MTG Salvation

There's also this deck:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-quintessential-modern-tezz-gifts-faq/

Quote from darksteel88 »

Yeah, Sundering Titan is a beast against Zoo but surprisingly mediocre against Abzan in testing. I've seen some lists start playing Sigarda against Abzan, which doesn't seem that bad. Being able to block most of their creatures efficiently and having both Liliana protection and the ability to kill her seems really good. I may end up testing this sometime.

Burn is a matchup where I feel like Leyline isn't going to solely win you a game. I've actually lost to Burn having resolved Leyline and Spellskite to protect it. The thing is that we don't particularly interact well with fast decks like Burn or Infect, which is why I've liked the Timely. I can certainly see going to a second Spellskite though, it's just a good card in general and it does still cover Burn.

As far as Disenchant goes, I can see putting it back, as we are a 50/50 vs Affinity. I'm not sure it's the best against RG Tron, it's not bad but I feel like if you don't t2 it on the play, you're probably not getting the value you need out of it. It's good against Boggles and 8Rack to be sure, though we have a favourable 8Rack matchup anyways since they scoop to Iona. With respect to Stony Silence, most decks bringing it in are UWR Control and Abzan decks, at which point we don't really want to bring it in. It makes the card a lot less impressive as an answer to Stony Silence, especially when non-Geist UWR decks are really good matchups.

I'm still not sure what the right game plan is against Abzan. I do some testing and find out I can never get even 6 mana to cast Wurmcoil, then other times I've got more mana than I know what to do with. I think if we go to a Mindslaver plan and play Crucible, going bigger on cards like Wurmcoil is probably the plan.

Sigarda is very good against abzan, but she cannot be casted which is why I would be uncomfortable adding her.

Doesn't leyline buy you enough time to gifts into Iona against Burn?

Disenchant is also great against infect. I agree that against the most common decks playing stony silence it should not be brought in.

Against Abzan, Sower of temptation is very good. Perhaps a sideboard like this:

Quote from offtheropes5 »

how's the list runnin with gifts? I'm working on a Grixis build just to see how it goes but gifts into fatty seems sweet

Going T3 gifts t4 fatty is as good as it sounds.

However, it doesn't happen all the time. Your fatties might not win you the game instantaneously in certain matchups as well.

I'm not sure whether I like the Gifts version more than the U/B/x vanilla build to be honest.

As for grixis- what does red offer that green doesn't? Abrupt Decay answers more things than Bolt.

Hi, looking to play UW Tron here. I've played all sorts of Gifts decks from Tezz Gifts to Butakov's 4C gifts, and have not really tried UW Tron.

I can't find a list I liked so I took darksteel's most recent list and tweaked the sideboard to my liking.



The changes I made to the sideboard were:

-1 Sundering Titan
-2 Timely Reinforcements
+2 Disenchant
+1 Spellskite

Sundering Titan, according to a friend of mine who plays Tron a ton, does nothing you want. It's only really good against zoo decks, but even then it is too slow. It's not really fantastic against Abzan and Jeskai decks as it doesn't deal with their manlands.

I don't like Timely. It's just going to eat a skullcrack or atarka's command. You ahve 4 leylines anyway for the burn matchup.

I saw that R/G Tron is this deck's worst matchup. I like having disenchant to help with the matchup by a few percent points. It's also something to bring in against the two prominent blood moon decks - Twin and Blue Moon, as it hits a lot of relevant spells in those decks. Great against Affinity, which I found darksteel's list to be not having enough sideboard slots against (it's an ok matchup, but you want to be boarding out a lot of cards and his list doesn't have enough to bring in). Also good vs. random stuff like 8rack and Bogles and Tokens. Hits Stony Silence as well, but only bring it in against decks that run stony silence and other artifacts and enchantments that you want to kill i.e. don't bring it in vs Abzan.

I added a 2nd Spellskite because **** infect. It's also ok against burn, which makes up a little for the timely reinforcements that I took out from the deck.

The good thing about picking up UW Tron is that I don't see myself spending any money on DTK cards - none of the new cards look like something I would cut from the deck to make room for. None of them seem to make any existing deck a worse matchup for this deck as well.

I made some changes to CalebD's tezz list:

Maindeck:
-2 Timely Reinforcements
-1 Wrath of God
+1 Path to Exile
+1 Ghost Quarter
+1 Supreme Verdict

I have never felt that I needed Timely. Against burn, timely is just going to eat a skullcrack. Against other decks it is pretty slow. You have 4 MD wraths anyway.

I moved the SB Path and GQ to the MD to shore up some weaknesses against infect and affinity and free up SB slots.

Supreme Verdict is harder to cast than Wrath, but better vs Merfolk and Twin. 1 copy MD seems better than 4 wraths as a hedge int hose matchups. You don't want wrath effects against twin anyway, so 1 copy of verdict is sufficient.

Sideboard:
-1 Path to Exile
-1 Ghost Quarter
-1 Rest for the Weary
-1 Duress
-1 Detention Sphere
-1 Go for the Throat
+2 Slaughter Pact
+1 Leyline of Sanctity
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Disenchant

As spoken about, the sb PTE and GQ were moved to the MD.

