, Silverquill Silencer, Surgical Extraction, and the like. In other news, Remorseful Cleric appears better than usual against the suite of threats at present, Sanctum Prelate is good but not great, Kaldra Compleat is a little worse in reality than on paper due to being inflexible, and Raugrin Triome is not too awkward to maindeck in the slow versions if you are running Prismatic Ending (which itself may have performed better than the Prelate and Living Weapon overall).
Expanding out from these statements to the format as a whole, it appears that Lightning Bolt is probably a key part of Modern's best removal suite at the moment (hitting multiple 3-power fliers and going at Loyalty or life total otherwise). Outside of Vanishing Verse, I think that I would most like to pair it with Despark to cover for its weaknesses, while Elspeth Conquers Death seems expensive, but may currently be an excellent game-breaker. The colour combination of these spells would also allow Ajani Vengeant and Nahiri, the Harbinger to smoothly fill out the curve in a creature-light shell, but I don't know where the card advantage to make land drops consistently would come from then given such a spell suite. Painful Truths might just work, but would then incentivise more Lightning Helix-type cards, and I am not sure how that would all come together. Maybe something like this:
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Canyon Slough
1 Isolated Chapel
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Marsh Flats
3 Arid Mesa
2 Blood Crypt
3 Sacred Foundry
2 Godless Shrine
2 Savai Triome
1 Field of Ruin
1 Molten Slagheap
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Prismatic Ending
1 Cling to Dust
2 Lightning Helix
1 Vanishing Verse
1 Despark
1 Declaration in Stone
4 Painful Truths
3 Inscription of Ruin
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Reconstruct History
1 Lorehold Command
1 Obzedat's Aid
3 Ajani Vengeant
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Young Pyromancer
1 Soulfire Grand Master
1 Epochrasite
1 Omen of the Sun
1 Elspeth Conquers Death
1 Solitude
1 Duplicant
1 Myr Battlesphere
This "Mardu Converge Control" list is for theorycraft purposes only, and is ugly as sin on initial impression, but in addition to what I believe might be a strong removal suite contains a solid card advantage shell plus a few interesting synergies that I will leave for the reader to explore. I hope it kicks off some useful discussion.
-Stéphane Gérard
That is kind, and I will wait on more data, but I think it will be quite important to change three things on the homepage as soon as possible in order to keep it relevant.
1) Make the switch of Seal of Cleansing for Disenchant on my primer list. The synergies with Sun Titan, Detention Sphere, Mistveil Plains and the tapout plan are far too important for the minimal downside of its on-the-board representation during their turns. The mainphase sequencing is also a very nearly irrelevant concern, and as a board control shell Emeria benefits less than usual from hidden information. Consequently, the Enchantment is now my first choice for sideboard Artifact/Enchantment disruption (until the format dictates otherwise).
2) Put a copy of Sanctum Prelate in over an Aven Mindcensor. It has offered interaction at an affordable rate in matchups that were formerly a "cross your fingers and hope" gameplan for me. In addition, for new players of the archetype it highlights the preferred style of solutions that Emeria, The Sky Ruin wants to focus on, and completely outclasses any countermagic-based plan against noncreature combo, in my estimation, at the cost of only a single slot (though more will surely follow). Finally, it has proved to be situationally backbreaking in the Blitz, Xerox (Phoenix), and Burn matchups, which is an enormously relevant subsection of the metagame right now. Ignoring this powerful new tool may prove frankly irresponsible in the long-term.
3) Add Kaldra Compleat to the "Other Spells" list for Stoneforge Mystic builds (with a provisional 3/5 rating, in my opinion). The 7-mana drawback is real, but the power level is incredible, and offers a completely unique angle of attack only partly mimicked by Batterskull, whose dynamics are also extremely different. The baseline option of a 5/5 Haste Equipment threat cannot be ignored, and access to it can completely change the texture of games or matchups. Since some may wonder about it, it would be foolish not to bring it up on the homepage as well.
Finally: I have tested (and played) against the mono-red Prowess deck more than the U/R versions, so I have to do some catch-up work when I can, but when real sessions get back up and running to re-calibrate strategy guides instead of try out new cards I hope that I will be able to get you a matchup guide with my updated list against the deck sometime next week.
I hope you are having a good weekend,
-Stéphane Gérard
Fluff, thank you for the offer. I think that might be premature in some respects since I haven't formed a solid opinion on Kaldra Compleat yet, and though I would like to remove the 3 Aven Mindcensor for 2 Sanctum Prelate and a Prismatic Ending at present, the testing has not been sufficient to justify these exchanges across the board.
That being said, my confidence that the Prelate will make the final 75 in some number is high enough that I would support swapping one Mindcensor for a copy so that people can begin to gauge the effectiveness of the 2/2 for themselves - without making the existing matchup guides obsolete. In a different issue, I am confident that the sideboard can immediately swap Seal of Cleansing in over Disenchant with significant upside in all relevant interactions where the write-ups are concerned.
