That deck's color requirements seem pretty modest, and you get to run some really attractive colorless sources like Factory. My instincts would be to give Sea Gate Wreckage a try once you were on 6 colorless sources (over the Mutavault), but that deck checks a lot of the boxes for me and doesn't seem to fall vicitim to a lot of the problems that I ordinarily associate with Blade decks.Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
I might test it out.
EDIT: I just jammed some Cockatrice games with a version of it. My changes were:
-1 Academy Ruins
-1 Mutavault
-1 Spell Pierce
-1 Island
+2 Wasteland
+1 Counterspell
+1 Sea Gate Wreckage
I also smoothed out some of the weirder Planeswalkers in the board with a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and a Flusterstorm and cut the SB Counterspell for a second Flusterstorm. Darrel, if you read this, can you explain the SB Walkers, especially Gideon Jura? 6-mana Elspeth seems pretty solid against Shardless and Miracles, and Eldrazi if you survive to 6 mana.
I couldn't get a feel for the changes to the Counter suite, but while getting UU wasn't hard and having actual Counterspell was great in the games I played (one match each against Loam and Shardless), I can imagine a lot of games where you want Pierce to protect SFM from Lightning Bolt so you can stabilize quickly with Batterskull. My assumption is that the swap there is basically a wash in terms of EV. No problems at all casting Thought-Knot, even through Wasteland. I'm not sure it's where you want to be, but it definitely has some out of left field qualities and a lot of people probably won't be prepared for it. It's also a good way to proactively protect SFM from removal in midrange matchups or lock up the ground against any non-Tarmogoyf, non-Eldrazi deck. It's probably too slow against Eldrazi, but being colorless is really good against Mother of Runes, which I expect to see more of with Thalia Heretic Cathar being printed. I got to activate Sea Gate against Shardless and it won me a game all by itself (we were both in topdeck mode, so topdecking two cards to his one was great). I almost want to find room for maindeck Crucible. My experience with it was definitely colored by the matchups I played, but I've been playing it in Shardless lately and I've been very happy with it, and Factory make it even better.
On the negative side, the deck was definitely light on cantrips, which cuts both ways against cards like Chalice but also makes it much harder to support the third MD equipment since you'll draw a piece fairly often. This could be the thing that drives me back to a second Pierce in the main, since it's not bad (or difficult) at all to play a Sword or a Jitte, hold up Snare/Pierce, and flash in Snapcaster or Clique at the end of the next turn and equip and attack. Despite all the qualities I described above, Thought-Knot gives the deck more of a midrange feel than I think is optimal (if you want a blue midrange deck, Shardless is just better at playing that game), and I could easily see cutting down to two for the third Ponder, a maindeck Crucible, or to add the fourth Island back into my list. The cost of TKS also means you probably want to play Sword of Feast and Famine rather than SoFaI as your third MD equipment and board SoFaI if it's that important against something like Miracles.
I think there's something here, just not sure what.
Last edited by btm10; 08-01-2016 at 11:13 PM.
Hey everyone! I am in fact the guy that played this deck. So this deck kinda started out as a joke, that I wanted to play TKS in a deck, because if Clique is good, then how can Clique plus slightly chunkier Clique be bad? I brewed it in the form above, played it like a month ago, and shelfed it, as magic took a short backseat. However this deck was completely awesome on that Sunday. The games I lost I lost to the manabase + Wasteland (I happened to be in a place where I drew only tundras and colorless sources, which sucked). But I went 5-2 that day, and was 10-4 in games, so the matches I won I won very easily.
The SB Walkers: I wanted something that was more high impact in fair matchups. Typically against blade decks your opponents bring in REBs and Disenchant style effects, so white non Artifact and Enchantment permanents are a big game. Gideon was for the supremely fair decks (Jund, Junk, Shardless) and is an excellent top end against the Delver Decks, because it can fog their attacks, kill Tarmogoyf and finish the game, very versatile. The 6 mana elspeth was garbage. I was being very ambitious, and felt like my Jund and Shardless Matchups were bad, and I put it in, because theoretically they shouldn't ever be able to beat it. I didn't even board it in against Jund. Cut that Card IMMEDIATELY (Which you did, for another excellent walker!)
