UW Sanctuary (Helm/RiP combo)

[niv]

NECRO!! So...with Deathrite showing up in mono white decks(this dude is everywhere) and Abrupt Decay hopefully seeing much less play, is this deck viable again? Always wanted to try it but never got around to it back in 2012! Doable without counter/top?
"Ancient thread, lost to the ages...arise and return to the frontmost pages!"

I think the Lantern control shell looks promising for this kind of win condition at the moment: Thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29842-Legacy-Lantern/page18). The later pages are starting to develop into something similar, and it shows a lot of promise in my opinion. But, maybe I'm just biased because I really like the idea of that deck.

[NegatorITA]

really nobody is playing this sweet deck anymore?:cry:
or there is another thread I'm not aware of?

[Final Fortune]

I was messing about with an updated version of this in case of RUG and Reanimator returning, doesn't seem half bad.

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Counterbalance
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Detention Sphere
2 Jace The Mindsculptor
1 Energy Field (honestly don't care for it, leaning towards a Path to Exile)
2 Soothsaying
4 Brainstorm
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Rest in Piece
2 Helm of Obediance
22 lands.

[Zapp]

really nobody is playing this sweet deck anymore?:cry:
or there is another thread I'm not aware of?

Legacy lantern thread....

[aedemiel]

So I played this list for 5 matches in the practice room (I know it’s no league, but bear with me).


2 Omen of the Sea
2 Court of Grace
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Counterbalance
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Detention Sphere
4 Energy Field
4 Rest in Peace
4 Force of Will
1 Terminus
2 Arcum's Astrolabe
2 Spell Pierce
// should be Force of Negation but my ManaTraders subscription isn't high enough.

1 Tundra
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Karakas
4 Snow-Covered Island
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Volcanic Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Flusterstorm
1 Terminus
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Deafening Silence
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Moat
2 Wear // Tear
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Back to Basics
2 Pyroblast




I simply took my old RIP/Helm list and made a few changes for the current meta and Court of Grace.
My previous list was much more combo oriented, with 3 Impulse, 2 Preordain and 2 Helm to get a quick combo kill.
Here we replaced the Impulse with the Omen of the Sea, and oh boy, I wasn’t ready.
@FTW, at first I didn’t understand why you put 3 Counterbalance main, but being able to flash in Omen makes it very stupid sometimes. Kinda incentivize me to try a more blue focused version of the deck with up to 4 Omen and 3 Counterbalance…

Court of Grace was fine, but I couldn't take true advantage of the Monarchy. Maybe my split was wrong and it should be 2 Helm/1 Court… More testing is needed.

I fell against 12-Post. Lost pitifully. The Match-up is still abysmal.

I will try to test Court of Cunning next time. Maybe in the blue version I mentioned…

[FTW]

Yeah the Counterbalance main works well with Omen of the Sea. Each Omen can set it up twice while fixing your draws. Reeplcheep's also been using that synergy in his Aminatou deck.

You can also do CB tricks with ETutor, since there are relevant targets at all parts of the curve. That play offsets the card disadvantage from ETutor, because you both fix your draw and counter some spell. Even if you're not countering their best spell, you stole a card back while casting a 1-mana tutor.

Sometimes I just jam CB early to draw out answers. Most decks run very few enchantment kill slots in the 75. If they Force or Decay or Wear//Tear Counterbalance, that's fewer answers they have for Rip/Helm and Energy Field. If they let it stick, you have CB active and randomly nullify some of their cards. Either way I'm happy.

In a bind, I can also turn on CB with a 1-of Unexpectedly Absent for X=0. That card has many modes. Sure it's instant speed removal for a problem if they fetch, but it can also tuck your own card (e.g. Omen or Astrolabe) to counter a spell, or it can save a combo piece from removal.

I don't have any ideas for 12Post other than that it's a small part of the meta. Counterbalance seems bad there, but it should be good against the fair blue, aggro and combo decks taking up most of the meta.

I do keep 1-of Web of Inertia in the SB to stop "attacks" triggers, including Annihilator, since they get through Energy Field.

I thought the 2nd Court would be good, but I've only run 1 myself so far. Court of Cunning is at a better part of the curve for CB and synergizes with RiP. Seems good.

[FTW]

Now that Oko is banned, both Scroll Rack and Jace, the Mind Sculptor are again playable as ways to support Counterbalance and draw cards. A CB-heavy list seems possible now.


//Lands: 20
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Karakas

//Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Force of Negation
2 Terminus

//Enchantments: 13
1 On Thin Ice
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
1 Court of Cunning
1 Detention Sphere

//Artifacts: 4
3 Scroll Rack
1 Helm of Obedience

//Sideboard: 15
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Dovin's Veto
2 Wear // Tear
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
1 Deafening Silence
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Back to Basics
1 Detention Sphere
1 Web of Inertia
1 Helm of Obedience


Counterbalance Curve MD / SB
0: 20 / 1
1: 16 / 5
2: 13 / 2
3: 4 / 6
4: 1 / 1
5: 4
6: 2

Blue: 22 / 6

Might make room for a Jace or 2nd Detention Sphere MD.
Entreat the Angels is a possible SB secondary win condition (that hits 3 on the CB curve) with Scroll Rack to enable the Miracle


Card choice explanations:
Enlightened Tutor - Instant tutor for any piece Rip/Field or Rip/Helm or CB/Rack and many toolbox tools. It's card disadvantage, but the raw power of Energy Field or CB or Helm is enough to make up for it. You are not playing a 1-for-1 parity game. You're trying to quickly stick a prison lock or combo, willing to accept card disadvantage for mana efficiency if it helps you sculpt or protect more easily, saving your mana for the permanents. You can also make up the card disadvantage by timing ETutor with Counterbalance out to counter a spell.

Helm of Obedience - "5,T: Win the game". Also a tutorable 4 cmc for CB, relevant to answer Chalice @ 2 and Karn.

On Thin Ice - 5th 1cmc removal (has been good in many Xerox decks) and way to ETutor a 1 cmc for Counterbalance

Court of Cunning - draw engine, alternate wincon, tutorable 3 cmc for CB. With Energy Field + Terminus + spot removal, you can hold Monarch for a while.

Scroll Rack - CB enabler, miracle enabler, card filtering & digging for combo pieces with fetchlands

Detention Sphere - catch-all removal to problems in game 1, tutorable 3 cmc for CB, pitches to Force

Engineered Explosives - more catch-all removal to problems at X=0,1,2 or 3. Tutorable 0 cmc for CB (vs LED decks).

Deafening Silence - anti combo, but also prevents you from protecting cards with FoW on your turn, so be careful about use

Ethersworn Canonist - alternate version of Silence that does let you protect Helm with FoW

Narset, Parter of Veils - prevent blue decks from outdrawing you in the lategame, dig for combo pieces

Web of Inertia - 4th copy of Energy Field that stops "attack" triggers and protects planeswalkers, also 3 cmc for CB

Back to Basics - this deck is all about ETutoring into "I win", must play 1

Pithing Needle, Wear // Tear, Dovin's Veto - flexible answers to many problems

[Laser Brains]

I am really liking this! I already have the cards, so this likely where I will go with that crappy Lantern build I was running. Is Court of Cunning there for your alternative win con? It seems a little weak. Especially if you if you give your opponent the monarch. Loving this list!!

[FTW]

I am really liking this! I already have the cards, so this likely where I will go with that crappy Lantern build I was running. Is Court of Cunning there for your alternative win con? It seems a little weak. Especially if you if you give your opponent the monarch. Loving this list!!

It's there for tutorable card draw as well as the alternate wincon.

I played a different version of RipHelm in the Oko meta (without Scroll Rack). It was pretty strong overall. But I found it had a lack of card draw to pull ahead in grindy long games, even when the lock is established or the board is under control. You shouldn't be durdling while the opponent has time to outdraw you and break your advantage. (Examples of when you need to tutor for cards over Helm are if you want to sculpt protection in hand before exposing Helm or the opponent has a Karn/Spyglass/Needle). For mechanic reasons, this deck can't support the usual suspects like Standstill, Snapcaster, Search for Azcanta, or Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. As a solution I added Court of Grace. It was decent for draw and could threaten to steal back the Monarch but overall slow as a wincon, because it just turned on their dead removal spells and made StP lifegain suddenly relevant. Now I'm trying out Court of Cunning as it's easier on the mana, fits the CB curve better, pitches to Force, and synergizes with RiP better.

Just having Scroll Rack should also smooth out those awkward topdecking games. I haven't tested Scroll Rack yet, but it seems good here for a lot of roles now that it's not a 3/3 Elk. It makes CB and Terminus much better, fights the discard that's seeing increased play now, and gives the deck better card selection. Rack also works with Court to clear 2 duds (you can target both players).

I'm not too worried about opponent taking the Monarch. The deck is usually good at holding off dumb creatures if it's survived long enough to bother casting a Court. In those games drawing 2 cards per turn is huge for ensuring the lock doesn't fall. If creature-heavy decks (tribal aggro, D&T, Maverick) give it trouble, the 1 Court can be boarded out.

Alternate wincon could be Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Entreat the Angels. The mainboard could be tweaked by a slot or two to make room. Jace was not in the old build because it was bad in the Oko meta. 1 copy in the 75 seems good here.

[Laser Brains]

It's there for tutorable card draw as well as the alternate wincon.

I played a different version of RipHelm in the Oko meta (without Scroll Rack). It was pretty strong overall. But I found it had a lack of card draw to pull ahead in grindy long games, even when the lock is established or the board is under control. You shouldn't be durdling while the opponent has time to outdraw you and break your advantage. (Examples of when you need to tutor for cards over Helm are if you want to sculpt protection in hand first or answer a Karn/Spyglass/Needle blocking Helm). For mechanic reasons, this deck can't support the usual suspects like Standstill, Snapcaster, Search for Azcanta, or Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. As a solution I added Court of Grace. It was decent for draw and could threaten to steal back the Monarch but overall slow as a wincon, because it just turned on their dead removal spells and made StP lifegain suddenly relevant. Now I'm trying out Court of Cunning as it's easier on the mana, fits the CB curve better, pitches to Force, and synergizes with RiP better.

Just having Scroll Rack should also smooth out those awkward topdecking games. I haven't tested Scroll Rack yet, but it seems good here for a lot of roles now that it's not a 3/3 Elk. It makes CB and Terminus much better, fights the discard that's seeing increased play now, and gives the deck better card selection.

I'm not too worried about opponent taking the Monarch. The deck is usually good at holding off dumb creatures if it's survived long enough to bother casting a Court. In those games drawing 2 cards per turn is huge for ensuring the lock doesn't fall. If creature-heavy decks (tribal aggro, D&T, Maverick) give it trouble, the 1 Court can be boarded out.

Alternate wincon could be Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Entreat the Angels. The mainboard could be tweaked by a slot or two to make room. Jace was not in the old build because it was bad in the Oko meta. 1 copy in the 75 seems good here.

This is looking like a really tight list! If you're not worried about creatures too much then Court of Cunning should work well. You've also got Web of Inertia on the side just in case. I'm going to proxy the few cards I don't have and give this a spin.

As far as Scroll Rack goes, I have tested it and it felt really strong to me. It was one of the best things I did with that crappy Lantern build. It's still not quite as good with CB as Top is because you can't just put it on top of your deck to counter 1cc spells but you can literally swap your entire hand for fresh cards and hopefully grab a fetchland to shuffle them all away. Also, you can put any card from your hand on top of the deck to interact with CB. It felt really really smooth to me.