Moving back to the subject of Prismatic Ending, I realized last night that I needed to re-evaluate my position on the Triomes (specifically Raugrin Triome) with an eye towards increasing its strength and versatility. I remain unconvinced that physically cycling a land is something I would ever wish to do unless it were under extreme duress, but the idea of switching out one Hallowed Fountain for access to a third colour (which would then enable exiling permanents of 3 mana post-board) represents a very serious advantage at very low opportunity cost, similar to that which justified exchanging the fourth Plains-Island for the Mistveil Plains, and thereafter the third for a Prairie Stream. My hope is that at that point the marginal positive value that can be accrued from its Cycling, from Crucible of Worlds, or from Sun Titan will help compensate for always entering tapped.
I do worry that it may be another case of Idyllic Grange, and Irrigated Farmland, which were both simply not worth the drawbacks given the marginal benefit they provided. On the positive side, however, red mana offers access to new actual lines of play without putting an uncastable spell in the deck in its absence, and in testing the other two lands I found that I very rarely sequence to take two damage from any nonbasic after the first access to blue mana is enabled, and often not at all if I draw a Flooded Strand. In sum, I am cautiously optimistic in this respect. Extracting maximum value from every Plains we put in play is still very much on-theme for the deck, so I will be testing that angle as well once I can guarantee the viability of the more important new cards in Prelate, Kaldra, and obviously Prismatic Ending.
Incidentally, Chained to the Rocks could then become a vague possibility in the shell, though why this would be preferable over On Thin Ice is beyond me at the moment, and can probably safely be dismissed as an option. If multiple Raugrin Triome are included, Duergar Hedge-Mage also stands a remote chance of resolving some random compound issues for the deck, while things like Worldly Counsel, Unified Front or Exert Influence and (more relevantly) Engineered Explosives also gain a little more power should anyone choose to run them. The same is also true of Goblin Replica and Pyrite Spellbomb, but I hold less hope for any of these than the Explosives, and little enough even there unless recurring it for zero with Sun Titan becomes a relevant advantage.
In order to be slightly more exhaustive, If an Indatha Triome were assumed as well, there could be a bizarro-world "Next Level White" build of the deck using Golos, Tireless Pilgrim with a very fragile manabase where things like Bringer of the White Dawn, Obelisk of Urd, [EDIT: sorry, that should read Obelisk of Alara] Kenrith, the Returned King, Chamber Sentry, the Mythoi from Ikoria, all of the hybrid Lorwyn Firespout and Ravnica Batwing Brume cards, the remainder of the Steamcore Weird cycle, and a host of off-colour cycling abilities from Shards of Alara would become available to the shell, not to mention Flashback and Unearth costs of all types - where Lingering Souls and things like Viscera Dragger come to mind. This is almost certainly going beyond the deep end of Modern viability, but if anyone was looking for a mad idea to go spend deckbuilding time on I wish them all the best. Magic can appeal to people in many ways, so maybe I should have mentioned the option back when the Triomes were first spoiled.
I hope this has been helpful, and if testing backs up my intuition I promise to re-write any sideboarding guides as necessary, Fluff.
-Stéphane Gérard
If this reaches you in time, I really think you ought to try out maindecking your three Solitude by reducing your Wrath of God and Supreme Verdict count. I know that the sweepers are extraordinarily powerful in the shell, but your pressure is far more valuable so being able to contribute to it may prove far more important. If this is not the case, you should be able to tell pretty quickly, and the surprise value of the new card will only compensate for a power reduction in the short term so I would strike while the iron is hot. In either event, your experiences will let others know what the issues would be with such a strategy, and would be a valuable addition to this thread. (If you have particular matchups where sweepers are indispensable in the lategame, I would in other circumstances recommend you try something like Martial Coup or Realm-Cloaked Giant, but for today I would say the time is now to just keep as many threats as you can by replacing all your sweepers with the new Evoke mythic. A good rule of thumb in Magic generally is to test early, and test in numbers so that better opinions can be formed and applied as swiftly as possible.)
The rest of this post will likely not be relevant to tonight, so if you are in a hurry please read it later when you have the time. In terms of 23 things to pitch, I agree that this is sufficient number to support the card, but my comment is a direct extrapolation from near-decades of playing with pitch spells in a variety of formats. They tend to have an issue with deciding which cards to get rid of, since the decision is made on casting and the results of their resolution can dramatically alter whether the right decision was made. The upshot is that the more options for fodder a deck has in the absolute deckbuilding sense, the better the pitch spells become. I will accept pitching my game-breaking Ancestral Recall against a control deck to Force of Will if that is what it takes to avoid losing the game on turn one when playing a list that has just barely enough blue chaff to "support" the latter card, but the more pieces of cardboard I can put in my deck that can take the load off my premium cards in any given matchup, the less often I have to make these kinds of plays. The issue is far less obvious, but just as real in Modern. If I Mulligan, or if I have a draw which relied on a Stoneforge Mystic or a Wall of Omens to smooth out my curve, I will more often have to pitch a Sun Titan which might have won me the game if I need to Solitude early, given my relatively high count of colourless cards, lands, and Court Hussar. My point is simply that mono-white would have to do so less often.