You also figured out that I forgot wasteland was a card (until I was getting crushed by it, and then I was like: "I Could have played that to splash TKS.. I am dumb." Two wastelands was the number I wanted. I wouldn't cut down on factory however, because that card is 4 or 0, and it was a great card all day, Suited up factories killed my control opponents, and I killed multiple Bobs with block plus tap.
I couldn't get a feel for the changes to the Counter suite, but while getting UU wasn't hard and having actual Counterspell was great in the games I played (one match each against Loam and Shardless)
I can imagine a lot of games where you want Pierce to protect SFM from Lightning Bolt so you can stabilize quickly with Batterskull.
I wanted 2 pierce and 2 snare so that I had 4 answers to 2 backbreaking cards for us on turn 2 (Hymn and Counterbalance) as well as having ways to protect SFM as you said. I actually fetched Batterskull the least, as you just wanted to be able to equip the factories with Sword or Jitte (also didn't hurt I played many delver and X/2, X/1 Decks so sword and Jitte were better), but batterskull is always the endboss for this deck.
No problems at all casting Thought-Knot, even through Wasteland. I'm not sure it's where you want to be, but it definitely has some out of left field qualities and a lot of people probably won't be prepared for it. It's also a good way to proactively protect SFM from removal in midrange matchups or lock up the ground against any non-Tarmogoyf, non-Eldrazi deck. It's probably too slow against Eldrazi, but being colorless is really good against Mother of Runes, which I expect to see more of with Thalia Heretic Cathar being printed.
I also didn't experience problems casting TKS. The problem I had with blade decks before is that every single one of your threats dies to punishing fire if you don't have a weapon. TKS gives you a threat that doesn't do that.:
So you would ask: Why not True Name instead? I wanted something that interacted with my opponent, that also survived a punishing fire, taking more cliques off the table. Could have played spell queller, but I decided I wanted more of the vendillion clique effect (interaction with my opponent, so that it is at least defensible to keep in against combo, unlike true-name). IT is a touch slow against Eldrazi.
I got to activate Sea Gate against Shardless and it won me a game all by itself (we were both in topdeck mode, so topdecking two cards to his one was great). :
I considered Sea Gate Wreckage after the tournament, because I did end up hellbent a couple times, and would have liked that effect.
I almost want to find room for maindeck Crucible.:
One of my potential plans moving forward included a pair of MD Wasteland, and a SB Wasteland and Crucible for matchups where that effect mattered, but Crucible doesn't really do anything outside of the very fair and grindy matchups, so that card is getting left in the SB if being played at all.
On the negative side, the deck was definitely light on cantrips, which cuts both ways against cards like Chalice but also makes it much harder to support the third MD equipment since you'll draw a piece fairly often. This could be the thing that drives me back to a second Pierce in the main, since it's not bad (or difficult) at all to play a Sword or a Jitte, hold up Snare/Pierce, and flash in Snapcaster or Clique at the end of the next turn and equip and attack. Despite all the qualities I described above, Thought-Knot gives the deck more of a midrange feel than I think is optimal (if you want a blue midrange deck, Shardless is just better at playing that game), and I could easily see cutting down to two for the third Ponder, a maindeck Crucible, or to add the fourth Island back into my list. The cost of TKS also means you probably want to play Sword of Feast and Famine rather than SoFaI as your third MD equipment and board SoFaI if it's that important against something like Miracles.
I didn't really feel light on cantrips. The thing about this deck is that you don't want to spend your early turns cantripping. You want to spend them interacting. Cantrips are best used in this deck on like turn 4 to set up your mid to late game, or dig for an answer you truly need. If you spend your early turns cantripping and your opponent is doing anything that is reasonable in legacy, you are dead, because you don't have a combo to cantrip into. The third piece of equipment is fine, and this deck looks at it like D&T does. You have 1!! Answer to TNN, so you need to have a second way to sneak by it and pressure them. Thus the SOFAI. Feast and Famine doesn't particularly interest me, as the trigger is relatively weak. I would in some instances rather have a War and Peace, but that isn't directly after a Fire and Ice. I wouldn't cut that card at all. Thought-knot seer is the reason you are playing these colorless lands, otherwise the deck would be mono basics and fetches and playing multiple back to basics. Having 5 essential thoughtseizes as well as 9 mainboard counterspell effects is a great number of interaction spells against your combo opponents, and I never felt lacking because of having TKS to take a key piece.
