U/W/x CounterTop Walker

[paK0]

Or just Walker-Countertop for startes, fancy names can be chosen as soon as people start to recognize this =).

I switched back from R to B since I had a testing session yesterday and got stomped by Merfolk despite Firespout. Goblins on the other hand was easy, so black might be the right call afterall.

I also fount that the 4th factory should be another Dual, I stumbled on Mana quite a bit.

This is my current testing version:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [A] Tundra
2 [A] Underground Sea
1 [U] Scrubland
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
4 [CHK] Island (3)
1 [CHK] Plains (2)
1 [SHM] Swamp (4)

// Spells
4 [AP] Vindicate
2 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [MM] Counterspell
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [TE] Diabolic Edict
3 [OD] Predict
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [5E] Brainstorm

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [ARB] Meddling Mage
SB: 3 [OD] Innocent Blood
SB: 2 [M10] Liliana Vess
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives

[Felidae]

The first thing that comes in mind: Why do you play Predict over Standstill, as the list looks very familiar to LS and together with 4 Planeswalkers, Top to hit your landdrops and Mishras (maybe adding a 4th? The manabase doesn't seem so bad and cutting 1 Island for the 4th Mishra looks fine.) to start the beating, while still having the same number of 2cc spells for CB.
With 8(12 with Edict ) spotremovals I assume you can handle aggro long enought to slame down a Standstill, maybe even backed up with CB/Top or a Planeswalker.

Or maybe I'm completly wrong, who knows.

€.: Sry, I assumed that your post was the first, after reading the "real" 1st post and also his explanation about Predict in the LS thread I get the idea of pros/cons of the card, but I still believe that Standstill would be the better call.

[Doks]

I had to play a light UW version at Germany's Duelmen (65 players; 6 rounds, 3 losses: 2x Goblins, 1x Dredge) that used the core strategies of this deck, so I might have something useful to say:

1) CB / Top is still awesome. If it's not, you already have some cards you're going to board out.

2) Predict: I played 4, but unfortunately I did'nt see them very often. But when played, they really always were a draw 2 for 1U. 3 might be enough, though.

3) Planeswalkers: I have the feeling that 4 is 1 too much. As I said, I had to play a light version so I ran Hoofprints of the Stag (idea from The Epic Control) as they synergize with about everything else in this deck: additional important CC2 for CB, fast kill with active Top / Jace or Brainstorm, cheap & resistent, spreading the type of wincons (Walkers <-> Enchantment). I even made room for a single DoJ, but it really is too slow. But on the other hand I didn't like Factories without active CB / Top as they ate all this otherwise unimportant removal.

4) This deck really needs 1-2 Vedalken Shackles (admitted, it was risky, but I ran them in the vindicate slot). They are badass with 10+ U-Lands. They destroy every aggressive strategy if used wisely. They stall the board after a WoG if something gets through CB. They force the opponent to overextend which makes WoG even stronger. Please try them.


All in all, this deck is quite fun to play. For me as a dedicated control player (MUC <3) it was a new experience not only to create CA through pure card drawing (Predict) but more interesting through using single cards or card engines to provide cheap and steady CA by forcing your opponent to make expensive (more cards, more mana) moves only to have his / her resolved spell answered by classic control cards. It's the mix this deck provides.

[Hanni]

I had the thread renamed to its generic concept, rather than use any fancy names. Since I don't get a chance to play in tournaments, I can't just go smashing tournaments and have my deck become popular with a funky name.

I'll still call it UWb Kaejur Control, because that's what it is to me, but this should give more players access to a deck that badly needs to be exploited and abused in tournaments.

Before the banning of Mystical Tutor, this deck would have dominated. It fixed most of Landstills problems, or at the very least, improved them dramatically. The only matchups Counterbalance is mediocre against is Vial Aggro, which still aren't horrible, and become good matchups after sideboarding.

After the banning of Mystical Tutor, we lose 2 good matchups in ANT and Reanimator. Oh well. If that means aggro gets more play, that means Control will have to go around smashing aggro.

I switched back from R to B since I had a testing session yesterday and got stomped by Merfolk despite Firespout. Goblins on the other hand was easy, so black might be the right call afterall.

If you are going to splash red, you need to run Grim Lavamancer in the sideboard. That card singlehandedly destroys Merfolk.

I also fount that the 4th factory should be another Dual, I stumbled on Mana quite a bit.

I almost never stumble on mana, I find my manabase to be extremely consistent. Then again, I run only 2 Vindicate MD, and you're running 4 Vindicate 4 Diabolic Edict, so that definitely makes a huge difference.

The 4th Factory can be dropped. There's nothing keep Factories in the deck at all anymore, since we don't run Standstill. The reason I still play them, is because the deck needs to run 23 lands minimum no matter how you slice it, and I feel like 19 colored sources is more than enough for meeting my color requirements. Mishra's Factory just fills in the extra lands that I need to cast big stuff like Wrath of God and Planeswalker's, while being more than just a land. It's synergetic with Wrath of God, allowing me to wipe the board without losing "my creatures." It's sometimes invaluable as a blocker, especially to help the Planeswalker's survive long enough to get into a dominant position. It gives me a clock against combo decks, and they can be a good alternate win condition against any deck.

However, in light of all this, Mishra's Factory is still a questionable choice. How much does the deck lose by cutting it? What matchups become worse? Does it weaken the deck overall to cut it?

