MTG Salvation

Surgical is definitely powerful enough to warrant maindeck inclusion right now, but even drawing 2 against non-GY decks is usually game losing. There's no way 4 can be correct.

Force of Negation is the new Force of Will - just hit the Altar and they become a bad dredge deck. A few FoN and a pair of surgical in the main, coupled with a trio of Rest In Peace out of the board should bring that match closer to even without auto-losing to the rest of the format.

Also, Karn isn't doing you any favors in your bad matchups either, especially the ones you seem worried about the most, the GY-Aggro matchups. Spending two turns and 5 mana over turns 4 and 5 on a grafdiggers cage is a losing recipe, and then you're stuck with the crappy situation of deciding between leaving your Cage in the board or having dead Karns.

I feel like it's beating a dead horse at this point, but Karn is awful in UW. Think about how much better your GY-aggro match would be if you had the space for 3 Rest in Peace in the board.

Quote from Humstuck »

I agree that maybe fetching a snow basic instead of a shock first turn to deal with a creature might be a problem. I just think its the most interesting in the new possible options. Very possible oust or condemn are still just better.

It's not just fetching a snow-basic turn 1, it's fetching a snow-plains - we want to cast logic knot on turn 2 and we have triple blue spells we'd like to cast on curve as well. By the time you factor in 4-5 colorless sources in the deck, you ideally don't want to be fetching plains in there first 4 turns unless you think your opponent is on blood moon.

I think it's better than Oust after turn 1 though, since you can fetch snow-island after having fetched your first shockland.

We should be favored vs Tron and your list doesn't reflect that you are worried about Tron at all; only 3 field of Ruin? Detention Sphere, 2x Tef3, timely reinforcements,0 Surgical. You can shore up your Tron matchup without too much work just by changing around those numbers alone. We should also be more favoired, heavily favored, vs Tron come MH1 - I can't imagine them ever beating Force of Negation granted you don't cut down on the number of non-Tef3 planeswalkers. They are just never going to beat Narset, JTMS, or Tef5 with Force backup. I think the matchup will be so good that it might be correct to adopt a manabase similar to the one you already have; less than 4 Field and possibly more than 1 Blast Zone.

Generous gift is like 4th pick draft chaff. It's completely unplayable in modern. The vast majority of threats in modern provide value on ETB meaning you're going to be down 3 cards when using a Jace or Tef5 minus and down 4 cards when you path it. I don't think this card is playable in UW control even if it has split second and cost a single white Mana.

Unless the blue marble does something other than be a blue marble, like say draw a card or scry, or that not all the blue marbles are the same and exist outside of a hypergeometric vacuum.

If you read back a little further you'll see that I suggested that in order to play a 26 land version I would cut all Serum/Opt in favor of Heiroglyphs. Losing out on the scry absolutely does hinder your ability to cast colored spells.

You're also not considering how many hands with a fetch (or any dual) plus a colourless land are keepable, of which there are many. Every time you add a colorless source, those combinations go up. So while adding a single colorless source in place of a spell doesn't change the odds in a hypergeometric vacuum, the game of magic isn't played in such a vacuum.

Quote from chaos021 »

Quote from user-11186802 »

Hello, why play esper over something like uw ?

Esper Charm and Fatal Push are really good right now.

Esper Charm is always good, I don't think there's anything about the current meta that makes it better than usual. I'd say charm gets better as the format gets slower and I don't think that's the case; with the new mulligan in effect everyone is trying to combo-kill as fast as possible.

I'd like to hear an argument for why Push is good right now too. I don't see much of an argument over why Push is better than Condemn currently; there aren't a ton of ability-creatures right now, most decks are attacking to win. Condemn is much better against Titan decks, much better against pheonix, better against dredge etc. Bob, Teeg and pyromancer aren't running the format rampant so I wouldn't say push is especially well positioned either.

There isn't really a good reason to be Esper over UW right now. It's just a style of deck that everyone loves and when it gets any share of coverage people get a little over zealous.

Depends what you mean by need, that's why budget discussions are tough. I would say all UW control lists need colonnade and you disagree based on budget.

So do you need Minamo? Well it definitely makes ojutai better, but I would spend money on colonnade before Minamo.

If you do decide to go ojutai, give blessed alliance a shot. It works as both removal and protection.

People are clamoring over Veto because they don't realize the actual cost of the second color requirement; Take a look a pro's UB lists from the last decade and you will see that even in aggressive UB strategies like Faeries (Yuta Takahashi is prime example) and count the number of negate vs countersquall - among pros it's zero squall.