I am going to continue playing this deck, because it was excellent fun, and I am going to try and figure out if I can optimize the manabase to cast everything and not die to Wasteland. I will be travelling next week on vacation and get to play a ton of legacy vs a bunch of matchups with old friends, so that will be a good place to run this down a gauntlet, and see how it feels. I will report back then certainly. IF there are any other questions, feel free to put them here. I will answer after I get off work today!
HAve a wonderful day and have fun everyone!
-Darrel
Congrats on the good result.
Did only 1 Jace in the 75 feel like too few?
I've never played Gideon Jura in Legacy but I've got to try him out, he just kicks so much ass.
I've really liked playing 3 Spell Pierce main in straight UW to supplement Force against combo in game 1. Counterspell is great but can be slow, and you can't play many copies of it, and Spell Snare is often too narrow. It also has utility in Delver matchups even post-board such as the scenario you mentioned.
One Jace in the 75 was the perfect number of Jace. For these blade decks, unless you show deathrite, Dark confidant, and lingering souls, more than likely your opponent will bring in REB. To depend on a blue 4 mana permanent in these matchups where REB comes in as your wincon, or to have multiple of this card and get blown out.. Miserable. In testing I played 2 Jace, and would just have them die to REB in matchups where having Jace mattered. Against combo, of course you would like a second jace, but it is just a slower clock than random layabout creature with a SoFaI on it, so I would rather just Stoneforge, try to draw disruption creatures and be the beatdown. The heavy emphasis on blue in this specific deck is to be able to disrupt your opponent with the counterspells and Clique, and utilize Snapcaster as a strong card advantage/selection engine, depending on what job he needs to serve. Also, Elspeth and Gideon in the Delver matchups are surprisingly powerful. They would be leaning on daze and pierce against them, but if they resolve producing a ton of blockers/racing, or fog/assassinating their creatures is great. The very top end is more built in protection as well as a win con. Elspeth ultimate can also be a relevant threat in games where the board gets bogged down with her tokens, TKS, manlands, opposing creatures, and can cause attacks that can play into your favor, because an Elspeth ultimate would be unbeatable in this case.
I don't hate the Idea of 3 Pierce, as the card is very, very good early as a protecting card or a supplement to Force, but you do need to play Spell Snare. There are a lot of backbreaking cards that you do want a straight up hard counter for at 2 mana (Stoneforge, Bob, Goyf, Snap, Pyro,Thalia, Infernal Tutor, Hymn, Counterbalance, SBesque cards: Teeg, Scavenging Ooze, Sylvan Library,Disenchant), where pierce doesn't always get the job done, and pitching a card to force hurts your early game development too much. Thus I don't mind playing the 2-2 split. In the matchups they are bad, you get to board them out for Flusterstorms straight up. In matchups where they are insane (usually creature decks) you can board out the pierces. It is certainly a comfort specific thing, but I crushed opponents because they don't play around a spell snare on turn 2, and have an important card countered.
@BTM10
I tested the changes you made today, and I just wanted to report back on them:
1. It seems peculiar to remove a blue source and go down to 12 blue sources and try to have 2 counterspells (which then you have to cast on time as disruption, with 7 colorless lands in your deck.. Oof). Plus with only 3 islands, Snapcaster counterspell is a dream unless the opponent doesn't have wasteland. I will rectify the removal of a blue source with a comment below:
2. Sea gate wreckage is awful. The game has to go infinite long, and you have to not get wastelanded, and as I like the change to add wastelands, theoretically not use your wastelands yourself. This puts a lot of constriction on what your colorless utility lands can do, and feels very uncomfortable, as often times you will be debating between attacking, destroying a pivotal nonbasic or drawing an extra card. Don't get me wrong, I like drawing extra cards as much as the next guy, but this seems to be a bit much to ask for out of this manabase. I don't hate removing the island for a Mystic Gate however, as that allows your 2 basic plains team up with it and cast counterspell on 2, as well as providing the appropriate colored sources for supreme verdict out of the board.