[Laser Brains]

Are we mostly running On Thin Ice for a lone 1 drop enchantment in which to combo with E-Tutor and CB interactions? Or do we really need that 5th STP? I'm wondering if a lone Land Tax would be better in this slot. It's still a one drop enchantment and this deck does want more card draw and of course it rocks with Scroll Rack.

[FTW]

A bit of both. I noticed more Xerox piles were running 5 1cc removals lately, though this deck already has a lot of anti-aggro maindeck. Land Tax seems good too.

[Laser Brains]

Okay, so I've been goldfishing this a little. So far it seems that Land Tax feels pretty good here. It would be nice to have something to sac lands to such as in Parfait but really, even if you only activate it once you get a lot of value. I really want to test this deck but will have to wait a few days unless I play online which kills my soul.

[FTW]

Try out Land Tax then. Seems worth it.

Like many prison decks, my build runs a lot of card disadvantage for tempo to get and protect the locks early. It's a common prison gambit. If it works, your early lock nullifies a ton of the opponent's cards and you win. The tradeoff is in grindy games it struggles to recover cards, and many cards that would fix that would be tempo sucks in fast games. Land Tax fits that niche well by costing only 1 but potentially drawing many cards. Even if you just get 3 lands once, it catches you up in cards and ensures smooth mana to play out the combo (sometimes I stall to find 5 mana to Helm + activate at once). Then with either Brainstorm or Scroll Rack it just gets better.

Looking forward to hearing your results. If you're playing vs Sharkstill, you'll need to board aggressively. The SB is set up to have a lot of cards to bring in vs spell-based control, while the maindeck has more answers for fair creatures and unfair combos. Depending on the Sharkstill build you'll want to take out some of the anti-aggro and card disadvantage to bring in 1-for-1s (red blasts, Fluster, Veto), Narset, the 2nd Helm, and maybe Wear//Tears. B2B is good if they're on manlands. They're very slow so you don't need tempo as much as you need enough resources to trade and still protect your wincon.

[Laser Brains]

Try out Land Tax then. Seems worth it.

Like many prison decks, my build runs a lot of card disadvantage for tempo to get and protect the locks early. It's a common prison gambit. If it works, your early lock nullifies a ton of the opponent's cards and you win. The tradeoff is in grindy games it struggles to recover cards, and many cards that would fix that would be tempo sucks in fast games. Land Tax fits that niche well by costing only 1 but potentially drawing many cards. Even if you just get 3 lands once, it catches you up in cards and ensures smooth mana to play out the combo (sometimes I stall to find 5 mana to Helm + activate at once). Then with either Brainstorm or Scroll Rack it just gets better.

Looking forward to hearing your results. If you're playing vs Sharkstill, you'll need to board aggressively. The SB is set up to have a lot of cards to bring in vs spell-based control, while the maindeck has more answers for fair creatures and unfair combos. Depending on the Sharkstill build you'll want to take out some of the anti-aggro and card disadvantage to bring in 1-for-1s (red blasts, Fluster, Veto), Narset, the 2nd Helm, and maybe Wear//Tears. B2B is good if they're on manlands. They're very slow so you don't need tempo as much as you need enough resources to trade and still protect your wincon.

Yes, I possibly will be going up against Sharkstill again, this is my buddy's pet deck. Looks like I could also be playing against Esper Mentor as well and I could have him run pretty much any other deck. We've got pretty much the entire gauntlet of decks proxied up and ready for testing. Anything you'd like to see it tested against?

So, yeah I noticed there is some card disadvantage from the likes of FoW, FoN and E-Tutor. I sort of want to run 2 Land Tax. Another thought is to cut 4 land and run Chrome Mox. This of course would be more card disadvantage but I'm wondering if less land and more mana rocks would help with activating Land Tax (being that you don't need as much land on the table). It would also supply ramp. I'm thinking though that the card disadvantage might outweigh the advantages. Especially if you never see a Land Tax.

Your sideboard looks nice and REBs should be good against Teferi, Jace, Sharkstills etc.. His build doesn't run manlands so I won't need B2B. I'll take your advice on the rest.

[FTW]

2nd Land Tax is worth testing, either main or SB.

I think Mox isn't worth it. Unlike Chalice decks, you don't need to have a lock piece on turn 1.

A great curve out vs a fast deck is something like
T1 cantrip/removal/ETutor
T2 lock piece A
T3 upkeep ETutor or mainphase cantrip + lock piece B (or Scroll Rack/CB with 1 open)
With Force + blue card in hand

Because RiP, Energy Field, CB and Scroll Rack all cost 2 mana it curves out well like that. 1 extra turn of cantripping for turn 4 lock is fine too, or if they have no clock then you can just set up directly for a Helm+activate with protection.

Mox could potentially let you drop business T1 & T2 instead of T2 & T3. But often you need to sculpt or interact first anyway, so that mana boost doesn't necessarily make it a turn faster in practice. Meanwhile it costs you a card. I'm not sold that it adds enough tempo to be worth it. On the other hand, you can see how ETutor costing 1 mana and Force being free are really good tempo in those starts. Often against fast decks I felt like I got Energy Field just in time, and 1 turn later would have been too slow, with every single mana spent counting.

I recommend testing against fair creature decks first to get a feel for the deck mechanics. Most combo, especially GY based ones, should be easy. Oko/Uro piles were positive matchups too, which was what got me on this in the first place. Trolling textless Oko at 20 counters and the 1UG Explore was satisfying.

Spell-heavy control decks with lots of card advantage and few creatures and minimal graveyard reliance, like Landstill and Esper Mentor, are/were bad matchups. CounterRack and Land Tax may help significantly in those grindy games, unsure how much. The previous version didn't have Scroll Rack. That testing is definitely needed, especially postboard. But if that's all you test against then it may get discouraging.

[Laser Brains]

2nd Land Tax is worth testing, either main or SB.

I think Mox isn't worth it. Unlike Chalice decks, you don't need to have a lock piece on turn 1.

A great curve out vs a fast deck is something like
T1 cantrip/removal/ETutor
T2 lock piece A
T3 upkeep ETutor or mainphase cantrip + lock piece B (or Scroll Rack/CB with 1 open)
With Force + blue card in hand

Because RiP, Energy Field, CB and Scroll Rack all cost 2 mana it curves out well like that. 1 extra turn of cantripping for turn 4 lock is fine too, or if they have no clock then you can just set up directly for a Helm+activate with protection.

Mox could potentially let you drop business T1 & T2 instead of T2 & T3. But often you need to sculpt or interact first anyway, so that mana boost doesn't necessarily make it a turn faster in practice. Meanwhile it costs you a card. I'm not sold that it adds enough tempo to be worth it. On the other hand, you can see how ETutor costing 1 mana and Force being free are really good tempo in those starts. Often against fast decks I felt like I got Energy Field just in time, and 1 turn later would have been too slow, with every single mana spent counting.

I recommend testing against fair creature decks first to get a feel for the deck mechanics. Most combo, especially GY based ones, should be easy. Oko/Uro piles were positive matchups too, which was what got me on this in the first place. Trolling textless Oko at 20 counters and the 1UG Explore was satisfying.

Spell-heavy control decks with lots of card advantage and few creatures and minimal graveyard reliance, like Landstill and Esper Mentor, are/were bad matchups. CounterRack and Land Tax may help significantly in those grindy games, unsure how much. The previous version didn't have Scroll Rack. That testing is definitely needed, especially postboard. But if that's all you test against then it may get discouraging.

Awesome! Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I think he's going to want to play Esper Mentor and he always plays Sharkstill but we can test it against Goblins, D&T, Esper Vial and a bunch of combo decks as well. It'll probably be next week by the time we get to play though.

I think your right about Mox too. I use to play a lot of Parfait in Vintage back when Keeper, Nether Void and Dragon were top decks. My thoughts were that I used to run a few off color moxen to support my mana base as I sacked lands to Zuran Orb to support Land Tax. But here I don't think we need that especially at the cost of a card. I think we can activate Land Tax once or twice and we should be good. I think for now I should just run 1x Land Tax. The deck is so tight I couldn't see cutting anything else anyway.

[Laser Brains]

I played this yesterday and it was really strong. I'd even go as far to say that this deck is amazing! Most of the games there was no sideboarding and I'll explain a little bit more on that, but first, here is the list. And btw, because I didn't run the sideboard I didn't run red for REBs.


RiP Helm Miracles: 60

Lock / Synergies: 15
4x Rest in Peace
3x Energy Field
3x Counterbalance
3x Scroll Rack
2x Land Tax

Win: 2
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Court of Cunning

Control / Removal: 13
4x Force of Will
2x Force of Negation
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Terminus
1x Detention Sphere

Search / Draw: 11
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Enlightened Tutor

Land: 19
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Tundra
4x Island
3x Plains
1x Karakas


First I went 2-1 against Goblins. The very first game I played I lost but barely and I really didn't know how to play the deck at this point. I could have and should have won. This was an extremely easy match up. I would like to say that I actually went 3-0 but first time playing made some mistakes. This was so simple that I feel I could 10-0 against it.

Next I played against my buddies extremely strong Sharkstill deck that has been giving me fits in our last several sessions. First of all, there are a ton of dead cards in his deck being that mine is creatureless. I literally whooped him 4-0. Then I allowed him to sideboard even though I couldn't because I didn't have one. That game he did beat me but I think if I had a sideboard it wouldn't have been too hard.

One of the 4 games I won I did lock him out with Scroll Rack + Counterbalance. This worked amazingly well. Land Tax + Scroll Rack was actually nice in one game too. Energy Field + Rest in Peace was my most common lock and he'd just about scooped every time that happened. His Replenishes were dead with Rest in Peace in play.

LOVE this deck. Going to get the sideboard together for the next session. Not only was it blast to play, I feel like it has major potential. We're gonna test it more in the future. BTW, I feel like I my flex slot / slots are land. Cutting a land or two for more control wouldn't suck do to Land Tax, FYI.

[Laser Brains]

I'm thinking cutting a land or two for Daze. Daze seems like it would interact fairly well with Land Tax being that it returns a land.

[FTW]

I played this yesterday and it was really strong. I'd even go as far to say that this deck is amazing! Most of the games there was no sideboarding and I'll explain a little bit more on that, but first, here is the list.

LOVE this deck. Going to get the sideboard together for the next session. Not only was it blast to play, I feel like it has major potential. We're gonna test it more in the future. BTW, I feel like I my flex slot / slots are land. Cutting a land or two for more control wouldn't suck do to Land Tax, FYI.

Great results! Glad you had fun playing it.

Yeah, I think this strategy has real legs. The threat of the various locks and combos sort of forces the opponent to deviate from their plan A and play into a different game of fighting over enchantments. Most 75s are designed to answer creatures much better than enchantments, so they're fighting with a handicap where you have more haymakers than they have answers. In the Oko-Uro meta it dodged everything those decks were trying to do (the 1 nonland permanent type Oko can't wreck + shutting off the GY value train). Playing 0 creatures and MD 4x gravehate also punishes a lot of decks in game 1, before they can board into a better configuration.

I haven't looked into playing more Land Taxes and fewer land but that seems strong. I haven't explored Daze either because I wasn't building as much around Land Tax.

Your manabase is smoother without red, but postboard I think red helps the blue matchups. How did Sharkstill beat you postboard? REBs might be enough to win those counter wars protecting your engines.

