Bumbleberry Pie

[Reeplcheep]

During the dark days of companion spring, I tried to slot Yorion into Curses. The package of omen of the sea/trial of ambition plus Yorion/Estrids invocation felt very good. Both enablers are almost playable on their own and your engines fit the current FIRE hellscape model of guaranteed value plus running away with the game. Of course, being neither an artifact nor creature helps avoid oko disrupting your engine. It didn’t mesh well with the fast mana and land base of curses, but I always wanted to revisit it.

The name is based on a Canadian dessert, usually involving blueberries and blackberries, by analogy with the other enlightened tutor based decks strawberry shortcake and parfait.

We need redundancy as a Yorion deck, so Aminatou (the best 3 cmc pw that doesn’t see play in legacy imo) and 3feri were added as backup engines. Court of grace and reality acid were added as additional enablers. Aminatou plus is similar to a baby jace 0, so it made sense to fill out the rest of the slots with an Esper miracles shell.

The discard and enlightened tutor package serve to remedy Yorion piles usually horrible combo mus, while synergizing with the planeswalkers and estrids.


4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
3 Sea
2 Karakas
2 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Aminatou
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Reality Acid
2 Court of Grace
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Terminus
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Stoney Silence
1 Torpor Orb
1 Act of Authority
1 Back to Basics
1 Nevermore
1 Deafening Silence
2 Rest In Peace
2 Engineered Plague

[Reeplcheep]

Deck in action vs ark4n on elves (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/853170281?t=1h46m36s)

[Reeplcheep]

Why could this deck be good? Every brew should have a premise why it is not just bad X imo.

Current legacy has shown that engines based around flickering (goblins), enchantments (rg lands) or Yorion (D&T) can compete. Every other deck needs an unfair element or plays the UG haymakers themselves (except for UR delver I guess). Well this deck uses all three methods to a great extent. Combo decks have adapted to the current control decks plans of forcing everything by playing Defense grid, pyroblast, and allosaurus Shepherd. Playing those cards instead of veil, makes them vulnerable To discard once again. This makes playing Esper over Bant or Uw defensible. Bant decks have shown that mystic sanctuary justifies not splashing 4th colours.

The closest decks to this one are Esper vial (soul herder is an almost identical engine to estrids invocation) and mark voght’s snow miracles (miracles plus sanctuary package).

Advantages vs Snow miracles
E tutor package gives you a sledgehammer against unfair mus
Discard gives you multiple angles vs combo decks instead of just forcing everything
JTMS is too slow nowadays, having a 3 cmc version of that effect allows you to rely more heavily on miracles.
Yorion is a bomb in slow mus, and 3feri/reality acid/trial makes it more tempo Efficient than in other decks.

Cons:
Uro, carpet, library, and blasts/veil are all extremely good in fair blue mus, especially delver.

Advantages vs Esper vial:
Discard/Etutor means we are more disruptive turns 1 and 2.
Enchantments are harder to interact with than creatures, so our engine is less disruptable.
Terminus is better than plague engineer in several mus.

Cons:
Weaker mana denial
No g1 tutors
Slower clock
Vial is a house vs delver

[Fox]

Not great with 80 card numbers, but you have high cmcs, high wasteland risk, and this need to aggro-out basics leading to Sanctuary offline. Sanctuary can only buy back Terminus to go up a card.

Without Oko, 4x Astro isn't competitive, but you're also trying to fill slots to 80. In 60 card deck, optimal no-Oko Astrolabe is x1 slot with x1 or x2 E Tutor (maindeck), this allows keeping basic Plains hands, cycling E-tutor, and making your own Gush with Teferi.

Aminatoa is linking to an 8 drop sorc, not the PW. Looking at your PWs, I'm not seeing a great plan vs Oko; at least play some 3cmc Kaya. Consider Moat x1 with E-Tutor here.

On recursion, Sevinne's and Heliod's is far superior to Sanctuary imitating Mirri's Guile by necro'ing Ponder.

Main impression is to shrink deck to 60 for consistency and clean up the susceptibility to Wasteland. To compete vs FIRE with a do-nothing (Estrid's), it's important to tank its slots down to 1x or 2x at the most, using E-Tutor to maintain build-around. Another example of this philosophy is Aluren using Watcher for Tomorrow to take slots away from Aluren. In the same way, Food Chain can mill extras out of deck with their second casting of the spell that exiles 3 and draws 1 (the newer Foresight).

In terms of cuts, -8 lands, -2 Aminatoa, -2 Reality Acid, -3 Estrid, -2 IoK, -3 Astro. That's -20. Need to add Sevinne's and E-Tutor (at least 2 more nonland slots). Really dislike splitting 1cmc priorities with off colors (white and black) so it's either replace Plows or dump the Thoughtseize. With WW on Court you're priced into Plow, but the need for black on turn 2 for Edict-enchant becomes problematic quickly.

The color identity crisis has to make us ask why we're not playing UBw Standstill, with the cleaner black 1-drop removal, into Drown, into considering white for the first time on turn 3 (Teferi, Kaya, Sevinne's - the three best white payoff spells in the game).

[Reeplcheep]

Good criticisms. I am unsure about the criticisms on the mana base; I basically just copied the mana base from the snow miracles list http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3650621that won the sat. Challenge. I only scaled it up and pivoted green to black. My average cmc is lower than that deck, my land count is proportionally higher and I am not splashing for blasts. Unless you think in 80cards Astrolabe is not seen enough to enable sanctuary off of basics. Mark Vogt is an excellent deck builder so I assumed these builds would not have such fundamental issues.

Card link fixed: Aminatou, the fateshifter. With astrolabe, Aminatou is a personal howling mine which seems better or as good as making a 3/3 or paying 1 to draw 2 once. 1. The abyss of trial plus engine biding time until Reality acid recurring vindicates or 2. terminus into 4/4s every turn are the primary plans, although the plan A is to just discard it. 1x Moat could be great.

Mystic Sanctuary Recurring terminus, forces and entreat seemed extremely strong vs go wide/combo/durdle respectively, and tutorability seemed important in an 80card deck. If it lets me fetch more conservatively though I could see the argument for your alternatives.

With 12 cards that it comboes with, all of which can’t easily be removed and are a 2 for 1 if decayed, do you really think estrids will be dead often? Extras can be discarded with aminatou plus, brainstorm, fow or fon. But perhaps etutor is better if I can afford the card disadvantage in fair mus.

Agree with most of the non engine cuts if I go to 60. Without Yorion though I worry the actual cards that win the game become too few and slow, exposing yourself to surgical and ultra late game engines like fotd. I do dislike splitting 1 cmc but without plow my Lage matchups tank and white court/miracles are much better than black ones. (Not to mention etutor and sideboard hate). Hullbreacher snow has hierarchy and plow, plus blasts/veils/deafening silence sb.

Cutting plow is doable but that doesn’t make much sense if we want etutor main. We will never be better than the uro/carpet deck at beating delver; so cutting discard seems to remove our competitive advantage in unfair mus.

I’m not an expert on your most up to date standstill list, but the advantage Over standstill would be that the blink engine can be removal too, so it is more tempo positive and better when behind on board. You also can run terminus which helps with elves and gaak. Arguably, mystic sanctuary is a more available and more resilient land then factory.

Thanks again for your insight.

[Borg]

Some cards that have excellent synergy with Aminatou imo :
Detention Sphere
Oath of Gideon
Narset, Parter of Veils

[Reeplcheep]

Some cards that have excellent synergy with Aminatou imo :
Detention Sphere
Oath of Gideon
Narset, Parter of Veils

D sphere: hmm. You get value if they have 2 things with the same name but it gives your opponent etb value. I guess it is very good vs food elks. I could buy that it has a higher floor than reality acid as an oko answer if I am willing to lose land destruction. Prison Realm gives some minor etb value at the cost of pitching to fow and answering chalice/lands/library

Oath of Gideon: the extra loyalty is really nice but it seems to have a lot lower power level with estrids than history of benalia or court of grace.

Narset: unlike 3 feri it doesn’t help with the blink plan or protect flickers from removal in response. But the card advantage is excellent.

[Fox]

The main thing is that Oko/Uro users have time (lifegain). They're allowed to fall behind and then bound forward with Uro ramp (buys back lost land drop) and +3 life negates a Delver hit. On the back end they have Astro and Oko which immediately kills all but a list of 6 legacy-playable PWs (from non-Oko decks).

While snow is drawing runners like Oko, Uro, and Ice-Fang you can't really afford to draw running Estrid's with nothing to copy. When recovering from challenged mana/reaching 3 for the first time, you need a play with adequate compensation (this is where Sevinne's excels, securing 3 mana position with Fetch necro). Estrid's banks heavily on other cards resolving before it, and by itself it won't secure your path to a PW (vs Daze or Wasteland).

I get the payoff of Estrid's, but looked at in isolation as a cmc 3 play, it is lacking. I don't see much benefit in running even more chances at a failed 3 mana execute vs FIRE (Oko/Uro). Too hard to claw back into a game if you're deferring your first threatening play to cmc 4.
^the strategy a FIRE pilot should take is let turn 1 play resolve, counter any 2-drop enchant, let you tap out for Estrid's, slam Oko/Uro, and run away with the game. So while it's great to want to build around Estrid's, it's also the worst card in your deck.

Missed the Entreat, but yes this is an example of a card that is worth buying back. More WW issues however, pointing away from making any turn 1 black plays (Fetch Usea or deploy Usea should be most avoided opener). If that's your only credible wincon, you need to find another instead of playing harder into Surgical in postboard games with Sanctuary.

[Reeplcheep]

Ok. I want to stay on 80 because a. You can’t fit both court and entreat in 60 cards so you will lose to surgical. B. Yorion gives you an guaranteed bomb that can hang with uro, beat surgical on entreat and clock combo.

Took the above advice of less win cons & low floor cards (entreat/reality acid/estrids) which were replaced with more high floor cards like detention sphere. Even if the benefit of blinking is minimal the clean and immediate answer to oko is probably too important to ignore.

I cut the sketchier lands for medomai’s prophecy. It’s an additional enabler to curve into engines while having a floor of a predict with scry 2 + suspend 2. Win cons are split 2 court 1 Entreat. Added acid to the sideboard for when I need LD. I have a ton of removal now so I added disinformation campaign as a hymn catch all for when removal is bad. Added scrubland which I can fetch if I deem WW more important than t4 sanctuary as mentioned by Fox. Swamp changed to plains for WW through wasteland/B2B, and post board is substantially more white usually. In 80 your chance of naturally drawing sanctuary is decreased so I don’t have to always play for the t4 sanctuary.


3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Karakas
2 Mystic Sanctuary
2 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
2 Medomai’s Prophecy
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
3 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Detention Sphere
2 Court of Grace
1 Entreat the Angels
2 Terminus
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Stoney Silence
1 Torpor Orb
2 Disinformation Campaign
1 Back to Basics
1 Reality Acid
1 Deafening Silence
2 Rest In Peace
1 Engineered Plague


If the testing of this goes poorly I will try the more radical shift of 60 cards with lots of basics. In that build the miracle package and 3 labes will be subbed out for an etutor package as suggested.

[Borg]

I realise it's 4cmc but Parallax Tide might fit in your strategy as well.
The fading probably makes it too much work.

[kombatkiwi]

This is where I'm at with my estrid/saga build which I have posted in this forum before

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

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Plow
4 FoW

4 History of Benalia
4 Omen of the Sea
3 Estrids Invocation
3 On Thin Ice
2 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Force of Negation
2 Counterbalance
2 Dovin's Acuity
2 [free slot - 4th Estrid / 4th Thin Ice / T3f / Pierce / D Sphere / w.e]

- History of Benalia as wincon as a kind of mentor-esque threat that is less good at taking over a game "by itself" (Mentor still needs spells/cantrips but that's not such a restrictive requirement than 1 specific 2U enchantment) but generates similarly insane amount of tempo with Invocation and is not vulnerable to creature removal. Unlike Court of Grace it is playable when behind on the board and you can use the knights to block for a few turns while you wait to draw Plow etc then Invocation to take over later, or have an early threat on the board to slam into opposing Teferi/Narset or put the opp under pressure to stop them from going to town on you with Sylvan Library.
- Better mana (vs wasteland at least, the counterbalance-history manacurve can sometimes be annoying but not sure if that's any more of a problem than 3c astro mana trying to cast Animatou etc)
- On Thin Ice over Trial of Ambition: Can't play the black card with this manabase, Sorcery Plow maybe a better card than Cruel Edict and flickering Invocation on it is still decent vs Uro and any token. Was playing Porphyry Nodes before but the immediacy of the OTI exile is important and it also doesn't have the tension with eating the History tokens. (I still think Nodes is good with Standstill but that's a different deck).
- Counterbalance over e.g. Thoughtseize is probably a downgrade but this deck needs a UW anti combo option. This deck has a lot of 3s which is pretty good at the moment (Oko Uro Doomsday etc)
- Dovin's Acuity over Medomai's Prophecy because it's better with flickering it and having some lifegain is important. (The backup plan of it being a slow value engine by itself with mainphase brainstorm/plow is not entirely terrible). Maybe in your build you will find that you just want to play Disinformation Campaign maindeck here.
- Sevinne's Rec as value card instead of e.g. Animatou because it's better in attrition fights (think Pyroblast etc, not blue + has flashback with weird hard-to-counter trigger). Can re-use History if the opponent is not interacting.
- Can't really play sanctuary with so many plains needed for 4 History but there's not really that good of a use for it because there's no Entreat, Terminus etc and the only big value card already has flashback

4 History would make less sense in 80 cards because there is less need for any kind of proactive wincondition when you can just play the strategy of controlling the game until you drop Yorion. Not sure which approach is better. No idea about the potential landcount debate for 80 either.