If Mishra's Factory ends up being very lackluster to me in the future, similar to how Standstill was, it's possible that it could get the boot altogether. This would open to deck up to being able to go 4c, with a red splash, without weakening the manabase anymore than it is currently (colored duals would replace colorless nonbasic lands, so actually, the manabase would become stronger). I could definitely see a UWbr version without Mishra's Factory being a metagame monster. I guess more playtesting is necessary.

Keep in mind that I haven't been running Predict's forever. They are the most recent change to the deck, and they came in after I added Jace, the Mind Sculptor. That means I haven't really had a chance to determine whether old mandatory cards like Mishra's Factory still deserve space or not. It could be quite possible, especially now with the banning of Mystical Tutor (i.e less necessary to have a clock vs combo), that dropping Factory altogether and splashing red could be the right direction to go.

One thing that I really like about this idea, is that although the deck loses a blocker that can be used to protect its Planeswalker's, it makes the opponent's instant speed removal like Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt completely irrelevant.

The deck could easily drop 1-2 Counterspells, maybe even 1 Predict, for 1-2 Firespouts maindeck. That also opens up the sideboard to running Grim Lavamancer. Grim Lavamancer demolishes Goblins and Merfolk, which were the only significantly problematic matchups the deck really has, besides Dredge.

Hmm... much to think about.

€.: Sry, I assumed that your post was the first, after reading the "real" 1st post and also his explanation about Predict in the LS thread I get the idea of pros/cons of the card, but I still believe that Standstill would be the better call.

Standstill is better in Landstill decks that are built to get the most out of it. Once you warp Landstill to the extent that this deck has, Standstill is no longer a good card in the deck. Predict is epicly good in this deck. Most people look at it on paper and assume it sucks because Threshold decks used to run it 3 years ago and they don't anymore, but the card actually is really really good in this deck. You'd be pleasantly suprised.

1) CB / Top is still awesome. If it's not, you already have some cards you're going to board out.

Yes, it is. I've been using CounterTop in Landstill for about 2 years now, and it's damn good. Getting people to accept this, much different story. I'm glad you have come to the same conclusion as me.

2) Predict: I played 4, but unfortunately I did'nt see them very often. But when played, they really always were a draw 2 for 1U. 3 might be enough, though.

I'm not sure the right number myself, but 3 is the lowest I'd go. 3-4 Predict is the way to go, and I'll continue to play with 4 for now. If for whatever reason I start having games where 4 is too much, I'll go back down to 3.

3) Planeswalkers: I have the feeling that 4 is 1 too much. As I said, I had to play a light version so I ran Hoofprints of the Stag (idea from The Epic Control) as they synergize with about everything else in this deck: additional important CC2 for CB, fast kill with active Top / Jace or Brainstorm, cheap & resistent, spreading the type of wincons (Walkers <-> Enchantment). I even made room for a single DoJ, but it really is too slow. But on the other hand I didn't like Factories without active CB / Top as they ate all this otherwise unimportant removal.

I think 4 is perfect. The 2/2 split has been working beautifully for me. Hoofprints is nice in the fact that it's 2cc for Counterbalance, but I have my Counterbalance curve in check already, and Hoofprints does not compare in power level to the Planeswalker's. Not even close.

4) This deck really needs 1-2 Vedalken Shackles (admitted, it was risky, but I ran them in the vindicate slot). They are badass with 10+ U-Lands. They destroy every aggressive strategy if used wisely. They stall the board after a WoG if something gets through CB. They force the opponent to overextend which makes WoG even stronger. Please try them.

Shackles is a great card, my problem with it is that I'm already running slow engines with CounterTop, PredictTop, and the Planeswalkers. Shackles is such a heavy mana investment for the card advantage/creature control, and I'm not sure if it would be fast enough to answer decks like Goblins and Merfolk before its irrelevant. I would not put them in my Vindicate spots. However, they are definitely worth trying, at least as sideboard cards. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try to test them when I get a chance.

[Hanni]

To shake things up, I want to expand a little further on the idea of dropping Mishra's Factory for a 4c version.

U/W/r/b PCC

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
1 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
3 [U] Tundra
2 [B] Underground Sea
2 [B] Scrubland
2 [U] Volcanic Island
2 [U] Plateau
2 [IN] Island (2)
2 [P3] Plains (2)

// Spells
1 [PRE] Ajani Vengeant
2 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [OD] Predict
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [CS] Counterbalance
3 [ST] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
3 [SHM] Firespout
2 [JGC] Vindicate
1 [BD] Diabolic Edict

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [BD] Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [BRB] Wrath of God
SB: 4 [TO] Grim Lavamancer
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 2 [HOP] Relic of Progenitus

This is just an extremely rough draft. Thoughts?

[Mr. Forsberg]

I do not really have anything to add about the deck, other than that I think it looks really strong on paper.

I just have one minor thing I would like to ask of you (and every one else at The Source); please use the [ cards], [ /cards] (without the spaces) tags when you write posts with card names in them!

[Hanni]

I just have one minor thing I would like to ask of you (and every one else at The Source); please use the [ cards], [ /cards] (without the spaces) tags when you write posts with card names in them!

I would have done that sooner, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work. Then I realized, it's [cards], not [card].

Anyway, I'm suprised there's absolutely no interest in this deck. I remember about a year ago, there was a high demand for a new thread + primer to my approach on Landstill (maindeck Counterbalance), and I had started it, but never got around to finishing it. Then a year later, some more cards saw print and I did some more innovating, and this is the current end result. Unfortunately, it seems like all of those who were interested in the deck about a year ago are gone.

Anyway, relative to what I said before, Mishra's Factory has been nothing short of lackluster for me. It rarely swings, it's horrible as a defender for so many reasons, and it's just been useless.

