[Deck] Mono White Control

[4eak]

Unlike Legacy, Modern MWC is boned against properly played and built combo decks. Contrary to popular belief, eschewing combo matchups isn't unviable, even if it often isn't fashionable. There will likely be pockets of Modern metagames which have a low enough percentage of combo decks that a decks like MWC which largely give up combo matchups will perform well. MWC's viability in a particular metagame in contingent. The fact that this deck wrecks Zoo (probably the best deck in the format) is enough merit alone. MWC does well against creature decks (and it should, it is designed to).

Here is the deck:

// Lands - 25
4 Mutavault
4 Scrying Sheets
17 Snow-Covered Plains

// CA Generating, Stalling, Resilient Win-Cons - 6
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Mobilization
1 Batterskull

// Silence-Lock - 8
4 Silence
4 Isochron Scepter

// 1-for-1 Board Control - 12
4 Path to Exile
4 Condemn
4 Oblivion Ring

// X-for-1 Package - 9
3 Wrath of God
3 Austere Command
3 Pulse of the Fields

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Pulse of the Fields
SB: 4 Angel's Grace
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Disenchant
SB: 1 Story Circle
SB: 2 White Sun's Zenith

The general gameplan should be to stall (Pulse of the Fields, Elspeth), using 1-for-1 removal sparringly (obv. Confidant deserves PtE immediately, but some cards aren't that dangerous, and you can use your life total as a buffer), forcing overextension, sweeping the board, and then leveraging your card advantage (which should be a sizable amount of 1-for-1 cards and bombs) to win the game. Against fast enough decks (Zoo), you'll be throwing everything you have to stop them, but eventually you'll either be in the stall/overextension/sweep position, or you'll be in topdeck mode (and your top decks are substantially better) where you can try to generate card advantage with the snow engine, etc. Against combo, you'll either have an answer (Scepter->Silence) or you won't, but that's okay.

Scepter-Silence is a powerful hardlock against many decks, and a softlock against others. Turn 2 or 3, it can just flat win games. Feel confident in dropping it and using it (rather than stabilizing the board) in many cases, you will eventually answer whatever landed before the lock. Note that Scepter has other instants you often put on it. Several decks can't handle 1-for-1 target removal on it.

Here are a bunch of cards to consider that I feel are possibly viable choices which I didn't put in the 75 above:

Mass Removal/Stall/Answers:
Porphyry Nodes
Runed Halo
Reverence
Martial Coup
Wall of Omens
Timely Reinforcements
Planar Cleansing
Culling Scales
Oblivion Stone
Ratchet Bomb
Magus of the Moat
Pithing Needle
Day of Judgment
Ghostly Prison + Windborn Muse

Targeted Removal:
Gelid Shackles
Shining Shoal
Journey to Nowhere
Temporal Isolation
Prison Term
Cage of Hands
Faith's Fetters
Oust
Sunlance
Saltblast

Scepter:
Dawn Charm
Harm's Way
Reciprocate
Raise the Alarm

Win Cons:
Genju of the Fields
Hoofprints of the Stag
Luminarch Ascension
Sacred Mesa
Endless Horizons + Goblin Charbelcher
Karn Liberated
Baneslayer Angel
Gideon Jura

Anti-combo:
Rule of Law
Chalice of the Void
Thorn of Amethyst
Trinisphere
Ensnaring Bridge
Hokori, Dust Drinker
Voidstone Gargoyle

Interesting:
Staff of Domination
Journeyer's Kite
Idyllic Tutor
Aura of Silence
Wheel of Sun and Moon

Lands:
Blinkmoth Nexus
Inkmoth Nexus
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Buried Ruin
Desert
Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Forbidding Watchtower
Ghost Quarter
Tectonic Edge
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Mistveil Plains
Mouth of Ronom
Mystifying Maze
Quicksand
Reliquary Tower
Urza's Factory
Vesuva



peace,
4eak

[bakofried]

I dunno. I think I'd like Sun Titan, Wall of Omens, and Solemn Simulacrum in here. All clog the board and provide some hefty CA (especially when combined) and Emeria seems exceptionally strong. Also, Timely Reinforcements may be stronger than Pulse against Zoo and other aggro decks.
EDIT:
Maybe a 2-1 or 1-2 split with Day of Judgment; apparently Meddling Mage is quite popular online.