There is the "lose to surgical" consideration with 4x History but I just play Court in the SB.


I’m not an expert on your most up to date standstill list, but the advantage Over standstill would be that the blink engine can be removal too, so it is more tempo positive and better when behind on board.
After playing variants of both decks for a bit I think that this statement is roughly accurate

[Reeplcheep]

Thanks kombat. I have read that thread, I just wondered if etutor/Yorion/miracles/discard pulled it too far from your deck. They are definitely cut from the same cloth.

Played a league with the above list. I think I went 1-1 vs two delivers, loss vs zenith Snowko and turbo Muxus and win vs Arcanist Snowko. Notes:


Deck can definitely hang with Snowko. One game I had 3 estrids copying a court for 4 angels a turn, then entreated for 8.

Aminatou plus 3feri is absolute gas. It directly lead to the win vs delver by time walking (at 2 life) a Klothys over and over until I drew into fow.

Terminus was good but difficult to enable without aminatou or brainstorm.

Mana was indeed an issue vs bug zenith and delver. It didn’t come up this league but etutor sideboard package was insane vs elves.

Draw step discard is fun.
The clean answer of d sphere was better in fair mus than the clunky but powerful reality acid. I did not realize it could exile your own stuff; it allows estrids to blink multiple labes or planeswalkers which improves it a lot as Value card.

[Reeplcheep]

Responses to Kombats comments:

History is a great clock but I feel we need a md sweeper of some sort to beat gaak and elves. If I cut miracles I probably want moat. Yorion does create more pressure if needed. I have won when playing court behind on board when I followed up immediately with estrids. If you stack the triggers correctly you will get 2 4/4s every turn even if they steal the monarchy, which stabilized vs an oko, elk, leovold, & dryad arbor vs bug zenith snow.
T1 Discard As well as sanctuary was perhaps was too greedy. I do need a good plan vs combo then. With astrolabe I think 1B and WBU is as manageable As UU and 1WW if I cut discard and sanctuary.
Trial is cleaner and considerably better vs Astro-elks. The consistent recurring removal seems worth splashing for, considering how much stronger it is than P Fire/grove.
I do think we need a non fow combo hate, but with elves w/shepherd, TES w/veil and depths I don’t think CB is the answer. I think playing a parfait like etutor package with rip, moat and Stoney silence covers all the combo decks except doomsday and depths. Aminatou can both get rid of bad targets and draw into them right away. Rip and moat are perfectly fine in fair mus.
Rec is strong but Yorion is already flood insurance. I think we will never use the gy as well as uro decks so I’d rather play rip. Yorion is vulnerable to pyroblast however. I could consider an animate dead as grind option. It’s tutorable and absolutely crazy with Yorion.
I think you have talked me into making a cleaner manabase. Will have to drop discard, miracles and sanctuary for basics and etutor hate package.
Other etutor targets: fox why do you advocate labe as a mana screw target? Surely if you are stuck on 1 plains you’d rather have land tax? Land tax is also nicer with aminatou and Karakas/scrubland.
Other etutor targets: Added oath of Kaya as (inefficient) removal that also solves the surgical problem as well as the lightning bolt to the face problem. Small bonus synergy with the planeswalkers and is better than dsphere vs low loyalty PW.


I only have 3 etutor as in the parfait thread it was mentioned it was too much card disadvantage in fair mus. Etutors main to beat combo means I have more sideboard space to beat blue. Added narset to sideboard since it is very good with aminatou as mentioned above, even if too tempo negative to mb. If I changed the list to be more in line with all the helpful comments above:


4 Prismatic Vista
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
1 Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Karakas
3 Snow-Covered Plains
5 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Land Tax
3 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
1 Rest In Peace
1 Stoney Silence
4 Aminatou
3 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Detention Sphere
3 Court of Grace
1 Oath of Kaya
1 Moat
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

1 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Torpor Orb
2 Path to Exile
2 Mystical Dispute
3 Narset
1 Back to Basics
1 Reality Acid
1 Deafening Silence
1 Rest In Peace
1 Engineered Plague

[kombatkiwi]

If you stack the triggers correctly you will get 2 4/4s every turn even if they steal the monarchy
That's pretty amazing actually, I didn't consider this, maybe I will reevaluate the importance of History even in the non-Yorion version when this is a tactical option that is available.


Other etutor targets: fox why do you advocate labe as a mana screw target? Surely if you are stuck on 1 plains you’d rather have land tax? Land tax is also nicer with aminatou and Karakas.
He often points this out like it's some kind of clever thing that makes E-Tutor significantly better ("allows keeping basic plains hands"), when in reality if your opening hand has such bad mana that you would want to pay W for tutor and 1 for labe to effectively have a 1W Mana Cylix then why wouldn't you instead just go down a card and fix your mana by taking a mulligan? Like I get that having a labe in play has a bit of extra value in your Yorion/Animatou/Teferi deck but it doesn't make much sense to me either (i.e. doesn't justify maindeck E tutor by itself but I think the approach you are taking with maindeck moat etc is fine)

[Reeplcheep]

That's pretty amazing actually, I didn't consider this, maybe I will reevaluate the importance of History even in the non-Yorion version when this is a tactical option that is available.


He often points this out like it's some kind of clever thing that makes E-Tutor significantly better ("allows keeping basic plains hands"), when in reality if your opening hand has such bad mana that you would want to pay W for tutor and 1 for labe to effectively have a 1W Mana Cylix then why wouldn't you instead just go down a card and fix your mana by taking a mulligan? Like I get that having a labe in play has a bit of extra value in your Yorion/Animatou/Teferi deck but it doesn't make much sense to me either (i.e. doesn't justify maindeck E tutor by itself but I think the approach you are taking with maindeck moat etc is fine)

Obviously you are totally screwed if the estrids is removed or countered, but they only usually have a few turns to find the answers. If the estrids was copying something else before you will only get 1 4/4 on the first turn.

Do you think land tax is good enough though? 1W mana cylix is horrible, but W for a lay of the land plus w for a tithe is excellent when mana screwed. Esper vial was even playing tithe over 4th ponder for a bit. With oko there aren’t really any decks that can function on 1 mana anymore ala old school thresh. Land tax is also a perfectly fine fair card in a deck with 4 brainstorm 4 Aminatou. It’s also a decent emergency estrids target if your 2 drop gets decayed or countered.

Realized my curve is alot higher with all the tutor targets, might sub out an estrids for a heliods as suggested.

[Fox]

On the other hand @kombatkiwi we have people playing lots of off-basics + Mystic Sanctuary, while also sporting Verdict. The main source of avoidable losses in UW comes from mana problems/conflicts. When you get the tools (Vista, Astro+E Tutor) to fix that glaring problem, you use them...or you choose to keep losing, keeping hands with Wasteland'able blue source or mulls to oblivion.

Astro x1 is pretty free with E-Tutor, especially with the printing of Teferi. If you are on Standstill, we also note Shark Typhoon as the other way to cycle (in addition to opener of EoT tutor Shark, turn 2 Standstill). So you have to contrast that with "I can trash my manabase to use Sanctuary necro Ponder to imitate Mirri's Guile for a turn!"

[Reeplcheep]

Astro x1 is pretty free with E-Tutor, especially with the printing of Teferi. If you are on Standstill, we also note Shark Typhoon as the other way to cycle (in addition to opener of EoT tutor Shark, turn 2 Standstill). So you have to contrast that with "I can trash my manabase to use Sanctuary necro Ponder to imitate Mirri's Guile for a turn!"

I think you are underrating how powerful turning extra land drops into mystical for fow is vs combo and stompy in the banticles deck. The deck can easily fow every turn from t3 onwards.
Perhaps my deck (edit: and standstill) is not a good fit for it but it is very powerful.

Thoughts on land tax?

[aedemiel]

I could consider an animate dead as grind option. It’s tutorable and absolutely crazy with Yorion.

I never considered that. I still can't exactly figure the full interaction, but it seems insane. Maybe a proto-"WorldGorger Dragon" deck?

Also, as a long time Parfait player: Land Tax is great.

[Reeplcheep]

I never considered that. I still can't exactly figure the full interaction, but it seems insane. Maybe a proto-"WorldGorger Dragon" deck?

Also, has a long time Parfait player: Land Tax is great.

It’s a grindy version of worldgorger. No infinite mana but you get to blink everything on both your and the opponents end step. I played it in a hybrid of kombats deck and curses during companion spring. I was running heliods pilgrim anyways to get curse of misfortunes which made it essentially free if I had a Yorion in my gy. (Since it rebuys the heliods etb)

[Fox]

I think you are underrating how powerful turning extra land drops into mystical for fow is vs combo and stompy in the banticles deck. The deck can easily fow every turn from t3 onwards.
Perhaps my deck (edit: and standstill) is not a good fit for it but it is very powerful.

Thoughts on land tax?
At the end of the day that's just putting a 1-for-1 on top of your deck, and burning your next draw on it. The cost is that you have to mulligan more and/or lose to Wasteland more. This isn't a risk you want to assume when not running FIRE, but still playing vs FIRE.

[Insert colors] Oko not likely to get called on poor manabase construction with Oko/Uro/Ice-Fang/Astro. They're cheese'ing a card that should be banned (Oko). The rules they're playing by don't apply to your deck. You have to cut corners somewhere to catch up, and your main priority (with 6 Force effect and stand alone do-nothing topdecks) is minimizing mulligans and losses to manabase.

More high-power lines of play (hand size) & ability to enact those plays (mana security) is the bread and butter of a tier 2 deck. A tier 2 deck is slanted towards higher power plays than a tier 1-1.5 deck, but it comes at the cost of raised variance. Attack variance wherever you can. Avoid trying to further max-out power with Sanctuary, you've already got that covered. You should also avoid turn 4 planning (3 Island, and then Sanctuary land drop) vs 3-drop FIRE, unless that plan is a direct answer to everything FIRE is doing.

[Reeplcheep]

Ran 2 test leagues, went 40%. Meta is incredibly fair blue. Some notes:

I really like the oath of Kaya. As mentioned by fox, having some life gain is incredibly helpful vs lightning bolt and Marit Lage. The reach was surprisingly good; e tutor plus Aminatou does a bad bolt snap bolt impression.
Moat is gg vs merfolk g1. Flavour fail. Overall etutor package is great.
I still think Stoney is better than CB vs combo, but cb is way better in other mus. It is also cute with aminatou and raises the floor of etutor vs fair blue.
Switching mana to be stabler is nice, but the power of sanctuary is great. I think a 1 of sanctuary that you only play as flood insurance or if you have a draw with a bunch of labes (no cards that rely on it like terminus) is fine. Until the opponent reveals they are on a non-wasteland deck I will just fetch basics.
I agree with fox overall that the deck already has a great cealing, so concentrated on increasing the floor of the deck. Cut 3 drop engines for CB and another land. Cut land tax plus Karakas for labe plus seat of the synod. If I need to use etutor for Blue mana I better get something that gives it to me right away and can’t get dazed. Cute with etutor plus CB.
Delver is fucking everywhere; my 3 drops are already good vs blue and my 1 drops (etutor) are bad. Thus my blue hate needs to be 1 cmc. I think splashing reb is too risky, so I am running 4 mystical Dispute as the discount version. Dispute is much better vs Urza echo and UBx combo at least. Also I should consider paths in the sideboard as additional delver/depths hate.

[Reeplcheep]

A “let’s actually beat rug” list based on above comments:


4 Prismatic Vista
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Karakas
3 Snow-Covered Plains
5 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
1 Rest In Peace
3 Counterbalance
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Detention Sphere
3 Court of Grace
1 Oath of Kaya
1 Moat
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

1 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Torpor Orb
2 Path to Exile
4 Mystical Dispute
1 Back to Basics
1 Reality Acid
1 Stoney Silence
1 Rest In Peace
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle


Lowering the curve was probably the most important change.

[Reeplcheep]

If esper vial can make gilded drake + soulherder great, could puca's mischief be good in this deck?

[Fox]

I wouldn't run Puca at all, it costs 3, sorcery speed, can't be cheese'd into play uninteractively (Cavern, Vial), has to pass the turn, and dies to Pyroblast for zero value. Also you can't use Charming Prince-type abuse.

Edit: It's dangerous to pull lessons from decks that aren't playing 'real' legacy. If they're cheating on mana or abusing the best card in the format [Oko], and you're not....you really don't want try to photocopy their nonsense.

