But 2cmc makes them easier to cast and they are so good for CA. Mix them with brainstorms and fetches and its disgusting.
Trust me, I tried them first and was actually playing both at one time. Remember that Caw Blade thread we had going for a bit. I slowly figured out that they just weren't worth it. If discard somehow got much better or mono-U control started back up in force they might be worth going back to because that brainstorm trick with them is very, very good.
The main problem with the hawks wasn't the CA, it was the fact that they just aren't that scary without a sword. 1/1 flyer coming at you, ho hum... Sure it's nice to have back ups in hand, but the small amount of disruption that the Cliques provide and the much better clock just out classes the Hawks easily when there's no equipment present. You'll hate the hawks every time you get stuck without a sword. You never feel the same way with a Clique.
I think the main reason I ended up pulling the hawks was the clock though. Cliques are excellent against other control decks since they just snap in and start punching in the face. You find yourself in the position to go late game so often against control and a Clique becomes gold. Hawks are meh during that time.
Well, first thing first: Greetings, Earthlings.
Sorry if this is going to be another one of those I-dunno-anything-but-have-you-tried-Squire-seems-good-kthanx-posts (no, I'm not attacking you, sdefreit8), but I haven't actually gotten the deck together quite yet, so this will all be theory.
1) It has been suggested that the zoo matchup might be bad, because so much of the zoo deck doubles as an answer to stoneforge/batterskull. I guess it doesn't help things that zoo can bring in Krosan Grip or Ancient Grudge, either. I was wondering if sideboarding into into a more traditional hard control deck could be the answer? Its not like 4 Mystic/2 equipment actually take up that much space.
2) How necessary are wastelands and manlands without Standstill? It seems like the discussion of Standstill vs. Visions is just that, mostly - about those two cards only, when it should probably be about a number of other cards too. With Standstill, you need those manlands, and probably wastelands too, or else more manlands. But in the normal scheme of things, how badly does a fairly mana-hungry control deck really need wastelands? Again, I can't say I have tested this, or that I have an LSV-level understanding of MtG, but I'm still fairly certain Wasteland is better in my Merfolk deck than it will be in Ancestral Visions-Blade Control (which I'm leaning against). Cutting some or all of the wastelands would open space for other utility lands, a splash, or just a rock solid U/W manabase.
The obligatory decklist(s):
The one that I would probably start out with, just to get a feel for the archetype:
U/W Blade Control
24 Lands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
4 Tundra
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
6 Creatures
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Planeswalkers
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
26 Other Spells
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Body and Mind
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Crucible of Worlds
Sideboard
2 Wrath of God
2 Path to Exile
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Meddling Mage
2 Counterspell
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Disenchant
Basically just - 1 wasteland, + 1 fetch.
A more experimental list, with the ability to board into a Superfriends-esque control deck with no good targets for Ancient Grudge, and with pyroblasts against Show and Tell/other combo decks:
24 Lands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
6 Creatures
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Planeswalkers
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
26 Other Spells
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Body and Mind
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Engineered Explosives
Sideboard
2 Wrath of God
2 Path to Exile
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Pyroblast
4 Relic of Progenitus
Both lists might need better/more answers to Choke, and a Pithing Needle or two. The second list can't really do anything about Tower of the Magistrate, but that card is probably only going to show up in Knight of the Reliquary decks, where the Superfriends plan should be fine.
Best regards,
Christian
Last edited by RainbowPenguin; 07-26-2011 at 05:53 PM. Reason: Explaining lists
Judging from the most recent SCG tournaments UW Blade Control needs to shore up the NO RUG matchup as well as the Hive Mind and/or Show matchup. UW Blade Control is very bad game 1 vs. Hivemind/Show unless you get lucky and continually waste their ramp and/or Clique when they have the key(s) in hand. Honestly, if SCG Pittsburgh shows a bunch of Hivemind/NoRug/Show winning, UW Blade Control is not a DTB anymore...UWR Blade Control may just be better due to having access to the Red blast(s)
I know in the second place deck at last scg event there were 4 dazes in the main deck. and he used them to attack hivemind. Maybe this deck should have dazes again
You can shore up Hive Mind and NO SHO with SB Meddling Mages or Spell Pierces, there's no need to /r for those match ups.