[264505]

Mouth of Ronom might be good to include as a 1 of for spot removal.

[4eak]

@ bakofried


I dunno. I think I'd like Sun Titan, Wall of Omens, and Solemn Simulacrum in here. All clog the board and provide some hefty CA (especially when combined) and Emeria seems exceptionally strong

I assume you are pointing specifically to this Overextended list from this article (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/modern/22548_Flow_Of_Ideas_Everything_You_Need_To_Know_About_Modern.html):

Artifacts
2 Staff Of Domination

Artifact Creatures
3 Solemn Simulacrum

Creatures
4 Martyr of Sands
3 Sun Titan
4 Wall of Omens

Enchantments
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Sacred Mesa

Instants
2 Condemn
2 White Sun's Zenith

Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Venser, the Sojourner

Sorceries
4 Day of Judgment

Basic Snow Lands
11 Snow-Covered Plains

Lands
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Marsh Flats
2 Tectonic Edge

It certainly is another take on how to build a primarily white control deck.

Let me first say, this list isn't MWC. I'd build UW Control very differently. I understand that you can easily take the splash out and MWC though, but I'm not convinced it is the way to go.

Second, AFAIK, Gavin included this particular list in his article simply because it performed well in one Overextended tournament (http://mtgoverextended.com/0809-tuesday-night-overextended-results/) (as far as I can tell, only one) and probably because it does well against Zoo (which is important). If that is the measure for viability here, then my list should be up to snuff. I also performed well in Overextended with a MWC list nearly identical to the one in the OP (Silence instead of Chant, etc.).

That seems like a poor standard though. Hopefully you aren't overemphasizing small results in Overextended and Gavin's article (which isn't based on much, and even he himself said in the article that he doesn't have much experience with this deck). I'm basing my opinions for building MWC off a ton of experience in several formats, I'm hoping you are doing the same. If so, please elaborate as to why you prefer a list which includes the cards you named.

I realize that Sun Titan, Wall of Omens, and Solemn Simulacrum usually generate at least card parity (if not raw advantage), even if they are removed. In my experience, being subject to your opponent's board control and failing to strongly break the symmetry of your own mass removal is a mistake - MWC can and should avoid these.

If you want, I'll further explain why I dislike the above list.

Timely Reinforcements is good, but it hasn't even been close to Pulse of the Fields in my testing. Pulse single-handedly wins games against aggro decks. I'm going to lift something I wrote in the Quinn thread to explain:


Pulse of the Fields gives you 4 life, and then it checks to see if you lifetotal is lower than your opponent's. If your life total is lower, then you get to put Pulse back into your hand. The desirable strategy is to take enough damage from your opponent so that you have at least a 5 life total difference, that way you can play Pulse of the Fields and return it back to your hand. For creature-based strategies, that often means you've negated all the damage they've dealt that turn, and because Pulse is back in your hands, you get to negate the damage of their next combat step as well (and the one after that, etc.). For Burn based damage, Pulse acts as raw card advantage, basically "countering" each burn spell, and hopefully returning to your hands to do it again.

...

Now, when M10 comes out, and Mana Burn doesn't exist, your opponent will have little or no way to drop in life total to stop Pulse recursion. When they can't stop Pulse recursion, then they are forced to do one of the following things:

Use Permission/Discard against Pulse (most aggro decks can't do this)
Burn themselves (card disadvantage for them and can be played around by the Pulse player) or
Build an Alpha strike board/hand that can deal more damage than you can gain each turn.


In conjunction with this decks exceptional ability to make land drops every turn, Pulse makes it so your aggro opponent literally cannot win the game until they have heavily, heavily overextended on the board...This either makes your Wrath of God absolutely awesome.

