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Thread: UW Sagas

  1. #61

    Re: UW Sagas

    I think if you are committed to the history& counterbalance plan you need to cut 1 ofs for a splashblack for animatou (- is extraestrids, +is bs) and tymaret's blessing (copies 5-8 of benalia).

  2. #62

    Re: UW Sagas

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    tymaret's blessing (copies 5-8 of benalia).
    Hum?
    Which card is this?

  3. #63

    Re: UW Sagas

    Quote Originally Posted by aedemiel View Post
    Hum?
    Which card is this?
    I think they mean Tymaeret Calls the Dead

    After playing with the History version quite a bit I'm pretty sure it doesn't need both History + Tymaeret or History + Sharknado

  4. #64

    Re: UW Sagas

    Now that commander is released you really need to fit nesting grounds in the deck, since its pretty insane with sagas (keep triggering them every turn)

  5. #65

    Re: UW Sagas

    I didn't want to make a new thread for this even thought it's more like a standstill list than Saga, because it developed from the same shell:

    [20 Lands]
    1 Mystic Sanctuary
    1 Tundra
    2 Plains
    4 Flooded Strand
    5 Polluted Delta / etc
    6 Islands
    1 Volcanic

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Force of Will
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Porphyry Nodes

    4 Standstill
    2 Replenish
    1 Ominous Seas
    4 Shark Typhoon

    ~9 free slot

    I think Porphyry Nodes might be a better use of that slot than the Myth Realised which the other builds were using.
    There is some situations where you might replenish back both standstill + sharknado which is a bit of a nonbo but eventually you will draw another sharknado

  6. #66
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    Re: UW Sagas

    4 Porphyry and 4 Sharknado sound like overkill. Porphyry will often 1-for-1 and then die. Against a wider board it's slow to answer the real problems, while Terminus is a faster solution for the same mana. The interaction between Shark Typhoon and Replenish is cool, but it's more of a lategame card. You could free up slots with -2 Porphyry -2 Shark. Maybe -1 Replenish (slow).

    You're probably better off with these in some of those flex slots to have more interaction:
    3 Teferi, Time Raveler
    3 Snapcaster Mage
    2 Counterbalance
    2 Terminus

    Teferi enforces a soft lock with Standstill.

    Snapcaster diversifies your plays: Snap+Plow does what extra Porphyrys would do against creature decks, while you can Snap+Brainstorm or Snap+counter against spell-based decks.

    Counterbalance is the most powerful enchantment you can play in UWx control. Cutting some of the high end helps balance the curve too.

    Terminus answers a wide board faster than Porphyry can, for the same mana.

    For any remaining flex slots you might want 1-ofs like:
    Sevinne's Reclamation
    Dovin's Veto
    Counterspell
    Detention Sphere
    Force of Negation
    Spell Pierce

  7. #67

    Re: UW Sagas

    I tried a similar idea; I would recommend adding cast out as another cyclable enchantment that is not embarassing to hard cast, & a 1 of lay claim for the memes. this assumes you want to lean into replenish more.

  8. #68

    Re: UW Sagas

    This is potentially a home for the new 1U landfall hate enchantment
    - a cmc 2 enchantment that draws a card on etb is synergistic with Estrids Invocation
    - the ability stacks in multiples, so if you copy it and your opponent fetches then they have to bounce 2 lands

    However I think it's easy enough to play around (and pretty low impact) that I still think it's definitely worse than Omen of the Sea, and I'm not sure it's even better than Dovin's Acuity or Spreading Seas

  9. #69

    Re: UW Sagas

    Tournament report with a slightly updated build of this
    0-2 vs Lotus Cobra Maverick
    G1 Im off to an ok start but I can't find the plow for the depths kill he is setting up
    G2 I'm off to an ok start again but things go downhill after he Rec sages my Court of Grace before I can Invo copy it. Eventually I find humility but he's the monarch and I slowly die to 1/1 before I find a history or removal (Im having to dance my invocation around my Dsphere to alternately stall his creatures and unlock my islands from choke, crazy game