On the mana, I don't like wishing into a land that dies to Karn and Oko. I dislike Counterbalance, for more reasons than playing it is basically cheating (it just makes you worse at magic; this hearthstone-random crap shouldn't be legal) - you can't really support it, and it's not getting better in multiples. Still missing Sevinne's. Too many E-Tutor, but you're still doing this 80 card thing...You could just as easily play Kaheera + 1x FoV exploit on 60. I see a lot of excessive copies, just to fill 20 extra slots without gain of function.

I mean you can do all this on 60 and if you wanted also play Lutri maindeck [elemental] with Kaheera, if you wanted Snapcaster'y functionality.

[FTW]

The manabase looks much better than the OP list. Vista is very good.

The deck also looks much more interactive and lower to the ground, able to compete with faster decks.

ETutor package looks strong. I really like ETutor and enchantments in UWx control right now just because popular cards like Oko and Abrade cannot interact with them.

[Reeplcheep]

Fox:


Not sure why you say I can’t abuse it. Steal a thing, get the thing you gave back with aminatou or 3feri (estrids returns by itself if you stack triggers correctly). Not to mention trading a dsphere for an oko or a labe for a delver or a trial for a library is perfectly fine by itself. The pyro and needing to untap though are indeed large problems.
Counterbalance is not a key card, I just need it to be a hymn. I have brainstorm, 4 estrids, 4 omen, and sanctuary To support it. Just having an enchantment so I can cast estrids Before court is fine; I don’t need the first bounce to always generate value. The second copy generates some value because of fetches. In blue decks the entire format has condensed to 3 drops and 1 drops; I am totally fine with it as a counter every 3rd spell enchantment.
So does astrolabe, and on t2 I’m more worried about daze than those cards anyways. Being able to hit your landrop and immediately start cantripping seems vital.

Yorion has been shown to be a decent way for fair decks to beat Snowko (struck/d&t). Sevinnes would definitely be a consideration for a list without Yorion or Rip. Yorion also provides a clock and solves the surgical problem.



FTW.


Fox may be right that the etutor makes more sense as a sideboard finder than a md piece, since the meta is so fair

.

[Reeplcheep]

A list concentrated on redundancy and higher floor cards vs fair blue.

3 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Karakas
2 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Spell Pierce
2 Preordained
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Counterbalance
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
3 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Detention Sphere
3 Court of Grace
1 Oath of Kaya
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Torpor Orb
2 Path to Exile
2 Mystical Dispute
1 Back to Basics
1 Rest In Peace
1 Stoney Silence
1 Engineered Plague
1 Sorcerous Spyglass

[Fox]

So at deck construction I go in with Goyf tests, so basically running the deck against abstract 'course ghosts.' Things like oppo is on Burn or oppo has turn 2 4/5 Goyf, how do I win/not die. I also run a course ghost vs turn 2 Dreadhorde/turn 3 Oko/Wasteland, Daze, FoW+blue [RUG Delver ghost] and turn 1 Astro/turn 2 Library/turn 3 Oko/double FoW backup [4c SnowOko ghost]. This is every game I am expecting my deck to compete against.

So run tests like this vs your heavy 3 drop plan, knowing that the 3 drops don't really do much without something to blink/copy having resolved. Add to this that your PWs are real bad when 3/3 hasters are bearing down right after you tapped out; you don't have a lot of time to pull crazy tricks or get much out of your PWs. You add Puca to the mix, and it's slower than your PWs and jankier...and like you can't even threaten Oko with the guys you're stealing since he's an endless spring of Elks and high loyalty. Say you trade Puca for Oko...they just steal it back and are still the better Oko deck since PWs dodge summoning sickness. It's also basically impossible to kill Oko with his ultimate (you'd give them too much time to modify loyalty off [5]).

The tldr is that your payoff PWs are pretty awful vs Oko, and you're absorbing this mismatch on a piece A that needs piece B. This kind of thing really needs a mana exploit like Vial to get away with. Stepping back I see you saying "Esper Vial is doing it, so can I" but you're missing the part where they are mana cheaters, and things that apply to them will not be easy/realistic for you. Then the same thing was happening on Sanctuary where without FIRE, you don't want to try to emulate the play of necro'ing a 1-for-1 in this format.

[Reeplcheep]

You don’t have to trade puca for oko. You could easily trade the detention sphere you used to kill the first one for it or trade unelked labes for elked ones. But I’ll buy that the higher ceiling of puca doesn’t outweigh the blue 4 drop without acceleration that needs to untap problem.

Haste elks are definitely a problem, but between spell Pierce, counterbalance, detention sphere, double oath of Kaya burn it shouldn’t be too hard.

Burn: use one of my 8 cheap removal spells to answer their 8 creatures, fow/Pierce a few spells, and dig into either CB or oath of Kaya for the hard lock.

Elves: g1 is definitely harder without etutor, but the plan was kill something every turn until you can find etutor for e. Plague or moat.

Rug: Plan for arcanist into oko OTD would be EoT plow arcanist. If they daze, they can’t oko and I can untap and trial. Otherwise I can Pierce around daze.

Snowko: run out counterbalance which is usually a must fow, answer oko or uro with dsphere/Pierce/plow or out value it with the court plus estrids engine. Both pw can also help stop oko from resolving. 3feri with fow and aminatou with CB.
Estrids plus trial keeps oko under control until court of grace 2 4/4s > 3/3s.

12post: buy time with b2b or counters, then Yorion/court Or acid/blink engine to end the game

Generally I was losing to carpet and blasts, not oko. Several times I chugged through an oko plus arcanist/Klothys with aminatou plus 3feri (bounce plus draw every turn) or estrids plus court (2 4/4s every turn). I agree that I rely on synergies but that is inherent to not just playing Snowko. Snowicles and snow day are playing narset and jtms which are even worse vs haste elks. Aminatou plus any other permanent in the deck is a bit different than reanimate plus entomb.

[Fox]

If you're finding it's working, that awesome. I just see a lot of combo parts that don't play well together. Drawing running CBs or Estrid's doesn't accomplish anything, add in Aminatoa or Teferi into this and we're doing yet more nothing. There's a lot of slots of "what's the plan here exactly?" You've got pretty high likelihood of seeing these effects in hand at same time at such high slots.

All the stuff not working great together has pretty high mana investment, and it's not unlikely to have a scenario where hand does nothing and you're blindly speculating about which combo piece A you should deploy [on a does-nothing turn] based on unknown topdeck piece B. The thing about synergy vs 1-card combos is that multi-turn planning kinda needs to be dependable. So you've got the tools to make speculative payoff plays, but you're also walking blindly through a minefield. In that example you might be casting Estrid without anything to copy since it can lead to a Dead Drop next turn, but then you step on the Aminatoa topdeck landmine and realize Estrid + Aminatoa in a vacuum does nothing.

So if it's working for you, dissect the games and figure out if you can clean up the amount of uncertainties/possible outcomes through deck construction. I don't know that the deck really rewards precise planning as built.

[FTW]

I agree with Fox that 4 Aminatou + 3 Estrid looks like too much 3-mana durdle.

The magical Xmasland scenario is great. They generate immediate value the turn you cast them and then keep generating value every turn. That engine should pummel nonblue fair decks. Creature decks drawing 1 card per turn cannot compete with a blink engine generating +1 extra card per turn, especially when you curve that into Yorion. You'll bury combo decks too, assuming you have the counters to disrupt their first wave.

The problem is playing the very popular fair blue decks and getting the engine disrupted. Aminatou and Estrid basically do nothing on their own. They require you to have resolved a relevant enchantment to blink. If they countered or Decayed your T2 enchantment (Omen? Trial? CB?) then your 3 drop does nothing. Or if you drew the wrong T2 enchantment, then you're generating the wrong value at the wrong time. Do you want a 3-mana Preordain (Omen) when facing fast beatdown? Do you want to copy Trial on your upkeep or mainphase when they have no non-haste/flash/Uro creatures? If you draw the right cards in the right order it's fine, but this seems like unnecessary variance for what's already an 80-card deck, and that may be why you're only winning 40%. Is the engine assembling correctly often enough?

What if you tweaked the numbers so you have more 3-mana business and fewer blink slots? Remember, you still have Yorion to abuse them. 3feri's - ability also works as a cantripping blink. Yorion and 3feri don't generate as powerful an engine, but they also don't cost you variance in your draws.

Maybe more copies of 3feri and Oath of Kaya and Detention Sphere, down to 2 Aminatou + 2 Estrid.

You could shave a Court of Grace too. 3 copies seems excessive for a conditional 4-drop.

What about more MD interaction with Oko? Trial and Oath just kill an Elk, but then they are still ahead on cards. Both Forces leave you down a card. CB will be hard to set at 3 fast enough to stop a turn 3 Oko. Detention Sphere is your best answer so far. Still, it leaves you slighly behind in the trade: you both spend 3 mana and a card, but they keep a 3/3 Elk and have the chance to remove Sphere to get Oko back.

Edit: To interact with Carpet and Blasts, maybe you need to board into faster interaction like Blasts and Pierces.

[Reeplcheep]

You are making two different points:

My engine cards need specific things to go with them and don’t synergize so I have too many dead draws

My curve is too high.

The latter I could buy, especially with Yorion already providing flood insurance. Probably should cut 4th CB and 3Rd estrids for a spell Pierce and a preordain.

The former I disagree with. Aminatou plus CB is a one side chalice plus mini-dac. 3feri plus CB turns your ponders and preordains into Counterspell. Aminatou plus 3feri is a 3feri uptick plus down tick every turn.

Estrids plus counterbalance gives you some value with fetches and lets you run out court of grace into a losing board. Planeswalkers plus estrids resets it if it got stuck without something to copy. Astrolabe means the floor of the planeswalkers is a draw 2 with upside.

[Reeplcheep]

Sorry missed your message FTW. I still think I want 8 engines, but 3feri could be less win more than the other 2. It seems that you think I should play more interaction and rely more on Yorion as a value engine.

I do think 3feri and aminatou/ CB synergize well and are not do nothings. I didn’t think my curve was too high since it was a just scaled up Bant miracles deck; but perhaps as fox mentioned I was not taking into account uro cheating on mana costs.

Using your guys advice:
4 CB
3 Pierce
4 Aminatou
3 Estrids
3 Court
2 3Feri
2 Dsphere
1 Oath

To

3 CB
2 Estrids
4 Pierce
2 Aminatou
3 Dsphere
2 Court
4 3feri
2 Oath


I hope I don’t come off as too defensive; FTW and fox you have been very helpful in distilling the deck down to better floor cards while still keeping the uniqueness.

Edit: as an aside, in this meta do you think mystical dispute or Pierce is better?
Pros:
Urza, Emry, Hullbreacher, delver, leovold, soulherder, coatl, sprite dragon, non-cavern doomsday piles etc
Much harder tax to play around
Chalice/Prelate
Can be cast vs anything late game.
Cons:
Crop rotation/doomsday/valakut exploration/library/bolt/pyro etc
Can counter chalice/3ball/choke etc.

[Fox]

Let's do an example then: you're getting beat down by double Delver, and in two turns you're dead. So this turn you have 3 lands in play and an Estrid and a CB in hand - now whatever play you make has to have the best shot of not dying in two turns. So are you:
-Jamming Estrid b/c they probably won't Daze it [empty board] and next turn topdeck the Edict enchant?
-Conversely, are we hoping they Daze so Teferi next turn resolves and bounces a Delver?
-Are you jamming CB b/c you can pay for Daze, and it can protect a topdeck wipe [D Sphere]?
-What if the topdeck was going to be Amanitoa - were you supposed to jam CB, resolve Amanitoa countering REB with topdeck Plow, [+1] and choose to beat Bolt if you have running 1-drops or are you playing tricksy and leaving a Plow you can't cast in hand, putting Estrid's on top to counter their Oko tap-out?

What was the best line in here? This kind of forking is avoidable at deck construction by selecting towards one type of synergy where regardless of the lucky business topdeck, either type of piece A is able to utilize the piece B. This kind of 50-50'ing yourself is avoidable. You don't have to do this to yourself.

You've got these mana-intensive pieces, which is already tough, but then they don't even provide you a direction to turn skill into win%.

[Reeplcheep]

Let's do an example then: you're getting beat down by double Delver, and in two turns you're dead. So this turn you have 3 lands in play and an Estrid and a CB in hand - now whatever play you make has to have the best shot of not dying in two turns. So are you:
-Jamming Estrid b/c they probably won't Daze it [empty board] and next turn topdeck the Edict enchant?
-Conversely, are we hoping they Daze so Teferi next turn resolves and bounces a Delver?
-Are you jamming CB b/c you can pay for Daze, and it can protect a topdeck wipe [D Sphere]?
-What if the topdeck was going to be Amanitoa - were you supposed to jam CB, resolve Amanitoa countering REB with topdeck Plow, [+1] and choose to beat Bolt if you have running 1-drops or are you playing tricksy and leaving a Plow you can't cast in hand, putting Estrid's on top to counter their Oko tap-out?

What was the best line in here? This kind of forking is avoidable at deck construction by selecting towards one type of synergy where regardless of the lucky business topdeck, either type of piece A is able to utilize the piece B. This kind of 50-50'ing yourself is avoidable. You don't have to do this to yourself.