[walked]

List looks fun; intrigued to try it out in the current meta.

Is there a discord for this deck that you folks know about?

[Laser Brains]

Great results! Glad you had fun playing it.

Yeah, I think this strategy has real legs. The threat of the various locks and combos sort of forces the opponent to deviate from their plan A and play into a different game of fighting over enchantments. Most 75s are designed to answer creatures much better than enchantments, so they're fighting with a handicap where you have more haymakers than they have answers. In the Oko-Uro meta it dodged everything those decks were trying to do (the 1 nonland permanent type Oko can't wreck + shutting off the GY value train). Playing 0 creatures and MD 4x gravehate also punishes a lot of decks in game 1, before they can board into a better configuration.

I haven't looked into playing more Land Taxes and fewer land but that seems strong. I haven't explored Daze either because I wasn't building as much around Land Tax.

Your manabase is smoother without red, but postboard I think red helps the blue matchups. How did Sharkstill beat you postboard? REBs might be enough to win those counter wars protecting your engines.

I think the Sharkstill matches pre-sideboard were in my favor because my opponent had so many dead creature removal cards. Once he sided out 8-10 removal cards and replaced them with counters and artifact/enchantment removal is were he got me. Although, had I been able to side against him it would have been better. And yes, I believe REBs would have been really nice here.

I was recently on vacation so I haven't had a chance to get back to this thread. I did however get to play this same list just before I left and I tested it against a larger pool of decks. Again no sideboards. I wish I had, but I didn't record my stats. My brother was visiting from Idaho (he's an insanely good player btw) so we were testing it against decks I already had together.

I will say that this deck seemingly stomps Vial decks. If I remember correctly I went something like 4-1 against Death & Taxes. The previous week I was beating up on Goblins. So Vial decks imho are just easy.

Next I played against Eldrazi and those match ups were about 50/50. We played this a lot. I can't remember exactly but I think we either went 5-4 or 4-5 here. So that is still pretty good. Chalice hurts a bit but it isn't game ending.

Next we played Elves. Can't remember the stats but this match up was in my favor. We have too much removal and the combos come together quickly.

Next we played BUG Threshold (with Goyfs, Delvers, Hexdrinkers, Stifle etc..) and I honestly can't remember the exact stats but this match up seemed to go 50/50 as well.

Then we played Enchantress and to my surprise this was a bad match up. Again, can't remember the stats but once an Enchantress hit the table it was all over within the next couple of turn. I did however win a few here.

I'm going to get the sb together and maybe splash red for my next session which is in about a week.

Conclusion: There is no doubt in my mind. This deck is really really good. While not unbeatable, it seems to stomp some top tier decks and at the very least hold it's weight even against it's 50/50 match ups. I only had one really poor showing and that was against Enchantress. However, in theory we should be beating that deck every time. I just wasn't drawing any counter magic. My one recommendation is to include more. A sb would be really helpful in determining how good this deck really is. One thing I do know is that it is a blast to play!

EDIT: I did feel that I could cut a land, maybe two. Especially since we have Land Tax. If I do, I'm thinking 1-2 more counter magic spells would fit well. Probably either Daze or Spell Pierce. Even though we're not a tempo deck I like the way Daze interacts with Land Tax.

[FTW]

Great results again! Glad to see you doing well with this and enjoying it!

I would be trying it out in paper tournaments already if they were still a thing. Maybe I'll suck it up and buy the cards online to play this on MTGO.



Conclusion: There is no doubt in my mind. This deck is really really good. While not unbeatable, it seems to stomp some top tier decks and at the very least hold it's weight even against it's 50/50 match ups. I only had one really poor showing and that was against Enchantress. However, in theory we should be beating that deck every time. I just wasn't drawing any counter magic. My one recommendation is to include more. A sb would be really helpful in determining how good this deck really is. One thing I do know is that it is a blast to play!

The way I set up my build, the mainboard is a bit light on countermagic but the SB has a lot to board in. That configuration does make us weaker preboard vs creature-light control decks, but then the main does well against other decks. In testing I liked that MB/SB split. However just playing just that main without any SB is going to leave you short on answers for some matchups like Enchantress and postboard Sharkstill. I think you'll notice a difference once you start playing with a SB. You might still decide on a different MB/SB split with more counters main, but having the SB really helps.

All these cards in my SB are good vs Enchantress:
Dovin's Veto (extra counter)
Wear // Tear (enchantment kill)
Engineered Explosives (kills Enchantresses)
Detention Sphere#2 (more enchantment kill)
Narset, Parter of Veils (shut down their draw engine!)
Ethersworn Canonist/Deafening Silence (stop them from chaining multiple spells per turn)
Back to Basics (lock down Serra's Sanctum)

You might decide on some different SB card choices. The general idea was to have multiple counters, multiple enchantment/artifact kill, and then a few silver bullets. I tried for diverse answers that can be used against multiple things.

Vs decks like Enchantress and Sharkstill I would bring in counters and enchantment kill and board out StPs, 1 Energy Field, and some other slots depending on their deck build.

If you're thinking about cutting a land for a counter, first I'd try playing with a SB. If the SB means a 3-color manabase, you may decide you don't want to cut a land anymore (risks losses to tempo). If you can find a good SB in just 2 colors then you might be OK cutting land. REBs seem strong though. Wear//Tear helps to get around Chalice @ 1 or Chalice @ 2 (which could be a common choice vs this deck).



I will say that this deck seemingly stomps Vial decks. If I remember correctly I went something like 4-1 against Death & Taxes. The previous week I was beating up on Goblins. So Vial decks imho are just easy.

Next we played Elves. Can't remember the stats but this match up was in my favor. We have too much removal and the combos come together quickly.


Yeah, Energy Field beats up on creature decks. They might have a few answers in the 75 but we can just save counters for those or have redundant copies.

Important ruling: If you have RiP/Field and they kill RiP, it exiles itself so Energy Field lives. If they kill Energy Field, RiP exiles it so a 2nd copy of Energy Field doesn't get killed. The combo insulates itself against getting 2-for-1d.
That means if you're in a board stall vs a creature deck and they're trying to a set up a game state where they can sneak through one Disenchant and alpha strike, you can play around that by playing out a 2nd Energy Field (2nd RiP helps too). Now they have to resolve at least 2 Disenchants vs your control deck. Pretty much unwinnable for them.


Next I played against Eldrazi and those match ups were about 50/50. We played this a lot. I can't remember exactly but I think we either went 5-4 or 4-5 here. So that is still pretty good. Chalice hurts a bit but it isn't game ending.

Postboard the Wear//Tears and EE help to beat Chalice decks.
Chalice isn't game ending but still hurts so we're better off answering it (Chalice @ 1 shuts down card selection, Chalice @ 2 shuts down engines). If the play Chalice @ 2 in G1, you can ETutor into Detention Sphere.

Karn into Lattice is game ending. Must-counter.

[Laser Brains]

Great results again! Glad to see you doing well with this and enjoying it!

I would be trying it out in paper tournaments already if they were still a thing. Maybe I'll suck it up and buy the cards online to play this on MTGO.



The way I set up my build, the mainboard is a bit light on countermagic but the SB has a lot to board in. That configuration does make us weaker preboard vs creature-light control decks, but then the main does well against other decks. In testing I liked that MB/SB split. However just playing just that main without any SB is going to leave you short on answers for some matchups like Enchantress and postboard Sharkstill. I think you'll notice a difference once you start playing with a SB. You might still decide on a different MB/SB split with more counters main, but having the SB really helps.

All these cards in my SB are good vs Enchantress:
Dovin's Veto (extra counter)
Wear // Tear (enchantment kill)
Engineered Explosives (kills Enchantresses)
Detention Sphere#2 (more enchantment kill)
Narset, Parter of Veils (shut down their draw engine!)
Ethersworn Canonist/Deafening Silence (stop them from chaining multiple spells per turn)
Back to Basics (lock down Serra's Sanctum)

You might decide on some different SB card choices. The general idea was to have multiple counters, multiple enchantment/artifact kill, and then a few silver bullets. I tried for diverse answers that can be used against multiple things.

Vs decks like Enchantress and Sharkstill I would bring in counters and enchantment kill and board out StPs, 1 Energy Field, and some other slots depending on their deck build.

If you're thinking about cutting a land for a counter, first I'd try playing with a SB. If the SB means a 3-color manabase, you may decide you don't want to cut a land anymore (risks losses to tempo). If you can find a good SB in just 2 colors then you might be OK cutting land. REBs seem strong though. Wear//Tear helps to get around Chalice @ 1 or Chalice @ 2 (which could be a common choice vs this deck).




Yeah, Energy Field beats up on creature decks. They might have a few answers in the 75 but we can just save counters for those or have redundant copies.

Important ruling: If you have RiP/Field and they kill RiP, it exiles itself so Energy Field lives. If they kill Energy Field, RiP exiles it so a 2nd copy of Energy Field doesn't get killed. The combo insulates itself against getting 2-for-1d.
That means if you're in a board stall vs a creature deck and they're trying to a set up a game state where they can sneak through one Disenchant and alpha strike, you can play around that by playing out a 2nd Energy Field (2nd RiP helps too). Now they have to resolve at least 2 Disenchants vs your control deck. Pretty much unwinnable for them.



Postboard the Wear//Tears and EE help to beat Chalice decks.
Chalice isn't game ending but still hurts so we're better off answering it (Chalice @ 1 shuts down card selection, Chalice @ 2 shuts down engines). If the play Chalice @ 2 in G1, you can ETutor into Detention Sphere.

Karn into Lattice is game ending. Must-counter.

Thank you for the sb advice! I really do want REBs and Wear // Tear, but I think (at least with my build) I'm gonna first start with a Blue White sb to see if it's possible. At least for now there are no Okos to worry about. I could essentially keep your original sideboard (below) but cut 2x Wear//Tear for 2x Detention Sphere or even Seal of Cleansing. And then maybe cut both Pyro and REB for Spell Pierce.

//Sideboard: 15
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Dovin's Veto
2 Wear // Tear
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
1 Deafening Silence
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Back to Basics
1 Detention Sphere
1 Web of Inertia
1 Helm of Obedience

Good call on the RIP/Energy Field ruling. I hadn't noticed that yet. Good to know! Also, all of the other advice you posted. Good stuff! Now I have some more cards to order.

[FistaCuffSmith]

Okay, so I had a casual deck built when I first started playing mtg around this combo and loved it. Can you elaborate more on the plan with this list in discussion? I haven’t played with land tax or scroll rack before.

Is the general plan to play out your pieces and just survive until you can helm?

[FistaCuffSmith]

What about T3feri to help protect interaction or Karn to get helm if you need another one?

I’m going to try your list and I’ll give some feedback.

[FTW]

Okay, so I had a casual deck built when I first started playing mtg around this combo and loved it. Can you elaborate more on the plan with this list in discussion? I haven’t played with land tax or scroll rack before.

Is the general plan to play out your pieces and just survive until you can helm?

The OP lists in this thread are more focused on accelerating out the RiP+Helm combo in a semi-casual way. What Laser and I have built here is a bit different from that. It's more UW control with a combo finish (control-combo). Helm is just a compact noncreature "I Win" button taking up little deck space, that you can tutor or dig for when you're ready to finish.

This is my take on the deck and my motivations behind building it, but Laser may have other opinions as a player with more Parfait background.