    2-0 vs Karn Urza Echo
    G1 I force a chalice and he dies to history+invo before he can do anything
    G2 He miscounts his mana and gets coating with Karn when he could have got lattice and killed me, I eot kill the coating with Seal of Cleansing then untap and play Court of Grace which is basically GG

    0-2 vs Chalice post
    G1 I get chaliced and drop History but I get super flooded, I almost kill my opp just with history beats + kaheera but he has lifegain from glimmerposts and he slowly shoots my knights with ballista and topdecks Karn -> ensnaring bridge
    G2 My opponent first few turns are post -> golos, on like turn 4 my opponent has like 12 mana and play chalice on 1, I resp with E tutor for B2B and he follows up with chalice on 3 which not only kills the B2B play but every other spell in my hand as well. Possibly I should realize that if my opp follow up play to the chalice 1 is like a Ulamog or a Karn then the B2B doesn't save me, so one of the main ways I lose is chalice 3 in which case I should have E tutor for Seal of Cleansing instead

    decklist
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Prismatic Vista
    1 Polluted Delta
    1 Tundra
    5 Snow Plains
    5 Snow Swamp

    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Force of Will
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Sevinne's Reclamation
    4 Ponder
    4 Brainstorm

    3 On Thin Ice
    1 Detention Sphere
    4 History of Benalia
    3 Estrid's Invocation
    4 Omen of the Seas
    2 Counterbalance
    2 Dovin's Acuity

    1 Teferi, Time Raveler

    SB:
    1 Court of Grace
    1 Back to Basics
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Surgical Extraction
    2 Rest in Peace
    1 Humility
    2 Dovin's Veto
    2 Seal of Cleansing
    1 Deafening Silence
    2 Enlightened Tutor
    1 ***Kaheera the Orphanguard***

    I feel that the main shell of the deck is reasonably solid (the package of Reclamation / Invocation / History / Omen) but the CB/Acuity are not great. (Wrong MUs for them maybe, and possibly Estrid Invocation doesn't need so much help as 2x Acuity + the rest of everything) and trying to figure out the package of removal is tricky (whether On Thin Ice or the Porphyry Nodes I was using before or something different like supreme verdict etc)

    However I think possibly a good approach is to drop the History entirely and just play Courts of Grace in the maindeck as the wincondition. The combo of Estrid/Court is extremely potent. As was pointed out to me by Reeplcheep You stack the upkeep triggers so that any Angel/Spirit triggers resolve after the Estrid flicker trigger, which means that flicker resolves and you copy Court to become the monarch first, so you always get to make Angels. Meanwhile you are also the monarch drawing an extra card per turn, it's pretty difficult for the opponent to recover from this.

    Downsides:
    - Lose the ability of fast history to just "get" people sometimes and/or pressure the opp to prevent them from dicking about with Narset / Sylvan library
    - Having the wincon not targetable by Sevinne's Rec is a little bit of a worry (but you can switch to the angle of using sevinnes rec to resolve court with Tef, or put a blue court in the sb)

    Upside
    - 1 court is a much much more impactful card than 1 History which lets you spend extra slots on extra invocation/teferi etc and not be so reliant on assembling multiple history or history + estrid
    - Not needing WW on turn 3 makes the mana better (if the deck is keeping CB at least for UU on turn 2 which may or may not be correct)
    - Having both Estrid and History cmc 3 is good for Sevinnes Rec but semi-awkward for curve reasons, being able to play a 2-3-4 of like Omen-Estrid-Court is much nicer. (Well Omen->Estrid->History would still be a great start I suppose so maybe thats not too significant)

    So something like
    -4 History
    -2 Acuity
    +2 Court
    +2 thing you can curve into invocation
    +1 invocation
    +1 teferi

    i.e.