Now, even with shocklands, Pulse is outstanding (Condemn makes it even better). Timely Reinforcements is more mana efficient, but it doesn't have the staying power of Pulse. What I do like about Timely Reinforcements is that it better converts from the control to aggro role, but this is not so important. Once you've swept the board and stabilized, your opponent is not coming back anyways (the other win conditions in the deck are far superior). Active pulses make you very, very hard to kill by lifeloss and damage.

As to Day of Judgment + Meddling Mage, we have a ton of other removal to handle MM. I've only been caught once with my pants down with a MM on WoG that actually stopped me winning. On the other hand, I don't even know how many times destroying regenerators has actually been useful/good (many times, which, given how few regener's are used in Legacy, that should be an indication of how much testing time I've had). Troll and Thrun, for example, are quite dangerous, as Wrath is really the best way to handle them.

As to Emeria, the Sky Ruin, it has been merely okay in my experience (even when you design around the card). By the time an MWC deck has the 7 Plains + Emeria, it is already winning. It has been win more, basically. It also doesn't play nice with the snow engine, and it CitB tapped, which sucks balls. I'd like to make it work (because the card is beautifully designed and obviously powerful), but I'm afraid that card has no home (or shouldn't if decks are built optimally) in a format with the speed and card pool of Modern.



peace,
4eak

[264505]

Any reason for not running Proc-Martyr?

[4eak]

It is a lot of space in the deck for what you get.
You'll end up with nearly dead cards and bad topdecks too often.
Proc is dead by itself.
2-card combos should be pretty amazing (even though Martyr performs admirably solo), and this one isn't.
It is very mana intensive for what you get.
Paying your during upkeep is something you generally want to avoid -- E-Dragon gets away with it because it costs 1 less, actually helps you develop your mana base, it can shuffle (very important in some builds), works amazingly at all stages of the game.
It generally works best when you have a decent number of white cards in hand (usually a place where you were already winning), and it generally doesn't work well when you don't have a decent number of white cards in hand (a place where you really need its effect the most).
RFG removal (and limited mana resources on your side) is yet another way to interact with this combo, making it even weaker than options like Pulse.
Multiples can be even weaker than alternative lifegain methods
I'd like to quickly compare it to Pulse.

Consider 7 mana to recur:
1 White Revealed -> 3 life
2 White Revealed -> 6 life
3 White Revealed -> 9 life
...

Consider Pulse:
3 mana -> 4 life
6 mana -> 8 life
9 mana -> 12 life
...

When you had white cards and that much mana, you should be well on your way to winning. Otherwise, you are low on cards, but have 3 or more mana, Pulse is generally going to outperform. You also get to play Draw/GO with Pulse, which is immensely better (and hell, you might even topdeck that sweeper, and you won't be able to play it if you had to pay 6 during your upkeep).

Another way to think about it: tell me what cards you would replace with Proc/Martyr, and I'll explain why that substitution isn't worth it.


peace,
4eak

[bakofried]

Actually, I wasn't referencing any article. I just thought that those would be exceptionally strong cards in a mono-white shell, a color which often has issues gaining real CA outside of board wipes.

[4eak]

Fair enough. As I said, it was an assumption, and I didn't know where you were coming from (glad to see you aren't blindly following what an article said). My argument still stands, I think. If it doesn't, I'd like to know why you think so (more than you've said so far, at least).

I think the best ways to gain CA in MWC deck is to either a) abuse effective sweeping, or b) prison lock and/or silverbullets (Moat, Scepter, etc.), which is virtual CA. If you aren't looking to build around those, I think you've done something wrong. Obviously, if you can fit in other ways to generate CA without making major sacrifices (like the Snow-engine), it is worth it. I think using creatures in a dedicated control deck, particularly a dedicated board control deck (which is mostly all MWC will ever be in this format, unless certain cards are reprinted or developed) is a large sacrifice. Traditionally, creatures need to be obscenely good to fit into dedicated control decks, and those don't look to be good enough.