Of course uncounterable is worth more than 2 life in most scenarios, but it's not a strict upgrade over negate in decks with quadruple color requirements and multiple colorless sources. You're going to want negate more often against aggressive strategies so that you can double spell earlier and against controlling or combo decks you're going to want Veto. This makes me think that the first obvious spot for Veto is replacing some number (maybe all) of negate in the sideboard.

Yes, I do play mostly online and basically only play paper when a major modern tournament is around my city (just outside Toronto). I hadn't really considered that paper players wouldn't adapt and would just play the same old deck they always have. I definitely should have because I'm pretty much doing it myself - if it wasn't for not having paper copies of living end I think I would be on UR electro-end.

Thanks for all the advice, I'll take it into consideration.

Finally got to play against Izzet Pheonix a few times with the deck (list very similar to Annihilator's last list, i'll post below), it feels very close went 2-2 against them in matches and 6-6 in games. RIP was clutch despite what I've been hearing more seasoned players saying - something along the lines of "you don't want RIP because access to Snap-Exile effects (path, purge) is one of your best lines". I think that might be true but it seems to me that you actually have more access to path/terminus when they can't surgical extraction on your exile effects. I don't think it's actually correct to try to play the surgical game against them (bring in your own surgical) because they run 3 copies of it and if you're going to try to hit their pheonix they will just surgical it on their own and only exile 1 copy. I'm fairly certain bringing in surgical against them is actually wrong and might not even be worth the sideboard slots right now.

I think I've got enough matches under my belt (around 75) with this deck (control like annhilators) now to make a statement about it's power level - On an absolute judgement - the deck is strong enough to play with the big boys. On a relative judgement - The difference between UW control and this deck is not substantial enough across matchups to warrant giving up points in the burn match (via a worse manabase). UW and Bant pretty much feel the same in most matchups outside of control mirrors where Bant feels miles better , and slightly better against tron but not enough to make it a favourable matchup.

My conclusion would be to keep an eye on the meta and new cards; if burn stops being such a huge force in the meta or if we get some new 1cmc toys then this deck could be a good option over UW miracles.

I'll keep checking in here with you guys but I think I'm going back to UW control for now and trying to figure out if 1 RIP and 2 Relic of Progenitus belong in the main.

cheers.

Cashed a tournament with a sweet 4-0.




Faced Mono Red Phoenix (2-1), GR Titanshift (2-0), Mono Red Blistercoil (2-0), Altarvine (2-1). The list is working the way it’s intended to do.

About Growth Spiral, I already pinpointed the problem with the card: moving between turns 2-4 doesn’t apport much to us, most of the time.

One thing I didn't realize until I just played a match against Hoogak is that Force of Negation is really good at protecting RiP and Stony against Nature's Claim.

Lili also permanently deals with a threat. Not just tempo.

I am betting on flipwalkers for every planeswalker.

Rosewater essentially confirmed it by talking about the “Crazy” element in the set and alluding to it in other comments on his blog.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/?amp_see_more=1

You would get every walker as a legendary creature trying to regain their spark after Bolas stole/suppressed it with the Immortal sun.

It would stop games from being grindy, limit mana issues, and keep you from having to print 30 new planeswalker kill cards.

Quote from DaveJacinto »

The Phoenix deck isn't that amazing against us. The way I play in order to win against them is Pathing/Countering the TiTis, RIP to delay their Phoenixes or remove some of their velocity (by nullifying the flashback of lootings). After that you need a plan... Mine is to resolve and protect an Angel. They rarely play Axe, if they do, they don't have a great way to fight over it on the stack. If you save as many Paths as you can and Terminus 2 creatures away you'll be really favored to win. They don't have card advantage, they just cycle through air, so eventually you'll win.

The deck can win if they for some reason have a nuts. Their average draw is way worse than our average draw. This is the exact matchup where Surgical is amazingly good. If you have a surgical on the opening hand you'll almost guaranteed to win. Specially against their nuts. If they have the chance to do the turn 2 nuts they will do it and they usually are mana constrained on the second turn if they go for the nuts, unless they have two manamorphoses. Typical turn 2 nuts is Manamorphose into Looting/Other spell. If they do this you can Surgical the Phoenixes with the trigger on the stack and you straight up win.