I’m not sure if that is a fair example. 2 hullbreachers or library plus days undoing from this weekends top8 would look pretty bad in that situation too. Except for that pair and estrids plus pw every pair has extreme synergy. I get your point though and trimmed both above.

It probably doesn’t help my case, but estrids doesn’t get the blink ability if it doesn’t copy anything. (If desperate you can reset with planeswalkers but) Almost always lines 1 and 2 are not an option. I don’t see the difference between line 3 and 4 since both involve casting CB now, drawing removal and then using a fetch to protect it.

[Fox]

I’m not sure if that is a fair example. 2 hullbreachers or library plus days undoing from this weekends top8 would look pretty bad in that situation too. Except for that pair and estrids plus pw every pair has extreme synergy. I get your point though and trimmed both above.

It probably doesn’t help my case, but estrids doesn’t get the blink ability if it doesn’t copy anything. (If desperate you can reset with planeswalkers but) Almost always lines 1 and 2 are not an option. I don’t see the difference between line 3 and 4 since both involve casting CB now, drawing removal and then using a fetch to protect it.

Ok so after 12 dmg from Delvers, we'd place you at 3 vs Bolt in hand (which is the lethal blow). I guess we need that for the scenario you're trying to beat.

[FTW]

Looking forward to hearing how your deck does with all the recent iterations of changes.

If you're getting beatdown by double Delver, you probably want Snapcaster Mage because your best out is double Plow.

When I recently brewed UWx control with enchantments, I went a very different route with CB RipField, which is a prison strategy instead of an incremental value engine. That has very different implications for how you play around threats. The response to double Delver was to EOT cantrip/ETutor into Energy Field, with or without RiP. That 1 card then nullifies the double Delver and any other threats in hand for at least several turns, creating time to find RiP or Terminus to take back the game. DSphere was another option for 2 threats of the same name. Needing to only resolve 1 card to stabilize really simplifies card selection decisions and playing around counters. Traditional UWx control has Terminus as that reset button. Here, you don't really have a single out. You need to assemble an engine or draw into multiple removal effects. That makes it inherently harder to stabilize from behind, something that control needs to do against fast decks. Tweaking the numbers as above may help this.

Why did you cut Terminus? No Dead of Winter either? You're a 0-creature deck so what's the downside? I think all the Yorion decks from the Companion era ran either Terminus or Dead.

[Reeplcheep]

Looking forward to hearing how your deck does with all the recent iterations of changes.

If you're getting beatdown by double Delver, you probably want Snapcaster Mage because your best out is double Plow.

When I recently brewed UWx control with enchantments, I went a very different route with CB RipField, which is a prison strategy instead of an incremental value engine. That has very different implications for how you play around threats. The response to double Delver was to EOT cantrip/ETutor into Energy Field, with or without RiP. That 1 card then nullifies the double Delver and any other threats in hand for at least several turns, creating time to find RiP or Terminus to take back the game. DSphere was another option for 2 threats of the same name. Needing to only resolve 1 card to stabilize really simplifies card selection decisions and playing around counters. Traditional UWx control has Terminus as that reset button. Here, you don't really have a single out. You need to assemble an engine or draw into multiple removal effects. That makes it inherently harder to stabilize from behind, something that control needs to do against fast decks. Tweaking the numbers as above may help this.

Why did you cut Terminus? No Dead of Winter either? You're a 0-creature deck so what's the downside? I think all the Yorion decks from the Companion era ran either Terminus or Dead.

Terminus was the reason I started this deck, since aminatou makes it fast enough vs 2020 decks compared to Jace. Fox was of the (correct) opinion that it made your mana too sketchy with double t1 off colour; you become more reliant on mystic sanctuary and duals. Perhaps now that my black requirements are much lighter (6 cards, none t1) I can afford it again.

If I added miracles back in I would probably cut the extra removal slot (oath) for 2 terminus and a court for an entreat.

On the prison vs control strat I just thought ugx control is inherently good vs prison And e tutor was a lot of card disadvantage in fair blue. The sideboard as you can see still has a heavy prison element for unfair decks.

[FTW]

Terminus looks good to add back in then.

If you decide against the mass removal, Baleful Strix is another option. It doesn't work with Estrid, but it does work with Aminatou, 3feri and Yorion to generate cards and it also deals with things like early Delvers. Early Yorion decks were playing it as extra Coatls.

[Reeplcheep]

Considering how much elves there are right now, and wanting to keep the black a light splash, the mass removal is probably better.

Thoughts on prison realm instead of d sphere?

Getting your oko removal veiled/reB is really bad.
You want the new wording to kill the 2nd oko with a blink. With banishing light if you blink it they have to choose which one to keep to the legend rule before you choose targets. Detention sphere has the old wording so your targeting trigger will resolve before the first, exiled, oko comes back.
Increases the density of effects you want to copy with estrids.

Doesn’t pitch to fow when dead.
Can’t get the occasional 2 for 1 of elks.


Edit: re above, I assume I am understanding the rules correctly that sba are checked before putting triggers on the stack, so I get to choose targets after the opponent resolves the legendary rule.

[Reeplcheep]

I submitted and won Brian Coval’s brewing contest with this deck. (https://twitter.com/BoshNRoll/status/1347568859264536576)

Thanks for everyone’s help, check out how it does in a week or so.

[Reeplcheep]

A new history of Benalia was spoiled. This may be better than court of grace due to its higher floor (removal + guaranteed 4/4) even if its ceiling is not as insane.

https://i.redd.it/j239y1n176b61.jpg

[kombatkiwi]

As a maindeck card for your list I agree this _might_ be better than court of grace, I would test it

[aedemiel]

I mean, this could be history of Benalia 5-6. It's a bit heavy on the mana though.

EDIT: Could this be a wincon in a Wb Pillow-fort deck?

[Reeplcheep]

I mean, this could be history of Benalia 5-6. It's a bit heavy on the mana though.

EDIT: Could this be a wincon in a Wb Pillow-fort deck?

In pillow fort court of grace just seems better due to the inherent synergy with island sanctuary, moat, and Solitary confinement

The reason to play this would be the synergy with aminatou (instant 8 power), 2 turn clock with any blink effect, and less risky to play out from behind (immediate blocker, Extra removal vs delayed blocker, possibility of losing the monarch)

Vs Benalia this has several advantages but I can’t be certain it’s worth the extra mana. Flying 4/4s vs 2 2/2s seems attractive vs Marit Lage, bolt, delver, plague engineer, gy decks, dha, elves, and elks.

[FTW]

First, congrats on winning that contest. The list you submitted looks a lot tighter than the earlier versions, more streamlined, without giving up the unique blink engine. Do you have a link to the video where he played it?

I'm not sold on this new card. The floor is just a 4/4 token.

Removal isn't guaranteed because the token has to actually survive for parts II and III to do anything. In a vacuum, this card may not do much. The failcase is spending 4 mana to create 1 token that trades with a 1-2 mana removal spell or turns into an Elk. The ceiling is good, but the floor is a 1WWB Serra Angel.

The ceiling kicks in with Aminatou. If you can blink it on your mainphase, then you get 2 4/4s right away, then you kill stuff, then you can keep making 4/4s and winning. That seems pretty good. Does Court of Grace do almost as much though, with less set up? The card draw is pretty big.

Estrid's Invocation is a bit awkward with it. It'll make a 4/4 on your upkeep, but then it goes to II on your mainphase and your token won't have haste, so you miss out on the removal ability. Estrid works better with History of Benalia, making two 2/2s a turn.

I think the main reason History was good in other formats is having one card that produces at least 2 bodies, so your opponent is not trading 1-for-1 with it easily. 2/2s looks bad against Elks, but you make 2/2s at a much faster rate than they can make Elks, so you can threaten to go wide or just beat through with the +2/+1.

[Reeplcheep]

Thanks for the advice you gave me! He records well in advance so it’s recorded but not posted rn.

The floor is indeed a 4/4 vs removal and without engines. What is answering the Serra angel though? If it’s an oko court without estrids is suicide. If they have arcanist double bolt I’m just dead with court in that situation. Vs vial plow decks introducing monarch is risky. The angel is naturally protected from coatl. Worst case is probably Snowko plows it but I am winning that mu with entreat anyways. VS uninteractive deck this does 12 damage by the time court has done 4, and doesn’t just straight up lose to EoT coatl or fetch a dryad.

Grace is way better with estrids, ahead, or vs creatureless decks,, but this has more synergy with aminatou/Yorion/3 feri and is better when behind or needing to clock.

I’m not sure it’s better but I think it’s worth testing.

Edit: I do want to try to fit a few etutors into the md. Do you think even without dedicated targets it’s better than preordain just for the CB synergy? Additionally what do you think on mystical dispute vs spell Pierce? It’s better vs fair blue and Urza echo, and ups your CB 3 cmc blind flip % for free. Several games the opponent immediately conceded to a blind flip oko counter.

[FTW]

Yeah it might be worth testing the split to see how it does. Getting a guaranteed body is nice when you're behind. Either way, I think 3 Court of Grace is too risky if you can't reliably defend the Monarch, so it may be that a split of these is better.

What kills the 4/4? At 1-2 mana:
Swords to Plowshares
Fatal Push
Bloodchief's Thirst
Abrupt Decay
Drown in the Loch
Brazen Borrower
Terminus
Dismember
Engineered Explosives
Assassin's Trophy
Stingscourger
Munitions Expert
Echoing Truth
Liliana's Triumph


At higher mana:
Flickerwisp
Skyclave Apparition
Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Teferi, Time Raveler
Liliana of the Veil
Jace, the Mind Sculptor

It's a 0 cmc token. It dies to any bounce, edict effect, or low cmc removal. That doesn't mean its not worth playing, but I think it is worth considering how easy it is to neutralize the token and leave the other 2 abilities dead in the water. Court wouldn't necessarily be better there if you're behind. Maybe History would? Or something different altogether.


Edit: No, I think the earlier discussion was right, ETutor is probably not right here. You're playing a control game with an incremental value engine so card disadvantage is bad for you. It's a cool trick to do with counterbalance, countering any spell at instant speed for 1 mana while also getting a useful card, but that's not enough reason to play it.

I do think ETutor is an underrated card, but I also use it exclusively in unfair decks where the card you get more than makes up for the card disadvantage. Tutoring for a 1-for-1 (Trial, Detention Sphere, Omen) leaves you behind in the game. I use ETutor for cards like
Energy Field
Serenity
Helm of Obedience
Underworld Breach
Necropotence

Mystical Dispute seems good if you have SB room. I would not run it main. Fair blue is rampant, but a significant chunk of the meta is still nonblue. As for the counterbalance blind flips, you control that by controlling your curve. Dispute doesn't necessarily fix that more than any other card would. I guess it does let you cheat in more 3 cmcs because it functionally costs 1 so it won't hurt your mana. But cards like Force of Negation and Brazen Borrower accomplish that too.

[Reeplcheep]

Great points. I agree that with so many flash flyers and haste elks terminus isn’t as foolproof at defending the monarch as it used to be. So I can’t support multiple courts without etutor and moat to compliment it.

I do want to have more than 3 actual wincons though. Maybe just replace the reality acid with the saga and split pierces 3/1 with a dispute and call it a day.

[kombatkiwi]

FTW has correctly identified that the problem with the 1WWB saga is that it's easy to exploit the fact it can be just a 4 mana Serra Angel
History has the a similar problem in this deck in the sense that it doesn't really have any synergy with the rest of what you are doing
What this deck really wants is a nonlegendary Oath of Kaya

I don't like E-Tutor maindeck in a deck that isn't assembling some big combo (Rip helm maybe, this kind of thing) because against efficient decks like RUG you need all of your cards to be effective and E-tutoring for a card and having it get countered is a pretty backbreaking way to 2-for-1 yourself

[Reeplcheep]

FTW has correctly identified that the problem with the 1WWB saga is that it's easy to exploit the fact it can be just a 4 mana Serra Angel
History has the a similar problem in this deck in the sense that it doesn't really have any synergy with the rest of what you are doing
What this deck really wants is a nonlegendary Oath of Kaya

I don't like E-Tutor maindeck in a deck that isn't assembling some big combo (Rip helm maybe, this kind of thing) because against efficient decks like RUG you need all of your cards to be effective and E-tutoring for a card and having it get countered is a pretty backbreaking way to 2-for-1 yourself

Ok, I could buy that it’s too risky to turn on opponents removal.

Etutors have moved back to the SB just to increase hate density vs unfair decks.