That said, I was reminded by Aggro Zombies of a card called Kor Haven, that does exactly what I've been wanting Mishra's Factory to do for a while.

There's also a new card seeing print, called Mystifying Maze.

Mystifying Maze
Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
4, T: Exile target attacking creature an opponent controls. At the beginning of the next end step, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control.

Not exactly amazing, but a much better replacement for Mishra's Factory.

Anyway, until that sees print and I'm able to start testing it, this is what I've done to the deck for now:

U/W/b Walker/Balance

Lands (23)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Kor Haven

Spells (37)
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Predict
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
2 Doom Blade
2 Vindicate

Sideboard (15)
4 Innocent Blood
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Meddling Mage
4 Relic of Progenitus


Kor Haven absolutely deserved a spot. Any extra Kor Haven effects, if I feel myself wanting more, will become the new Maze, since they aren't Legendary. Multiple Mazes are only going to be tapping for mana, since the ability itself is very expensive, so the correct number is something I would need to determine in playtesting. For now, I decided to cut the rest of the Factories for a stronger manabase (i.e more colored sources).

Aside from Kor Haven and the new Maze, are there any other utility lands that people think would be worth it in here?


Academy Ruins
Dust Bowl
Wasteland
Tolaria West
Celestial Colonnade
Creeping Tar Pit


Those are a few that I can think of off the top of my head for right now. I do not want Tolaria West, considering it would be run as a spell not a land, and I don't run Cunning Wish, which is a stronger 3 mana tutor.

Academy Ruins sounds decent when I bring the 3 EE's from the board into the maindeck, but I'm not sure if it's worth it or not. If I ran Vedalken Shackles or EE maindeck, Ruins would be alot more attractive to me.

Dust Bowl is an interesting option, since it can handle random problematic lands, but I already run Vindicate. I'm still considering this a possibility.

Wasteland seems worse than Dust Bowl without a full playset, and I really don't want to run multiple lands that are designed to cost me a land drop. I want to consistently make land drops as a control deck, not lose them.

The manlands, just like Mishra's Factory, just don't seem relevant. They open me up to otherwise dead removal that the opponent has, are much worse defensively than cards like Kor Haven and the new Maze, and attacking with manlands as a win condition seems subpar compared to winning with the Planeswalker's.

Any other good utility lands I'm forgetting?

EDIT: In hindsight, and after testing a few games with the new manabase, it may be better to just limit the utility lands to the 1-of Kor Haven and keep the stronger manabase. The decks manabase was already consistent before, with the 4 Factories, but making the manabase stronger in a control deck is never a bad thing. Making sure I can constantly hit UU on turn 2 and WW on turn 4 is important, and I'm up to 18 blue sources and 16 white sources now. The deck can still afford to cut some colored sources for more utility lands, I just don't know if any utility lands are worth weakening the manabase at this time. Kor Haven is a keeper, but the new Maze may prove to be too expensive to realistically use.

I'm enjoying the current removal setup, but I am unsure if a 3/3 split of Predict/Counterspell would be better. I'll continue to test the configuration I have above, but if I find myself wanting more Counterspells and needing less Predict's, I'll make the change and then test it.

Other than that, I feel as though the deck is absolutely rock solid. This deck is by far the most powerful deck I've ever played with, in terms of sheer power. It has the ability to control every aspect of the gamestate, against nearly every deck in the format (minus a few, like Dredge and Lands), and does so without mercy. CounterTop is absolutely cruel in a deck that can wipe the board clean with WoG and then proceed to lock the opponent out, and both Jace and Elspeth can be cruel at locking the opponent out too. I'm very surpised that this deck isn't getting more attention, because it certainly deserves it.

[routlaw]

I've been following this thread since you started and like the new manabase a lot. The factories just don't work like you want them to in practice, I saw this while testing against a Landstill player last week. Opposing decks were better off pointing wastelands at dual lands instead of Factories and making the Landstill player trip over their colors.

Question in general-do you feel that a move from black to red would help out the Merfolk/Goblins (and to a lesser extent, Zoo) matchup? I'm kind of worried about Merfolk in particular-resolving a 4cmc sorcery on them through Cursecatcher, Daze, and Wasteland seems nearly impossible. The idea of boarding in Grim Lavamancer after those decks board out at least some of their removal in particular sounds very good.

I wanted to bring up your sideboard-do you find that Engineered Explosives causes issues with Top and Counterbalance? I run EE main in New Horizons, where you only have four 2 cmc permanents (Goyf) and no 1 cmc permanents and it works well there because of it, but here I would think it would be problematic with the CounterTop components. I think you are right on with Meddling Mage and Relic though, those are awesome here.

I'm working on a build with red instead of black but still testing it, just wanted your opinion from your own testing if you have any one some of the above questions while I play around with things more.

[Hanni]

I've been following this thread since you started and like the new manabase a lot. The factories just don't work like you want them to in practice, I saw this while testing against a Landstill player last week. Opposing decks were better off pointing wastelands at dual lands instead of Factories and making the Landstill player trip over their colors.

Me too. As I said, this deck was originally a classic U/W Landstill deck many years ago, and I've been slowly evolving it ever since. Predict was a fairly recent change, and Mishra's Factories were still in the deck because of the Standstill's it ran prior to Predict. Mishra's Factory is a rediculously underpowered card, and without Standstill, there's no real reason to keep them in the deck. Kor Haven does exactly what I wanted Mishra's Factory to do, but so much better, for so many reasons.

