Whir only costs a mana less if you have 1 piece of the combo already and are using it to find the other combo piece.
Being able to wargate for a field, for azcanta, or for something else does have value.
Gifts definitely seems too hopeful to me.
I think the days of "value gifts" in control decks is over, given that we have cards like jace and teferi that are better and have atleast a hope of interacting on the board.
I'll probably try a build of thopter sword tonight, and let you know how it goes.
I think thats a problem caused by thirst. You wouldnt otherwise discard the sword.
Otherwise, hard to imagine secure the wastes or something (march of the multitudes?)isnt better.
Sprite is just such a polarized card without playing any other faeries. Its either insane or dead, but Id rather have amore consistent card (leak, knot, negate) in my control deck mainboard.
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.
Sword of the meek is barely "alive" without the combo, but yea, you could do that too.
I sometimes played a second finisher in the board next to proggy, sometimes an empyrial archangel, sometimes a dragonlord dromoka. If you were worried about sweepers (usually you'd just get a sideboard planeswalker instead of the creature) you could play ruric thar or something, but just getting teferi seems perfectly reasonable. If the opponent doesn't know whats up, you can potentially cast an end step dramatic entrance (with nothing in hand) and bait them to tap out to let you resolve a walker.
I played a glittering wish build of UW a while back, and you have a fair amount of reasonable options.
Geist, queller, detention sphere, rev, absorb, bant charm, fracturing gust, wheel of sun and moon, meddling mage, and finks are all pretty reasonable options that you might not normally play (especially mainboard) but being able to tutor for them is useful.
Cards like Teferi or verdict are also nice to have extra copies of.
I also played a variant that playing dramatic entrance mainboard and a progenitus in the board that could be wished for. It telegraphed the combo a little bit, but it made up for the fact that unlike breach + emrakul, you only had half the number of dead combo pieces in your deck (since wish could become a real card).
I'm sure you're somewhat right that more 1 mana interaction will take advantage of spiral better, but spell pierce is inherently at odds with a deck trying to go into the long game, especially one with such little pressure.
I did cut a snare for an absorb last minute, but I think the problem is mainly that there simply aren't enough good 1cost interactive spells in the format that are worth playing in such a deck.
I could certainly be wrong, and it definitely is early, but I'm thinking that miracles splash growth spiral, and a curve that skews lower is not going to be a better deck than actual miracles.
My next attempt will probably be a lot more creature focused.
As I said above, delver and growth spiral don't seem like friends. The awkward part of spiral is that it encourages you to play your proactive cards on cmc 4, which means cards like geist, queller, or clique aren't maximizing that.
Green does add obstinate baloth, tracker, and others though.
Maybe, but spiral into interaction did not feel like a particularly "key" line to the deck. Sure, against aggressive decks its nice, but it didn't feel like that was what would make or break games.
Being unable to beat stuff like valakut, or emeria, or urza lands, or cavern of souls, or even having to spend real removal on manlands is, in my general modern experience, going to cost you just as many games as having a rando colorless land mucking around, if not more.
Convincing me this deck actually wants delver is gonna be an uphill battle. It doesn't really make a ton of sense, imo.
Playing more creatures (queller, geist, etc, seems pretty reasonable too, as it plays to green's strengths a lot more).
I do think you want atleast a copy or 2 of field of ruin though. Its pretty low-cost in general, and has reasonable targets against a lot of the top decks.
Yea I was thinking about bug too.
Not a ton of 1 drops, but ive been meaning to pick up trophies, and they could certainly help a more controlling build.
Giving up path/terminus is rough though, and 4 color might be too greedy.
Went 3-1, deck felt ok. Growth spiral has felt ok, but I don't really feel like this deck can properly take advantage of it.
There are a couple walkers, a couple x spells, and the azcantas (as well as manlands) to take advantage of the ramp, which felt like a decent amount, but the growth spirals didn't feel better than just playing hieroglyphics or similar.
I don't know, I feel like I want a better reason to be in green.
I wanted to test a single copy of the UG nissa, but I couldn't get my hands on a copy in time.
I might try a glittering wish build at some point, and I'll probably put rug scapeshift together and try that with spiral too.
DLO doesnt set up terminus. It puts a card into your hand (not draws) and puts the rest on the bottom.
Generally speaking angels are a better choice for sideboard creature since you care less about the hexproof and more about the lifegain.
The major problem is that the verdict + seas build is about 0% to beat spirits.
Phoenix, humans, dredge, scales, and hollow one are also not made easier by playing verdict over terminus, or putting cards like spreading seas in your deck.
Jund moving to straight GB is also not very appealing to a seas plan.
Well lets think about it.
You cast scapeshift, sacrifice 7 lands, tutor up 6 mountains + valakut.
6 triggers for 3 damage each are placed on the stack.
Opponent receives priority and activates ghost quarter on one of your mountains.
You allow it resolve, fetching another mountain. This triggers valakut.