Next, on infinite lifegain and the Heliod/Ballista combo, the reason why I think my advice will not be viable for you is that my stance in the matchup is radically different due to the presence of Mistveil Plains in my list. Your deck has a 2/3/2+2 curve that cannot afford more "Enters the Battlefield Tapped" lands than you are currently playing (which is one reason why I think my list has some advantages in the abstract - I get to comfortably play as if I have up to 7 taplands and take less damage from my manabase as a result. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Emeria, the Sky Ruin has much more of a cost in decks where its primary drawback has fewer sequencing options that will disrupt the curve, as is the case when pressure is your primary win condition. Attrition therefore suits the card far better as a strategy whenever possible). In any event, I try to actively encourage my opponents to combo for infinite life, since that will then expose them to removal and sweepers for value and/or tempo plays, and decking doesn't care about how much life they have when their total amount of mana is capped at around 30 mana's worth of plays before Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter start to intentionally run them out of basics. Your Ashiok and Gideon are reasonable options for decking as well, but the problem with them is that they take up a spell slot that can be interacted with far more easily, and sometimes cost you games by not beating their combos.
Finally, I have not yet tested against Burn with the new Equipment package, and since I had favourable impressions of a sideboarded Shadowspear in the past I may revert to a copy for precisely the reasons you mentioned given the loss of one Batterskull. I have noticed that the number of 1-toughness creatures has dramatically reduced as a response to the presence of Gut Shot and Lava Dart, though, so perhaps I will have to consider dropping down to 2 Mortarpod in the near future. I would then have to decide whether the maindeck Shadowspear would be better than the second Batterskull, because given the drawback of Kaldra Compleat being a seven-mana play I have been slightly concerned about my curve these past few days - even despite its indestructibility. The point may be moot, however, because upon reflection Sanctum Prelate has far too high an upside and too broad an application to ignore, which affects the Burn and Prowess matchups directly and significantly. My complete 75 with current recommended sideboard, therefore, is as follows as of Modern Horizons 2:
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Court Hussar
3 Sun Titan
1 Kaldra Compleat
1 Batterskull
3 Mortarpod
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Detention Sphere
1 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
4 Path to Exile
3 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
7 Plains
3 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
1 Island
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Lone Missionary
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
2 Pithing Needle
2 Celestial Purge
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
1 Prismatic Ending
Should the 1-mana equipment make it into the sideboard, it will probably at this point be in favour of the Blessed Alliance, because it covers the same primary targets of Bogles and Burn, with applications against Infect, while being approximately as cheap and offering interaction for two important keywords (Hexproof and Indestructible). As a tiny bonus, it also allows Germs to attack for 1, and makes an extra 1/1 if Batterskull and sufficient mana are available. I will likely be testing the list as-is with these things in mind until paper tournaments open up.
Hoping this finds you all well, and good luck!
-Stéphane Gérard
You made two very good points I want to address: first Solitude vs Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This is an interaction that had completely escaped my attention, and affects my rating by a few percentage points. I still think that the guaranteed 2-for-1 negative exchange rate is too costly for an effect which will remain otherwise unavailable until turn 5 at minimum in my card economy-conscious build, but if there was a specific problem that threatened extremely early lethal attacks more often I would now be certain of it as a justifiable inclusion maindeck. For builds without Stoneforge Mystic filling the 5-drop slot with access to Batterskull as a bridge, this is almost assuredly better in the abstract than Gideon Jura, Cavalier of Dawn, and Geist-Honored Monk (with a far higher base power level, barring other synergies). It may ultimately find its best home in mono-white in any event, which will have far better options on a consistent basis as to what to pitch to it, much like the advantage Legacy Merfolk enjoys when casting Force of Will and Force of Negation. In your build, the Flash body is already a resource of interest, and I wonder whether you might consider removing your sweepers for it instead of your Path/Gideon/Teferi? You might at this point have reached critical mass for spot removal to move the sweepers to the sideboard, making you better against control, and using Equipment, Pressure, trading in combat, Evoke, and the Hussar trick with Teferi, Time Raveler to make your Emeria, the Sky Ruin trigger.