Fundamentally this is a tap-out UW control based on proactive permanents instead of a reactive spells. UW control has been a dominant force in Magic for a long time, combining blue to control the stack and white to control the board. UW control can be either reactive (draw-go, holding up instant-speed answers) or proactive (tapping out to play permanents that establish control). This is a proactive version. The permanents assemble to form some useful combos that threaten to provide massive virtual card advantage if they stick. This forces the opponent to fight over your enchantments under the threat that you'll just take over the game otherwise. Because the permanents are artifacts and enchantments, you're exploiting the fact that most Legacy decks run very few answers to resolved enchantments. We proactively spam out more things than they can answer, protect them with counters, then use those engines to run away with the game. Once you've got the game locked up, Helm is an elegant 1-card "I win" button.

Reeplcheep's Curse Stompy decks fights the current meta along a similar angle: maindeck gravehate, proactive permanent-based prison, then playing a 1-card "I win" like Curse or Helm.


2-card Combos
Rest in Peace + Energy Field: You can't take damage (although you can take life loss). RiP exiling cards turns off Energy Field's usual self-destruct. This combo makes most board states and win conditions completely irrelevant, forcing the opponent to divert from their game plan to answering this so they can actually do things. RiP also hates out a lot of GY-based value engines that are common right now.

Rest in Peace + Web of Inertia: A slight variation on RiP+Field, this one means your opponent can't turn creatures sideways (but does let you take other sources of damage, e.g. Lightning Bolt). Web is useful to stop "attacks" triggers on creatures like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Because this is more of a corner case, we only run 1 Web and in the SB. Most of the time Energy Field is better.

Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience: With RiP out, Helm basically reads "5: Win the game". You want to get RiP out early for the other combos and for general grave hate. Then, when you're ready, you can go "5: Win the game". Ideally you want to get control first and have counters in hand to protect the combo, but you can goldfish out the combo if they're Hellbent. ETutor finds this at EOT or Upkeep for 1 mana so you can pull this out of nowhere pretty quickly.

Land Tax + Scroll Rack: If you have fewer lands in play than the opponent, Land Tax has "0: Put 3 lands in your hand. Shuffle". 1 mana to draw 3 cards is good, even better if it's repeatable. The drawback is that these cards are lands. Extra lands are usually redundant, and then you run out of lands in the deck and can't keep repeating. But Scroll Rack lets you put those 3 lands (and any other unwanted cards) back to draw fresh cards. Combined you're paying 1 mana to just draw 3 free random cards each turn. The lands go back to your library so Land Tax can find the same 3 lands again next turn, and Scroll Rack can convert them into 3 new cards again. Unchallenged this threatens to give you overwhelming card advantage in the late game and just bury the opponent. UW control drawing this many free cards is too much for most decks to handle.

Counterbalance + Scroll Rack: Similar to Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, being able to pay 1 colorless mana to change the top card of your library at instant speed allows you to essentially have a repeatable "1, T: counter target spell". Counterbalance is a dumb card that completely dominates the stack. Unchallenged, this is insane virtual card advantage by nullifying (or threatening to nullify) most cards in the opponent's hand because they will just get countered over and over again without you expending any cards yourself.



Why are we playing these separate combos together?
UW Counterbalance Miracles was Tier 1 in Legacy for a long time. Counterbalance is such a busted card. The Sensei's Divining Top ban put a stop to that. Since Top's banning, UW Miracles was still strong but the Counterbalance lock wasn't nearly as busted because it was harder to sustain and easier to get through, and Counterbalance was what really pushed that deck over the top. Scroll Rack isn't as good as Top but can still set up many of the same shenanigans by manipulating Counterbalance, putting Miracles on top of your library, as well as drawing free cards with Land Tax.

Note that you can activate Scroll Rack in response to an enemy spell and put back 4 cards (3 lands + 1 other card on top), both setting up Counterbalance and drawing free cards from Land Tax. It doesn't have to be either-or. You can do both at once. With proper stack control and sequencing these two combos fit together well, enabling stack control and card advantage. Both can be good in winning the late game.

So why hasn't CounterRack Miracles taken off in Legacy? Scroll Rack is slower, more vulnerable, and more durdly than Top. Legacy is a tempo format, so it risks losses to fast decks. That's where I think the Energy Field + Rest in Peace combo complements it well. RiP/Field gives us tools to stop pressure from fast decks, while Counter/Rack and Tax/Rack give us tools to fight spell-based strategies, protect Rip/Field prison, and establish late game dominance. They fit together well. Rip/Field protects us while we set up other durdlier things, and the durdlier things protect Rip/Field as the game stalls out. We don't need to CB everything, as long as we can protect our prison and their Decays are torn between answering RiP/Field and answering CB. Sometimes the potential threat of each combo is enough.

All of this is tied together by extremely powerful and efficient card selection (4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 3 ETutor, Scroll Rack) to let you assemble the pieces you need when you need them. Because you are tapping out to play permanents, free counters (6xForce) play a big role in both protecting your pieces and stopping opponent's early noncreature plays, especially vs combo and prison decks.


Playing the deck
Like any control deck, the play pattern will come down to guessing what your opponent is on and then choosing the lane to stop their plan, using card selection tools to sculpt your hand in that direction.

Against an aggro player you want to jam Rip+Field as fast as possible and then protect it with counters. That will prevent them from winning, and then eventually you can pull ahead in cards and set up a win condition.

Against a control player, you want to jam Counterbalance or Tax-Rack, establish hand dominance, and then you'll be able to stick Helm having more protection than they have answers.

Against a combo player you use control pieces to fight their combo and Counterbalance should eventually win the stack if they try for a second wind.

This deck gets free edges against graveyard combos and graveyard engines by having maindeck graveyard hate. Lately the format has been full of control decks using graveyard value engines (Uro, Loam, Snapcaster, DHA before it was banned) so playing control on a different axis (enchantments instead of GY) both dodges the hate for those decks and hates out their engines.


Why this over traditional UW control
Reactive 1-for-1 control loses to 2-for-1 control. Lately UGx and UBx control have been full of proactive 2-for-1 tools (Uro, Ice-Fang, Field of the Dead, Oko, Dreadhorde, Baleful Strix, Snapcaster-Hymn, Liliana). A reactive strategy (removal + counters) is going to run out of answers against strategies like that. Even when you answer it, they're ahead in cards, so eventually you run out of answers and they win. Instead of fighting the uphill battle of trying to answer each threat in a game where creatures are increasingly harder to answer, we set up our own proactive prison. Our prisons can represent 6-for-1s or better if they stick. Maindeck graveyard hate also weakens popular engines like Uro.

I originally brewed this when Oko/Uro was the dominant control deck. Enchantment-based proactive control with maindeck GY hate punked everything those decks were trying to do, which seemed like a more winning strategy than trying to react to a resolved Oko. But since Oko's ban we get back the power of Scroll Rack (with both CB and Land Tax), which open up other ways to establish degenerate lategame dominance. And we still hate out Uro.

I'm not claiming this is better than Miracles, but I think it's a fun deck that can attack the meta along different angles and pull out a lot of wins from the sheer power of these combos.


My current list looks like this. I think Laser Brains is right that stable mana is more important in this meta than the red splash for minor SB value (REB).


//Lands: 19
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Tundra
5 Snow-Covered Island
3 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Karakas

//Enchantments and Artifacts: 18
2 Land Tax
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
3 Scroll Rack
1 Detention Sphere
1 Court of Cunning
1 Helm of Obedience

//Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Force of Negation
2 Terminus

//Sideboard: 15
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Web of Inertia
1 Back to Basics
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Deafening Silence
1 Pithing Needle
2 Detention Sphere
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity




Using Enlightened Tutor effectively
I think ETutor is one of the most slept-on cards in Legacy and love playing with it. Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor have been banned since the early days of the format for good reason. The ability to spend 1 mana at instant speed to access a wide range of powerful cards in your deck is very strong, even if it's card disadvantage. Most people who dismiss this card focus on the card disadvantage aspect. The key thing is that you don't spend ETutor to find a 1-for-1 answer or fair threat. ETutor for 1-for-1s will leave you with card disadvantage and losing at Magic. Even tutoring for a 2-for-1 is questionable play, because it will net out to card-neutral except you were committed to a specific sequence of cards just to get back to card parity.

The way to abuse ETutor is to look for combo wins and 6-for-1s. This deck is full of enchantment-artifact combos that threaten to provide insane virtual card advantage. Energy Field lock nullifies every creature on their board, in their hand, and in their deck. It's an even bigger card swing than a board wipe (which just answers the creatures on board). Counterbalance lock nullifies entire hands and draw steps. Land Tax + Scroll Rack draws 3 cards per turn. Helm reads "5: Win the game". These are things worth risking card disadvantage for, especially if you can assemble them and protect them with very little tempo cost (1 mana instant speed card selection + free counters).

The SB contains an ETutor package following that theme. Back to Basics can nullify whole manabases. Leyline of Sanctity proactively cancels discard, burn, and targeted combos. Deafening Silence hoses whole deck archetypes. Web of Inertia creates a lock similar to Energy Field. Engineered Explosives can be used to answer a single problem permanent if you really need it, but it can also wipe multiple things. We don't want cards like Seal of Cleansing because ETutoring for a 1-for-1 is a bad play. Detention Sphere is a better spot removal to lean on because at least it can potentially remove multiple things, it gets through both Chalice @ 1 and Chalice @ 2, it fills the 3 cmc gap on the CB curve.

2nd Helm is a backup win condition. In G2 they are more likely to play to fight over Helm, so it can help to have a 2nd in grindy matchups in case you miscalculated and lost the fight over the first one. Court of Cunning is a maindeck backup win condition that can be useful to win through hate like Pithing Needle, Karn, Teeg, Ouphe, etc. Court also draws you cards, pitches to Force, and fills the 3 spot on the CB curve.

[FTW]

What about T3feri to help protect interaction or Karn to get helm if you need another one?

I’m going to try your list and I’ll give some feedback.

Teferi, Time Raveler seems good in theory. I started with some in the deck. The problem is Energy Field doesn't protect him. So we either have to expend extra resources to protect him or he dies to creatures that are otherwise textless dead cards.

Karn suffers from the same problem.

We're really trying to leave the opponent with a bunch of dead cards by ignoring creature removal and not giving their creatures anything to attack or block.

Edit: 3feri might be good out of the SB to win beat counter-heavy spell decks. It's just awkward that he turns on their otherwise dead cards.

[FistaCuffSmith]

The OP lists in this thread are more focused on accelerating out the RiP+Helm combo in a semi-casual way. What Laser and I have built here is a bit different from that. It's more UW control with a combo finish (control-combo). Helm is just a compact noncreature "I Win" button taking up little deck space, that you can tutor or dig for when you're ready to finish.

This is my take on the deck and my motivations behind building it, but Laser may have other opinions as a player with more Parfait background.

Fundamentally this is a tap-out UW control based on proactive permanents instead of a reactive spells. UW control has been a dominant force in Magic for a long time, combining blue to control the stack and white to control the board. UW control can be either reactive (draw-go, holding up instant-speed answers) or proactive (tapping out to play permanents that establish control). This is a proactive version. The permanents assemble to form some useful combos that threaten to provide massive virtual card advantage if they stick. This forces the opponent to fight over your enchantments under the threat that you'll just take over the game otherwise. Because the permanents are artifacts and enchantments, you're exploiting the fact that most Legacy decks run very few answers to resolved enchantments. We proactively spam out more things than they can answer, protect them with counters, then use those engines to run away with the game. Once you've got the game locked up, Helm is an elegant 1-card "I win" button.