[Reeplcheep]

I realized I want a few 2 drops for sanctuary plus counterbalance reasons. Could Dovin’s Veto replace spell Pierce? It does what I want spell Pierce to do (answer some big t3 haymaker like oko OTD through daze)

[kombatkiwi]

I realized I want a few 2 drops for sanctuary plus counterbalance reasons. Could Dovin’s Veto replace spell Pierce? It does what I want spell Pierce to do (answer some big t3 haymaker like oko OTD through daze)

This is fine, I like maindeck veto in uw sharkstill

There is also a new card:

The Raven's Warning 1WU
Enchantment - Saga
I: Create a 1/1 blue flying bird token and gain 2 life
II: Whenever 1 or more creatures you control with flying deal combat damage to a player this turn, look at that player's hand and draw a card
III: You may put a card you own from outside the game on top of your library

Pretty interesting
- Less mana than the 1WWB Angel one but has similar main drawback in that if you lose the token to e.g. Plow then the rest of the card becomes much less effective
- Lifegain on the first stage is pretty good
- Flying token -> moat
- 3rd stage can be used as a way to find those tutor targets g1, can also do stuff like stack a terminus on top of your library or get a replenish/sevinnes to return this saga for value, set up counterbalance etc

Has the usual Wish problem that it makes SB decisions confusing i.e. are you supposed to board your cards in so you can draw them (or E tutor for them) or leave them in the SB to wish for.

[Reeplcheep]

The smaller size and damage clause makes this a lot worse vs coatl, bolt, or even flipped delver.

Also creatures earlier down the curve makes terminus more awkward. The wish is really interesting with an entreat the angels though.

I could see this functioning but I think you would want to drop the miracle package for bitterblossom (lifegain covers the weakness of BB and guaranteed flyers covers the dies to bolt weakness of this)

[Reeplcheep]

boshnroll finally posted the league (www.youtube.com/watch?v=riYCvVXMSAI)

It went extremely well for a brew, and he enjoyed the games immensely.

Props: estrids, Yorion, reality acid, and Aminatou

Slops: spell Pierce, few generic answers to pw, entreat.

Counterbalance performed way better than any other post top deck but he still wasnt super stoked about it.
Not sure what the best way to deal with the pyroblast problem is though.

[Reeplcheep]

Fixed hyperlink

It seemed that the blink engines were the best part of the deck and the miracles part was the most iffy. Perhaps cutting the miracles/cb/sanctuary package for a most focused tappout/blink list would be better. That would probably require going from UWb with pierces to UBw with discard. I probably have to lose plow to the sideboard to not have double off colour t1, but Bloodchief’s thirst could help with the pw removal problem.

[kombatkiwi]

The smaller size and damage clause makes this a lot worse vs coatl, bolt, or even flipped delver.
Yeah this is probably true I think, I was dreaming it's like a History with other upside but it needs more flying support to be a decent card because otherwise by itself it's too easy for the opponent to unravel it with 1 removal/blocker

[Reeplcheep]

Jotting down thoughts from my own matches, the league and above:


Miracles/sanctuary/CB package was not horrible, but it introduces more low floor cards and has tension with the sorcery speed rest of the deck. Moat seems like the best option to deal with the lack of boardwipes if I cut terminus (vs fair decks I have enough spot removal, and vs elves/gaak/goblins it is better than terminus after t3 anyways).

The ceiling on the deck (Yorion plus aminatou blinking everything each turn) is already great and can hang with uro/library. I should concentrate on quicker interaction and high floor cards.

Spell Pierce is hard to hold up early and is bad late. -> discard. 3feri raises the floor on late game discard considerably.

I need 1 cmc interaction that is decent vs pyroblast but I want to tap out -> discard

I can only choose one of: double off colour t1, mystic sanctuary, lots of basics. The third option is probably the best. Due the above, I need to become base UB instead of base UW.

Estrids is the lowest floor 3 drop engine and baleful strix is the highest floor 2 drop blink target. I should probably switch CB/estrids for strix / 3feri.

Many clunky PW answers are better than a few clean PW answers vs the 6 forces 4 pyro decks. Bloodchief’s Thirst seems pretty good then to supplement strix/Oath/discard. It’s Weaknesses compared to plow are big or flash threats. Extra Karakas solves the former, discard/3feri deals with the latter.

None of the 3 cmc generic answer blink targets like dsphere are great, so I might as well fit the highest floor etutor targets in that slot. 3feri solves most of the nonPW threats you would want councils judgment for anyways in combination with discard.

I want my grindy gy cards in the same matchups as gy hate -> cut hall/sevinnes.


List:


4 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Karakas
1 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Snow-Covered Island
3 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Bloodchief’s Thirst
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Baleful Strix
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Moat
1 Disinformation Campaign
1 Reality Acid
2 Court of Grace
1 Oath of Kaya
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Torpor Orb
2 Force of Negation
1 Damping Sphere
3 Rest In Peace
1 Stoney Silence
1 Engineered Plague
1 Sorcerous Spyglass


This deck has a pretty cohesive plan of just tap out for a bunch of interactive spells and then use Yorion to go over the top. This isn’t too different from Snowko plans of force everything, resolve library/Uro, but is both more interesting and better vs combo (hate permanents plus discard plus counters are much better than just a stack of counters).

Mana might look a bit weird but my best T1 plays are all black, not blue. Souces (basic/non basic, not including cantrips/labe):


B 14/4, recommend 19.
U 11/7, recommend 19.
2W 8/9, recommend 15
UWB 18/8, recommend 30.
2WW 8/9, recommend 21.

Strix plus oath seem like the lowest opportunity cost way to deal with both low loyalty planeswalkers and the surgical court problem.

Thoughts @kombatkiwi, @FTW, @Fox, or others?

[kombatkiwi]

Miracles/sanctuary/CB package was not horrible, but it introduces more low floor cards and has tension with the sorcery speed rest of the deck. Moat seems like the best option to deal with the lack of boardwipes if I cut terminus (vs fair decks I have enough spot removal, and vs elves/gaak/goblins it is better than terminus after t3 anyways).
Sounds good


The ceiling on the deck (Yorion plus aminatou blinking everything each turn) is already great and can hang with uro/library. I should concentrate on quicker interaction and high floor cards.
I would be careful about this because Omen of the Sea and the Edict enchantment are pretty clunky on their own by legacy standards and without Estrids Invo I am less sure if you have enough support to justify them. (I'm not categorically stating your new build is wrong in this regard, it's just something I would pay attention to)


Spell Pierce is hard to hold up early and is bad late. -> discard. 3feri raises the floor on late game discard considerably.
Yes I don't think this deck applies enough pressure to justify pierce and the Teferi point is also relevant


I need 1 cmc interaction that is decent vs pyroblast but I want to tap out -> discard
Ok


I can only choose one of: double off colour t1, mystic sanctuary, lots of basics. The third option is probably the best. Due the above, I need to become base UB instead of base UW.
Idk how to figure out a manabase for an animatou deck I'm not going to look at this and will just assume you know what you are doing


Estrids is the lowest floor 3 drop engine and baleful strix is the highest floor 2 drop blink target. I should probably switch CB/estrids for strix / 3feri.
Estrids has the lowest floor but also the highest ceiling, similar to my previous comment about this cut I would just try to be careful that you aren't making yourself too vulnerable to e.g. Oko by building the deck like this (i.e. if all your value engine are monarch/pw related then protecting them from elk might be hard and there aren't too many ways to deal with Oko. Again this is not something I am confident is a definite flaw but I would pay attention)


Many clunky PW answers are better than a few clean PW answers vs the 6 forces 4 pyro decks. Bloodchief’s Thirst seems pretty good then to supplement strix/Oath/discard. It’s Weaknesses compared to plow are big or flash threats. Extra Karakas solves the former, discard/3feri deals with the latter.
I think this is probably fine logic, main concern would be Lage/Uro but like you say you have the triple karakas


None of the 3 cmc generic answer blink targets like dsphere are great, so I might as well fit the highest floor etutor targets in that slot. 3feri solves most of the nonPW threats you would want councils judgment for anyways in combination with discard.
I'm actually not sure if Reality Acid is a better maindeck card than Dsphere here but it's interesting to think about


I want my grindy gy cards in the same matchups as gy hate -> cut hall/sevinnes.
makes sense

[Reeplcheep]

I would be careful about this because Omen of the Sea and the Edict enchantment are pretty clunky on their own by legacy standards and without Estrids Invo I am less sure if you have enough support to justify them. (I'm not categorically stating your new build is wrong in this regard, it's just something I would pay attention to)

Estrids has the lowest floor but also the highest ceiling, similar to my previous comment about this cut I would just try to be careful that you aren't making yourself too vulnerable to e.g. Oko by building the deck like this (i.e. if all your value engine are monarch/pw related then protecting them from elk might be hard and there aren't too many ways to deal with Oko. Again this is not something I am confident is a definite flaw but I would pay attention)


I think this is probably fine logic, main concern would be Lage/Uro but like you say you have the triple karakas


These are good comments. It’s true that if I don’t put enough payoff cards in the deck, my setup cards get weaker. The problem with estrids is that labe and strix are much better than the 3rd best cheap etb enchantment, which creates a risk of it being dead. Courts were iffy with the double white and up the vulnerablility to being behind on board as mentioned.

Aminatou plus Yorion is where I go over the top of the opponent; so I tried a version focused around assembling that. That still justifies the clunky permanents and but Yorion and 3feri have higher floors. The deck feels very clean, and has a clear game plan of play a bunch of interactive permanents, cast an uncounterable Yorion, win. Dsphere was clunky, so I tried md gy hate (cling) but that conflicted with post board rips. I’m going to try Kaya Orzhov usurper. Additional wincon, lifegain, synergy instead of anti synergy with rip, nice with aminatou, keeps oko/uro/chalice under control.

Etutor/discard continues to make the unfair matchups really good, giving you a reason to play this over snow. Thoughtseize plus rip just wrecked oops hands that would destroy Snowko (like spy, pact of negation, xantid swarm).
Elspeth's Nightmare to be tested in the “blink target that is decent vs decks that don’t care about trial” slot. Compared to reality acid or disinformation campaign it interacts better vs arcanist/Uro/oko. The deck is very mana hungry so I added More lands.

List:


4 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Cavern of Souls
1 Karakas
1 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Snow-Covered Island
3 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Bloodchief’s Thirst
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Baleful Strix
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Yorion
2 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1 Elspeth’s Nightmare
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Torpor Orb
1 Force of Negation
1 Damping Sphere
1 Rest In Peace
1 Engineered Plague
1 Moat
1 Graffdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Mystical Dispute


Mana might look a bit weird but my best T1 plays are all black, not blue. Souces (basic/non basic, not including cantrips/labe):


B 13/9, recommend 19.
U 13/9, recommend 19.
2W 9/7, recommend 15
UWB 19/6, recommend 30.


Looking at md answers to common legacy threats:
T2 spell combo kill: 6 counters, 8-12 t1 cantrips, 6 discard.
Uro: 2 Kaya, 1 nightmare, 1 Karakas. Repeatable removal.
Arcanist: gy hate above plus 12 2 cmc or less removal.
Oko: discard, thirst, Kaya.
Chalice: 3 Teferi, 2 Kaya, sometimes discard.
Marit Lage: 1 Karakas, 7 flying blockers into 9 sorcery speed answers.
Pyroblast: 3 cavern of souls, 6 discard.

[JackaBo]

boshnroll finally posted the league (www.youtube.com/watch?v=riYCvVXMSAI)

It went extremely well for a brew, and he enjoyed the games immensely.

Props: estrids, Yorion, reality acid, and Aminatou

Slops: spell Pierce, few generic answers to pw, entreat.

Counterbalance performed way better than any other post top deck but he still wasnt super stoked about it.
Not sure what the best way to deal with the pyroblast problem is though.

I watched this league and it was a blast!

I agree that the blink engine seemed strong and the strongest interaction is resetting teferi to bounce and draw for three turns.

I think CB is okay in this deck. I noticed a lot of times where he wouldnt sac omen to scry and instead blind flip. I guess he was saving them for Yorion

I think you have to be kind of active to utilize CB and build you own top via omen, bs, ponder with teferi, sac omen, fetchlands, aminatou. I think you have to settle for that cb is a one sided chalice most of the times.

Moat seems like a good addition. I’ve like Kaya, Usurper in other esper lists. It’s great vs snoko killing food/elk and exiling uro.

Edit i like your latest list. Going the value route is probably correct.

[Reeplcheep]

Continued testing. Etutor plus discard continues to be great against unfair decks. Yorion plus cavern has been strong vs blue soup. Got to beat Bryant cook by trading my Stoney silence for 2 of his carpets with aminatou. Kaya did perform quite well vs chalice, delivers, and elks.

The major problem I had has been lack of lifetotal pressure if Yorion gets plowed and I can’t resolve Kaya. Lost several matches to time.

Elspeth was too slow without fast mana and 2 md Yorion are probably too many.

Trial plus aminatou has been quite strong and can hold off oko/uro for a while until I can draw into answers. Because of the above three points, perhaps I should try 2 Oath of Liliana instead of Elspeth/yorion? Nonveilable trials for aminatou, and a non plow/pyroblastable/attachable clock. They also chump haste elks nicely. It also makes free value while doing the 3feri/aminatou thing.