Mentioning the strength of the manabase, it's actually kind of funny. I played against several mana denial decks since I 'fixed' the manabase.

I had one opponent drop a Back to Basics in both game 1 and game 2, and I have no idea why he didn't board them out for game 2 when they did absolutely nothing game 1. I run 8 fetchlands, which obviously are great against Back to Basics, and 6 basics to grab with those fetchlands. My deck can easily operate under a Back to Basics, with very little disturbance to my regularly scheduled programming.

In another game, I had dropped a turn 1 Top against a deck that casted 2 Sinkholes and 2 Rancid Earth's. I had a FoW in hand, but kept letting him blow my lands up. I just kept digging with Top, and eventually chaining Predict's, making a land drop every turn. Eventually I ramped up to 3 Islands and 2 Plains in play, despite his efforts, and I had the FoW for Pox. Jace came down and fatesealed the game away. He left after g1. I guess he didn't like playing against a deck that didn't let him do anything relevant.

I've also had several games where my opponent's were playing much less dedicated land destruction/mana denial, with Wasteland as their only spell in that department. Single Wasteland's just seem so laughable after triumphing against dedicated mana denial decks. They almost never cut me off of my appropriate color sources, and the best thing they've been able to do is keep my low enough on land drops early so that I can't ramp into my 4cc bombs right away. The best use is in decks like Merfolk that also run counters like Daze to generate tempo while beating down, where they can be successful as a tempo generator more so than landscrew.

With my new manabase, this deck does not lose to itself because of its own manabase issues, even in the face mana denial like Wasteland. This is a huge progression for the decks consistency overall. I'm pretty confident that I'm going to just keep my manabase exactly as it is, 3c with 1 Kor Haven as my only utility land.

Question in general-do you feel that a move from black to red would help out the Merfolk/Goblins (and to a lesser extent, Zoo) matchup? I'm kind of worried about Merfolk in particular-resolving a 4cmc sorcery on them through Cursecatcher, Daze, and Wasteland seems nearly impossible. The idea of boarding in Grim Lavamancer after those decks board out at least some of their removal in particular sounds very good.

I had considered it, but honestly, black works just fine for improving these matchups. While red is a stronger splash for these matchups, I don't really think it's a necessary splash.

These are my current sideboard strategies for Merfolk and Zoo:

Zoo
-1 Predict
-4 Force of Will
-2 Vindicate
+4 Innocent Blood
+3 Engineered Explosives

This basically transforms the deck into a classic board control deck like old Rifter and MWC. The deck goes up to 16 MD removal spells to make sure Zoo does little to no damage with creatures throughout the entire game, and CounterTop (and the 2 Counterspells) eventually lock them out of a possible burn plan. Zoo can't push any damage through, lock pieces like Elspeth, Jace, and CounterTop get resolved, and it's gg.

The deck doesn't need Force of Will, because 2-for-1'ing yourself and losing 1 life is much worse than casting a removal spell to do the same thing. Vindicate has no necessary artifact/enchantment targets and is slow at 3cc for its effect. Most of the time, EE will be set to 1 to wipe away their fast starts.

Merfolk
-4 Force of Will
-3 Counterbalance
+4 Innocent Blood
+3 Engineered Explosives

Same general idea as the Zoo matchup; bring in an overkill amount of removal to transform into a classic board control deck. This time, the deck goes up to 18 MD removal spells. Force of Will is bad in this matchup just like it is bad in Zoo, since we have no way to capitalize on the tempo it offers, Vial largely invalidates it, it's not worth the 2-for-1 to FoW their Vial, and simply casting removal spells is better overall. 8 1cc removal spells play very well through Daze/Cursecatcher, and the deck has more than enough cheap spot removal to get to the midgame, where Wrath of God and Engineered Explosives are capable of being used.

Without overcommitting to the board, Merfolk has a very weak and easily answered threat base, and when they overcommit, they are susceptible to massive card disadvantage from spells like Wrath of God. They desperately need to gain card advantage to overwhelm the 1-for-1 trades. Standstill is very important for them; unfortunately, I run Predict's, which are just as powerful a draw engine for me as Standstill is for them. Once I land a Planeswalker on a clean board, I usually get too far ahead for them to recover.

Counterbalance is lackluster in this matchup for a number of reasons. Active Vial makes Counterbalance suck. The need to set EE @ 2 frequently (premeptive EE @ 2 owns Standstills, btw) makes Counterbalance somewhat bad. The most important cc range vs them is 2cc and 3cc, where I have 2 Vindicate as my only 3cc spell, and my 2cc spell count drops too low after boarding.

---

Now of course, bringing in Grim Lavamancer would be stronger against Merfolk, since they run no creature removal and it's a raw card advantage machine against them. If you expect alot of fishies, Grim Lavamancer is definitely the way to pull out their eyeballs.

Otherwise, I'd say that the black splash is just as good as a red splash against Zoo, after boarding. Firespout is great, but largely unecessary considering the postboard removal package the deck has with the black splash.

I plan to stay with the black splash, since it offers greater diversity against the entire field, and I feel black is just as good as red at handling Zoo. Red has a slight edge against Merfolk and Goblins, but I feel that black can adequately answer both of those matchups. Unless the field is expected to be heavy Merfolk and/or Goblins, I wouldn't consider splashing red. Besides, if I expected a heavy field of Merfolk and Goblins, I'd be playing Naya Sligh anyway.

Vindicate is a great catchall answer, and Innocent Blood can answer alot of randomness too. Wrath of God maindeck is more universally useful than Firespout in the maindeck.