    20 Lands (slightly fewer plains than before maybe)

    4 Plow
    4 FoW
    4 Ponder
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Force of Negation (possibly more)
    2 Sevinne's Rec

    2 Tef Time Raveler

    4 Omen of the Sea
    4 Estrids Invocation
    2 Court of Grace
    2 Counterbalance (somewhat dubious I think, not exactly sure how good this card is at the moment)
    2 cmc-2 thing that draws a card off estrids (so like Spreading Seas or Confounding Conundrum or whatever)
    1 Detention Sphere
    3 Other removal spells whether that's verdict or terminus or thin ice or porphyry nodes or whatever

    Something like this is probably where I would start

  10. #70

    Re: UW Sagas

    Glad to hear you are still working on this deck. Post and maverick are inherently tough mus for enchantment based decks imo. Seems like the deck is fine but needs a bit of tuning to be great.

    I agree acuity should be cut for a 2 drop for curve reasons. You said you didn’t like Medomais in the past right?

    Now that you are less white intensive perhaps you can play mystic sanctuary? That improves counterbalance quite a bit, but perhaps you lack relevant instants along the curve.

    If you build a more court focused list, Island Sanctuary could be great. Just it with court should win the game now that coatls are less played. And it isn’t great to curve estrids into but it does let you curve sanctuary -> estrids -> use sanctuary, court next turn copy court which is insane.

    Ruined halo is another damage prevention effect that is worse than sanctuary against go wide but better vs certain combo decks and single attackers.

    Alternative options are baffling end plus founding of meletis which are mediocre by themselves but let you removal with etb value (turn something into a 3/3, make a 0/4, turn something into a 3/3, make a 0/4 etc.

    I might take your list and try to splash trial of ambition and aminatou, as my more discard focused list wasn’t working.

  11. #71

    Re: UW Sagas

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Glad to hear you are still working on this deck. Post and maverick are inherently tough mus for enchantment based decks imo. Seems like the deck is fine but needs a bit of tuning to be great.

    I agree acuity should be cut for a 2 drop for curve reasons. You said you didn’t like Medomais in the past right?

    Now that you are less white intensive perhaps you can play mystic sanctuary? That improves counterbalance quite a bit, but perhaps you lack relevant instants along the curve.

    If you build a more court focused list, Island Sanctuary could be great. Just it with court should win the game now that coatls are less played. And it isn’t great to curve estrids into but it does let you curve sanctuary -> estrids -> use sanctuary, court next turn copy court which is insane.

    Ruined halo is another damage prevention effect that is worse than sanctuary against go wide but better vs certain combo decks and single attackers.

    Alternative options are baffling end plus founding of meletis which are mediocre by themselves but let you removal with etb value (turn something into a 3/3, make a 0/4, turn something into a 3/3, make a 0/4 etc.

    I might take your list and try to splash trial of ambition and aminatou, as my more discard focused list wasn’t working.
    Problem with medomais is that the synergy with Invocation isn't very good
    I think I prefer spreading seas the most for that slot

    I think the only reason island sanctuary became popular was because its cmc 2 so it worked with Lurrus right? Is there a reason why I wouldn't play Solitary Confinement over that? I assume costing an extra mana is worth having text vs depths / fireblast etc

    I like the idea of Mystic Sanc if I am playing it with terminus (also with CB you are right) but yeah there aren't really 2drop instant/sorcery I want to play. Could be okay anyway as it's pretty low cost

    Also I wonder if this should be a Yorion deck, I kind of lean towards no but maybe I'm irrationally attached to the idea of playing 60 cards

  12. #72

    Re: UW Sagas

    Other than curve, the reason I suggested island sanctuary instead is because it is -1 card every turn instead of -2 cards every turn. I am not sure if we have enough card draw to be able to support confinement.

    I like yorion in my deck; it improves your grindy matchups but it does make your combo mus a bit worse.

  13. #73
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    Re: UW Sagas

    Scroll Rack can synergy with Counterbalance. Hides cards against discard, set up the Terminus, fetchlands. I've played it a bit in EDH with success. It costs 2 is a bit rough in this format tho, activations costing 1 also could be a bit much. It does a bit more for card quality than Sensei's Divining Top, at a higher mana investment. Looks good if you're counting on a long, grindy game.