UWb Blade Control:
Creatures:
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
Spells:
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
3 Standstill
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Batterskull
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Ring
Lands:
1 Plains
1 Swamp
5 Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
This list has gone through many revisions, and I'd like critique on a couple of things:
1) Manabase - I've tried to make it more resilient, but cannot seem to find room for wastelands without being cold to color screw or a moon effect. I'd like any suggestions, and would like to fit in a couple more wastelands. I'm splashing black solely for x=3 on ee and confidants out of the board.
2) How to make the enlightened tutor toolbox more useful.
3) snare is used as a counter to goyfs, hymns, and other mystics. Should they be sideboarded?
I usually sideboard the situational countermagic out to put the more relevant etutor answers. Confidants help with control matchups.
1) Lets see:
23 Lands total. 6 fetches, 12 fetchable lands.
Coloured mana sources/Basic Land Sources:
Blue: 5+4+2+1+4 = 16 / 5+4+2 = 11
White: 1+4+2+4 = 11 / 1+4 = 5
Black: 1+4+2+1 = 8 / 1+2 = 3
First off, I would suggest cutting 2 Islands for 2 extra polluted deltas. This will increase the number of sources of white and black mana without diminishing your access to blue/basic island. And it is not like you will need the 4th or 5th basic island very often. We're talking about extremely corner cases here, like moon effect on turn one, on the play, or perhaps ghost quarter locking from lands.dec. Those are really, really rare situations, and you don't want to make your deck worse the remaining 98% of the time.
Yes, there is that Shackles in the board. One card. In the board. You would still have 8 islands to power it up, that should be enough.
Why would you run Confidants out of the board? I would maindeck them over the standstills (+1 other card), if I were to play them at all. Btw, without wastelands to back up you manlands, your standstills become quite a bit worse. If you don't want maindeck Bobs, exchange standstills with Visions.
Do you need Wasteland at all? When/against which decks do you want it? You already have Mystic, Batterskull, Jace (should probably be a 4-of), Foundry, Explosives, Academy Ruins and manlands, so your deck is quite mana intensive. Trading your landdrop on turn 1-4 for your opponent's isn't often going to be good for you, and any later will probably be irrelevant, except as an extra wincondition with Crucible against some decks.
If your meta includes problematic lands (Maze of Ith, Tower of the Magistrate), I would cut the third Island (leaving you with 15/10 Blue sources, I guess that's okay) and a spell for two Wastelands or one Wasteland and one Dust Bowl. You could also run Pithing Needle against those cards. The takeaway is that yes, you cannot have your cake and eat it too (run three colours including basics, Wastelands and Factories).
2) Why isn't it useful? What do you want it to be useful against?
3) No.
1) It's just nice being able to tutor for a standstill whenever I have the superior board position. Confidants are a liability in the zoo or any fast matchup, particularly when you have multiple 4 and 5 drops in your deck and no top to filter these. If i put the confidants in the MD, I would include a top to be etutored for. I'd want to keep at least 1 standstill in the maindeck.
That's the conclusion that I came to with Wasteland.
2) I was thinking of any other utility artifact that I was forgetting. The moat doesn't seem very useful, and gets hit by k-grip, which this deck is weak to. I'm considering adding a canonist over the moat .
E Tutor is - 1 card. Standstill is + 2 cards. Tutor for Standstill is + 1 card. This is legacy, I think you can do better than that.
It is true that Confidant can be risky vs. fast aggro, but in such matchups, Standstill would actually just be dead at the same time. At least Confidant can block. If those matches come up often, Visions is probably better.
Dunno if this applies here, but it is very tempting when making a tutor sb, to just go for the most powerful hatecards ever printed, things that will just make certain decks scoop instantly. I think it is something of a trap, however. You basically want to swap out a card that hoses badly built aggro decks for another card, that hoses completely different decks? Give some thought to this: What do you actually need your sideboard for? Free wins are nice, but if you don't have a good reason to think that a certain deck is going to be a big presence at a given tournament, or that it will be very good against you, you just shouldn't pack narrow hate against it.