[Reeplcheep]

I inspired more qualified miracles pilots to 3-1 yesterday’s prelim. The list was less janky than mine: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvhN3xXYAAuKFC?format=jpg&name=small

Continuing with my more janky UBx control build, My favourite card was estrids invocation but with strix it didn’t have consistent enough enablers. Planeswalkers were strong but without terminus it was difficult to keep them alive even with all the spot removal and strix. I stumbled upon sarcomancy. It is the closest 1 cmc enchantment to being worth a card on etb, provides a clock, provides people pressure, helps with the hasty elk problem, and turns aminatou/estrids into Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Between that and on thin iceI can have 12-16 enchantments that are 0.5 mana or less overpriced, making estrids invocation consistent at minimal cost. This fixes the find and resolve one of your 8 2 drops problem estrids has, and makes it less vulnerable to removal in response.

In testing the 2/2s were good blockers vs rabble masters and pressured narset well. On thin ice has downsides vs Marit Lage, Flickerwisp, and flash threats, but being able to reset to higher priority threats (Thassa oracle in scry 2 mode to a lord of Atlantis vs merfolk) was an upside. Detention sphere lets estrids blink astrolabes/yorion/aminatou with a turn delay which is something nice I hadn’t realized.

[Reeplcheep]

Here is a list based on the 1 cmc enchantments to consistently enable estrids. Previously the mix of 2 drops and 1 drops made the curve awkward so This list has tried to max on the 1 drops to enable double spelling on t2.

Witches cottage is an idea because yorion is guaranteed to eat a fow/pyro, whereas we don’t have a ton of great instants to recur. Fetchable/basic black is an improvement on cavern in a non strix deck.



4 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Witches Cottage
1 Karakas
2 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 On Thin Ice
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Omen of the Sea
2 Trial of Ambition
4 Sarcomancy
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Court of Grace
2 Detention Sphere
1 Oath of Kaya
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Nevermore
1 Damping Sphere
1 Rest In Peace
1 Graftdigger’s Cage
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing needle
2 Swords to Plowshares

[Reeplcheep]

With the list above I got one 5-0! I registered it in the challenge sat. But did terribly. Overall though the win rate is up to around 50%.

A good deal of my wins came from early sarcomancies instead of grinding value. Sarcomancy, Sarcomancy, estrids is actually a faster clock than deliver, delver + ponder, flip x2, bolt. Perhaps I should make the deck a bit closer to a token aggro deck? Aggro instead of durdle makes yorion stronger as flood insurance, improves big mana matchups, and keeps aminatou alive longer. Wrath’s are at an all time low and durdle cards like narset and library are much easier to deal with if you are ahead on board.

[kombatkiwi]

With the list above I got one 5-0! I registered it in the challenge sat. But did terribly. Overall though the win rate is up to around 50%.

A good deal of my wins came from early sarcomancies instead of grinding value. Sarcomancy, Sarcomancy, estrids is actually a faster clock than deliver, delver + ponder, flip x2, bolt. Perhaps I should make the deck a bit closer to a token aggro deck? Aggro instead of durdle makes yorion stronger as flood insurance, improves big mana matchups, and keeps aminatou alive longer. Wrath’s are at an all time low and durdle cards like narset and library are much easier to deal with if you are ahead on board.

Sounds like you have discovered why I like History of Benalia lol

[Reeplcheep]

History by itself seemed iffy but if it is on top of additional token aggro stuff it could be good. Not sure how we ever beat elves/goblins other go wide without terminus or flyers.

[JackaBo]

I like where this deck is going. I’m putting it together for some testing in the near future. Sarcomancy was a sick find!

[Reeplcheep]

I think the best direction to go for a tokens list would be an Esper delverblade shell (http://https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-08-01#autophagia_-)

Compared to delver and SFM, token based threats are a bit lower power but we would be quite resilient to removal and have insane catchup mechanics (estrids or yorion as an army in a can). We don’t need as many spells as delver so we can curve threat into threat, making up for the lower individual power level.

Draft aggro list:


4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Wasteland

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
4 Sarcomancy
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Bitterblossom
2 Legion’s Landing
4 Daze
4 History of Benalia
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Torpor Orb
1 Damping Sphere
1 Graftdigger’s Cage
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing needle
1 Detention Sphere.
4 Mystical Dispute


The deck has a lot of 3 drops for a wasteland deck but so does Esper vial which does fine. No catch alls in the 80 card deck, instead we are trying consistency through redundancy. Make a bunch of dudes, kill them. Deck should have an excellent combo my due to having all 4 pillars of combo hate: discard, counters, clock, hate. Not sure about delver or fair non blue matchups but at least on paper this is a lot of things control doesn’t like seeing.

[kombatkiwi]

History by itself seemed iffy but if it is on top of additional token aggro stuff it could be good. Not sure how we ever beat elves/goblins other go wide without terminus or flyers.

Enlightened tutor for humility/moat

The most recent list you posted (the esper tokens one) just feels like unsound deckbuilding,
- mana is super greedy in terms of colour requirements + wasteland
- so many 3drops when very vulnerable to wasteland
- so many 3drops when trying to play daze 4x

Esper Vial also has some of these issues but they have Aether Vial itself to smooth over a lot of these problems

Then you only have 8 "good" targets for Estrids and all they do is make creatures (History / Sarcomancy) it almost feels like you might as well play Lingering Souls in that slot instead

Maybe this list has a very good control MU but other matchups seem pretty suspect

[Reeplcheep]

Enlightened tutor for humility/moat

The most recent list you posted (the esper tokens one) just feels like unsound deckbuilding,
- mana is super greedy in terms of colour requirements + wasteland
- so many 3drops when very vulnerable to wasteland
- so many 3drops when trying to play daze 4x

Esper Vial also has some of these issues but they have Aether Vial itself to smooth over a lot of these problems

Then you only have 8 "good" targets for Estrids and all they do is make creatures (History / Sarcomancy) it almost feels like you might as well play Lingering Souls in that slot instead

Maybe this list has a very good control MU but other matchups seem pretty suspect

Yah perhaps that idea was too deep and trying to make delverless delver is a bad idea. It’s hard to decide the best way to take the deck. Should it be more aggro with tokens, more prison with etutor and CB, or etb value plus discard?

[Reeplcheep]

the 5-0 got a shout out (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/this-week-in-legacy-the-god-of-lies-strikes-back)

I am feeling like the deck could use some proactive disruption. Do you think that the Confounding Conundrum plus parallax tide combo could be worth including here (upheaval their lands every turn)

[Reeplcheep]

Not sure how to progress after labe ban.


The miracles version relied on it quite a bit to make mystic sanctuary work.

Great blink target for aminatou and yorion.
the tokens mana is just bad, scrapped.
But haste elks were a massive problem for the deck: aminatou, courts and trial go way up in value.

I think sarcomancy in a heavy black build similar to my 5-0 is required. The deck needs a blinkable 1 drop to function and that is the best one in colours.

E plague’s stock went way up, could probably mains deck it.

An Esper mentor deck just won the challenge so maybe the pyroblast problem isn’t as bad as I think.

Cards in hand matter again so maybe I can play disinformation campaign again.

[FTW]

Witching Well for 1 drop blink? Good with CB

Pyroblast is probably not a problem. Fewer Okos and Veils means less need for blue decks to maindeck Pyroblast, as well as no Arcanists to abuse it.

With Parallax Tide the real combo is to remove/blink it at instant speed in response. Then 0: exile up to 5 target lands.

[Reeplcheep]

I’m really would rather not play a card that isn’t worth a full card to blink if possible, and can’t be used by estrids... medomai’s prophecy lets you do similar things but card positive instead of negative.

Another option is mystic remora.

I am wary of the parallax because it pushes into more “bad standalone cards” like Teferi A’s time twist or confounding conundrum.

[Reeplcheep]

Draft list post banning:
Sanctuary and cottage are unreliable to enable vs decks that attack your mana, relegated to sideboard. Slightly upped curve and land count because no more good 1 cmc blink targets, other than maybe mystic remora.



2 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Karakas
1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Fatal Push
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Medomai’s Prophecy
4 Omen of the Sea
2 Cling to Dust
3 Trial of Ambition
4 Sarcomancy
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Court of Grace
2 Detention Sphere
1 Oath of Kaya
1 Engineered Plague
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

4 Enlightened tutor
1 Yorion
1 Nevermore
1 Damping Sphere
1 Rest In Peace
1 Moat
1 Graftdigger’s Cage
1 Witch’s Cottage
1 Mystical Sanctuary
1 Pithing needle
2 Swords to Plowshares

[FTW]

I’m really would rather not play a card that isn’t worth a full card to blink if possible, and can’t be used by estrids... medomai’s prophecy lets you do similar things but card positive instead of negative.

There are many options at 2 cmc. I assumed it was a curve thing, where you need some at 1 cmc to replace Astrolabe (also not an enchant). Unfortunately there isn't much at 1. Abundant Growth is off color.

Remora has always been mediocre in Legacy compared to Vintage. You could try it out, but it's bad tempo.

Sarcomancy seems risky in a slow control deck with no other zombies. It's questionable whether a 2/2 token is worth a full card in this shell too, though it does help slow down aggressive starts. Any positive results with it?

Maybe it's better to just play Preordain in that slot. Less synergy with the engines, but it will lead to better curve outs and better overall value for 1 mana.

[Reeplcheep]

There are many options at 2 cmc. I assumed it was a curve thing, where you need some at 1 cmc to replace Astrolabe (also not an enchant). Unfortunately there isn't much at 1. Abundant Growth is off color.

Remora has always been mediocre in Legacy compared to Vintage. You could try it out, but it's bad tempo.

Sarcomancy seems risky in a slow control deck with no other zombies. It's questionable whether a 2/2 token is worth a full card in this shell too, though it does help slow down aggressive starts. Any positive results with it?

Maybe it's better to just play Preordain in that slot. Less synergy with the engines, but it will lead to better curve outs and better overall value for 1 mana.

It was a curve thing, but I am not sure 1 mana is worth card disadvantage. Yah without the mana of enchantress I probably can't afford the upkeep on remora.

It got me a bunch of wins in my 5-0, and pressured planeswalkers and sylvan library well which other cards don't do. The main thing was turning any of my engines into a 3 cmc gideon AoZ was strong.

I could easily run Tymaret's blessing if I wanted to have more pressure; they have light synergy together and would let me trim court of grace (strong, but not sure i can support WW anymore)

[kombatkiwi]

I'm very bearish on this archetype now with the astro ban.
Let us know how the testing goes but I'm not optimistic

[Reeplcheep]

Ran a league and got a 4-1!

Basically the list above but trimmed aminatou, prophecy, courts, and oath for 4 tymarets blessing plus 2 sevinnes reclamation. Tymarets blessing is not as strong as history in a vacuum but milling sevinnes or cling was #value. More reliably turning off sarcomancy life loss was also strong. Only having white cards t3 or sb means the loss of labe isn’t felt as much.

highlights:
Zombie beats got there vs Bant miracles with the help of some discard and forcing the terminus.

beat lands post board through loam plus 2x sphere with just 2 sarcomancy beats. 0 castable spells but he sided out removal and loaning through 2x sphere to find depths was too slow.

Lost to turbo doomsday with the t2 double disruption nuts, but that’s to be expected in a yorion deck.

Ground out the most ridiculous bug fit deck with the new 6 cmc cosmos serpent and hydroid Krasis and uro by making 4 zombies a turn. Witches cottage rebuying yorion was also strong there.

4c loam deck just folded to trial of ambition doing an abyss impression.



Overall the heavy black version benefits from the bans I think. No labe and oko means less pyroblast and elks. More creature threats that aren’t as snowbally means the trial of ambition lock is easier to run (don’t absolutely need t1 removal) and stronger. Average toughness has gone down so 2/2s are real bodies now.

I am wondering if preordain is better than ponder in this deck since we want to open on t1 swamp discard, t2 removal/zombie island most of the time, meaning we don’t have t2 ponder fetch as an option.

[Reeplcheep]

To not derail kombatkiwi’s thread:

D&D classes give us a critical mass of cheap enchantments that have mana sinks on them. Perhaps we can make this a Serra’s sanctum deck?

Token Build:

4 Paladin Class
2 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
4 On thin Ice
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Omen of the Sea
3 Trial of Ambition

4 Estrid’s Invocation
4 Aminatou
4 History of Benalia
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation

2 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
2 Tundra
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
4 Serra’s Sanctum

———
1 Yorion


Generic control draft:


4 On thin Ice
2 Porphry Nodes
4 Land Tax
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Omen of the Sea
4 Monk Class
2 Island Sanctuary

4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Court of Grace

4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation

2 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
2 Tundra
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
4 Serra’s Sanctum

———
1 Yorion

[Reeplcheep]

With Curse of Silence and Paladin Class being printed there is now a critical mass of white 1 drop enchantments that are probably worth a full card. Is it possible to look at this deck again with a Serra’s sanctum manabase? Paladin class and companions are already good sinks for white mana. And lands making tons of mana are a reason to play this deck over other uro piles.

White one drops as opposed to stuff like sarcomancy both enable and use Serra’s sanctum mana better.

[FTW]

With Curse of Silence and Paladin Class being printed there is now a critical mass of white 1 drop enchantments that are probably worth a full card. Is it possible to look at this deck again with a Serra’s sanctum manabase? Paladin class and companions are already good sinks for white mana. And lands making tons of mana are a reason to play this deck over other uro piles.

White one drops as opposed to stuff like sarcomancy both enable and use Serra’s sanctum mana better.