    Curfew is a nice answer to a flipped Delver, SnT stuff since it doesn't target, and its symmetrical if you want to bounce Snapcaster Mage. Playing more 1 cmc removal seems good.


    EDIT:
    No love for Rhystic Study in Legacy yet I guess. Turn 1, Rhystic looks so strong. Chrome Mox or Petal into Rhystic, my opponent drops their hand, but I draw 4-7 cards?
    Luck is a residue of design.



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  14. #74

    Re: UW Sagas

    Quote Originally Posted by Vacrix View Post
    Scroll Rack can synergy with Counterbalance. Hides cards against discard, set up the Terminus, fetchlands. I've played it a bit in EDH with success. It costs 2 is a bit rough in this format tho, activations costing 1 also could be a bit much. It does a bit more for card quality than Sensei's Divining Top, at a higher mana investment. Looks good if you're counting on a long, grindy game.

    Curfew is a nice answer to a flipped Delver, SnT stuff since it doesn't target, and its symmetrical if you want to bounce Snapcaster Mage. Playing more 1 cmc removal seems good.


    EDIT:
    No love for Rhystic Study in Legacy yet I guess. Turn 1, Rhystic looks so strong. Chrome Mox or Petal into Rhystic, my opponent drops their hand, but I draw 4-7 cards?
    Scroll rack is like almost-ok but I think it costs too much mana. I have tried Soothsaying in the past for a bit, and it was disappointing in a way that I expect to be similar.

    Curfew is only good if you are picking up your own creature (or using it as specific hate for like SNT Emrakul or Slippery Bogle or something like this because your deck can't play edicts). This deck has no creatures to pick up and has white cards like Humility / Terminus if it needs to answer resilient creatures

    Rhystic Study costs too much mana and giving the opponent the choice to ignore it at the cost of a card is too weak of an effect. If you drop your whole hand just to do that then you give the opponent time to draw an extra land to ignore it OR your opponent lets you draw 1 card to resolve their big game-winning spell in which case Rhystic Study was mostly a waste. In multiplayer games the fact it's asymmetrical (compared to e.g. sphere of resistance) is more powerful, and a big part of why it's so popular in commander is because the asymmetry and "I will let my opponent draw 1 card" is a lot more tolerable for most people from a "fun" pov than "both me and my opponents are simply unable to cast spells because of the tax". In a 2 player game the symmetry of sphere is not as bad I think and more importantly if you are building your deck to play Rhystic / Sphere on turn 1 then you have Sol Lands, Chrome Mox etc to give yourself a mana advantage so the symmetry of Sphere affects you less anyway

  15. #75
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    Re: UW Sagas

    Soothsaying is much worse than Scroll Rack.

    Scroll Rack is closer to a Top that costs 1 more to cast and the same to activate.
    Soothsaying is a Top that costs 3 times as much to activate and can never draw you the top card.

    That's just for the Counterbalance lock. Outside CB, Rack can also put new cards in your hand or hide cards from discard.

    Rack deserves testing independent of Soothsaying now that Oko is gone.

  16. #76
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    Re: UW Sagas

    You forgot the most important part: with a card in hand and a Scroll Rack you can't mill out. Beat those JTMS ults for days

  17. #77

    Re: UW Sagas

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Soothsaying is much worse than Scroll Rack.

    Scroll Rack is closer to a Top that costs 1 more to cast and the same to activate.
    Soothsaying is a Top that costs 3 times as much to activate and can never draw you the top card.

    That's just for the Counterbalance lock. Outside CB, Rack can also put new cards in your hand or hide cards from discard.