Stack looks like this:
[Valakut trigger produced by mountain obtained from ghost quarter]
[Valakut trigger X6 produced by mountains obtained from scapeshift]
The top trigger resolves, as there are 5 or more other mountains (in this case, exactly 5), dealing 3 damage to chosen target.
Next, the remaining 6 triggers will resolve sequentially, as they each see 5 other mountains (despite these 5 mountains not being the same as the 5 mountains when these triggers were placed on the stack). Each will resolve dealing 3 damage.
Total damage: 21.
If you search up 6 mountains and 1 valakut, 6 triggers will be put onto the stack. Whether or not valakut lives to see these triggers resolve is irrelevant.
If someone destroys a mountain, it may cancel the triggers.
Valakut has what is called an "intervening if clause" ("Whenever a Mountain enters the battlefield under your control, if you control at least five other Mountains, ...") which defines a condition necessary for the effect to trigger, as well as necessary for the effect to resolve.
The destroyed mountain will produce a trigger that when resolved, will see 5 other mountains (the 5 that were not destroyed) but the other 5 mountains will produces triggers that do not see 5 other mountains (only 4 since one is destroyed) and only 3 damage will be dealt (assuming only a single valakut).
If your opponent uses a ghost quarter or a field of ruin, if you are able to find another mountain to replace the destroyed one, you'll be able to "save" your triggers, as well as produce another one for the new mountain entering. (That is to say, when you cast a scapeshift, fetch up nonbasics first to leave more basics in the deck for potential disruption)
I'm also intending to put this deck together, probably in straight RUG as well.
I don't have an exact list yet, but I expect to be playing a more control-heavy list.
I'm not sure if its been brought up before, but temporal mastery with jace seems like it could find a real home here. Getting an extra turn that the opponent isn't expecting could easily win the game, but worse case, a random explore is still a pretty reasonable floor in a deck looking to make land drops.
Rune snag just isnt better than leak/knot, as much as I do like the card. Its frequently awkward, and always unreliable, which can frequently be a killer. Its graveyard dependent, and plays poorly with snapcaster.
I'm not sure how far away from a reflecting pool + pillar of the paruns manabase for multi-color control (probably with basics, urborg, filter lands, etc to fill in the gaps). Probably a 3rd good multicolor land is needed before it really works though.
Between terminate, helix, electrolyze, k command, teferi, verdict, ultimatum, rev, countersquall, spell queller, absorb, geist, esper charm, detention sphere, etc.
Its possible we'd even splash into green for stuff like growth spiral or glittering wish or trophy/decay too. You even have manamorphose to "cheese" pillar if you need to cast snapcaster or something.
The main downside is that good exile removal (path, anger, terminus) is mostly mono colored, as are 2 cmc counterspells. Cryptic would likely be impossible to cast but with 5 colors worth of value cards you can probably live without it.
Being able to wargate for a field, for azcanta, or for something else does have value.
Gifts definitely seems too hopeful to me.
I think the days of "value gifts" in control decks is over, given that we have cards like jace and teferi that are better and have atleast a hope of interacting on the board.
I'll probably try a build of thopter sword tonight, and let you know how it goes.
Otherwise, hard to imagine secure the wastes or something (march of the multitudes?)isnt better.
Sprite is just such a polarized card without playing any other faeries. Its either insane or dead, but Id rather have amore consistent card (leak, knot, negate) in my control deck mainboard.
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.
I sometimes played a second finisher in the board next to proggy, sometimes an empyrial archangel, sometimes a dragonlord dromoka. If you were worried about sweepers (usually you'd just get a sideboard planeswalker instead of the creature) you could play ruric thar or something, but just getting teferi seems perfectly reasonable. If the opponent doesn't know whats up, you can potentially cast an end step dramatic entrance (with nothing in hand) and bait them to tap out to let you resolve a walker.
Geist, queller, detention sphere, rev, absorb, bant charm, fracturing gust, wheel of sun and moon, meddling mage, and finks are all pretty reasonable options that you might not normally play (especially mainboard) but being able to tutor for them is useful.
Cards like Teferi or verdict are also nice to have extra copies of.
I also played a variant that playing dramatic entrance mainboard and a progenitus in the board that could be wished for. It telegraphed the combo a little bit, but it made up for the fact that unlike breach + emrakul, you only had half the number of dead combo pieces in your deck (since wish could become a real card).
I did cut a snare for an absorb last minute, but I think the problem is mainly that there simply aren't enough good 1cost interactive spells in the format that are worth playing in such a deck.
I could certainly be wrong, and it definitely is early, but I'm thinking that miracles splash growth spiral, and a curve that skews lower is not going to be a better deck than actual miracles.
My next attempt will probably be a lot more creature focused.
As I said above, delver and growth spiral don't seem like friends. The awkward part of spiral is that it encourages you to play your proactive cards on cmc 4, which means cards like geist, queller, or clique aren't maximizing that.
Green does add obstinate baloth, tracker, and others though.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2019-01-29
A user named "FTZZ" played a pretty nifty bug teachings deck with reclamation + spiral that I'll probably try out too.