(As an extensive aside on that issue, with significantly more aggressive creatures in your deck, you will need to enable far fewer Emeria activations to win the game, which is actually the reason I have built my deck the way it is by focusing on the aggro matchups. This has bearing on your possible confusion when you were discussing how you felt against Burn compared to Blitz. Feel free to tell me if I am wrong, but based on your list the effective "window" for winning the most games occurs during turns 6-12 for you, and decreases in comparison to mine every turn after that. Mine almost literally cannot win games before turn 7, which assumes that a Stoneforge Mystic was sent immediately to fetch Kaldra Compleat and survived to put it into play. Since this is not a bet I am comfortable making, my "window" begins on turn 8, and my chances of winning increase relative to every other deck in the format afterwards, which can hypothetically extend outward indefinitely if necessary. This is a double-edged sword when it comes to the kinds of plays you and I have incentive to make, where yours can look to stabilize or contain an issue for two to four turns - consider Elite Spellbinder and Skyclave Apparition for instance - while mine wants to assume permanent containment of an issue with minimal risk and maximal 1-for-1 guarantees whenever possible otherwise. This means that even though I am generally not as threatened by a typical Prowess turn as you are, I nearly always need to deal with three or even four waves of their explosive turns, where you cut off at least one and more likely two of these waves by threatening lethal well before I do. The inverse is my most likely culprit for the discrepancy in our Burn dynamic, where if I can achieve stability with a Lone Missionary or a Blessed Alliance to drag things out at 2-for-1 rate, the game becomes a quick concession. At an average maximum rate of 2 damage per turn after turn 7, I only have to show them a Batterskull when their hand is empty, and their next draw step must provide lethal lest the Germ coming back every turn spell a soft-lock they have no burst card advantage to dig out of. Of the two Burn is, in truth, the more difficult of the two decks due to the capacity you mention of purely pointing seven Lightning Bolt at a life total, but their resilience is far, far lower than Prowess, and in practice they are mathematically guaranteed to draw a string of useless Creatures or Lands at some point. My job in the matchup is therefore extremely easy: survive until the math wins. With Prowess, the shoe is on the other foot. I have to assume that I must be able to deal with every single corner case, on any given turn. A single 2-for-1 is essentially never enough to pull me into or keep me in the lead. The difference lies in the type of losses that we can each accept. When I lose a game to Burn, they had it all and there was nothing I could do. When I lose to Prowess after turn 3, I know that I had the game in hand somewhere along the line and fumbled an excellent matchup.)
As for your second critical point, I actually cannot think of why Sanctum Prelate slipped my mind, other than perhaps the fact that I had it filed under "Legacy and Vintage playable only" for so long. This was a massive oversight, and I thank you for bringing it up. It actually competes with Kaldra Compleat for number one most impactful new card in the base-white board control archetype, covering a huge number of unfair cards and forcing interaction for may other fair ones. I will now have to think it over, but it may in fact pull far more weight than my two sideboard Containment Priest at the moment. It is a touch expensive for the sideboard at three mana, and the downside of shutting off Wrath of God against Collected Company decks is real, but I strongly suspect that its combination of high-power and high-flexibility on a recursion-ready body likely more than compensate for these issues by interacting with massive headaches such as Bring to Light, Scapeshift, Ad Nauseam, Gifts Ungiven, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and even Karn Liberated.
Returning to the format in general at the moment, I believe that even with his excellent Protection body Sanctifier En-Vec is currently poorly positioned against the current graveyard threats, as is (unfortunately) Containment Priest, though I will point out that my Mortarpod-heavy build makes the latter's anti-synergies very rare indeed. I also like that you mentioned public enemy number one in Living End, where Curator of Mysteries, Striped Riverwinder, and Windcaller Aven make a bit of a mockery of the colour restrictions of the first while the wording of Living Death would laugh at even an infinite series of flash 2/2 Human Clerics. The preferred interaction in this instance remains Remorseful Cleric in my opinion, whose evasive body you might appreciate more with your Equipment. I have found that two in play is the magic number that generally guarantees a game win (so that they cannot cycle more creatures as they hold priority after they force one to activate by putting their global reanimation on the stack) but finding even one begins a game-changing dynamic by crippling their first swarm of monsters while returning itself to play for free after the resolution of a Battlefield/Graveyard swap.
Next up, Seal of Cleansing has been great for me, and I would mention that it (and Aura of Silence) can combine with your sideboard Shadowspear to deal with Heliod, Sun-Crowned. I have not yet considered whether that will be viable with your current sideboard plan in the matchup, but it is worth the time to say it if you haven't had the chance to evaluate the interaction yet. The two enchantments also work very well with tapout sequencing in that they protect you from early Walking Ballista combo attempts while you set up stabilizing plays and/or find equipment to interact, for whatever that is worth to you. I have found anecdotally that the Aura is particularly irritating for them, typically making their damage combo prohibitively expensive until after their manabase comes under threat from Emeria/Titan recursion of Ghost Quarter effects, but you are far more susceptible to infinite lifegain, so perhaps the threat is too great from Spike Feeder in your case.
On the Skyclave Apparition/Detention Sphere debate, besides the cost restriction and the chances of card advantage - which I do think are mildly relevant considerations - there are two major points of difference. First that putting an Illusion in play with a sweeper is a much more frequent danger for my list, and second that I weigh the fragility of a creature much more strenuously than that of an enchantment in attrition-based control. The "nontoken" clause is also very unfortunate on the 2/2 at times, but I agree that the creature's permanent exile effect is stronger and that your deck makes use of the body much better. Your version has more 2-drops and more board presence with fewer sweepers, so this also means that Prismatic Ending should more be a supplement to your exile suite (essentially, you specifically may have less need of the "cheapness" factor that was so impressive to me, particularly now that you are also running Solitude. If this is true, perhaps you could test a singleton Deputy of Detention to see if its trigger is more worthwhile?
Let me know how it all works out for you, and good luck in your next tournament!