    Rack deserves testing independent of Soothsaying now that Oko is gone.
    I understand that Scroll Rack is likely better than Soothsaying, it still has the problem of
    1) Costs quite a lot of mana (2 to cast plus activations)
    2) Unlike divining top it can't ever cantrip to shuffle away etc (i.e. it will always be -1 card, maybe not so much of an issue if you only play exactly 1 copy of it to avoid redundancy but still annoying)

    "CB lock" isn't really a big part of this deck's gameplan (at least not the version with History of Benalia)
    maybe I could consider it in the more miracles-focused version

    At the moment the 2 builds are like

    Sagas:

    5 Snow Plains
    5 Snow Island
    4 Vista
    4 Strand
    1 Tundra
    1 Delta

    4 FoW
    4 Plow
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    2 Sevinnes
    2 FoN

    1 Teferi

    4 History
    3 Estrids
    4 Omen
    3 Thin Ice
    1 D Sphere
    2 Medomais Prophecy (maybe this isn't as bad as I thought because it's an okay sevinnes target, also alright with CB) / Spreading Seas / Confounding Conundrum
    2 Counterbalance / Flex slot (Maindeck court also possible here but it hurts the combo matchup a lot probably)

    Monarch Miracles:

    3? Snow Plains
    6? Snow Island
    4 Vista
    4 Strand
    1 Tundra
    1 Delta
    1 Mystic Sanctuary

    4 FoW
    4 Plow
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    3 Terminus
    2 FoN

    2 Court of Grace
    3 Estrids
    4 Omen
    2 Counterbalance?
    1 Detention Sphere
    +7

    The second deck could possibly play 1 Scroll Rack but I don't even know how good counterbalance is in the meta / the deck
    The difficult thing about the second list is that cutting History breaks a lot of synergy because it becomes way too light on Estrid targets and the Sevinne's Rec also becomes not very good etc etc
    One possible option that could be strong is a red splash for Pyroblasts and Omen of the Forge but maybe Omen of the Forge is too weak

  18. #78

    Re: UW Sagas



    This seems very interesting. Replenish isn’t a card you want to turbo out most games anyways, and this is infinitely better vs daze. It doesn’t play super nice with standstill, but it is pretty awesome with sagas.

  19. #79

    Re: UW Sagas

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post


    This seems very interesting. Replenish isn’t a card you want to turbo out most games anyways, and this is infinitely better vs daze. It doesn’t play super nice with standstill, but it is pretty awesome with sagas.
    Yes it's quite interesting
    However I think Sagas are not enough of an incentive to play Replenish compared to Shark Typhoons

    For example this was a deck I liked pre-MH2

    4 Prismatic Vista
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Polluted Delta
    1 Tundra
    7 Island
    2 Plains
    1 Mystic Sanctuary
    1 Karakas
    1 Hall of Heliod

    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Force of Will
    4 Ponder
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Thirst For Meaning
    2 Replenish
    1 Counterspell

    4 Standstill
    4 Porphyry Nodes
    4 Shark Typhoon
    2 Cast Out
    1 Search for Azcanta

    I think the suspend replenish could be a potentially good replacement for actual replenish in this deck

    2 Problems I commonly had with the Saga build was:

    a) The fact that History costs 3 and Invocation also cost 3 is awkward because you want to curve out by copying History with invocation, the deck would be much more interesting if you could curve more cheaper enchantments into History (with Sarcomancy for example)

    b) The deck was overall not aggressive enough, such that History often felt like a dead card until you had already taken control of the game. Occasionally you could draw e.g. 2 History in a row and have it be relevant but too often it felt like a useless card in hand (compared to typhoon where you can just cycle it)

    In a build of the deck where all the enchantments cost 3 or less I still think Sevinnes Reclamation is better than even this new suspend replenish but yeah the deck seems to have too many other problems and I'm not very interested in pursuing it further. Maybe there is a more aggro UB build possible with cards like sarcomancy and tymaeret calls the dead (or maybe even dreadhorde invasion)

  20. #80

    Re: UW Sagas

    Yes the UB version seems to have more promise, but the problem is finding a payoff for making lots of zombie tokens (other than cabal therapy). Driven//Despair? Hogaak? Cull the meek into Liliana’s mastery?

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