Reeplcheep's Curse Stompy decks fights the current meta along a similar angle: maindeck gravehate, proactive permanent-based prison, then playing a 1-card "I win" like Curse or Helm.


2-card Combos
Rest in Peace + Energy Field: You can't take damage (although you can take life loss). RiP exiling cards turns off Energy Field's usual self-destruct. This combo makes most board states and win conditions completely irrelevant, forcing the opponent to divert from their game plan to answering this so they can actually do things. RiP also hates out a lot of GY-based value engines that are common right now.

Rest in Peace + Web of Inertia: A slight variation on RiP+Field, this one means your opponent can't turn creatures sideways (but does let you take other sources of damage, e.g. Lightning Bolt). Web is useful to stop "attacks" triggers on creatures like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Because this is more of a corner case, we only run 1 Web and in the SB. Most of the time Energy Field is better.

Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience: With RiP out, Helm basically reads "5: Win the game". You want to get RiP out early for the other combos and for general grave hate. Then, when you're ready, you can go "5: Win the game". Ideally you want to get control first and have counters in hand to protect the combo, but you can goldfish out the combo if they're Hellbent. ETutor finds this at EOT or Upkeep for 1 mana so you can pull this out of nowhere pretty quickly.

Land Tax + Scroll Rack: If you have fewer lands in play than the opponent, Land Tax has "0: Put 3 lands in your hand. Shuffle". 1 mana to draw 3 cards is good, even better if it's repeatable. The drawback is that these cards are lands. Extra lands are usually redundant, and then you run out of lands in the deck and can't keep repeating. But Scroll Rack lets you put those 3 lands (and any other unwanted cards) back to draw fresh cards. Combined you're paying 1 mana to just draw 3 free random cards each turn. The lands go back to your library so Land Tax can find the same 3 lands again next turn, and Scroll Rack can convert them into 3 new cards again. Unchallenged this threatens to give you overwhelming card advantage in the late game and just bury the opponent. UW control drawing this many free cards is too much for most decks to handle.

Counterbalance + Scroll Rack: Similar to Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, being able to pay 1 colorless mana to change the top card of your library at instant speed allows you to essentially have a repeatable "1, T: counter target spell". Counterbalance is a dumb card that completely dominates the stack. Unchallenged, this is insane virtual card advantage by nullifying (or threatening to nullify) most cards in the opponent's hand because they will just get countered over and over again without you expending any cards yourself.



Why are we playing these separate combos together?
UW Counterbalance Miracles was Tier 1 in Legacy for a long time. Counterbalance is such a busted card. The Sensei's Divining Top ban put a stop to that. Since Top's banning, UW Miracles was still strong but the Counterbalance lock wasn't nearly as busted because it was harder to sustain and easier to get through, and Counterbalance was what really pushed that deck over the top. Scroll Rack isn't as good as Top but can still set up many of the same shenanigans by manipulating Counterbalance, putting Miracles on top of your library, as well as drawing free cards with Land Tax.

Note that you can activate Scroll Rack in response to an enemy spell and put back 4 cards (3 lands + 1 other card on top), both setting up Counterbalance and drawing free cards from Land Tax. It doesn't have to be either-or. You can do both at once. With proper stack control and sequencing these two combos fit together well, enabling stack control and card advantage. Both can be good in winning the late game.

So why hasn't CounterRack Miracles taken off in Legacy? Scroll Rack is slower, more vulnerable, and more durdly than Top. Legacy is a tempo format, so it risks losses to fast decks. That's where I think the Energy Field + Rest in Peace combo complements it well. RiP/Field gives us tools to stop pressure from fast decks, while Counter/Rack and Tax/Rack give us tools to fight spell-based strategies, protect Rip/Field prison, and establish late game dominance. They fit together well. Rip/Field protects us while we set up other durdlier things, and the durdlier things protect Rip/Field as the game stalls out. We don't need to CB everything, as long as we can protect our prison and their Decays are torn between answering RiP/Field and answering CB. Sometimes the potential threat of each combo is enough.

All of this is tied together by extremely powerful and efficient card selection (4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 3 ETutor, Scroll Rack) to let you assemble the pieces you need when you need them. Because you are tapping out to play permanents, free counters (6xForce) play a big role in both protecting your pieces and stopping opponent's early noncreature plays, especially vs combo and prison decks.


Playing the deck
Like any control deck, the play pattern will come down to guessing what your opponent is on and then choosing the lane to stop their plan, using card selection tools to sculpt your hand in that direction.

Against an aggro player you want to jam Rip+Field as fast as possible and then protect it with counters. That will prevent them from winning, and then eventually you can pull ahead in cards and set up a win condition.

Against a control player, you want to jam Counterbalance or Tax-Rack, establish hand dominance, and then you'll be able to stick Helm having more protection than they have answers.

Against a combo player you use control pieces to fight their combo and Counterbalance should eventually win the stack if they try for a second wind.

This deck gets free edges against graveyard combos and graveyard engines by having maindeck graveyard hate. Lately the format has been full of control decks using graveyard value engines (Uro, Loam, Snapcaster, DHA before it was banned) so playing control on a different axis (enchantments instead of GY) both dodges the hate for those decks and hates out their engines.


Why this over traditional UW control
Reactive 1-for-1 control loses to 2-for-1 control. Lately UGx and UBx control have been full of proactive 2-for-1 tools (Uro, Ice-Fang, Field of the Dead, Oko, Dreadhorde, Baleful Strix, Snapcaster-Hymn, Liliana). A reactive strategy (removal + counters) is going to run out of answers against strategies like that. Even when you answer it, they're ahead in cards, so eventually you run out of answers and they win. Instead of fighting the uphill battle of trying to answer each threat in a game where creatures are increasingly harder to answer, we set up our own proactive prison. Our prisons can represent 6-for-1s or better if they stick. Maindeck graveyard hate also weakens popular engines like Uro.

I originally brewed this when Oko/Uro was the dominant control deck. Enchantment-based proactive control with maindeck GY hate punked everything those decks were trying to do, which seemed like a more winning strategy than trying to react to a resolved Oko. But since Oko's ban we get back the power of Scroll Rack (with both CB and Land Tax), which open up other ways to establish degenerate lategame dominance. And we still hate out Uro.

I'm not claiming this is better than Miracles, but I think it's a fun deck that can attack the meta along different angles and pull out a lot of wins from the sheer power of these combos.


My current list looks like this. I think Laser Brains is right that stable mana is more important in this meta than the red splash for minor SB value (REB).


//Lands: 19
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Tundra
5 Snow-Covered Island
3 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Karakas

//Enchantments and Artifacts: 18
2 Land Tax
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
3 Scroll Rack
1 Detention Sphere
1 Court of Cunning
1 Helm of Obedience

//Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Force of Negation
2 Terminus

//Sideboard: 15
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Web of Inertia
1 Back to Basics
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Deafening Silence
1 Pithing Needle
2 Detention Sphere
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity




Using Enlightened Tutor effectively
I think ETutor is one of the most slept-on cards in Legacy and love playing with it. Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor have been banned since the early days of the format for good reason. The ability to spend 1 mana at instant speed to access a wide range of powerful cards in your deck is very strong, even if it's card disadvantage. Most people who dismiss this card focus on the card disadvantage aspect. The key thing is that you don't spend ETutor to find a 1-for-1 answer or fair threat. ETutor for 1-for-1s will leave you with card disadvantage and losing at Magic. Even tutoring for a 2-for-1 is questionable play, because it will net out to card-neutral except you were committed to a specific sequence of cards just to get back to card parity.

The way to abuse ETutor is to look for combo wins and 6-for-1s. This deck is full of enchantment-artifact combos that threaten to provide insane virtual card advantage. Energy Field lock nullifies every creature on their board, in their hand, and in their deck. It's an even bigger card swing than a board wipe (which just answers the creatures on board). Counterbalance lock nullifies entire hands and draw steps. Land Tax + Scroll Rack draws 3 cards per turn. Helm reads "5: Win the game". These are things worth risking card disadvantage for, especially if you can assemble them and protect them with very little tempo cost (1 mana instant speed card selection + free counters).

The SB contains an ETutor package following that theme. Back to Basics can nullify whole manabases. Leyline of Sanctity proactively cancels discard, burn, and targeted combos. Deafening Silence hoses whole deck archetypes. Web of Inertia creates a lock similar to Energy Field. Engineered Explosives can be used to answer a single problem permanent if you really need it, but it can also wipe multiple things. We don't want cards like Seal of Cleansing because ETutoring for a 1-for-1 is a bad play. Detention Sphere is a better spot removal to lean on because at least it can potentially remove multiple things, it gets through both Chalice @ 1 and Chalice @ 2, it fills the 3 cmc gap on the CB curve.

2nd Helm is a backup win condition. In G2 they are more likely to play to fight over Helm, so it can help to have a 2nd in grindy matchups in case you miscalculated and lost the fight over the first one. Court of Cunning is a maindeck backup win condition that can be useful to win through hate like Pithing Needle, Karn, Teeg, Ouphe, etc. Court also draws you cards, pitches to Force, and fills the 3 spot on the CB curve.


Wow, so much information to digest. Thanks for such a detailed response. I am fairly new to actually playing legacy, but this combo gives me fond memories. I played one match against maverick and got beat pretty handily. However, I did establish tax and scroll and it started to make sense. I plan on playing some more matches tonight. I will report back.

[Laser Brains]

@FTW: New list looks tight! Sideboard looks really good too. I literally have the entire deck in paper and it is a beaut! I do need to pick up a few more of the sideboard cards like Hall of Heliod's Generosity, a 2nd Helm and Back to Basics. I'll be playing this, with sideboard, on Friday and give a report with stats.

Great deck break-down too. Could be the start of a primer.

If you decide to play this on MTGO I'd be really curious to see how it does. I'd like to take this to a paper event but because of Coronavirus Magic isn't quite the Gathering that it used to be. Once things hopefully get back to normal I will be taking it to an event.

[FTW]

Wow, so much information to digest. Thanks for such a detailed response. I am fairly new to actually playing legacy, but this combo gives me fond memories. I played one match against maverick and got beat pretty handily. However, I did establish tax and scroll and it started to make sense. I plan on playing some more matches tonight. I will report back.

Didn't know what kind of info you're looking for.

Basically you are playing as a proactive control deck by assembling enchantment combos that take over the game. There's a lot more theory above about why I assembled it this way and picked out certain cards, but the jist of it is you're trying to disrupt the opponent from winning until you can play Helm and activate in the same turn, with counters to protect it.

If they're attacking your life total, you want to set up Rest in Peace + Energy Field and protect it. Then you can't take damage and it doesn't matter how many creatures they have out.

If they're casting dangerous spells, you'll want to use Counterbalance and manipulate the top card of your library to have the right mana costs to counter their spell. Use this to protect your other combos or to disrupt their main win conditions. You don't have to counter every spell with it. Countering a few key cards can be enough to swing the game. The threat of it is often enough to throw the opponent off, without actually using it on everything.

Scroll Rack + Land Tax lets you cheaply dig through a lot of cards in your deck and win by having more cards, usually better as a late game plan because it's too uninteractive in the early turns.

The deck can be complicated to play well if you're new to Legacy. Control decks and card selection engines involve more decision forks that depend on understanding what the opponents decks are trying to do and how to best use your tools to fight that.