Hoping this finds you well,
-Stéphane Gérard
Though I would currently assume Starstorm's tempo/disruption and clock are more relevant, my recommended list for those who wish to maximise the grind which Emeria inherently rewards, below is my current (workshopped and minimally-tested) build. The full 75 should now be the following as of the release of Modern Masters 2:
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Court Hussar
3 Sun Titan
1 Kaldra Compleat
1 Batterskull
3 Mortarpod
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Detention Sphere
1 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
4 Path to Exile
3 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
7 Plains
3 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Prairie Stream
1 Island
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Containment Priest
1 Lone Missionary
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
2 Pithing Needle
2 Celestial Purge
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
1 Prismatic Ending
As of this moment, I have more or less completely conceded land-based strategies in the sideboard, with my maindeck Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter effects backed up by Sun Titan and Crucible of Worlds taking the brunt of the charge on that front. Ultimately, without Zur's Weirding it was clear that Aven Mindcensor was insufficiently consistent unless more sideboard space was devoted to support him, and I have thus returned to the old standby of "maindeck or bust" in ramp matchups. The banning of Field of the Dead was a very large part of this decision, as things have calmed down significantly in those matchups since its departure.
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S. : One final word is in favour of the Sanctifier, whose Protection abilities and exile clause from the Library are powerful enough that I will bump him up in priority for testing.
First, congratulations on the FNM results (both the fact that you got to play them, and the combined 7-2 record). Well done !
Next, I am very glad to be of service, and very much hope the thread will pick up again. In these uncertain times the unsettled environment goes some way towards incentivising your aggressive variant by providing free wins when untested strategies stumble, and so I expect my recommended builds will (or should) take a back seat until the ability to tune for a specific metagame begins to reward the inevitability strategy once more.
Thank you as well for your takes on cards, specifically Elite Spellbinder and Skyclave Apparition. Stress-testing significant numbers of these was something I was not certain I would be able to justify, and your maindeck inclusion of them for real events will give a much better impression than playtesting ever could.
In terms of responding to specific suggestions, please do not feel obligated to cover everything I mention, I simply wanted to provide a jumping-off point for anyone questioning whether these are initially viable, and a forum for anyone with actual games with them to weigh in on. If you haven't played with a card, just ignore it and others will either defend or dismiss it based on their experiences.
Speaking of real experiences, I was able to invite a few friends over for a testing session, which gives a little more context for some Modern Horizons 2 cards. First, I will have to disagree with your evaluation of Kaldra Compleat, as it can absolutely replace Batterskull in some versions. I value lifegain and my curve highly enough in my build that I have made a 1/1 split of them at the moment, where before I had been very happy with 2 copies of the New Phyrexia Living Weapon, but the indestructible exiling First Strike and Trample combination particularly excels as a one-man wrecking crew against non-white midrange or a fantastically high-impact clock versus control or combo - pressuring Planeswalkers immediately and being extraordinarily difficult to remove barring exile effects. Some builds may definitely want access to it as an equipment more than any other enhancement.
In a different dynamic, Out of Time and Prismatic Ending (the first maindecked and the second as a singleton out of the sideboard) were exceedingly potent as delaying tactics versus Red Prowess. Despite its disadvantages (which have convinced me to reduce its numbers again, particularly given the awkward Phasing and Living Weapon interaction) the enchantment coming down on turn three was incredibly relevant, being the difference between staying alive to stabilise on the draw against two or three Prowess creatures or dying with an uncast Supreme Verdict in hand. The fact that it is killable is actually a bonus in may situations, as the Seal of Cleansing effects can then be used to interact with the board during the opponent's attack step by providing blockers at instant-speed. All in all, however, it was not ultimately enough for me to include the card, but I could see a world where Modern was aggressive enough that I would want the effect more than the Doomskar that offers the only other such option on 3 mana.
Prismatic Ending, on the other hand, is rock solid and has impressed me quite a bit. A one-mana option which is essentially a Sorcery-speed Isolate with Kicker equal to your number of total colours played is a real boon, and it can even hit the zero CMC nonland permanents that the instant irritatingly never could. With Teferi, Time Raveler in the deck already, its coverage was almost identical at baseline, and could exile Dark Confidant and Scavenging Ooze with equal ease early in the game (something which I stress would be a liability to do with either Path to Exile or Skyclave Apparition, and a frequent impossibility with the latter on the draw at 3 mana). The fact that I could also lower my curve against Bomat Courier, Champion of the Parish, Glistener Elf, Death's Shadow, Monastery Swiftspear, or Birds of Paradise while covering my bases against Aether Vial, Amulet of Vigor, and Hardened Scales, plus scaling up (even minimally) to Stoneforge Mystic, Meddling Mage, Tarmogoyf, Scourge of the Skyclaves, or even such curve-balls as Pyromancer Ascension, Bitterblossom, Suppression Field, Torpor Orb, and much more, all of this combined to a highly favourable first impression. As of now, the spell has earned a permanent place in my expanded sideboard rotation, and may ultimately prove to be one of the more impactful inclusions there in slower gameplans. Though I was never much bothered by the cards, it is also worth mentioning that Chalice of the Void set to any number at all becomes a near complete non-issue whenever Prismatic Ending is available, and it even provides a very cute theoretical extra answer to Blood Moon in my strictly two-colour shell.