Of the creatures listed, I think Wall of Omens is best. It comes down early, it does its job, it has guaranteed parity. So, what would you take out for Wall? Or, if the deck needs to be redone here, what should it look like? And, always, why?


peace,
4eak

[bakofried]

I'll try out a few lists on my own and see what they give me. As I said earlier, they're just ideas. Note, however, that 3/4 of the suggested cards play well with sweepers, providing recursion or some other benefit upon leaving play (Titan, Solemn, Emeria). It may also be that I'm imagining a more midrange deck.

[(nameless one)]

Sensei's Divining Top was the reason why Snow-Land Engine was effective. However, it is banned in Modern. Would Crystal Ball be able to replace that spot?

If not, then why not run Damping Matrix. It stops both utility artifacts and creatures.

[Maveric78f]

I don't pretend to have any testing in MWC, but still the list you provide here looks like a direct adaptation of Quinn.

1/ The Silence Scepter combo-lock does not look good enough. You keep being attacked, and the legality of vial is a strong annoyance here. Also, there are flash creatures that might be popular (Vendilion Clique). Main deck, you might not find a lot of instant speed anti-artifact. But still, I am not convinced. If you could demonstrate that Scepter and Silence are good out from the combo, it may convince me, but Silence looks underperforming in a format without Force of Will, Counterspell, Mental Misstep and Wing Shards. Isochron Scepter with Path to Exile is nice. But not crazy.

2/ Pulse of the Field vs. Timely Reinforcement. Pulse is great for a lock, you're right. It makes your opponent overextending, you're right about that too. But Timely Reinforcement is probably better at making you survive the 4th and 5th turn. The aggro deck might want to over extend too after a resolved Timely Reinforcement. As you said, once you've got 6/7 lands on the table you probably have won against aggro, and the aggro player knows that. Timely Reinforcement is the best way to reach this game state after involving 3 manas on turn 3. Gaining 6 is obviously better than 4, but getting 3 blockers is even better.

3/ Batterskull seems to be a lot of mana involvement for being the target of all the opposing creature removal (which is dead otherwise).

4/ Why would you play Mutavault over snow-covered plains ??? Are you going to take the risk to animate them and have it face the creature removals that are filling your opponent's hand ? They could be additional snow-covered plains for more success on sheets.

5/ I personally like the Wall of Omen / Solemn Simulacrum plan to gain some time. It might face anti-creatures, so be it (there is no STP, so that a resolved solemn will almost certainly net you 2 cards). They already have met their purpose. In the same kind of idea, Niveous Wisps looks good.

6/ Crystal Ball looks to expensive. Think about it : 7 manas for the first drawn card, 11 for 2. The comparison with top is really cruel.

[(nameless one)]

I believe that Quinn is not the way to go for this deck, rather abuse Sun Titan and Wall of Omens as a means to gain advantage.

[nedleeds]

I'm not a fan of the Iso-Scepter shenanigans (at least over a 6-8 round tourney). I think you want Scepter of Dominance and some mana rocks. You have nothing to do until turn 3-4 anyway. Even the lowly Fellwar Stone might make sense. Something to drive decks into playing out more creatures to maximize your Wraths.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Here's what I was mocking up:

Mana:
20 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Scrying Sheets
2 Urza's Factory

Removal:
4 Path to Exile
3 Condemn
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Wrath of God

Stall:
4 Wall of Shards
3 Pulse of the Fields
2 Staff of Domination

Let's Just anticipate this problem in advance:
4 Relic of Progenitus

WinCons:
2 White Sun's Zenith
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Gideon Jura

Gideon and Elspeth are awesome, Urza's Factory is a very decent win con in a deck like this. Relic solves one of your larger problems pre-emptively, Staff slices dices and makes julien fries. Besides being a big flying blocker, Wall of Shards is neat for interactions with Scrying Sheets and Pulse of the Fields. The rest is pretty standard. Sideboard out to have a playset of Aven Mindcensors for the combo matchup.

[4eak]

@ (nameless one)


Sensei's Divining Top was the reason why Snow-Land Engine was effective. However, it is banned in Modern. Would Crystal Ball be able to replace that spot?