I wanted to bring up your sideboard-do you find that Engineered Explosives causes issues with Top and Counterbalance? I run EE main in New Horizons, where you only have four 2 cmc permanents (Goyf) and no 1 cmc permanents and it works well there because of it, but here I would think it would be problematic with the CounterTop components. I think you are right on with Meddling Mage and Relic though, those are awesome here.

In short, no. I sideboard these instead of maindeck them for a reason. I tend to only bring them into matchups where I truly need them, and most of the time, it's not being set to 2. Against Zoo, they are almost always being set to 1 to handle their fast starts. Against decks like Enchantress, they get set to 3 to wipe away most of the problematic spells like Enchantress' Presence, Solitary Confinement, etc. Even in situations against certain decks where I do need to set it to 2, like against Merfolk, I board out my Counterbalances. In the rare situations, against some matchups, where I do have to pop it for 2 and I blow up my own Counterbalance, it is very easy to replay another Counterbalance because I run 4. Counterbalance is my only permament affected by EE, and conflicts between the two are so rare that it's largely a non-issue.

(I'd also like to point out how less of a conflict this deck has with EE and Counterbalance than ITF (It's the Fear) had, which ran Tarmogoyf and Counterbalance alongside EE and Deed, and that deck still operated fairly well.)

Meddling Mage is awesome against quite a few matchups, not just the obvious "Tendrils Storm Combo." I bring them in against Ichorid, for example. Relic of Progenitus is a nice catch all answer too, and handles alot of decks like, Ichorid and Lands.

However, I've been considering running Pithing Needles instead of Relics, I'm not sure yet. It all depends on how much of a ressurgence Ichorid sees, since that's the only matchup where I truly need them.

I'm working on a build with red instead of black but still testing it, just wanted your opinion from your own testing if you have any one some of the above questions while I play around with things more.

The red splash is perfectly valid, but like I said, I'll be sticking to the black splash myself.

[menace13]

Hanni, Fiatlux has built a sort of list resembling your's and will be working on Predict as an engine. The list:
1 Academy Ruins
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Wasteland
-----------------------

4 Dark Confidant
-----------------------
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterbalance
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Daze
3 Divert
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Lim-DA?l's Vault
4 Predict
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thopter Foundry
---------------
36 other spells
Sideboard

1 Back to Basics
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Hydroblast
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Pithing Needle
2 Propaganda
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Wipe Away

just went 3-1 last nite

[Hanni]

Fiatlux

Who's that?

list

To be honest, that list has more in common with CounterTop Thopter than it does with my deck, but it's nice to see people using Predict as their draw engine.

[menace13]

Who's that?



To be honest, that list has more in common with CounterTop Thopter than it does with my deck, but it's nice to see people using Predict as their draw engine.

Funny he asked the same of you.
A friend whom plays control( i take it you are asking in earnest), Online only finishes in the money often. Morgan had told him about you using Predicts and he tried it out in the Dailies was impressed by it. He went crazy on M.Tutor,E. Tutor and 1 Doomsday pile in addition to using it as a draw.

[chokin]

Hanni, is there a reason you're against running the Thopter engine? It seems like it could easily fit into your deck. It's also interesting to see the virtual card advantage (CBTop) and real card advantage (Predict) run side by side again. I haven't seen or run them together since pre-Goyf times when I played UWb Fish.

This deck is basically a shell for a lot of other existing decks I think. Like swap some stuff around, you wind up with Thopter Control, or Landstill, or Ultimate Walker. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, but it may be useful to look to those decks for random ideas and tech. It seems like you're against using your graveyard to recur things. For example, you don't run Crucible+Wasteland or Academy Ruins+EE. Is there a reason?

I saw that you noted that red is another viable splash. That's kind of the direction I took with the deck I'm working on (UWr Thopter). Basically it runs Firespout instead of Wrath (pros and cons to this) and the 3 slot Thopter engine (2/1 Foundry and Sword) as a way to recover and end the game faster. I also run an Echoing Truth to deal with the possibility of Iona instead of black for Doom Blade.

[Hanni]

Funny he asked the same of you.
A friend whom plays control( i take it you are asking in earnest), Online only finishes in the money often. Morgan had told him about you using Predicts and he tried it out in the Dailies was impressed by it. He went crazy on M.Tutor,E. Tutor and 1 Doomsday pile in addition to using it as a draw.

I was just asking who he was because Morgan Coke also mentioned his name, and I had never heard of him, that's all.

Hanni, is there a reason you're against running the Thopter engine? It seems like it could easily fit into your deck. It's also interesting to see the virtual card advantage (CBTop) and real card advantage (Predict) run side by side again. I haven't seen or run them together since pre-Goyf times when I played UWb Fish.

Yes. As a control deck, I don't want to play combos for the sake of playing combos. CounterTop is a good combo because both pieces of the combo are valuable on their own, especially in the case of Sensei's Divining Top, since it's the best card in the entire deck.

Both pieces of the Thopter/Sword combo are worthless without the other. It may not be as disruptable as the Painter/Grindstone combo (which gets hit by creature removal), but it still bites it to Qasali Pridemage and Krosan Grip. I know the same can be said of Counterbalance, but Counterbalance can protect itself from Qasali, and even when it gets hit by Grip, it doesn't cause myself to get 2-for-1'd (or 3-for-1'd if I used Enlightened Tutor to grab one of the pieces).