The sideboard cards are far more nebulous to me still, though I am currently running 3-2 split of Remorseful Cleric with a pair of Containment Priest as interaction for Collected Company, Neoform, and Through the Breach where none was available before, but this package may soon include a singleton Sanctifier En-Vec somewhere if Dredge picks up in popularity. Archon of Emeria is also a clear contender for similarly splitting up Ethersworn Canonist, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Damping Sphere to diversify against Storm-like strategies when that package is necessary, though dying to Lightning Bolt where the Eidolon does not is a real blow.
Last up in the options I have seriously considered for updating my build are the two blue cantrip enchantments at CMC 2, Confounding Conundrum and Dress Down. Both of them critically provide their effects at card parity, and so have warranted further inquiries even with their less-than-ideal blue casting cost early. The first was a very promising layer of protection against Titan decks, where blunting their acceleration by any means possible granted extra draw steps and pulled the games back into reach. The second I have no experience at all with, but will remember as a card advantage play that can be accrued for free on the attack step or on ETB by Sun Titan. I have no idea yet what deck the effect might be best against, but even if only by removing Haste and the protection ability from a Reality Smasher or the first trigger of Thought-Knot Seer the card will surely have applications at the very least versus Eldrazi Tron.
These nine cards are the ones I considered to be true contenders for my more grindy gameplan, and the ones I have actually put effort towards evaluating since my last posted decklist here. Skyclave Apparition and Elite Spellbinder may also sometimes feature in particular metagames for me, but have drawbacks on the order of Out Of Time which will require contextual justification or a clear transformative strategy in my opinion. In order of playability, then, I believe as of now that the eight remaining spells are therefore ranked:
1-Kaldra Compleat (Immediate auto-include due to power level alone, pending verification over the next month.)
2-Prismatic Ending (Immediate sideboard contender due to versatility and cost, possibly in numbers or even maindeckable in extremis.)
3-Containment Priest (Immediate sideboard contender on versatility and coverage of high-intensity threats, depending on format texture.)
4-Blossoming Calm (Medium power-level, low-versatility targeted effect interaction and lifegain, boosted by premium flexibility and cost.)
5-Dress Down (Medium power-level, high versatility creature interaction, including applications versus some combo and inherent synergy.)
6-Sanctifier En-Vec (High power-level, lower-versatility creature-based graveyard hate sideboard contender, depending on format.)
7-Confounding Conundrum (Medium power-level and low versatility permanent-based interaction for multiple land per turn ramp, corner-case applications elsewhere and synergy with Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, Path to Exile, Winds of Abandon and Settle the Wreckage.)
8-Archon of Emeria (Medium power-level, high-versatility evasive creature-based additional option with curve-disrupting upside, high cost for effect.)
Skyclave likely falls between number 2 and number 3 on that list, and Spellbinder between number 3 and number 6. The rest of the cards I mentioned were simply to note the possibilities now available to alternative builds. More blue-heavy curves using Realmwright and attempting to support Glint-Nest Crane or Arcanist's Owl are likely more interested in the existence of Chrome Courier, for instance. I should also clarify that Solitude seems sadly to be too much card disadvantage for my tastes, though it is obviously a very strong combination with Ephemerate (which is true of the entire cycle, in truth). The same trick with Grief is another reason why I am certain paper tournaments may be extremely volatile for some time yet, as there will need to be some major adjustments to its presence if it can be made viable, regardless of the fact that land-based attrition is at a marked advantage versus its specific form of interaction.
Hoping this finds you all well, and let me know if you disagree with any specifics!
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S. : As an edit, I should mention that Seal of Cleansing has now officially replaced Disenchant for me as well, which I had previously attempted to do illegally when the card was printed in Eternal Masters.
I am very glad to see that things have started to pick up again here, I was saddened when so many jumped ship to a different platform as I felt that this site's value as an archive was always an important feature that other forums lacked. Checking up on what felt like a ghost town was getting depressing, but I think now that there is more activity as the pandemic winds down I must thank Fluff for keeping the thread alive!
Modern's landscape has changed quite a bit during that time, and I have a few cards that I tested with and/or theorycrafted as potential alternatives for Emeria Control, but a word to the wise would be to wait until things settle down into a steady metagame once more - I have no idea whether Emeria is even viable at the moment, since its preferred prey (Midrange) could well be pushed out of the format entirely by the new power level of Modern Masters 2. In any event, the following paragraphs are intended as a kickoff point for discussion of any developments which occurred during the shutdown, in preparation for tuning and updating lists to the paper environment that may soon to be re-opened.
Progressing forward from Ikoria, then, where the last word was that the Yorion, Sky Nomad builds sacrificed a good deal for the unquestioned benefits of a synergistic companion, I will begin my recap by stating that Zendikar Rising offered mostly supplemental sideboard options in the thematic Archon of Emeria, in the non-Lukka half of Mila, Crafty Companion and in the extremely intriguing Confounding Conundrum as a splash-colour piece of ramp/fetchland interaction. The real meat of the set (unless a rogue build can count Lithoform Engine as a viable effect which might mimic Panharmonicon in certain ways) is found in Skyclave Apparition. My personal preferences aside, the card is very, very strong, and may warp deckbuilding accordingly. I currently have it as a unique sideboard option to combat Heliod/Ballista, but mileage may vary (as evidenced by Starstorm's blink-happy variant above - how is it working for you so far ?).