Edit: Maverick should be favorable. Prioritize getting Rip+Energy Field online as soon as possible T3 or T4. Don't durdle with Scroll Rack early. Just jam Energy Field defenses. Then their game plan reduces to Green Sun's Zenith into disenchants (Knight of Autumn) or GSZ into Helm hate (Collector Ouphe, Gaddock Teeg). T2 Thalia OTP is probably the most dangerous thing they can do that really costs us tempo. That would be worth Forcing or StPing immediately. Otherwise as a rule in G1 don't bother fighting over random creatures. Save Force for Zeniths X=2+ (unless they're threatening something that wins immediately, unlikely) and that cuts them off their toolbox to answer you. As long as they can't use their Zenith toolbox you stay in control of the game. If they randomly draw into anti-Helm hatebears, Court of Cunning lets you win through them. Postboard bring in Web of Inertia (Energy Field #4), EE, and Detention Spheres (basically answers to permanent-based hate). Keep countering Zenith and be ready to counter SB Force of Vigor-type cards. I need to test this matchup more but I don't expect it to be a bad one.

[FTW]

@FTW: New list looks tight! Sideboard looks really good too. I literally have the entire deck in paper and it is a beaut! I do need to pick up a few more of the sideboard cards like Hall of Heliod's Generosity, a 2nd Helm and Back to Basics. I'll be playing this, with sideboard, on Friday and give a report with stats.

Great deck break-down too. Could be the start of a primer.

If you decide to play this on MTGO I'd be really curious to see how it does. I'd like to take this to a paper event but because of Coronavirus Magic isn't quite the Gathering that it used to be. Once things hopefully get back to normal I will be taking it to an event.

Looking forwards to hearing your results.

For a UW sideboard, what do you think about a couple copies of Meddling Mage? After G1 they are boarding out all removal slots and boarding in any and all enchantment kill. Meddling Mage on their disenchant of choice (Decay, Force of Vigor) should be an unexpected curveball and GG. This will work a lot better against random opponents at events than in testing with a friend who won't be caught by surprise.

[Laser Brains]

Looking forwards to hearing your results.

For a UW sideboard, what do you think about a couple copies of Meddling Mage? After G1 they are boarding out all removal slots and boarding in any and all enchantment kill. Meddling Mage on their disenchant of choice (Decay, Force of Vigor) should be an unexpected curveball and GG. This will work a lot better against random opponents at events than in testing with a friend who won't be caught by surprise.

That, being that you mentioned they will likely side out removal, looks to actually be decently effective. I'll add it to my sideboard for Friday and give it a go.

And, yes you are right. Since I usually play against the same opponent (my buddy Schlieb), he does expect stuff. He doesn't come here all to often though, so hopefully he doesn't see this. ;)

I actually need to start considering sideboards more often. I often, and I'm not alone, am so focused on the 60 that I slap together a cheap sb. I'm working on getting better at this.

[FistaCuffSmith]

Didn't know what kind of info you're looking for.

Basically you are playing as a proactive control deck by assembling enchantment combos that take over the game. There's a lot more theory above about why I assembled it this way and picked out certain cards, but the jist of it is you're trying to disrupt the opponent from winning until you can play Helm and activate in the same turn, with counters to protect it.

If they're attacking your life total, you want to set up Rest in Peace + Energy Field and protect it. Then you can't take damage and it doesn't matter how many creatures they have out.

If they're casting dangerous spells, you'll want to use Counterbalance and manipulate the top card of your library to have the right mana costs to counter their spell. Use this to protect your other combos or to disrupt their main win conditions. You don't have to counter every spell with it. Countering a few key cards can be enough to swing the game. The threat of it is often enough to throw the opponent off, without actually using it on everything.

Scroll Rack + Land Tax lets you cheaply dig through a lot of cards in your deck and win by having more cards, usually better as a late game plan because it's too uninteractive in the early turns.

The deck can be complicated to play well if you're new to Legacy. Control decks and card selection engines involve more decision forks that depend on understanding what the opponents decks are trying to do and how to best use your tools to fight that.

Edit: Maverick should be favorable. Prioritize getting Rip+Energy Field online as soon as possible T3 or T4. Don't durdle with Scroll Rack early. Just jam Energy Field defenses. Then their game plan reduces to Green Sun's Zenith into disenchants (Knight of Autumn) or GSZ into Helm hate (Collector Ouphe, Gaddock Teeg). T2 Thalia OTP is probably the most dangerous thing they can do that really costs us tempo. That would be worth Forcing or StPing immediately. Otherwise as a rule in G1 don't bother fighting over random creatures. Save Force for Zeniths X=2+ (unless they're threatening something that wins immediately, unlikely) and that cuts them off their toolbox to answer you. As long as they can't use their Zenith toolbox you stay in control of the game. If they randomly draw into anti-Helm hatebears, Court of Cunning lets you win through them. Postboard bring in Web of Inertia (Energy Field #4), EE, and Detention Spheres (basically answers to permanent-based hate). Keep countering Zenith and be ready to counter SB Force of Vigor-type cards. I need to test this matchup more but I don't expect it to be a bad one.

I am all for getting more information/theory on the deck, so thank you for that. I've played miracles in Modern before they banned mystic sanctuary...so I have a little experience, but definitely not in legacy. I will continue to test and slowly improve. I have everything proxied that I don't have, but I'm considering purchasing some pieces here soon. I really like the manabase with more basics...Do you think two Tundra is a must?

[Laser Brains]

I am all for getting more information/theory on the deck, so thank you for that. I've played miracles in Modern before they banned mystic sanctuary...so I have a little experience, but definitely not in legacy. I will continue to test and slowly improve. I have everything proxied that I don't have, but I'm considering purchasing some pieces here soon. I really like the manabase with more basics...Do you think two Tundra is a must?

Hi FistaCuff! Welcome! Tundras are expensive. What I do, and I think a lot of Legacy players do, is get a set or a few and then just use proxies of them to fill out the rest of your legacy decks. I don't own 12 Tundras for all of my decks but I have proxies to spread for the 3 that I own.

Of course decks are better with Tundras rather than shock or pain lands but if your just wanting to test decks, which is what I do, I think you'll be fine. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here.

I saw that you were saying that you were new to legacy. IMHO, it is hands down the best format. I play a little Commander and Modern but Commander feels to casual for me and Modern is way to limited. You can do so much more in Legacy.

I think you are going to really like this deck too. There's not too many decks sporting 3 two card combos so there's a lot of games here that go different ways and I think that's what drew me in with it. Also, I was working an a Lantern deck that had some of the combos and saw that FTW was working on this so of course I got suckered in. You're gonna love this! And it is certainly competitive.

[FTW]

I am all for getting more information/theory on the deck, so thank you for that. I've played miracles in Modern before they banned mystic sanctuary...so I have a little experience, but definitely not in legacy. I will continue to test and slowly improve. I have everything proxied that I don't have, but I'm considering purchasing some pieces here soon. I really like the manabase with more basics...Do you think two Tundra is a must?

2 Tundra are not a must. This deck has good mana. 2 colors. 8 fetches get either color. 8 cantrips. Land Tax fixes colored basics. Very few double color requirements.

You could cut down to just 1 Tundra. If that's out of budget, 1 Hallowed Fountain is an option. Most games you can fetch basics anyway. Tundra is mostly there as a back-up, to leave the door open to sequences of plays that would not be possible if you fetched a basic that turn (due to the order of color mana requirements, e.g. you want to pay W this turn and UU next turn). In those scenarios losing 2 life for no reason is not something people who already own Tundra want to do. But the 2 life for Hallowed Fountain won't necessarily lose you the game.

A lot of us run duals not because the deck can't work without them but because we already own them from back when they were affordable, so why not use them for better mana? It's a small advantage that may not be worth $1000 to you, which is fine.

[Laser Brains]

2 Tundra are not a must. This deck has good mana. 2 colors. 8 fetches get either color. 8 cantrips. Land Tax fixes colored basics. Very few double color requirements.

You could cut down to just 1 Tundra. If that's out of budget, 1 Hallowed Fountain is an option. Most games you can fetch basics anyway. Tundra is mostly there as a back-up, to leave the door open to sequences of plays that would not be possible if you fetched a basic that turn (due to the order of color mana requirements, e.g. you want to pay W this turn and UU next turn). In those scenarios losing 2 life for no reason is not something people who already own Tundra want to do. But the 2 life for Hallowed Fountain won't necessarily lose you the game.

A lot of us run duals not because the deck can't work without them but because we already own them from back when they were affordable, so why not use them for better mana? It's a small advantage that may not be worth $1000 to you, which is fine.

@FTW and anyone interested in helping develop this deck:
So I had a chance to play this again. This time the results were not as good but I only played against 2 decks and both were fitted with the tools to beat it. We were purposely choosing our bad match ups. One of which was another Chalice deck. If you remember my Eldrazi match ups were 50/50 pre-board.

One such deck is Urza Echoes. I think we played 4 games and all in all I went 1-3. There was no sideboards here. Game one I smashed face by countering his explosive (glass cannon) hand. He essentially dumped a hand full of free 0cc artifacts including LED then tried to go off with Echo which got countered. This game was easy. The next few games were not as easy. That deck packs a lot of threats. Chalice set at 1 is bad but between Urza, Emry and Karn I simply just got overwhelmed.

Speaking of which, Karn is a major thorn in my side as well as all resolved planeswalkers. Another game it was Jace, the Mind Sculptor who eventually received his 12 counters enabling his "ultimate". So there are a few tweaks I think we should make. More on that later.

Next I actually got to continue my testing against Sharkstill and this time I DID have a sb. Game one I almost always beat Sharkstill. After we sideboard though my opponent sides out all creature removal which ends up being around 8 cards. Can't remember everything he sides out but a few cards are Moat, STP etc.. and he sides in 3x Court of Cunning and a slew of counter magic including Spell Pierce and more. Court of Cunning kicked my ass for the same reason that planeswalkers do. I can't remember which deck he was playing Teferi but Teferi is a bitch to deal with. Like planeswalkers I'm limited on ways to deal with CoC. I did remove one of his CoC with Detention Sphere but my opponent was still in possession of the Monarch token which garnered him an engine to eventually win the game. These games were close though and I feel that if I was more experienced with this deck I could have won several times. This leads me to a series of points I want to make.

1). This deck is amazing!! That is my main point. It is F-ing amazing!! One thing though, it takes a "Beautiful Mind" to pilot it. It is complex and there are a lot of decisions at your disposal. This deck in the hands of a skilled and experienced pilot could very well be unstoppable. Not sure if any of you remember the old Vintage deck Keeper, but this deck is very much like Keeper in that it can be unstoppable in the right hands. There were a lot of mistakes that I made. Because there are so many 2 card combos you have to pick and choose how you want to line up your next turn based on the tools that you have at that moment. An example of this is often I would be so concentrated on establishing my lock that I'd forget that I could just win on the spot by tutoring up Helm of Obedience. So many decisions!

2). The deck needs a way to deal with planeswalkers outside of counter magic. This imho is it's biggest down fall. I do have some ideas for the sb. A Vampire Hexmage type card such as Hex Parasite could not only be useful against planeswalkers but also Chalice. I'm sure there is something better though.

3). Meddling Mage was really good in the sb. So good that if I had been running more on the side I would have sided them in and they would have won me multiple games. (The idea is to side them in after your opponent has sided out all of their creature removal.) @FTW: This was a good call btw!