I'm also not a fan of card disdvantage in control decks. I realize that Enlightened Tutor is capable of recouping from the card disdvantage by putting virtual card advantage permanents into play (like Moat), but it's still counterproductive to me. I will say that I do like the synergy that Enlightened Tutor has with Counterbalance; basically being a 1cc Counterspell. Other than that, I'd rather just Brainstorm/Top into the cards I want, rather than Tutor for them.

I realize that if left unchecked, the Thopter/Sword combo can win games. The lifegain is relevant against aggro decks, and swarming the board with 1/1 tokens every turn results in a dominating finish. I use Worm Harvest in my UGw Bant deck, so I know what swarming the board with 1/1 tokens feels like :)

The thing is, though, I feel like my Planeswalker's are 1 card combos. Both Elspeth and Jace, on their lonesome, can win games in dominating fashion. They do not require card disadvantage tutors and don't require a combo to be assembled, either. This makes the deck alot more consistent, and consistency is probably the most important quality that a control deck should have. I'm not saying that Thopter/Sword isn't consistent, but it does trade some consistency for explosiveness. If W want to assemble a combo in my deck (aside from CounterTop), putting both Elspeth and Jace into play is teh nutz. Overkill, but nasty nonetheless.

I am not bashing the CounterTop Thopter deck in any way, I think it is a solid deck. However, this is my opinion of why I think my approach is better for control as an archetype, and why I don't include Thopter/Sword.

This deck is basically a shell for a lot of other existing decks I think. Like swap some stuff around, you wind up with Thopter Control, or Landstill, or Ultimate Walker. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, but it may be useful to look to those decks for random ideas and tech. It seems like you're against using your graveyard to recur things. For example, you don't run Crucible+Wasteland or Academy Ruins+EE. Is there a reason?

Of course, it can be a shell for alot of other existing decks. It used to be a Landstill deck, so the shell from Landstill, especially before I dropped the Factories, was very evident. Most CounterTop shells use the same core cards, too. It's hard to make a blue based control deck look radically different from other blue based control decks, since so much of the deck(s) are staples.

You say that I can look to those decks for random ideas and tech, and that's always possibile with similar decks, like back when I was building UWb Fish, I had both Thresh and Slivers to look at. I do want to point out that I've been working on this deck well before Ultimate Walker, and especially before Thopter Control, were ever thought of. Meaning, I've already looked at those decks for ideas.

I don't need to use my graveyard to recur things. Why should I open up my deck to graveyard hate, when there is nothing worth running to do so? Crucible would be nice if I had trouble making my land drops every turn, but with my current draw engine (specifically Top), this is not an issue. Paying 3 mana for an artifact that helps me make my land drops every turn is fairly weak for its cost, and unecessary in this deck.

Also, why would I want to assemble a Wastelock? Wastelocking requires me to lose my land drop every turn to try and lock my opponent out of color sources or total lands. I want to make land drops every turn, not cause my opponent to lose theirs. Wasteland in control decks is just dumb to me. If I want removal for enemy manlands, I have Swords, Doom Blade, and Vindicate. The only justifiable purpse I can see to running Wasteland in a control deck is to knock out utility lands like an opposing Academy Ruins, which is not only extremely fringe, but is also answerable by other means.

Ruins/EE isn't bad, and it is a possible consideration. The reason I'm not currently running it is because I run no way to tutor for Ruins (and I refuse to run Tolaria West because I think it's horrible) and I don't run EE maindeck (I feel that Vindicate is stronger, especially with me running CounterTop).

Adding a singleton Ruins to enable Ruins/EE in postboard games is a viable option, but I just haven't found myself wanting/needing that sort of effect so far in testing. However, it would be very easy to cut a Tundra, Scrubland, or an Island for an Academy Ruins, without hurting the deck much at all.

tl;dr there aren't any graveyard shenanigans that I feel this deck needs to run, and being independant of the graveyard is just another strength to this decks consistency and resilience to postboard hate.

I saw that you noted that red is another viable splash. That's kind of the direction I took with the deck I'm working on (UWr Thopter). Basically it runs Firespout instead of Wrath (pros and cons to this) and the 3 slot Thopter engine (2/1 Foundry and Sword) as a way to recover and end the game faster. I also run an Echoing Truth to deal with the possibility of Iona instead of black for Doom Blade.

The red splash is strong against an aggro heavy metagame, consisting of decks like Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo. However, the black splash still does well against those decks, and I'd be playing Naya Sligh in a metagame dominated by Vial Aggro anyway.

[chokin]

You make some valid arguments against the Thopter engine. Yes, the pieces are dead on their own, but you are also drawing tons of cards with Jace and Predict and cantrip and filtering with Top, Brainstorm, and fetches. I can't imagine that it would be difficult finding both halves and just winning from there.

Planeswalkers are very good. It just takes Jace until turn 9 at the earliest to ultimate. Elspeth deals 20 in 9 turns as well. That's if they are both uninterrupted and dropped on turn 4. I used to play Landstill, and I remember when some of my harder matches would end in draws because I couldn't win fast enough. Maybe I'm having flashbacks when I look at this deck ;)

Crucible doesn't just have to recur Wasteland. You can Predict lands off the top of your library and then recover them. It's almost as if you drew 3 cards for 1U...well, with the preexisting investment of 3. But you get the idea. Maybe Wasteland locking is outdated tech since most decks run fairly stable manabases.

Your 3cc slot is looking pretty skinny. I know you briefly mentioned Shackles...and to me it seems like it needs to be in there as at least a 1 of. There isn't a ton of room, but I thought I'd bring up Trinket Mage and maybe a small box of goodies like Probasco did for his CBTop deck. I'm positive that your deck could easily support the 2 Ruins. Just a minor suggestion to bring to the table.