Next, in Core Set 2021, a very interesting alternative to Remorseful Cleric is now available in Containment Priest, whose anti-synergies with our own Emerias and Titans may be mitigated by its strength and versatility as a surprise play, and could also be sacrificed or otherwise removed once sufficient value has been accrued from the body. Speaking of Flash plays, Niambi, Esteemed Speaker is a variant on Whitemane Lion that some blue-heavy builds may entertain. The last significant card, for my money, is found in Angelic Ascension as an alternative extra piece of immediate hard removal for resilient creatures or planeswalkers - albeit one with a hefty drawback.
Kaldheim offered more or less a similar range of cards to our palette, though in light of recent developments Halvar, God of Battle and his associated Sword of the Realms may be of minimal consideration for more Equipment-themed builds in the future. Similarly being affected by new cards is my evaluation of Doomskar as a possible turn-3 play, which would now require far more to justify its inclusion. Another marginal effect from the set (though one covering a much broader swath of corner cases) is found in Reidane, God of the Worthy and her back half of Valkmira, Protector's Shield. In strange Snow builds, there is a far more substantial addition than these in Search For Glory to enable some kinds of toolboxes, where The Raven's Warning or Niko Defies Destiny might possibly be justifiable (these last being underwhelming otherwise). Speaking of Niko Aris, though the double-blue cost excludes it from viability in my eyes, others may find its ability to scale well a valuable asset in longer games, on a conveniently 3-CMC permanent.
In Strixhaven, the Learn mechanic notably gave an ETB looting effect to white on the 2-drop Professor of Symbology, which may be enough on its own as a curve pseudo-analogue to Wall of Omens to open up a variant of the Yorion builds, giving maindeck filtering for Wraths in matchups where these are dead, and incidentally providing access to "card advantage" in the form of Environmental Sciences, Introduction to Prophecy, Expanded Anatomy, Introduction to Annihilation, Mascot Exhibition, Academic Probation, Reduce to Memory, and the lessons of all other colours as well for those lists running Triomes to freeroll. The mechanic bears one small additional notable bonus, since the Yorion builds I tested had difficulty reliably seeing their sideboard cards, the power of the Professor might incentivize Sparring Regimen and possibly even Divide by Zero or Rise of Extus as extra ways to mitigate this effect by gaining reliable access to "pre-boarding" through a critical mass of Learn cards. Study Break is likely too narrow, however, and Guiding Voice would be a real leap to me.
Moving on in the same set, Divine Gambit is a risky though cheap piece of spell-based exile for a range of permanents, and on that note I was much more interested in the flexibility provided by Devastating Mastery. Both, however, proved unreliable to me in the absence of other support. These were at their best in Mono-white builds, though, which brings me to a the consistent small-time value of Pilgrim of the Ages, which was probably good enough to supplement Pilgrim's Eye in that specific configuration. That spirit, however, was much less of a new effect for the shell than another in Strict Proctor, whose power will sadly not fit ideally in attrition decks. His inclusion is for that reason discretionary as a sideboard choice, where a Death and Taxes-style pivot may be viable to some. In that vein, Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa's invitational card of Elite Spellbinder is a near-revolutionary new effect in White's colour identity, and may in fact be what the Flickerwisp versions are in the market for. In other builds, his value and pressure are less reliable, and yet he remains available should the need arise.
Finally, the largest shake-up has come from the Modern Horizons 2 set, and its upcoming roll-out will permit the testing of four categories of cards. First, the chaff and the jank: Ethersworn Sphinx, Serra's Emissary, Late to Dinner, Search the Premises, Subtlety, Solitary Confinement, Nettlecyst, Barbed Spike, Soul Snare, and Blacksmith's Skill. The previous list ranges from the thought-provoking to the outright hilarious, and may have very little use long-term.
Second, the sideboard fodder. Void Mirror for cost-cheating, Cursed Totem against a wide variety of creatures, Sanctifier En-Vec and Tormod's Cryptkeeper against graveyards, Seal of Cleansing against Artifacts and Enchantments, Seal of Removal against creatures and as a value play, Blossoming Calm against Burn, Storm, and Discard, Dress Down against all manner of synergies - the whole gamut is legitimately now up for grabs. Incidentally, I will also note that the utility of Lose Focus may offer a very interesting new tool in stack wars, which may become more prevalent in the wake of a timeless classic's return: Counterspell. It is this card's reprinting which more than anything else influences my doubt as to Emeria's position going forward.
Third, the build-arounds are led by Abiding Grace as a soft-lock with Kami of False Hope, which I will note also plays passably well with things like Hope of Ghirapur, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Heap Doll, Judge's Familiar and even Esper Sentinel. I will take the time to observe for the record (in a carefully neutral tone) that anyone who has played with Proclamation of Rebirth in the past will likely have fond memories of the game-warping effects available to Martyr of Sands recursion. Back to Emeria, however, other potential avenues are also now available in Karmic Guide and Chrome Courier, with each offering a sort of incentive for debatable costs.