The best abuse of that I've seen is the new GW Aggro-Enchantress, which dumps the mana into levelling up Paladin Class and then activating Destiny Spinner multiple times after drawing 10 free cards.

For Bumbleberry Pie, the question is what synergy do these cards have with Estrid's Invocation, Aminatou or Yorion?

[Reeplcheep]

The best abuse of that I've seen is the new GW Aggro-Enchantress, which dumps the mana into levelling up Paladin Class and then activating Destiny Spinner multiple times after drawing 10 free cards.

For Bumbleberry Pie, the question is what synergy do these cards have with Estrid's Invocation, Aminatou or Yorion?

The idea is enchantress needs a certain density of green cards which don’t use the white mana very well in the mid game.

For bumbleberry pie, they aren’t etbs so they don’t exactly synergize directly. Estrids on silence will usually be gg vs combo and resetting silence to something other than daze lategame can be nice. Estrids also can get blow out by removal on your 2 drop so an additional enchantment gives you insurance.

However the main point is that a ton of free white mana plus a mini defense grid really helps with resolving and casting your expensive spells (like yorion or history of benalia). Additionally a token deck will get more value out of level 2 paladin class than enchantress will normally.

[FTW]

The idea is enchantress needs a certain density of green cards which don’t use the white mana very well in the mid game.

The Aggro GW Enchantress deck does.
https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33611-The-Witch-House-(2021-Enchantress)

White mana sinks:
Paladin Class
Destiny Spinner
Green Sun's Zenith
Cast Out
On Thin Ice
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (off Living Wish)

It's more beatdown oriented so it also gets more value out of Paladin Class than Enchantress Control.


However the main point is that a ton of free white mana plus a mini defense grid really helps with resolving and casting your expensive spells (like yorion or history of benalia). Additionally a token deck will get more value out of level 2 paladin class than enchantress will normally.

This is true, but my question here is why to play it with the Estrid/Aminatou/Yorion engine as opposed to any other control shell. Once you lose the ETB synergies (especially in the second build) then you could really be any kind of enchantment-based control.

[Reeplcheep]

I guess the idea is that the paladin class and Serra’s sanctum want a cheapish white enchantment that makes tokens to use them to the full effect. The most value per mana cost in colour to blink with estrids and aminatou are token makers like sarcomancy and history of benalia.

Compared to other enchantment based control these engines are blue not green so you get to play force of Will and brainstorm. Because they are rebuys rather than cast triggers you get to interact first and then set up your engine rather than the other way around. You also get more selection with blinks than raw draw, similar to how snapcaster mage is better than coiling oracle.

Draft:

4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Prismatic Ending

4 Paladin Class
4 Sarcomancy
2 Legion’s Landing
2 Curse of Silence
4 On Thin Ice

4 Omen of the Sea
3 Trial of Ambition
3 Dress Down

3 History of Benalia
3 Aminatou, The Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Karakas
1 Snow Plains
3 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
3 Prismatic Vista

Between the 1 cmc enchantments and ending you are about 25% to be able to tap and use 2 white mana on t2 from your sanctum. Your aren’t as consistent as ramping as enchantress but the tokens and counterspells and extra removal will be more annoying along the way than abundant growth, pass. Hopefully.

Edit: dress down is over strix just because it is more castable with 6 W lands. It also should shore up the 8 cast and doomsday matchup. Weird basic distribution again because of all the white sources. Blue count is on the low side (24/80) but that is necessary to maximize Serra’s Sanctum. Trial into estrids is an insane curve vs fair decks and paladin class/Serra’s sanctum/curse of Silence are the best ways to do that into daze.

Ninja #2: you also get to avoid storm and draw hate that enchantress has trouble with (leovold/Canonist/deafening silence/Hullbreacher/SoTL) at the expensive of being more vulnerable to blue hate. It’s possible that it is a good tradeoff if people view TES and 8cast as the best unfair decks.

[Reeplcheep]

Did some testing last night.

Paladin class was pretty great.
Curse of Silence was pretty bad due to the mentioned lack of etb synergy. Wizard class/warlock class performed better.
Making 3-5 mana with Serra’s sanctum felt broken in a blue deck. Adding yorion to hand and casting it on the same turn was dirty.
There were so many mana sinks I probably should focus on lowering the curve to boost sanctum

Draft 2:

4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Prismatic Ending

4 Paladin Class
4 Sarcomancy
2 Legion’s landing
4 Wizard Class
4 On Thin Ice

4 Omen of the Sea
2 Trial of Ambition
2 Dress Down

3 History of Benalia
3 Aminatou, The Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Snow Plains
3 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
3 Prismatic Vista

[FTW]

Looks good.

Is this deck dependent enough on Sanctum that you'd want Consecrate Land in the SB vs Wastelands? (Lands, Delver, D&T)

Estrid doesn't copy Levels right? Aminatou/Yorion blink restores to Level 1?

Is Wizard Class mainly to boost enchantment count, draw cards and pitch to Force? There must be something better than 4 copies of 2UU to draw 2. Dovin's Acuity? Court of Cunning? Court of Grace? Mystic Remora? Shark Typhoon? Spreading Seas?

What about playing Counterbalance with Soothsaying? Sanctum mana makes this actually viable. CB also plays well with Omen. CB is one of the most broken pre-MH2 cards still legal in the format, so I think any Ux enchantment-based control shell that could have some way to enable it should strongly consider it. Especially with decks currently favoring Prismatic Ending and Assassin's Trophy over Abrupt Decay.

[Reeplcheep]

Consecrate land seems worse considerably worse than needle, even with the typing.

Levels are not copied so all of the engines work with it.

I was using warlock class before but I was concerned about blue count. 1 mana cards are essential to maximizing Serra’s sanctum but perhaps it is too deep.

Ending is bad for CB but not as bad as decay. Soothsaying could be a choice but then you move back to a parfait/miracles shell rather than a flicker one. Aminatou is still great there but estrids would probably be replaced with Teferi. Wincons would probably change from tokens to rip/etutor/helm.

[Reeplcheep]

Ok going back to the parfait/miracles shell does seem stronger than the kombatkiwi style shell I had above. It’s more in line with what I was doing at the start of this thread. It also makes much better use of curse of silence; the prison/combo shell likes the white “duress” whereas the flicker build is more of a midrange deck. You need more blue for counterbalance but less black so mana is about the same. Rip is the best mono-white 2 drop which is important to use Serra’s Sanctum on t2. Flicker doesn’t really have a good equivalent.

To make UU work I had to trim Serra’s so soothsaying wasn’t worth it as multiples. Scroll rack is better if you are going to etutor for it.

Draft:

UWx good stuff 19
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
3 Terminus

Core 26
4 Curse of Silence
3 On thin Ice
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Counterbalance
4 Rest In Peace
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Aminatou

Enchantment toolbox 8
3 Enlightened tutor
1 Energy Field
1 Scroll Rack
1 Oath of Kaya
1 Cast Out
1 Court of Grace

Lands 28
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Snow Plains
4 Snow Island
1 Snow Swamp
4 Tundra
1 Hollowed Fountain
1 Underground Sea
1 Mystic Sanctuary
2 Serra’s Sanctum

SB 15
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Force of Negation
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Terminus

1 Stoney Silence
1 Graffdigger’s Cage
1 Land Tax
1 Damping Sphere
1 Torpor Orb
1 Nevermore



Mapping seems pretty good.
Forces for discard and removal vs delver.
Non-blue creature decks are the same as delver plus trim CB package for more etutor package.
Combo is all the removal out, everything else in.

Justification behind the maindeck 1ofs:
Scroll rack for the combo with CB
Energy Field for the combo with RIP
Court of Grace for the combo with energy field as well as additional wincons.
Oath of kaya as a 3 cmc enchantment for CB, lifegain, and back up wincons.
Cast out as a very low opportunity cost universal answer/terminus enabler.

Stoney vs 8 cast and combo.
Damping Sphere is storm hate that also hits green decks.
Land tax is just great when you are OTD vs non-combo
Nevermore is great vs uro and combo.
We already have 4 rip, so cage is just so that you can keep 1 landers vs gy decks.

Edit: marsh flats should be flooded strand
I just realized most of my 1 drops are reactive. Ending, on thin ice, brainstorm and sometimes curse are all bad t1 OTP. 4 omen 2 ponder to 4 ponder 2 omen for that reason.

[FTW]

Yeah, when I was talking above about why restrict yourself to the Estrid's/Yorion flicker engine, I was thinking more of UW RipHelm. Once you remove the ETB synergies there's less reason to play the Estrid's engine over the RiP/Parfait engine or any other enchantment-based control deck (doesn't have to be Solitaire Enchantress).

I've only played with 60-card builds of it before. For 80-card, I would think you want 4 Enlightened Tutor and 4 Ponder just for consistency. The deck really needs card smoothing to hit the right pieces at the right times and 80 cards increases draw variance. Energy Field is very strong and should be 3-4 copies imho. If you're on 4 Counterbalance then you probably want more Scroll Rack and maybe 1-of Soothsaying for more library manipulation, otherwise CB is too unreliable with blind flips.

Curse of Silence looks bad here. Even though there's a combo kill (turn 3-5 possible), games typically go very long to the point where they can pay the tax and you wish you had a permanent answer. Curse is much better in aggressive decks. Land Tax would be a much better 1 cmc enchantment, especially because you can get away with a high basic count (Hallowed Fountain is unnecessary).

Mystic Sanctuary is pretty bad (read Rest in Peace). Too often it just enters tapped for tempo loss or loses to nonbasic hate, while the chance of it returning Terminus is low with RiP nuking your graveyard. Maybe it's better in 80 card, but it was just garbage in 60 card.

[Reeplcheep]

These are good points. Aminatou I still think is justifiable since her plus is good with miracles and CB and her minus is great with sanctuary and curse.

The main point is that curse is one of the only cards that trades up on tempo vs Daze. Like a white carpet that also is annoying for A+B combo. Lategame you can just cycle it and you are still up on mana. Before FoN control decks would play a few spell Pierce. This can “hit” anything, doesn’t require holding up mana, powers up sanctum, plays way better into daze, and cycles lategame.

Omen is nice with aminatou, CB, and yorion. But turning them into 2 ponders and 2 energy field could be correct. The “vomit permanents onto the battlefield” decks like 8 cast and elves have a lot of trouble with it. Do you really think I need more CB enablers with etutor, sanctuary, aminatou, brainstorm, and omen/ponder?

Because of how colour intensive the deck is I don’t think we can operate on less lands than our opponent. Tax does synergize well with scroll rack though.

Sanctuary is awful with basics and rip indeed. But it is sooooo good with aminatou (she can target it with minus or draw it immediately with plus) and CB I thought it might be worth it.

[FTW]

Yeah, that's a good point about Curse buying tempo to set up. In 60-card I could never find room, but you have space in 80 and it cycles and adds to enchantment count.

I think Omen is great here actually, maybe even worth more copies. It synergizes with everything and fixes draws. I'd look for cuts elsewhere before them.

A lot of your CB enablers are 1-time use. They do work, but they may also be needed for things other than setting up CB. The only repeatable instant-speed enabler is 1 Scroll Rack in 80 cards. CB is so much more oppressive with a repeatable enabler that can respond to the stack. I found myself losing control of the game without them. When I added Scroll Rack (post Oko ban), the ability to just take over the lategame went way up. Edit: You have 4 Aminatou, but with sorcery speed activations opponent can break through more easily.

Here's roughly what I was running for 60 card UW RiP/Parfait

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

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

//Enchantments: 14
2 Land Tax
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
1 Detention Sphere
1 Court of Cunning

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

//Sideboard: 15
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Back to Basics
1 Humility
1 Energy Flux
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Detention Sphere
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Meddling Mage
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Force of Negation
1 Flusterstorm


I see that your deck is a 3rd color and trying to do some different things, so it's not quite comparable. Land Tax may not work in yours. But I'm looking more at the density of card selection and CB enablers.

With 80 cards and 4 CBs it doesn't hurt to have a lot of library manipulation. I would start with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 ETutor, 2-4 Omen, and multiple Scroll Rack. You can fill in the rest with the tools you want but the card selection should help you get there (and also abuse CB at the same time). For example, maybe 3 copies of Aminatou is enough if you have more lower cmc cards to help you draw into it anyway.

[FTW]

For 80-card with UWb, maybe something like this
(Edit: I can see why you have Energy Field as a 1-of because it's awkward with Planeswalkers. Web of Inertia works though)

I went with 1 Scroll Rack + 1 Soothsaying instead of multiple Racks, because without Land Tax there's less payoff.


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 29
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
3 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Snow-Covered Island
3 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Hall of Storm Giants
1 Karakas
2 Serra's Sanctum

//UW Good Spells: 25
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
3 Terminus

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

//Enchantments: 22
4 Curse of Silence
2 On Thin Ice
1 Soothsaying
4 Counterbalance
4 Rest in Peace
3 Omen of the Sea
1 Energy Field
1 Web of Inertia
1 Cast Out
1 Court of Grace

//Artifacts: 2
1 Scroll Rack
1 Helm of Obedience

[Reeplcheep]

Ran a similar but miracle-less build through a league. I went 1-4 but most games went to g3. The deck felt powerful but hard and I made lots of mistakes.