Oh, I miss Top so much. Top is awesome, even without the snow engine. Ball doesn't come even close to what Top does (which I know you know), sadly, Ball is not worth the slot. Staff of Domination, oddly enough (as it doesn't filter), is better here.

I'm not claiming the Snow Engine is effective, but it is a worthy enough mana sink. I'll defend the snow-engine w/out Top still (not that you were necessarily questioning it (nameless one), but I think it may be relevant to the skepticism of others). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: part of properly made control decks is the ability to use their mana every turn, being able to spend vasts amounts of mana where your opponent, at the same stage of the game, isn't able to abuse his mana supply because his curve is so low. Mana efficiency does matter, but squeezing every ounce of advantage you have, particularly the mana advantage you have over time, is also very important. The Snow engine does this, it scales with your resources (which is important), albeit, with great inefficiency. It also provides slight information advantage too (comes up all the time), as I'm sure you know from playing Quinn without Top in play.


If not, then why not run Damping Matrix. It stops both utility artifacts and creatures.

If and when Scepter goes (and no other artifacts come in), then I can see it. I'm worried that Pithing needle may simply be better. Hitting PW's matters.


I believe that Quinn is not the way to go for this deck, rather abuse Sun Titan and Wall of Omens as a means to gain advantage.

Show me the deck. I can see some walls being pretty good (they do force overextension), but from my experience, a deck like what Gavin pointed out (and perhaps that is where you are pointing) is far worse than what I've got. Maybe I've just not played the right deck. You have plenty of experience here, so show me how you would build the deck - I will test it (Gavin's borrowed deck didn't pan out for me, but yours might).


@ Maveric78f


1/ The Silence Scepter combo-lock does not look good enough. You keep being attacked, and the legality of vial is a strong annoyance here. Also, there are flash creatures that might be popular (Vendilion Clique). Main deck, you might not find a lot of instant speed anti-artifact. But still, I am not convinced. If you could demonstrate that Scepter and Silence are good out from the combo, it may convince me, but Silence looks underperforming in a format without Force of Will, Counterspell, Mental Misstep and Wing Shards. Isochron Scepter with Path to Exile is nice. But not crazy.

I'm not a fan of scepter either. For many reasons, I really don't want it in the deck. I look at it as perhaps a necessary evil. There are so many matchups which get crushed by it - in addition, Silence lock is one of the few ways the deck can interact with every deck -- it is a concession to combo, certain forms of recursion, and other difficult problems for the deck. It is at least useful in every matchup; being amazing in some, and just decent enough in others. Normally you tailor your control deck to a specific part of the metagame, and this is obviously a generic answer. That said, it is a very good generic answer. Specializing may still be correct, I concede. Scepter may need to go.

Vial is certainly an issue. If I see more vial decks, this has to go, period. But, for now, it may be a while before Vial becomes as bomby and prevalent in Modern as it has been in Legacy. If Flash-creature.dec (Faeries, some variants of Caw Blade, etc.) become prevalent enough, I can also see why this is worth removing.

Silence actually performs better in a format without so much countermagic.

I grant, Silence is a far cry from Chant. That said, with this much board control and lifegain, getting attacked under Silence lock is not as dangerous as you might initially think. Try it out. I thought the same as you until I did.

I will be trying to replace it. Wall of Omens will be tested first.


2/ Pulse of the Field vs. Timely Reinforcement. Pulse is great for a lock, you're right. It makes your opponent overextending, you're right about that too. But Timely Reinforcement is probably better at making you survive the 4th and 5th turn. The aggro deck might want to over extend too after a resolved Timely Reinforcement. As you said, once you've got 6/7 lands on the table you probably have won against aggro, and the aggro player knows that. Timely Reinforcement is the best way to reach this game state after involving 3 manas on turn 3. Gaining 6 is obviously better than 4, but getting 3 blockers is even better.

Timely Reinforcement is a fine card. In particular, making creatures can be very good (like a classic DoJ fog). You can definitely perform well in tournaments using it instead of Pulse. I don't think you'll perform as well, however, using it instead of Pulse.