[Hanni]

You make some valid arguments against the Thopter engine. Yes, the pieces are dead on their own, but you are also drawing tons of cards with Jace and Predict and cantrip and filtering with Top, Brainstorm, and fetches. I can't imagine that it would be difficult finding both halves and just winning from there.

Right, but instead of drawing a bunch of cards to try and assemble that combo, I can draw a bunch of cards and drop a Planeswalker. It's much easier and more consistent to drop a Planeswalker, and I'll likely have more business in hand because I spent less effort digging for the 2 card combo and more time worrying about keeping a healthy stock of control spells in hand.

Planeswalkers are very good. It just takes Jace until turn 9 at the earliest to ultimate. Elspeth deals 20 in 9 turns as well. That's if they are both uninterrupted and dropped on turn 4. I used to play Landstill, and I remember when some of my harder matches would end in draws because I couldn't win fast enough. Maybe I'm having flashbacks when I look at this deck ;)

Right, but this is a control deck. Winning on turn 9, the actual turn 9, doesn't mean the game wasn't won sooner. It's like playing Belcher; yea, you don't win with EtW until turn 3 or 4, but if you went off on turn 1, you actually won on turn 1 (of course they can answer EtW with EE or whatnot, but you get my point).

I've actually never popped an ultimate with Jace. My opponent's have always scooped once I've ramped it to 12+ counters. Something about me saying "keep," I guess.

Also, it's not the fact that Jace doesn't win until the actual turn 9. It's how he does it; if the opponent cannot draw any relevant cards, the game is won much sooner. If I have a grip of Counterspells for the one bomb they do manage to draw through fatesealing, they still lost before they actually lose the game.

Elspeth is the same way; yes, she won't win until the actual turn 9, but if the opponent simply cannot push anymore damage through the ground because you have an army of indestructible 1/1's, you haven't actually won the game, but you still won the game (speaking strictly against an aggro deck with groundbound attackers only, of course).

Thopter/Foundry takes more time and resources to assemble than dropping an Elspeth or Jace, and doesn't actually win the game immediately either. You can only make as many 1/1 tokens as you have mana, so it's still going to take a few turns before you have enough guys to swing for lethal.

Also, I haven't had many games that take forever, except for the control mirror. I'll admit, the control mirror is atrocious, and games can last for hours. Against everything else, this deck is much different than Landstill. CounterTop and 4 Planeswalker's accelerates this deck into winning much faster. It's difficult to explain why, and if you want a detailed explanation, I'll try to articulate words to do so... but if you simply play this deck, then play classic Landstill, you'll see a significant difference.

Crucible doesn't just have to recur Wasteland. You can Predict lands off the top of your library and then recover them. It's almost as if you drew 3 cards for 1U...well, with the preexisting investment of 3. But you get the idea. Maybe Wasteland locking is outdated tech since most decks run fairly stable manabases.

Well, Crucible is a Dark Confidant for land drops, basically. I understand that, and I didn't mean to put the card down. Crucible is still a good card, I just don't feel it's needed in this deck. I run alot of card advantage engines already.

The thing is, this deck runs a much lower curve than traditional Landstill decks, so it's not as important for me to keep making land drops past a certain point. It's still good to hit high land counts, so I can do things like drop a Planeswalker and still have mana open for a Counterspell, etc. It's just not as necessary for me to hit massive land counts like it was in Landstill.

The biggest problem I have with Crucible, is that it costs 3 mana for its effect, and it has to be played at sorcery speed. Once you compare that to the 2 mana for Counterbalance and 4 mana of the Planeswalker's, you can clearly see the power level difference.

I can understand Crucible being amazing in Landstill, since it synergizes with so much of the deck there, giving the deck recurring manlands, making additional Standstills dropped that much stronger, helping ramp to huge land totals for stronger Decree's, etc.

This deck isn't Landstill.

tl;dr As far as card advantage is concerned, I generate tons of that already, Top basically replaces it's ability to assist in my making land drops consistently, and it's too slow/costs too much mana for its effect (at least in this deck).

Your 3cc slot is looking pretty skinny. I know you briefly mentioned Shackles...and to me it seems like it needs to be in there as at least a 1 of. There isn't a ton of room, but I thought I'd bring up Trinket Mage and maybe a small box of goodies like Probasco did for his CBTop deck. I'm positive that your deck could easily support the 2 Ruins. Just a minor suggestion to bring to the table.

Agreed. The deck can't build it's curve to hit everything, especially when it needs to run (at least) 23 lands. 1cc and 2cc are the most important curves to keep in check because they are the most commonly played. 4cc just happens to get boosted because the bombs I want to cast cost 4 mana. Unfortunately, that makes the 3cc spot pretty skinny like you said. I compensate for that by running Counterspell and Vindicate to answer the 3cc spells that sneak through, or if I have a Jace and CounterTop out, fatesealing the stuff I can't Counterbalance.

If I was going to beef up the 3cc spot, it would be by running more Vindicates or some amount of Vedalken Shackles. Vedalken Shackles was suggested to me by Doks, and I'm still regarding that suggestion. It's one of the things I want to test at some point.

The only reason I've added Doom Blades and such instead of Shackles (aside from maintaining the 2cc curve), is because I was finding myself needing more fast, effecient removal for Merfolk and Zoo.