What is blade control to do against the new junk deck with living wish and hexmage. i went 3-1 at my local saturday night legacy. lost only to the new junk deck due to a mull to 5 and a horridness series of plays in game three. (i just played awful). Either way does anyone have any information that can help me beat this new breed of deck
Get more lucky with your opening hands, play better? Seriously, I can't see why that deck should be harder to deal with than regular junk. Ignore whatever I may have said about cutting Wasteland, it's good here. So is Spell Snare. If you can force your opponent to go for Marit Lage on his turn or just chump with a Clique, you can bounce the token with Jace. If you feel you need anything special for this matchup, reasonably broad cards you might consider would be Stifle and Repeal (repealing mox diamond has to feel good). Karakas and Crucible with Waste/Karakas are also golden.Originally Posted by Rekk
Thank you,
one more question on the matter is graveyard hate worth bringing in (due to loam knights and goyfs) or is it one of those things you bring in if you have nothing else.
You're welcome.
Honestly.. I don't know. I 'm not sure if there is any consensus list for Junk Depths, and even if there is, sideboards and sideboarding strategies are likely to be subject to individual choice to a large extent.
If you run Relic of Progenitus, bringing one or two in is okay, I guess, since it cantrips, and if they are leaning heavily on Loam (casting Entomb for Loam, using cycling lands, etc.), you might want to bring in Surgical Extraction/Extirpate (again, if you run it, which is certainly not obligatory). But if you feel that your maindeck cards are all live against that deck, I would just stick with those.
That's all theory, however. If you have the opportunity to experiment with the gravehate count against that deck, go for it! And don't forget to come back and tell the rest of us about it.
The most common lists over here now play - Wasteland - Mishra And play the Grove+Punishing Fire engine instead. Ajani Vengeant has been seen a lot , too. What do you think of it? like this for example http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...3&iddeck=47028
Recent results show the deck to be a serious powerhouse.
This man is a truthspeaker! You deserve a beer - if you see me in Ghent, you may present yourself to me as The Speaker of Truths and I will buy you a beer of choice
What does Punishing Fire solve that Batterskull doesn't?
Is it enough against NO RUG?
It is indeed enough against NO RUG. Being able to kill every last one of their critters is a huge thing in this MU.It also shines against GW and Zoo. Merfolk not to mention...
The thing is that you don't always have a Batterskull. And even if you have some decks can either race you or destroy your good Old Schmetterschädel and then beat you down. If he even comes down. In my experience either SFM doesn't resolve or get's killed before you can put in anything. In my meta ppl upped the Clique-Count to beat SFM as well. It's just nice to have a way to ensure that you don't lose the game until your next Batterskull or SFM is there.
This man is a truthspeaker! You deserve a beer - if you see me in Ghent, you may present yourself to me as The Speaker of Truths and I will buy you a beer of choice
I found a good card lately for the No Rug match up. Curfew allows you to go ahead and let them have the Projo and just requires you to kill whats left, then you strand it in their hand while you reuse something, oh.. like a Stoneforge.
He was using it in a different deck, but it seems like a nice choice for this one. Instant speed, 1cc, and has a beneficial effect on your own side is quite nice. You can use it to save Lavamancers (if you play red) and Cliques also all the while taking some steam out of the other side. I really, really like it so far. I reaplced my Phantasmal Images in the board for it since it serves the same purpose for killing Projo and emrakul. I like it enough that I might add it in main.
I'm starting to be a fan of that Grove/Punishing Fires thing. I don't like playing that many non-basics, but it's hard to argue with the power it brings. I like red for REB's anyway.
I see no reason to leave the UW-shell for either Bob or punishing fire... Just respect loam/grove/punishing fire with a lot of graveyard hate and bring path's to find bob/crusher/kotr/goyf/whatever. You have CA and withough a graveyard they don't. Same goes for the "new junk"...
Some noob questions:
Why some list pack daze and some other pack spell snare? What are these cards try to accomplish?
Thanks
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