I agree that if you are near death on t3, Timely Reinforcement is clearly what you will prefer. The issue is that it is pretty rare for you to be near death on t3 with this deck. The life gain effect is there to help you survive the early game, to some extent, yes. But, you've overestimated the need to survive the early game, especially in the broader metagame. Remember, we aren't designing this deck just to beat Zoo, Sligh, and Burn. You want cards which are great against every deck which wins with regular beatdown. Pulse does more work in more situations. The fact is that Pulse is generally good enough, in conjunction with all of your control mechanisms, to help you survive the early game against pretty much everything that beats with creatures. In the mid and late game, I think Pulse really outshines Timely Reinforcement. And, yes, you will still find recursive lifegain very useful at those stages of the game. Pulse generates better card advantage and is simply better at forcing overextension -- those are the money-making points to a deck which can so revolve so much around sweeping. You've underestimated the value of those points, favoring a card which is better on turn 3, but substantially worse beyond it.

Sometimes at that 6/7 lands you are definitely winning, and often you aren't. I misspoke earlier, it is possible to lose once you've swept the board and minimally stabilized; sometimes you can't convert to the beatdown as fast as you'd like. Sometimes you have just stabilized, and you are in a good position (because you have better resources and topdecks, and eventually you'll snowball your advantage to trounce them), but you haven't won yet. Admittedly, stabilizing is different among dedicated control decks, and the state of stabilization in MWC in Modern is going to be volatile (it can't just combo you out) and it will take longer to convert into an effective (and resilient) beatdown role than you may be used to. Times where the board is mostly clear (maybe there is still one threat on the side or something), and both you and your opponent have little in hand (mostly in topdeck mode) are stabilized or close to it, but you aren't winning, not yet. Here, Pulse is head and shoulders better. You likely shouldn't go for beatdown (whether the board is clear or not) just yet. It is better to leverage your mana resources and better topdecks, and the ability to force overextension again until you know they can't come back.

Lastly, Instant speed matters. It is exceptionally powerful for lifegain effects. But, it also allows you to better play Draw/Go. You have choices about how to spend your resources, and you have the information advantage. There is a lot to this story, but I think you know it already.

Pulse has been a trump card in too many games. It is a card worth testing if you haven't.


3/ Batterskull seems to be a lot of mana involvement for being the target of all the opposing creature removal (which is dead otherwise).

Opposing removal isn't dead, whether you play Batterskull or not. That's the problem for MWC. MWC still wins with creatures in Modern. Because of this, MWC prefers resilient and/or recurring wincons if possible. Batterskull isn't perfect, I grant that. It's really freaking hard to answer though. It also is a damn fine t5 drop, stabilizing boards all by itself in my experience. I didn't like it until I tried it.


4/ Why would you play Mutavault over snow-covered plains ??? Are you going to take the risk to animate them and have it face the creature removals that are filling your opponent's hand ? They could be additional snow-covered plains for more success on sheets.

Ah, you often don't activate mutavault simply because of opposing removal -- you'll learn after practice when you should and shouldn't be activating manlands in a dedicated control deck. Manlands are yet another way to stall and force overextension in many situations. Mutavault also acts as a way to pressure opposing control decks and PWs. Lastly, Mutavault is yet another win-con, which is very valuable to a control deck that can't afford to run wincons which don't play multiple roles. This is certainly worth the sacrifice of whiffing on scrying sheets once in a while when you wouldn't have otherwise, and the loss of white mana is usually fine with so many basics already. All that said, I'm not sure how many manlands are necessary. I think you should at least run some.

Admittedly, without card filtering, you do run into cases where you'd just prefer a white producer. As the white count increases for the deck, the fewer manlands I want to run. I don't see foresee removing them completely though.


5/ I personally like the Wall of Omen / Solemn Simulacrum plan to gain some time. It might face anti-creatures, so be it (there is no STP, so that a resolved solemn will almost certainly net you 2 cards). They already have met their purpose. In the same kind of idea, Niveous Wisps looks good.