Playing more spot removal is also good. Blessed Alliance/Oust/Condemn are great in the matchup. They only have 8 threats so it's kinda easy to contain them. Bear in mind that there will be probably an increase on Temur versions because it's way more consistent, but loses way harder to RiP.

ive been on both sides of the matchup now, and id say that its closer to even to slightly favored for UW. if phoenix doesnt have to act to kill you quickly it can dictate the pace of the game and put UW into some awkward spots, especially post board when soft/conditional 1 cmc counters can snap off key spells like a cryptic/terminus/teferi/jace.

jeskai is a bit better vs. phoenix imo (not a lot, just a bit), even if terminus seems like better removal than bolts and helixes. jeskai can get on the board and pressure their life, and if you run 2+ surgicals all the better because flashing them back for a 2nd or 3rd casting can just run UR phoenix out of threats.

for both versions (UW/jeskai) the angel package is just a workhorse against the deck, so id definitely be including that if ur phoenix is expected to be a good portion of the field. im personally planning to play jeskai next (was on izzet phoenix and UW before that). if i were taking UW to a GP i think my board would look something like this:

I played the following list to a 4-1 finish last night at FNM. Went 1-2 Spirits (very close games, Mausoleum Wanderer is a great card), 2-0 BG Elves (it was a budget list), 2-1 Traditional Affinity, 2-1 Grixis Shadow, 2-0 Tron. Deck felt great:



I definitely feel that Spiral is powreful enough to splash green for. It was especially good against Tron, helping me to keep ahead of their threats with Cryptics and powering up Logic Knots while allowing me to recover very quickly from cast triggers hitting my lands. I think this list might be better than the Think Twice/WR list, but I still want to test Hieroglyphic Illumination and WR together. Maybe even throw in a Torrential Gearhulk or 2.

Well while y'all test Delver and combo lists, I'm still testing straight control.

Here's the list I'm gonna look at (spoiler: it's not so very different from one JayJay tested a bit ago):


I have been finding Wilderness Reclamation to be very good, but only in a list with Think Twice. The issue is that Think Twice is a pretty poor draw spell for this deck, seeing as it's 3 mana to TT+Terminus if you're conscious of a miracle, and otherwise is generally slow (tho not too bad, since we have ramp and lots of time). But it's very annoying to have to decide whether to cycle TT while you have the two mana up or to wait until you can cycle it with a W up. You really don't want to draw a Terminus by accident when you don't have mana for it, since we don't play a lot of removal and the TT list doesn't have room for Snapcasters for extra ground protection. And that's assuming the TT is in your hand! I've found the deck to be really wanting Snapcasters in the main anyways, especially with WRec. But, of course that shouldn't surprise anyone.

So, I'm trying out a list with Snaps and Opts over TT and WR. Rec is a no-go without TT, because otherwise you sit there with nothing to do with the mana. It's a shame, though, because I've actually found it to be really good when you have TTs and Spirals to go with it. Perhaps a list with 4 Hieroglyphic Illuminations and WR would be reasonable.

As for why I'm even splashing green in the first place, it's because have 8 (!!) cantrips that are honestly just good in general and also good for miracling Terminus on 2 is great, and so is playing a T3 Jace. Can't do that in straight UW.

P sure this wants to be a wargate deck, not whir.
I also don't think SSS is worthwhile. I assume you're just looking for sword of the meek synergy, but I don't think its really worth it.

Now that I think about it though, wargate + glittering wish with 1 copy of Sword of the meek and 0-1 foundry main, and 1 foundry in the board could be pretty decent. Its such a low amount of space for the combo, since wargate can get azcanta, snap, clique, walkers, lands, etc. Maybe there are other permanents you would play, or maybe not. (Crucible? Other creatures? Wilderness reclamation? Its goodish with thopter combo. Wargating for it is 7 mana tho, so maybe its too winmore).

Idk, something to think about here. Maybe I'll try messing with this. Unfortunately only have 2 copies of wargate, but maybe you don't want more.

Quote from jayjayhooks »

Quote from M1sgu1ded1 »

Thanks for your posts Jayjayhooks, I'm living vicariously through you as this deck seems super fun (and I've let my manatraders account go for the time being). Once I start my sub back up this is one of the first decks I'll be trying.

Haha, glad to be of service! I take it you liked the Spiral into Miracle Terminus highlight. Well, I'm happy to inform you I had another incredibly satisfying spiral moment against dredge where I spiraled in response to a cathartic reunion and found the spell pierce on turn 2! 2 Mana for an extra land drop and a card sure sounds like time walk to me, and a 1 blue Mana instant that traded 3 for 1 with my opponent that game! Needless to say I won that game, sure felt like I was playing with power lol

Yea, that's definitely an erection there....

Edit: I moved this onto it's own thread. Bant Draw-Go: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/804451-bant-draw-go-control

Also, I 5-0'd last night's FNM with an Esper Draw-Go list if any of you are interested in it. I 2-1'd all of my matches, faced Jund, UR Pheonix, BG Rock, Grixis Shadow, and Dredge.