4). Scroll Rack is powerful in this deck! It's even better in multiples. Without it I wouldn't have won so many of the games that I've won. Paired with Land Tax to out draw my opponent it was clutch. Getting multiple in play allows you to to either counter two spells in the same turn with Counterbalance all the while drawing cards with Land Tax.

5). I feel like the deck at 19 land is a bit much. I got mana flooded a few times. At one point I cut a land for a lone Spell Pierce which seemed to help.

6). This deck beats a large chunk of the gauntlet. The reason we chose to test it against Urza Echoes is because we wanted to play it against decks that looked like bad match ups. Before we decided on Urza Echoes though we were essentially rolling dice to randomly select decks to test against it. A few decks came up that we just literally skipped because we already knew that they'd get stomped. It seems combo and aggro are our better match ups. Decks like Reanimator, Hogaack, Vial decks and aggro are fairly easy to beat.

My sideboard was lacking though so some of the games I lost I'm wondering if I could have one. It would also help if I was a better control player. I often forget EoT triggers etc..

That being said, here's the list I was running after I cut a land:

RiP / Helm Miracles: 60

Lock / Synergies: 15
4x Rest in Peace
3x Energy Field
3x Counterbalance
3x Scroll Rack
2x Land Tax

Win: 2
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Court of Cunning

Control / Removal: 14
4x Force of Will
2x Force of Negation
1x Spell Pierce
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Terminus
1x Detention Sphere

Search / Draw: 11
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Enlightened Tutor

Land: 18
4x Flooded Strand
4x Prismatic Vista
3x Tundra
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Karakas

Sideboard: 13 (my sideboard not only wasn't complete it wasn't up to par because I was missing stuff like Engineered Explosives etc.. which I substituted Ratchet Bomb etc..)
1x Detention Sphere
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Meddling Mage (I'd like to run at least 3 main maybe 4)
1x Narset, Parter of Veils
1x Cursed Totem
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Web of Inertia
1x Dovin's Veto
2x Deafening Silence
2x Spell Pierce
1x Helm of Obedience

EDIT: Here's the break down. Mostly pre-board. The only real bad match ups I've had are Urza Echoes and Enchantress. Eldrazi and BuG Threshold (I don't have UR Delver or Canadian to test it against) seem to be 50/50. The Sharkstill losses were only post sb. Pre-sb it is my game almost always. It pretty much, in my testing, beats everything else and that in itself is amazing.

Also, I feel that this deck could/should deserve it's own thread. Maybe even a new name.

[FTW]

Thanks for posting your testing results! Glad you're enjoying the deck.

Yeah, in my experience the best matchups are aggro and combo and the worst matchups preboard are control and Chalice. The SB is mostly dedicated to slots to help those last 2. It might need more adjustment.




One such deck is Urza Echoes. I think we played 4 games and all in all I went 1-3. There was no sideboards here. Game one I smashed face by countering his explosive (glass cannon) hand. He essentially dumped a hand full of free 0cc artifacts including LED then tried to go off with Echo which got countered. This game was easy. The next few games were not as easy. That deck packs a lot of threats. Chalice set at 1 is bad but between Urza, Emry and Karn I simply just got overwhelmed.

Urza Echo is a bad matchup. Rest in Peace naturally fights both Emry and Echo. Narset, Parter of Veils hates on their draw engine. But getting Mind Twist-comboed is hard to come back from.

Karn is game-ending. Must-counter. Detention Spheres and 6x Force is the best I could come up with. Also Court of Cunning as a secondary wincon that wins through Karn (even if they fetch Lattice after) and Pithing Needle @ Karn in the SB. It will be a bad matchup though.

That was true when I brewed and extensively tested Jeskai Breach too. Breach was degenerate enough to get banned in a month, and a resolved Karn was still practically GG. We never found good answers for it. Burning Wish for Consign // Oblivion and try to win before they recast it? Cantrip into Chain of Vapor? Enlightened Tutor for Detention Sphere? SB into more counters? Karn is fundamentally very strong against UWx control-combo, especially when the win condition is an artifact activated ability. We could SB more aggressively around Karn but I think ultimately it's OK to accept some cards are bad matchups.

There is one neat trick I picked up from Breach days. If they -2 for Lattice and cast it, you can float 1R and then Wear//Tear Karn after Lattice resolves (Karn will be an artifact!). Lattice is useless without Karn and then Helm is unlocked again too. That's something only instant removal can do. UW does have Cast Out, which may be worth a look over one of the Detention Spheres. There's always Disenchant too.




Another game it was Jace, the Mind Sculptor who eventually received his 12 counters enabling his "ultimate".

and he sides in 3x Court of Cunning and a slew of counter magic including Spell Pierce and more. Court of Cunning kicked my ass for the same reason that planeswalkers do.

I can't remember which deck he was playing Teferi but Teferi is a bitch to deal with. Like planeswalkers I'm limited on ways to deal with CoC.

Jace, Teferi, Court of Cunning, Sharknado, Urza, Emry, Echo... these are all things that die to Red Elemental Blast. Your testing has me convinced the red splash may still be worth it.

REB was originally in there (over Spell Pierce) to blow up resolved blue threats like Oko, Teferi, Urza. Without creatures, answering planeswalkers is hard. Getting back the Monarch is hard too. You don't want to expend too many resources fighting over these things. 1-mana Vindicate/Counterspell is a clean answer.

ETutorable Pithing Needle also fights Jace, Teferi, Urza, Emry, Karn...




3). Meddling Mage was really good in the sb. So good that if I had been running more on the side I would have sided them in and they would have won me multiple games. (The idea is to side them in after your opponent has sided out all of their creature removal.) @FTW: This was a good call btw!


Good to hear. It could be good as a 3x. It consumes SB space but may be a neat trick. It also helps proactively prevent things like Karn, Jace, Court...

SB space is limited so we'll need to decide what to prioritize. We might need to be more limited with the ETutor SB, cutting cards with niche cases, to make room for multiples of generically strong cards like Meddling Mage and REB.




It is complex and there are a lot of decisions at your disposal. This deck in the hands of a skilled and experienced pilot could very well be unstoppable. Not sure if any of you remember the old Vintage deck Keeper, but this deck is very much like Keeper in that it can be unstoppable in the right hands. There were a lot of mistakes that I made. Because there are so many 2 card combos you have to pick and choose how you want to line up your next turn based on the tools that you have at that moment. An example of this is often I would be so concentrated on establishing my lock that I'd forget that I could just win on the spot by tutoring up Helm of Obedience. So many decisions!

Very good point. This deck is hard to pilot well. Many decision forks and multi-turn sequences. Blue control is always decision-heavy. Control-combo can come with even tougher decision forks because you have to decide when to defend and when to be proactive. With multiple combos in the deck, each serving different roles, there are even more decisions about when to prioritize each and which ones to fight over. Your experience with Parfait must help a lot with all your Scroll Rack tricks. They're not as intuitive for a new player picking up the deck.


@FistaCuffSmith: That's something I meant to point out earlier. This deck is hard to play well and can be unforgiving to pilot error. If you curve T1 Land Tax T2 Scroll Rack against Burn, you will lose. If you're new to Legacy, you may be better off starting with an aggro strategy like your monoblack deck. Playing control well involves understanding how the other decks work, what they're trying to accomplish, what axes to pick fights over, and which of your tools in the 75 can help with that. If you bring a rake when you need a hammer, it's going to end poorly.

Earlier I mentioned vague instructions like "play out Rip-Field early" against Maverick. That must sound like getting lucky with topdecks as you just play out random combo pieces in your hand. It's not. It's quite deliberate and involves sequencing across multiple turns, and adapting that sequence to your draws and the opponent's plays.

Here's what a "fast RiP/Field" sequence looks like against aggro decks
T1 land, cantrip or EOT ETutor
T2 land, Rest in Peace (ideally you want basic Island + basic Plains at this point)
T3 upkeep ETutor or mainphase cantrip. 3rd land. Energy Field

That gets your shields up by turn 3, very fast, while still letting you hold up free counters to interact with problems or protect the combo! Very good tempo and mana utilization. But fetching the wrong lands, cantripping poorly, or getting distracted StPing something that doesn't really need to die could slow you down a full turn for no reason.

Now you won't always have the cards to do it that quickly. If your opening hand and T1 sculpting shows you won't be able to set it up in time for turn 3, you have to shift courses. Don't cast RiP turn 2! Instead spend turns 2-3 sculpting and interacting, aiming to drop both RiP + Energy Field on turn 4. Or turn 5. With some interaction, that should still be fast enough to get shields up. If their clock is slow enough, evaluate whether to shift to deploying Helm directly (go aggressive) instead of Energy Field (defense). This is another reason why you normally get RiP first over Energy Field. It leaves you open to either line.

If you just brick on cantrips and draws, you can try to set up a Terminus to clear the board and stall for time. Normally aggro decks play few threats at a time to avoid Terminus blowouts. Racing towards Rip/Field creates this conflicting tension forcing them to play out their hand and race you before your lock gets up, which can walk them into a big Terminus blowout if you fail to assemble the lock in time. Going for the lock is usually better, but Terminus can really set them back and buy you time. You can also play out naked Energy Fields to buy time. Keeping them guessing between which line you're going for can also steal advantages. T3 curve out is the ideal play, but there's also a lot of room for adjustments and counter play.

The tough part with this deck is you won't always want to go for a fast Rip/Field. It's usually the best line against aggro, but against other decks establishing Tax/Rack or Counter/Rack first is more important. You have to start planning for this several turns before actually sticking the combo. How do you know when to do that against a random opponent on an unknown deck? In my experience, aggro decks usually reveal themselves to be aggro decks by their turn 1 play (Hierarch, Mom, Vial, Cavern, Lackey, Swiftspear, Lava Spike, etc). After they've taken their turn 1 (your turn 1 or their turn 1 EOT), you should have a hint and can start sequencing. If their next play shows you guessed wrong, you may need to adjust lines.

This is the tough part about playing control in Legacy. There have been tons of articles written just about how to cast Brainstorm well. More on when to time fetchland activations and which order to fetch lands. These subtle nuances in Legacy can be the difference between a win and a loss, in a way that doesn't really happen in Modern. As a new Legacy player, it's a lot easier and more rewarding to pick up some aggro or linear combo deck first and get a feel for the format. Blue control, especially a deck like this, has more decisions and can be less forgiving for players new to the format.

I like to design decks where I can use an increased set of decisions, careful sequencing, format knowledge, or stack tricks to gain incremental advantages and outplay the opponent. That's how a lot of old school Legacy players liked to play but it's not for everyone, and it's very different from the play patterns in Modern, Standard and Hearthstone.

[Laser Brains]

Thanks for posting your testing results! Glad you're enjoying the deck.

Yeah, in my experience the best matchups are aggro and combo and the worst matchups preboard are control and Chalice. The SB is mostly dedicated to slots to help those last 2. It might need more adjustment.

That's actually pretty great. According to MtgTop8 only 18% of decks are control the other 82% is aggro and combo.



Karn is game-ending. Must-counter. Detention Spheres and 6x Force is the best I could come up with. Also Court of Cunning as a secondary wincon that wins through Karn (even if they fetch Lattice after) and Pithing Needle @ Karn in the SB. It will be a bad matchup though.