Wall of Omens is fine. Very early game walls are acceptable, but you really don't want many of them. It isn't worth your deckspace to run too many wall/chump blocker effects (even when they draw cards).

StP doesn't exist, but PtE does. And, it will see play en masse. You still get 2 cards for Solemn, but hopefully you can see why I don't like something like Sun Titan or relying too heavily upon a wall/chump blocker to save you.


6/ Crystal Ball looks to expensive. Think about it : 7 manas for the first drawn card, 11 for 2. The comparison with top is really cruel.

This doesn't even come close to showing the difference between Ball and Top.


@ TheInfamousBearAssassin

Will test your list. I overlooked Wall of Shards, which is interesting.


Relic solves one of your larger problems pre-emptively

Tell us about it. I'm certainly not against Relic main if the metagame warrants it. But, does the metagame warrant its inclusion in the main? There is some recursion in the format, but not much (so far). Goyf/KoTR see a ton of play, but then, we have plenty of answers.


@ Nobody in particular

So, after thought and discussion, I'll also be trying this list:

// Lands - 26
3 Mutavault
1 Urza's Factory
4 Scrying Sheets
18 Snow-Covered Plains

// Wincons - 7
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Batterskull
1 Mobilization

// CA Generation and Stall - 9
4 Wall of Omens/Wall of Shards
3 Pulse of the Fields
2 Staff of Domination

// X-for-1 Removal - 6
3 Wrath of God
3 Austere Command

// 1-for-1 Removal - 12
4 Path to Exile
4 Condemn
4 Oblivion Ring




peace,
4eak

[4eak]

After a good deal of testing, I'm actually done with this deck. Wrecking aggro and aggro-control decks isn't enough. Blue-based control decks perform too well against this deck, and I think blue-based control decks will be in pretty strong in the format (who would have thought it? ;P). Caw Blade alone pushes this deck out of contention, and there are actually many viable blue-based control decks which we can't handle.



peace,
4eak

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It is really sad that Onslaught is not legal, DoJ and E. Dragon are pretty much how this deck beat Blue-based control in old Legacy.

But control might be the wrong thing to work on right now. Any good control deck is bespoke to the meta it plans to answer, and right now there simply is no meta. I think "kill all creatures" is as good a blind control strategy as you can get, but it's probably worse than playing a solid midrange aggro deck at the moment.

[4eak]

I agree, it is sad to see that Modern just doesn't have good MWC tools for handling blue-based control decks.


But control might be the wrong thing to work on right now. Any good control deck is bespoke to the meta it plans to answer, and right now there simply is no meta. I think "kill all creatures" is as good a blind control strategy as you can get, but it's probably worse than playing a solid midrange aggro deck at the moment.

That makes sense, but I disagree about whether we should be building/testing against control decks. While I agree no meta is set yet, I'm growing convinced (and I could certainly be wrong) that Caw Blade is a going to be a metagame defining deck. It has the classic versatility of blue control and an effective conversion to the beatdown role - it doesn't really need to target and answer anything in particular just yet. When it needs to adapt and when it has a clearer metagame to answer, I think it can and will adapt to answer whatever the metagame evolves into.

To anyone interested, the last (and best that I had used) build ended up like this:

// Lands - 26
3 Mutavault
1 Urza's Factory
4 Scrying Sheets
18 Snow-Covered Plains

// Wincons and Stall - 12
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Batterskull
2 Mobilization
4 Pulse of the Fields

// X-for-1 Removal - 6
3 Wrath of God
3 Austere Command

// 1-for-1 Removal - 16
4 Path to Exile
4 Condemn
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Oblivion Ring

// Sideboard
SB: 3 White Sun's Zenith
SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Aven Mindcensor
SB: 4 Leonin Arbiter



peace,
4eak

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I've actually been insanely unimpressed with Caw-Blade. I think blue-white is a strong control combination in Modern, but Sun Titan and Walls seem to have more to do with that than flying dorks and swords of random.

[(nameless one)]

So,

Timely Reinforcements vs. Pulse of the Fields.