Being unable to beat stuff like valakut, or emeria, or urza lands, or cavern of souls, or even having to spend real removal on manlands is, in my general modern experience, going to cost you just as many games as having a rando colorless land mucking around, if not more.
Playing more creatures (queller, geist, etc, seems pretty reasonable too, as it plays to green's strengths a lot more).
I do think you want atleast a copy or 2 of field of ruin though. Its pretty low-cost in general, and has reasonable targets against a lot of the top decks.
Not a ton of 1 drops, but ive been meaning to pick up trophies, and they could certainly help a more controlling build.
Giving up path/terminus is rough though, and 4 color might be too greedy.
3 celestial colonnade
1 hinterland harbor
3 island
2 plains
1 forest
4 misty rainforest
4 flooded strand
2 hallowed fountain
2 breeding pool
4 opt
4 growth spiral
2 snapcaster mage
1 sphinx's revelation
1 entreat the angels
2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 teferi, hero of dominaria
2 search for azcanta
4 path to exile
1 detention sphere
4 terminus
1 spell snare
1 absorb
3 logic knot
3 cryptic command
2 damping sphere
1 engineered explosives
2 tireless tracker
2 negate
1 disdainful stroke
1 baneslayer angel
1 lyra dawnbringer
1 blessed alliance
1 celestial purge
1 dispel
1 settle the wreckage
Went 3-1, deck felt ok. Growth spiral has felt ok, but I don't really feel like this deck can properly take advantage of it.
There are a couple walkers, a couple x spells, and the azcantas (as well as manlands) to take advantage of the ramp, which felt like a decent amount, but the growth spirals didn't feel better than just playing hieroglyphics or similar.
I don't know, I feel like I want a better reason to be in green.
I wanted to test a single copy of the UG nissa, but I couldn't get my hands on a copy in time.
I might try a glittering wish build at some point, and I'll probably put rug scapeshift together and try that with spiral too.
Generally speaking angels are a better choice for sideboard creature since you care less about the hexproof and more about the lifegain.
Phoenix, humans, dredge, scales, and hollow one are also not made easier by playing verdict over terminus, or putting cards like spreading seas in your deck.
Jund moving to straight GB is also not very appealing to a seas plan.
You cast scapeshift, sacrifice 7 lands, tutor up 6 mountains + valakut.
6 triggers for 3 damage each are placed on the stack.
Opponent receives priority and activates ghost quarter on one of your mountains.
You allow it resolve, fetching another mountain. This triggers valakut.
Stack looks like this:
[Valakut trigger produced by mountain obtained from ghost quarter]
[Valakut trigger X6 produced by mountains obtained from scapeshift]
The top trigger resolves, as there are 5 or more other mountains (in this case, exactly 5), dealing 3 damage to chosen target.
Next, the remaining 6 triggers will resolve sequentially, as they each see 5 other mountains (despite these 5 mountains not being the same as the 5 mountains when these triggers were placed on the stack). Each will resolve dealing 3 damage.
Total damage: 21.
If someone destroys a mountain, it may cancel the triggers.
Valakut has what is called an "intervening if clause" ("Whenever a Mountain enters the battlefield under your control, if you control at least five other Mountains, ...") which defines a condition necessary for the effect to trigger, as well as necessary for the effect to resolve.
The destroyed mountain will produce a trigger that when resolved, will see 5 other mountains (the 5 that were not destroyed) but the other 5 mountains will produces triggers that do not see 5 other mountains (only 4 since one is destroyed) and only 3 damage will be dealt (assuming only a single valakut).
If your opponent uses a ghost quarter or a field of ruin, if you are able to find another mountain to replace the destroyed one, you'll be able to "save" your triggers, as well as produce another one for the new mountain entering. (That is to say, when you cast a scapeshift, fetch up nonbasics first to leave more basics in the deck for potential disruption)
I'm also intending to put this deck together, probably in straight RUG as well.
I don't have an exact list yet, but I expect to be playing a more control-heavy list.
I'm not sure if its been brought up before, but temporal mastery with jace seems like it could find a real home here. Getting an extra turn that the opponent isn't expecting could easily win the game, but worse case, a random explore is still a pretty reasonable floor in a deck looking to make land drops.
I'm not sure how far away from a reflecting pool + pillar of the paruns manabase for multi-color control (probably with basics, urborg, filter lands, etc to fill in the gaps). Probably a 3rd good multicolor land is needed before it really works though.
Between terminate, helix, electrolyze, k command, teferi, verdict, ultimatum, rev, countersquall, spell queller, absorb, geist, esper charm, detention sphere, etc.
Its possible we'd even splash into green for stuff like growth spiral or glittering wish or trophy/decay too. You even have manamorphose to "cheese" pillar if you need to cast snapcaster or something.
The main downside is that good exile removal (path, anger, terminus) is mostly mono colored, as are 2 cmc counterspells. Cryptic would likely be impossible to cast but with 5 colors worth of value cards you can probably live without it.