Fourth and most importantly, however, are the direct competition for maindeck slots, beginning with Kaldra Compleat (as already mentioned by Fluff and Starstorm). The fifth point of power and the ability Haste make the card an absolutely unparalleled clock for any Stoneforge Mystic archetype, and I have (regretfully) already put one of my two Batterskull on the chopping block in anticipation of its presence. The keyword potpourri it also features is (once sufficient thought is devoted to it) also not at all bad at stabilizing the board, and I will be very surprised if the combination of these two factors does not earn it a permanent place in my maindeck. Others, who do not share my aversion to tempo removal plays from the opposition, will possibly find Sword of Hearth and Home to be an asset, which may well be a very good one in Solitude-centric variants fuelled by Squadron Hawk. Timeless Dragon represents yet another Mono-White option which can fetch nonbasic plains in splash builds, and adds incrementally to the count of Dragons required to make Orator of Ojutai a possible contender someday. Prismatic Ending is a surprisingly effective and cheap answer to everything from Hangarback Walker to Wrenn and Six, and three-colour versions of Emeria may find it to be a much better singleton than the Oblivion Ring that sometimes makes appearances there. Finally, the shockingly powerful Out of Time is a very real supplement or even alternative to Wraths, critically coming down a turn earlier, and synergizing very oddly indeed with Sun Titan. In combination with this last and with Detention Sphere and Aura of Silence or Seal of Cleansing, the effect becomes both abusable at instant-speed, and possibly even repeatable ad infinitum.
I think this covers the cards I have dealt with directly, as well as those which I felt had potential applications in the base W/u Emeria shell.
Please feel free to tell me of anything else I overlooked during the period mentioned, and I hope we may have events to anticipate soon!
-Stéphane Gérard
I have recently built an independent version of this deck to bring out to a weekly paper tournament. Here in Saskatchewan we have been fairly lucky in that the pandemic never got too severe (more due to lower population density than anything else, I would guess), and some local stores are cautiously returning to in-person events on a limited scale.
In any event, my experience with the format is negligible (two actual FNMs from quite a while ago, plus casual exposure from assorted online articles), so if anyone had suggestions on the following list I would be grateful. My take is based on three major philosophies: 1) - remaining completely spell-based to blank removal, and to minimize nightmare scenarios where Spell Mastery becomes awkward to achieve through pressure, 2) - deliberately optimizing mana and cost requirements with painless untapped sources wherever possible (and specifically remaining base-black until the lategame by avoiding GG costs before 6 CMC), 3) - maximizing the Vintage-restricted mode of Dark Petition as much as possible due to points #1 and #2, largely by selecting the 3-drops to synergize best with it and by gaining access to the sideboard with Mastermind's Acquisition.
Here is my list at the moment, then:
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Field of Ruin
2 Forest
1 Blast Zone
3 Fatal Push
1 Duress
1 Scarab Feast
4 Collective Brutality
1 Easy Prey
1 Eliminate
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Bile Blight
1 Heartless Act
1 Transgress the Mind
1 Doomfall
1 Prying Questions
1 Putrefy
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
4 Migration Path
1 Vraska's Contempt
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
3 Dark Petition
1 Seasons Past
1 Casualties of War
1 Scour from Existence
The sideboard would then be the following :
The first two are a split that is essentially forced by the relative strength of the maindeck against creatures. The next two are interaction with non-creature, non-planeswalker permanents. After these Golgari Charm has always impressed me in contol decks across multiple formats, and The Elderspell is the type of card that is sometimes necessary against Superfriends strategies. Next up are five spells that can be cast off of a Dark Ritual effect, beginning with two different answers to Uro or Omnath, with different strengths and weaknesses against various combo decks. Two situational sweepers follow these to supplement the maindeck Reckoning, the first excellent against Mono-Black Aggro and the second much better against Spirits. Finally, I am hoping the Ashiok will be a good answer to the "Oops - All Spells" deck running around. Moving up the curve, I included one more alternative exile-based sweeper to supplement the relatively thin four-drops of the maindeck, and the same logic aplies to the only "early" GG spell which acts as a versatile piece of interaction that can be prioritized in post-board mana development while providing a serious threat to opposing control manabases. The extra copy of the deck's namesake spell is in the sideboard to play around Niv to Light's maindeck Slaughter Games in combination with Acquisition, and last but not least Ugin's global reset button with upside needs little explanation.
Testing so far has made me very happy with the cycling spells in particular, in addition to the variety of options present on average for the first big refill, mostly rendered possible with value-added Escalation of Collective Brutality. A couple of points of concern are whether more significant lifegain is required (Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet has always been the default here), and whether an alternative win condition is necessary for the maindeck (Ob Nixilis Reignited might be the only viable option given my preferences, though the weak board presence of Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage could possibly fit extremely well with the endgame I am trying to set up).
There is only so much that goldfishing a dynamic control deck can do, though, and I generally anticipate losing badly for the first few weeks until I get a handle on the major points of interaction for the format. On the other hand the shell is very strong in the abstract, and the decision trees will certainly be engaging enough that I am committing to it for the next month or so.
I welcome any thoughts on these matters, or indeed any related issues!
-Stéphane Gérard