In a format where more than half of the decks start at 17 life (Fetchlands + Shocklands), would these cards be that effective, especially in having more than 2 copies in the deck?

4eak, your version runs minimal creature, wouldn't Timely Reinforcements shine there? Though I do see the overextending Pulse of the Fields could create and its synergy with board removal.

[4eak]

I think lifegain is probably a necessity in the metagames where this deck belongs. I certainly agree that fetch/shocks weaken these cards a bit, but not by much in actual practice.

I hadn't considered mixing Timely Reinforcement and Pulse (which your posts reminds me is a possibility). Pulse has clear diminishing returns - although it isn't as bad as most think, as having multiples makes it so that you can afford to lose them to countermagic, discard, and/or burn/life loss tricks your opponent might have at their disposal. Still, a mix is a possibility.

That said, again, I want to reiterate that I don't think this deck is playable in metagames with a critical mass of combo and blue-based control decks (which will be the other predators to Zoo and some types of mid-range and aggro). Where MWC is a strong deck, I really think it 'should' get muscled out by failing against other decks gunning for what MWC is positioned against.


peace,
4eak

[(nameless one)]

Hey 4eak, what combo decks are you scared of?

I believe this deck has outs against combo. From Leyline of Sanctity to Suppression Field and everything in between.

[Puzzle]

I noticed that the general Modern meta seems to be taking shape with 12-post / Pyromancer's Ascension as DTB / Zoo / other creature-based decks.
Then came in the new Banned List and one thing looks sure for me now : Creature-control is viable in Modern.

Fast-combo being out of the picture, the fastest consistent decks will be aggro of some form, to which a lot of players will answer with fatter mid-range creatures.

Against all that and combo, the first thing that comes to my mind is that huge life gain combined with card advantage can be a killer for all. Life gain would solidify the "combat-creature" and burn matchups even further, if backed-up properly.
That's where the realization that both Wrath of God and Day of Judgement are legal gave me inspiration for the following decklist :

4 Genju of the Fields
4 Martyr of Sands
4 Wall of Omens
4 Squadron Hawk / Guardian Idol
4 Scepter of Dominance
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Wrath of God
4 Day of Judgement
4 Gideon Jura

19 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Pendelhaven
4 Scrying Sheets

Side :
4 Silence
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Path to Exile
4 Oblivion Ring


Now, this list is very rough and will need tweaking but with all the changes going on (and my usual lack of time for testing), I thought I would save some time by asking you guys for comments.
What do you think ?

[Maveric78f]

Besides Zoo, I don't see how you could possibly win against the decks you've mentioned. Starting from there, the deck looks awful.

[Puzzle]

Pyromancer's Ascension will struggle to get enough storm count if Martyr or Genju get active in game 1. The CotV and Silence push game 2 further into positive territory.
12-Post is going to be one turn slower and will struggle to get Emrakul going.
Scepter / Wrath / Gideon effects can give it a run for its money, although admittedly Ulamog is a big bother. Hence the PtE and O-Ring. I also guess Ghost Quarter could help in the mana base.
In any case, as I referred to in my first post, I think the banned lists will make PA and ex-12-post much less potent, which will push players towards creature decks, hence the interest of MWC.

Burn/Slight and all sorts of aggro stand little chance against that amount of life-gain, card advantage and Wrath. If you think the contrary, then I don't know what to say.

What decks are you referring to that you think I mentioned and don't stand a chance against, which will still be played and competitive ? Why ?

[4eak]

MWC threads merged.

-4eak

[Phoenix Ignition]

Might want to check a non-Modern thread.

Also, I'm kind of sad that there are more posts on accident in the Modern forums than posts on purpose.

[kwis]

I looked at the inclusion of the Silence lock and wondered why not have some dawn charms. Seemed like a pretty powerful option to protect yourself against a developed board while working against several different issues.

Discard, Burn, Critters, Gifts, likely other relevant cards I haven't mentioned. Also why not include terminus in any mono-w control deck? It seems so amazingly broken.

White, drop of honey is also a nice card.


Edit: Probably because this thread is relatively old.