I like thoughtseize more than duress as they achieve the same goal, the life loss is irrelevant in the matchups you want them in, and you're never gifting for different 1 mana discard spells anyway. The upside of TS over duress is that it can hit stuff like blighted agent. Our combo matchup is pretty miserable, so a 3rd thoughtseize seems justified.

Slaughter Pact is just a better removal spell than go for the throat. You almost always bring these in against any deck with creatures that hurt you. Being great vs twin is a great upside.

Disenchant is better than detention sphere imo.

I don't understand why he plays 3 leylines and 1 rest for the weary. If you want to run leylines run 4 instead. It has broader application than rest for the weary anyway. Our deck can cast a leyline easily too.

Updated list:

Circle of Protection: Red has always been ignored as an option.

Cards are skill intensive, not colors.

Remand, for example is skill intensive. Delver of Secrets is not.

Vines of Vastwood, for example is skill intensive. Noble Hierarch is not.

With that said, every color can be skill intensive depending on what cards you play.

Hist list is

-1 Choke
-2 Ethersworn Canonist

+1 Blood Moon
+1 Stormbreath Dragon
+1 Thrun

Kibler has too much sb against fair decks, which you have a good time against anyway. You definitely need canonists so you don't auto-lose to decks like Living End and Storm, while slowing down Infect, Bogles, and Burn. Choke is also just much better than Thrun as it's a better card in the Twin and Fish matchups, while being only slightly worse against control decks (which are not rampant in modern).

This is the list I've been playing. It's very close to Kibler's latest list but I didn't like his sb as I feel that you are too soft to certain decks, which you need to shore your matchup %s against.

Control decks in Modern were lost in the night.

Maro said, "Let Narset be!"

And there was light.

It feels like people who keep saying that modern isn't healthy just doesn't want to think it is healthy no matter what the meta looks like.

I like that it gives a chance for people who play a lot of modern to have a good shot at winning a PT.

Also, standard is just really, really boring.

Here's something you can try without goyfs:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30302_Daily-Digest-Immense-Rage.html

I am fine with the way modern is now with 'control' taking the form of stuff like Twin and Abzan.

However, I have played a lot of U/W/x control in modern and Miracles and stoneblade in legacy, and would like to share some observations to contribute to the discussion. In the following points, when I say 'control', I am referring to blue-based dedicated control decks.

1) Celestial Colonnade is a pretty lame wincon. It comes into play tapped which makes multiple colonnade hands very awkward. Yet, dedicated control decks are forced to run 4 because there is no creature in modern that is cheap and serves as a resilient wincon (see stoneforge mystic in legacy stoneblade and JTMS in miracles).

2) No brainstorm/preordain/ponder - This is pretty big because you usually end up drawing the wrong half of your deck and dying. This is not standard where you have a very limited range of threats. You can play serum visions, but it's not very good and it's made worse because of point #1.

3) Board wipes are next to useless - Board wipes supposedly make a control deck because of the sheer card advantage it generates. In standard, creatures reign supreme and there are very little good manlands. In legacy, Terminus is really good because it's an instant speed board wipe and there are a lot of decks that actually fold to board wipes as compared to modern (swarm strategies like elves and goblins, creatures like TNN, lack of manlands because of speed of format etc.) Modern has a strange combination of super-value creatures that are wrath-proof (no efficient way to cast terminus in this format) and a lot of manlands, as well as a top tier deck that casts creatures at instant speed (Twin).

4) Counterspell hate - This is a format where cavern of souls and voice of resurgence is played. In standard, there are a lot of big, unwieldy spells that get hit by stuff like dissolve. In legacy, most spells can be countered easily with Force of Will or Daze. Modern presents you with a weird situation where you cannot counter anything because of VoR being in play, cavern naming titan, scapeshift having a lot of lands, twin being able to cast everything at instant speed, things costing zero in affinity etc. Your counterspells are also have quite a restricted window - mana leak is weak after a few turns, remand is weak vs any deck with an average cmc of 1-2, spell snare is really sad vs a lot of things, cryptic command costs 1UUU. The consequence of this? Control is lacking in its traditional catchall answer which is counterspells.

5) Painful manabase - The manabase in modern is painful compared to legacy, which is an issue because you need untapped lands as early as turns one and two. Aggro and midrange decks do not really care about taking damage, but control decks need to preserve their life total.

6) Super big decks - There are decks that just blow the 'inevitability' of any control deck in modern out of the water, and these decks are scapeshift and Tron. Have fun tapping 5 for your colonnade to attack.

Twin and scapeshift are actually our go-to control decks because of their combo finish. If you think about it, one of the main reasons why Miracles, the only control deck in legacy is so successful is because of its combo finish of top+counterbalance or top+Entreat! If WotC wants to see a U/W control deck do well, a grindy combo finisher that costs little mana (e.g. Thopter+Sword) can be considered.

Dismember and Murderous Cut are undoubtedly the best.