That was true when I brewed and extensively tested Jeskai Breach too. Breach was degenerate enough to get banned in a month, and a resolved Karn was still practically GG. We never found good answers for it. Burning Wish for Consign // Oblivion and try to win before they recast it? Cantrip into Chain of Vapor? Enlightened Tutor for Detention Sphere? SB into more counters? Karn is fundamentally very strong against UWx control-combo, especially when the win condition is an artifact activated ability. We could SB more aggressively around Karn but I think ultimately it's OK to accept some cards are bad matchups.

I agree. Too bad Karn's ability shuts off Hex Parasite's activated ability. It's nice against other planeswalkers though. It can be tutored with ETutor and you don't have to sac it like you do with Vampire Hexmage. You can munch Chalice all day and then still munch planeswalker counters and then even attack the planeswalker to finish it off. Honestly though, if Karn is our biggest threat we're not doing too bad. We can just counter him and/or side Helm out for an addition Court of Cunning.


There is one neat trick I picked up from Breach days. If they -2 for Lattice and cast it, you can float 1R and then Wear//Tear Karn after Lattice resolves (Karn will be an artifact!). Lattice is useless without Karn and then Helm is unlocked again too. That's something only instant removal can do. UW does have Cast Out, which may be worth a look over one of the Detention Spheres. There's always Disenchant too.

Bad ass! Good to know! I actually played a game where Karn was resolved and my opponent tutored for Teferi's Puzzle Box while he had Hullbreacher in play. That was F-ing brutal!



Jace, Teferi, Court of Cunning, Sharknado, Urza, Emry, Echo... these are all things that die to Red Elemental Blast. Your testing has me convinced the red splash may still be worth it.

REB was originally in there (over Spell Pierce) to blow up resolved blue threats like Oko, Teferi, Urza. Without creatures, answering planeswalkers is hard. Getting back the Monarch is hard too. You don't want to expend too many resources fighting over these things. 1-mana Vindicate/Counterspell is a clean answer.

ETutorable Pithing Needle also fights Jace, Teferi, Urza, Emry, Karn...

Again, I'm thinking a lone Hex Parasite on the sideboard might not suck after opponent has sided out creature hate. But I agree, Pithing Needle is tight here. I'm considering main-decking it as a one of to tutor for in the Spell Pierce slot that I have open. I do want red for REB though. Just not sure if it warrants a splash. Maybe with more testing. The mana base is tight. The whole deck is tight actually.



Good to hear. It could be good as a 3x. It consumes SB space but may be a neat trick. It also helps proactively prevent things like Karn, Jace, Court...

SB space is limited so we'll need to decide what to prioritize. We might need to be more limited with the ETutor SB, cutting cards with niche cases, to make room for multiples of generically strong cards like Meddling Mage and REB.

Yeah, Meddling Mage actually really took my opponent by surprise. My only gripe was that there wasn't enough of them. The pro-active strategy left him with some dead Standstills. Three Mage feels correct since he can't be tutored. Otherwise we are depending on getting lucky and top decking him.


Very good point. This deck is hard to pilot well. Many decision forks and multi-turn sequences. Blue control is always decision-heavy. Control-combo can come with even tougher decision forks because you have to decide when to defend and when to be proactive. With multiple combos in the deck, each serving different roles, there are even more decisions about when to prioritize each and which ones to fight over. Your experience with Parfait must help a lot with all your Scroll Rack tricks. They're not as intuitive for a new player picking up the deck.

That's why I love this deck so much. It feels like a classic Vintage style control deck along the lines of Keeper and Parfait. In the right hands and a sideboard tuned to the current meta it can/should be unstoppable. It feels like a classic.


I'm going to get the right sideboard together for my next session and keep you posted. I wasn't even running Pithing Needle.

[FTW]

Have you played this lately?

Unfortunately I think the deck is dead post-MH2. It capitalized on most fair decks' inability to interact with a large number of enchantments. Now Prismatic Ending means an increase in MD enchantment kill, Urza's Saga gives decks uncounterable tutors into hate like Pithing Needle, and anti-Saga decks are getting more creative with their enchantment and artifact kill to go beyond the usual 1-for-1s we can overload.

When the opponent isn't sitting on a stack of dead cards and only few counterable outs, this deck starts to feel clunky compared to other control options like Bant.

[Laser Brains]

Have you played this lately?

Unfortunately I think the deck is dead post-MH2. It capitalized on most fair decks' inability to interact with a large number of enchantments. Now Prismatic Ending means an increase in MD enchantment kill, Urza's Saga gives decks uncounterable tutors into hate like Pithing Needle, and anti-Saga decks are getting more creative with their enchantment and artifact kill to go beyond the usual 1-for-1s we can overload.

When the opponent isn't sitting on a stack of dead cards and only few counterable outs, this deck starts to feel clunky compared to other control options like Bant.

I actually put this deck down for a bit, but I certainly have beat up on a variety decks with it. MH2 has brought a lot to the table though and I've already encountered Prismatic Ending (super annoying card). I've also already heard rumors of Urza's Saga being banned in Modern and it will certainly see a lot of play in Legacy. I guess we shall see.

I've got the deck together in paper though so I'm hoping it doesn't get hated out. I've been working on other decks at the moment, have you noticed if MH2 brought any new juicy cards to this deck? I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

[FTW]

The best addition is probably that we get to play Prismatic Ending too. Then we get to play a more flexible card over disenchants/Abrade/Wear-Tear in the SB to answer Chalice, and we don't need as many copies of Detention Sphere either (slower and loses to opposing Prismatic Ending removing it). Detention Sphere is still better vs Karn and Jace but Ending is better against most other things.

We can also better hate out some of these decks since ETutor finds silver bullets like Energy Flux or Alpine Moon without costing much SB space. Energy Flux wrecks Affinity, Esper Sentinel decks, and random Urza's Saga decks. Alpine Moon conveniently handles Urza's Saga, Dark Depths, Wasteland, Field of the Dead, and Karakas so it comes in for many matchups. Amazing 1-of to tutor for.

We could consider boarding in some kind of Sterling Grove effect to protect our pieces from the increased enchantment hate and also tutor for silver bullets. Sterling Grove makes the green splash more interesting than the red splash, both protecting us from removal and increasing the ability to find silver bullets. We would also get Veil of Summer instead of Red Elemental Blast, which can potentially 2-for-1 counter wars (instead of 1-for-1) and also protects enchantments from Abrupt Decay/Assassin's Trophy and our hand from discard.

We could potentially run 1 Dress Down as a tutorable trick that cantrips, but it's probably worse than just running Humility if we really need to turn off creature abilities.

[FTW]

This is what I'm on post-MH2.


//Lands: 19
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Tundra
5 Island
3 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
1 Terminus

//Enchantments: 13
2 Land Tax
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
1 Court of Cunning

//Artifacts: 4
3 Scroll Rack
1 Helm of Obedience

//Sideboard: 15
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Web of Inertia
1 Back to Basics
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Detention Sphere
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Flusterstorm
3 Meddling Mage


Counterbalance Curve
0 - 19
1 - 19
2 - 13
3 - 3
4 - 1
5 - 4
6 - 1

Library manipulation: 14 + Heliod's

Prismatic Ending is the biggest change for this deck, both for and against.

Gaining Ending means we have 6 1 cmc removals, which can be important in Ragavan.format (7 turn 1 answers including Karakas). But we can also blank Ragavan with Energy Field or put back blanks with Scroll Rack, so it isn't necessary to blow all our resources on the monkey. Often he can be ignored for proactive development. UR Delver really struggles to interact with our prison once on the board, so it's more important to prioritize that. Them cutting Borrowers for more 1 cmc beatz means they walk even harder to our prisons. Counterbalance @ 1 & Energy Field both wreck UR Delver.

Stp on Monkey with 1 open -> Opponent Forces -> Ignore it and resolve blue enchantment with Force backup -> win the game

Gaining Ending also means there's no more need for so many Detention Sphere. Sphere was our main out to problematic permanents (Chalice, Karn, Needles, etc). Multiple copies were required to have enough interaction, despite how bad it is on tempo. Ending now handles a lot of those issues while SB Sphere can still deal with high cmc problems like Karn.

Opponents (e.g. Bant, RagaStill) having access to Ending is a problem, though. It means more MD enchantment kill. But we can still fight with counters and try to overwhelm their few answers. Overall Bant should be a good matchup, because Uro is just 3-mana Explore and Endurance is just some textless Trained Armadon aggro creature.

Urza's Saga cheese is not really an issue. Most of their targets don't interact with our game plan. Pithing Needle @ Helm is a thing, but Prismatic Ending gives us more answers to that.

I'm not 100% sure on the numbers of FoN, Terminus, Ending and StP. It may be correct to have a 3-3 split of StP & Ending instead of 4-2. It may also be correct to have 2 Terminus 1 FoN instead of 2 FoN 1 Terminus. These small changes are meta-dependent and need testing.

[Laser Brains]

This is what I'm on post-MH2.


//Lands: 19
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Tundra
5 Island
3 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
1 Terminus

//Enchantments: 13
2 Land Tax
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
1 Court of Cunning

//Artifacts: 4
3 Scroll Rack
1 Helm of Obedience

//Sideboard: 15
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Web of Inertia
1 Back to Basics
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Detention Sphere
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Flusterstorm
3 Meddling Mage


Counterbalance Curve
0 - 19
1 - 19
2 - 13
3 - 3
4 - 1
5 - 4
6 - 1

Library manipulation: 14 + Heliod's

Prismatic Ending is the biggest change for this deck, both for and against.

Gaining Ending means we have 6 1 cmc removals, which can be important in Ragavan.format (7 turn 1 answers including Karakas). But we can also blank Ragavan with Energy Field or put back blanks with Scroll Rack, so it isn't necessary to blow all our resources on the monkey. Often he can be ignored for proactive development. UR Delver really struggles to interact with our prison once on the board, so it's more important to prioritize that. Them cutting Borrowers for more 1 cmc beatz means they walk even harder to our prisons. Counterbalance @ 1 & Energy Field both wreck UR Delver.

Stp on Monkey with 1 open -> Opponent Forces -> Ignore it and resolve blue enchantment with Force backup -> win the game

Gaining Ending also means there's no more need for so many Detention Sphere. Sphere was our main out to problematic permanents (Chalice, Karn, Needles, etc). Multiple copies were required to have enough interaction, despite how bad it is on tempo. Ending now handles a lot of those issues while SB Sphere can still deal with high cmc problems like Karn.

Opponents (e.g. Bant, RagaStill) having access to Ending is a problem, though. It means more MD enchantment kill. But we can still fight with counters and try to overwhelm their few answers. Overall Bant should be a good matchup, because Uro is just 3-mana Explore and Endurance is just some textless Trained Armadon aggro creature.

Urza's Saga cheese is not really an issue. Most of their targets don't interact with our game plan. Pithing Needle @ Helm is a thing, but Prismatic Ending gives us more answers to that.

I'm not 100% sure on the numbers of FoN, Terminus, Ending and StP. It may be correct to have a 3-3 split of StP & Ending instead of 4-2. It may also be correct to have 2 Terminus 1 FoN instead of 2 FoN 1 Terminus. These small changes are meta-dependent and need testing.

I'm liking all of this a lot! Got some Prismatic Endings coming in the mail now. Just ordered them. Hall of Heliod's looks great.

I actually like -1 FoN and +1 Terminus. 4x StP seems correct but you're right, I'd like to see another Prismatic Ending in there. Not sure what to cut. Maybe 61 cards doesn't suck here.

Can't wait to get back to playing this and see how it holds up!