3. It sounds like you went up to 4 flusterstorm in the board!!!??? Because there were already 2, then you added one for the elspeth, and one for the counterspell?? That is either super ambitious, or mad genius. I don't know enough I feel about recent legacy events to determine if that is right, or your meta. Let me know how you feel about this.
General:
After another 3 or 4 days of playing the deck and testing, this is where I am at now, and will be whilst the testing continues:
Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Instants
1 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
Creatures
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 True-Name Nemesis
Artifacts
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Sorceries
2 Ponder
1 Council's Judgment
Lands
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
1 Karakas
2 Plains
3 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Mystic Gate
2 Wasteland
SB
1 Gideon Jura
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Disenchant
1 Counterspell
1 Containment Priest
2 Meddling Mage
1 Path to Exile
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Wasteland
Maybeboard:
Timely Reinforcements
Sword of Light and Shadow
Rest in Peace
Spell Queller
Ethersworn Canonist
Engineered Explosives
Grafdigger's Cage
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Reality Smasher
Spellskite
Nahiri, the Lithomancer
Other Cards being Considered:
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
More True-Name Nemesis
Matter Reshaper (this is too ambitious I believe, and leads the deck to optimize to Eldrazi I think, but am interested in the card)
I'll be very honest here: my meta encourages Snares and Counterspell over Pierce. There's very little Delver, there's some combo, there's some Eldrazi, there's a medium amount of Loam, a medium amount of Shardless, a medium amount of Legacy randomness, and a medium amount of Lands. There's a LOT of Miracles.
First, congrats on your result.
To your points:
1. Problems getting to UUWW were mostly what I was getting at with the cantrip-light comment. I didn't have trouble Snapcaster-ing Counterspell when I needed it, but that could just be favorable variance.
2. I was definitely wrong about Sea Gate Wreckage. I got some live games in over the last two days and it was reliably bad. It made the mana noticeably worse, even with 3 Ponders, and was hard to activate, though I didn't have to make as many tough choices as you did. I was going to suggest Adarkar Wastes but Mystic Gate is probably better. I'll keep running the Wastes until I find a Gate to buy.
3. I just misread your list. I'm not sure what I thought was there, but I definitely remember thinking "there should really be some Flusterstorms in this sideboard". I ultimately went with:
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Meddling Mage
2 Containment Priest
2 Flusterstorm
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Spell Pierce
1 Disenchant
1 Path to Exile
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Council's Judgement
1 Supreme Verdict
Also, I realized today after work that since this isn't a deck that wants to Wasteland aggressively and wants to hold up mana fairly frequently, I'm going to try a 1/1 split with Wasteland and Dust Bowl. I haven't drawn the Dust Bowl yet in testing.
EE + Academy Ruins is quite strong but depends on your local meta.
Right now Toxic Deluge main is a star. Many Decks playing it, nearly every black in the main. Especially a control deck can get use of it. Clear board. drop stoneforge.
but this is also a meta choice.
Most of the times EE kills the same as Toxic Deluge for the same or more amount of mana.
Time Walking yourself to clear the board with ruins ee could be risky.
Just as I said it's a meta and personal choice.
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My post was unclear-I do play 1 Counterspell and 1 Snare main, I just don't treat them as anti-combo cards. They're great tools in the fair matchups.
You're right that Jace is a bit of a liability in Blast matchups, particularly Miracles. I'm currently playing 2 Jace/1 Elspeth main, but was thinking of going up to the 3rd Jace and moving Elspeth to the side.
I've actually dropped Flusterstorm from the 75, going with a Canonist and an Invasive Surgery in the board instead. I haven't hit Delirium for Invasive Surgery yet, but having a cheap hard counter has been valuable, so its worth considering.
Explosives not being able to kill Thought-Knot and Reality Smasher is a big argument against running it, even with the Academy Ruins synergy. I think the real question is whether Deluge is better than Supreme Verdict. I think I prefer Deluge main and 2 Verdicts in the board.
EDIT: I'm also boarding a singleton Retribution of the Meek in UW now, specifically for Eldrazi.
I like Surgery/Envelop in principle, but having a counter that either hits Counterbalance or hits other counterspells is more important than being able to hit Sorceries. We have access to more powerful combo hate in the form of Meddling Mage, Cannonist, and Priest, but our control mirrors seem weak without more generic counterspells.