Against Merfolk, it can be hard to resolve a 3cc permanent through Waste/Daze before its irrelevant, and against Zoo, sometimes a 3cc+2cc spell is too slow to stop them in time. The early rush from Zoo, where they drop a guy turn 1, two guys on turn 2, followed by 1-3 more guys on turn 3, have been the only games where I've lost to Zoo (this happens in game 1 when I don't know what they are playing and don't keep a strong enough hand to stop their nuts draw). Doom Blade has helped give me more early effecient answers to stop them until I can get my card advantage engines going (CounterTop and Wrath of God in particular).

I do like how Vedalken Shackles can generate card advantage against aggro, but I also like how it can be an alternate win condition. Maybe instead of viewing it as creature removal, I should be viewing it as a win condition. I mean, it costs 1 mana less than Elspeth to cast, and it can effectively deal with aggro, arguably better than Elspeth. Much to think about.

I think that finding a way to fit Vedalken Shackles into the deck as a 1-of, at least for playtesting purposes, would be a good idea. I had been focusing on fixing the manabase before (when I was still running Factories), but now that I have finished that project, this will likely be my next.

As far as Trinket Mage goes, I would have to say no. This isn't a typical CounterTop deck; this deck has more in common with Landstill than it does with the traditional Bant/Supreme Blue CounterTop decks. I have no need for a 2/2 body; since I run no other creatures, it will be the target of my opponent's otherwise dead removal. I really want to keep my lands untapped for Counterspell/spinning Top/casting Predict/casting instant speed removal, and just like my argument for Crucible, Trinket Mage isn't worth spending 3 mana at sorcery speed for.

He can be a tutor for EE and Top, sure, but he only generates card advantage in-so-much that he leaves behind a 2/2 body. Since I have no need for a 2/2 body, which also die to my WoG's, it's not worth it.

For the 2U cost, I'd sooner run Cunning Wish, since it's instant speed, and can grab a more diverse selection of cards. I don't run Cunning Wish because it is too slow for its effect.

Trinket Mage is great in an aggro/control CounterTop shell like Supreme Blue, because that deck gains tremendous benefit from having a 2/2 body to compliment Goyf and such. My strategy, on the other hand, is purposely designed to not run creatures.

As far as Ruins go, I wouldn't want to run 2. They are Legendary, and totally unecessary. If I was running something like Thopter/Foundry, I could justify running 2, but in my deck, they have no maindeck interactions, and only interact with cards from my sideboard. I wouldn't risk losing games from mana instability because I draw both Ruins early. I'd much sooner run 2 Kor Haven's before I'd consider running 2 Ruins, at any rate.

However, running a singleton Academy Ruins is not a bad idea (as I've said before). I just don't think it's relevant enough to worry about right now, but I will playtest games with them in mind. If it occurs enough where I bring EE's in postboard and I'm wishing Kor Haven is/was a Ruins*, I'll drop an Island or something for one.

*Not necessarily in replacement to Kor Haven, it can also be in addition to. The reason I chose Kor Haven is because it's easy to monitor as being a Ruins, since it's ran as a 1-of, which is what Ruins would be. If that makes any sense, it's hard to explain what I mean.

[heroicraptor]

You double posted in one post. (You have the text twice.)

I do really like this deck.

[Hanni]

You double posted in one post. (You have the text twice.)

You were reading the thread while I was doing my editing. When I make long posts, I edit and re-edit while I read and re-read. That did happen, where it copy/pasted the entire text, so it was 'double posted,' but I fixed it before I even read your response. Thanks for catching it though, means someones reading it :)

[Iranon]

I also prefer the Enlightened Tutor Method over the destruction suite. There is a ridiculous variety of cards that are strong enough on their own in the anti-creature department and can be devastatingl if you fetch the right one. Engineered Explosives, Porphyry Nodes, Runed Halo, Moat... maybe even Story Circle or Humility.
Being able to fetch anti-artifact/enchantment stuff, countertop, hate and utility like Pithing Needle or Relic of Progenitus is a very big bonus, as is the ability to counter things reliably under Counterbalance.

I do not like the Thopter Foundry win though; even with tutors I prefer the walkers... while not fetchable, both can win through a Humility/Moat lockdown.

[Hanni]

The Enlightened Tutor method creates card disadvantage and is vulnerable to hate. Wrath of God doesn't provide the same virtual card advantage, but cleaning the board is still a very powerful effect. Moat/Humility die to enchantment removal. Qasali is everywhere, and Krosan Grip from the board isn't even respondable.

I'm not trying to bash that approach, but this isn't the deck for it. The design of Thopter/Foundry is different, and trying to blend the two decks won't work. If you prefer the E Tutor method but prefer Planeswalker's over Thopter/Sword, just cut the Thopter/Sword combo out of CounterTop Thopter, and add Planeswalker's. It's much easier to do that then to retool this deck to take advantage of E Tutor.

EDIT: I've decided to go with a 3/3 split of Predict and Counterspell. I have plenty enough card advantage with all of my other engines that 3 Predict is plenty, and I've had a few games where I've really wanted the 3rd Counterspell. Counterspell is so valuable to me because it answers what Counterbalance can't, and UU is just such an easy cost for a hardcounter. I especially like having Counterspells when I'm using Jace, because if they finally hit a runner runner when I'm fatesealing, I can just counter the damn thing.

Also, I'm going to try testing a 1-of Vedalken Shackles. So:

-1 Predict
-1 Doom Blade
+1 Counterspell
+1 Vedalken Shackles

Oh, and I'm going to try and get this thread renamed (again). U/W/x CounterTop Walker. That's about as streamlined as it gets, what do you guys think?