Hi everyone!
I've recently sleeved up a Blade Control deck, and as I am completely new to this thread I would like to know your opinion about my list and changes I can eventually make.
It is an UW version. In the future I will definetely add a third colour, but now my budget isn't high enough for that ;) On the other hand the list with Thought-Not Seers seems really fun and I think I will give it a try!
My local meta consists of Nic Fit, Junk, Death & Taxes, Goblins, Sneak Show, BUG Delver, Elves, Burn, Infect, sometimes I see Storm, UR Painter, Eldrazi, or Loam.
MB:
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 True-Name Nemesis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Counterspell
2 Council's Judgement
2 Spell Pierce
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
2 Tundra
6 Island
3 Plains
SB: (a bit random and not tested on a tournament yet)
2 Meddling Mage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Back to Basics (completely not sure about them)
2 Rest in Peace
2 Hydroblast (I consider switching them for 2 Kor Firewalkers, as I need these 2 slots for my Burn and Goblins match-up)
1 Path to Exile
1 Holy Light
1 Disenchant
Thanks in advance!
Is UWr still a viable baseline for this deck? I've been out of the game for almost a year, and that's all I have built right now. Looking to take it to some smaller local tournaments for fun. I could probably make it into straight UW if needed, but I have 4 Alpha bolts and always love to play with them whenever I can.
I think UWr is a fine choice if your meta is more creature/fair-centric. I've been on UWr for quite some time and have found it does well vs many non-combo decks, but struggles vs stuff like Storm.
I think it's kind of crazy that it's been 3 months since anyone worked on this deck. For some reason 2 Tasigur Esper blade decks are big in Japan while a really interesting Standstill/Spellstutter Sprite version took second last weekend at the Classic.
I've actually been playing a ton of Stoneblade over the last few months. I played UWr at EE5 (unimpressive 4-4 drop record) and have been testing an Esper list inspired by the Japanese ones.
So far, I haven't missed TNN in the Esper list. I've been running a 1 Tasigur/3 Souls split instead of the 2/2 from the Japanese lists. People forget how much of a beating Lingering Souls can be in Legacy, though granted it can be awkward against all the Deathrite Shamans. I hadn't played Tasigur in Legacy before and he has yet to be bad, but I wonder how good the 2nd copy is with the prevalence of Karakas, as D&T is now everywhere. Another card I'm trying is Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, which I love so far and plays very well with the Esper cards.
What do you think of the Landstill hybrid?
Edit: nm
It's probably pretty sweet. I tried playing UW Flash as a creatire-heavy blade variant with a somewhat similar creature package (Sprite, Stoneforge, Spell Queller, Snapcaster Mage, Clique) when Spell Queller came out, and had some creature lands too. I totally missed the Standstill angle, but Spellstutter Sprite was amazing. That card feels very underplayed.
Kevin Jones was squeezed into 33rd place on breakers at SCG Baltimore playing an Esper Stoneblade deck very similar to the Japanese lists, with Lingering Souls/Tasigur and 0 True-Names. Granted, he is a proficient player, but I think the concept has legs.
Shaheen Soorani piloted the pure UW(!!) list from this article to 58th place. Gisela, the Broken Blade is an interesting sideboard card that's basically Baneslayer lite. I'm not crazy about Back to Basics as a strategy though, it feels much weaker than Blood Moon to me.
I've begun testing with Dave Patwell's list and absolutely love it so far. I expect to be tinkering with it for a long time. Has anyone else been playing with it?
ive been playing sooranis list i like it a lot i play baneslayer over gisela tho, good in more matchups for one more mana and doesnt die to bolt, however i see the merit in gisela, there should be a seperate threat for u/w shaheens deck is so different than the 3 color builds also does anyone have a link to kevin jones list? or the japanese lists its built off of
I thought the Japanese Esper list had already been posted but it looks like it wasn't. Here it is, 3 very similar lists made Top8 of this event.
I don't know Kevin's exact list, but I saw bits of some of his games and he was clearly playing something very similar. One of my friends played against him during the event and confirmed he had no TNN in the deck.
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