The etutor into 2 cmc haymaker feels so good vs unfair decks g2.
Serra’s sanctum was great.
Counterbalance never had a time to shine since it always got forced. “Shrug”?
I etutored aggressively for rip vs uro decks; when it got ended it felt horrible.
Curse of silence was great. Seeing an opponent try to force and then take it back was “chefs kiss”. Vs TES I named dark ritual, saw a hand with 3 rite of flame, and then Reset it to rite with aminatou.
Etutor for a naked energy field just straight up won g1 vs elves. The web can’t do that and if I have rip and lots of mana I’d just get helm. I got wrecked g2 by playing it naked instead of leading on rip and then my rip got thoughtseized. But that’s just inexperience.
Serra’s sanctum is great, and soothsaying would be good with both it and CB. I would like to play 4 but you end up with too many non-blue sources. Adding a few Mystic Gate could be cool to cast cantrips and CB off of Serra’s sanctum or a plains enchanted with t1 on thin ice. I probably should cut the basic swamp too since it doesn’t work with mystic gate or CB.
I didn’t miss the lack of terminus. Court as a tutor target seemed unnecessary since I should always have one of the 2 comboes in play. Especially if I can up soothsaying.
Oath of Kaya was great. In one game I almost burnt out my D&T opponents from 20 (they had triple mom)
Etutors were bad enough in multiples vs fair blue that I don’t think 4 is warranted. At least MD. Shortcake and doomsday only play 2 of their respective tutors and are more combo focused.


Soothsaying no miracles deck.


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 29
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
4 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Mystic Gate
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Serra's Sanctum

//UW Good Spells: 21
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

//Enchantments/Artifacts: 27
4 Curse of Silence
3 On Thin Ice
3 Soothsaying
4 Counterbalance
4 Rest in Peace
4 Omen of the Sea
1 Energy Field
1 Cast Out
1 Oath of Kaya
2 Helm of Obedience


The deck is lower to the ground and more focused. Getting to have lands that tap for more than 2 in a fow deck feels disgusting and I think the deck has promise.

[FTW]

That looks tighter.

Good point, Energy Field is better on its own. I play multiple Energy Fields over Web for that reason. It can buy many turns to draw out of a bad board state. I thought it'd be a liability with planeswalkers, but probably not as much as Energy Field saves you. 1-of Sphere of Safety in the SB is an option.

Vs decks with discard, I try to use cantrips/ETutor/Scroll Rack to keep combo pieces on top of library instead of in hand. You can ETutor on EOT or on upkeep before draw step, dodging sorcery speed interaction. Walking out Energy Field first risks the 2-for-1 if they could discard or counter RiP. Sometimes it's still the correct play. It's a judgment call depending on the risk they might kill you next turn. If you do run out naked Energy Field, this is a reason to be on 4x Prismatic Vista + basics instead of too many duals, because you don't want to lose Energy Field to Wasteland!

What did you face in the League? I'm surprised you didn't miss Terminus with only 1 Energy Field in 80 cards. How did you interact with big creature board states? 1-for-1 removal was enough?

I always run a Court as an alternate win con. I ran into a number of board states where I made it impossible for the opponent to win, but they also made it impossible for me to win (e.g. they went Karn, the Great Creator -> Pithing Needle on Helm, and now ETutor can't find removal for both). I also avoid exposing Helm until I have control of the game and stack, even if I had the mana for it. So at that point I'd have to durdle and hope to topdeck out of it or deck them. The problem is variance. When you're both passing the turn drawing 1 card each, opponent will often get a better sequence of draws and then be able to break the lock first. This means a game that "should" be a W can turn into a L if opponent doesn't concede and gets lucky. ETutor into Court solved these problems: alternate win-con dodging Helm hate and I draw 2 cards per turn to out-resource them.

I found Court of Cunning more reliable than Court of Grace for multiple reasons: pitches to FoW, better CMC for Counterbalance, worked when I didn't have Helm mana, and synergizes with RiP to remove outs from their deck. The tokens also died too easily, because in game 1 opponent typically has multiple dead removal spells or extra creatures to block with. The downside is Court of Cunning can't win back the Monarch, so you need to guarantee the combat step is locked down (easier in my build with multiple Energy Field & SB Humility). I thought Court of Grace would be better in your build because you have easy white mana (Sanctum) and you can't lock down combat as easily. But you do already have other ways to win. I overlooked how well Oath of Kaya + Aminatou can work as a wincon, especially when you don't run StP.

Because of your Sanctum engine and 0 Land Tax, maybe multiple Soothsaying and 0 Scroll Rack is the way to go. I do like Scroll Rack's ability to fix bad draws on its own (e.g. put back extra lands + redundant pieces to draw cards, then fetch or ETutor to reset library). It's never dead in multiples because 1 Rack can convert the other into a fresh card, while extra Soothsayings are dead. Rack has many alternate uses like that, aside from the Land Tax and CB combos. It can protect your hand from discard. It can put junk on top to manage Ragavan and keep the card you want 2 deep. It can dig deep for a combo piece, without cracking Energy Field. It can dig with Narset/Leovold out. It stops you from decking (alternate wincon). It's a decision-intensive card that can do a lot in the lategame, but it is slow in the early turns.

I find 3 ETutor the right number for 60 cards. I assumed 4 would work for 80 but haven't tested it. I also ran 3 with Jeskai Breach, as did most others. I think Fox ran 3 in UW Dreadstill and UWx Landstill before cutting it for a different engine. Shortcake runs 2 ETutor because white is a splash and they have other tutors on color. If they had reliable T1 white mana, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 3rd copy. Doomsday's Personal Tutor is miles worse (sorcery speed & only finds sorceries). If Mystical Tutor was legal they'd probably run more than 2. Combo ran Mystical as a 4-of before the ban. You don't want 2 ETutor in the opener often, but you still want at least 1 copy early most games. You get so many wins from early tutor into silver bullet. Copies drawn later add a lot of tempo to finishing the game before opponent has time to break out of a lock. The card disadvantage is less of an issue than it seems because you're usually tutoring for 6-for-1s (combo pieces or cards that shut down whole strategies) instead of 1-for-1s. If the target resolves (and you tutored for the right thing for that matchup and game state), you're usually far ahead.

Against fair blue, you can avoid ETutor's card disadvantage by playing around 1-for-1 counters. Don't jam an ETutor target into Daze. If they Force or double Daze, you traded 2-for-2. Luckily Spell Pierce and Spell Snare see less play and Fluster can't hit enchantments, so they have limited 1-for-1 counter options. Hardcast Force is the biggest threat, but you can tax that with Curse and also play around it with timing (remember ETutor is 1-mana instant and you aren't forced to jam if they're just durdling with 5 untapped lands). Postboard REB is a bigger problem for the blue enchantments, but it can't hit RiP or Helm. For these matches I find it helps to play out Counterbalance first. Let them fight over Counterbalance, using up their counters/PEndings. Then you have a clearer path to resolve RiP+Helm. If Counterbalance lands, then you can time ETutor to find the piece when it would also counter a spell of the same CMC (Expressive Iteration, Prismatic Ending for 2, etc), stealing back +1 card. I also like to board in cards like Teferi, Time Raveler and Meddling Mage/Nevermore. That way you can present a single card that threatens to shut off every counter in hand, instead of boarding in counters and trying to win a fair counter war, potentially losing to something like Force + double REB when you expected to beat their 4-card hand. With 4x Curse you can really play up this strategy. For me, Back to Basics helps the fair blue match by making it hard for them to leave up Force mana, but it clashes with your Sanctum.

Unfortunately Ragavan is oppressive to play against. Parfait/CB does a lot of topdeck manipulation and Ragavan messes that up. In one game, T1 Ragavan OTP (with Daze for my removal of course) stole Counterbalance on the first attack and jammed it (replay Volc + Treasure). Then I ended up having to play against Ragavan + Counterbalance before my 2nd turn... My build did a lot better against fair blue when they were on Oko/Uro builds instead of Ragavan builds.

I should try out Sanctums. Probably in an 80-card build. I won't play the black cards because I prefer the smoother mana with basics, but otherwise stuff like Curse of Silence and Omen would still fit well.

[Reeplcheep]

idol of oblivion is another payoff for Serra’s sanctum if we go back to the token build. Can be bounced with aminatou to draw cards too.

The important point is you can cast it off Serra’s sanctum mana t2 unlike the other payoffs. T1 interactive enchantment (paladin/curse/on thin ice) t2 sarcomancy/legions end this

[Borg]

Just fyi, Idol of Oblivion keeps on giving with Bitterblossom.

These two cards could even form the core of a deck imo.
Maybe a Legacy variant of that Warden modern deck you posted in ?

[FTW]

Idol does seem promising in the aggro-token build.

Bitterblossom does seem good with Paladin Class

Attrition is a card that may be of interest as spot removal if you're playing a bunch of tokens, but maybe 4x On Thin Ice is just better.

[Reeplcheep]

Idol does seem promising in the aggro-token build.

Bitterblossom does seem good with Paladin Class

Attrition is a card that may be of interest as spot removal if you're playing a bunch of tokens, but maybe 4x On Thin Ice is just better.

The problem I need solving though is that the token build has trouble with blue count. Blue token support has ravens warning, but that needs a critical density of flyers. Hard evidence is low impact and can’t be etb’d. I am worried opposition is too expensive nowadays. Cabal Therapy is the other reason to play tokens in legacy but wants additional discard. Keep watch or military intelligence seem lacklustre. Strix is weird with Serra’s sanctum.


Hard Evidence
Opposition
Raven’s Warning
Keep Watch
Military Intelligence
Baleful Strix

[FTW]

The problem I need solving though is that the token build has trouble with blue count.

How high a blue count do you need? Auto-include blue cards are
Force of Will
Force of Negation
Brainstorm
Ponder
Estrid's Invocation
Aminatou, the Fateshifter
Yorion, Sky Nomad

That's already about 24 cards and one of them puts itself in your hand.

The next best blue enchantments are probably
Shark Typhoon (both modes work with your deck)
Spreading Seas (draw engine + land hate)
Detention Sphere (Cast Out cycles, but this costs less, is blue, and can hit multiples)
Wizard Class (draw engine + token buff)

Then the next tier down is more questionable conditional value like
Ominous Seas
Scuttletide
Skywise Teachings
The Raven's Warning

There should be something playable in there. How deep do you need to go?

[Reeplcheep]

I think I was having blue troubles since I wasn’t counting yorion, had Prismatic instead of dsphere, and was trying to fit cabal therapy. Here is a build which is focused on the t2 token producer, Serra’s for WW, idol. Wizards mostly for 1 cmc Blue count enchantments. It’s slow but is a divination when flickered. Teferi over Dsphere since it is better vs control and combo.


4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Paladin Class
4 Sarcomancy
2 Legion’s Landing
2 Wizard’s Class
4 On Thin Ice

2 Trial of Ambition
2 Bitterblossom
3 Idol of Oblivion

3 History of Benalia
4 Aminatou, The Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Teferi, time-Raveler

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Snow Plains
1 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
3 Polluted Delta
3 Prismatic Vista

[FTW]

Looks good. I think you can cut down copies of Idol, since "2: Do nothing" is not a great card to have and you only have a small number of cards that make tokens. It takes a lucky combination for just the 1st one to cycle, then more to generate value. 1-2 copies?

[FistaCuffSmith]

How's this deck doing? Seems super cool?

[Reeplcheep]

How's this deck doing? Seems super cool?

I have been working on spirits and curses instead to be honest. Prismatic ending does takeaway some of the appeal of being an enchantment based blue deck but i just haven’t played it much.

[FistaCuffSmith]

I think I might proxy this up and try to play it a little bit over webcam. Have any suggestions on sideboard options?

[Reeplcheep]

I have theory crafted but I haven’t played it much recently. You should probably just copy what boshnroll did back then?

[Reeplcheep]

This spoiler could make the Serra’s sanctum build tick. It is a on theme, 1W, nettlecystPreviously we lacked a good payoff for WW on t2, which is the strength of running a bunch of 1 drop enchantments + sanctum

http://mythicspoiler.com/neo/cards/michikosreignoftruth.jpg
http://mythicspoiler.com/neo/cards/portraitofmichiko.jpg

This gives a consistent really aggressive start:
T1 sarcomancy/legions landing
T2 any 1 drop enchantment, Serra’s sanctum, this attack for 4 lifelink or 5.
T2 0-2 cheap enchantments, estrid/aminatou attack for 10-18.

Prismatic ending is annoying hitting enchantments, but an abundance of spot removal makes this ETB/token focused strategy powerful.

[Reeplcheep]

Draft:


4 On Thin Ice
4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion’s Landing
4 Paladin Class
3 Wizard Class
4 Brainstorm

4 Michiko’s Reign of Truth
3 Trial of Ambition
2 Omen of the Sea

3 History of Benalia
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Hall of Heliod
2 Snow Island
2 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Plains
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
3 Prismatic Vista
2 Polluted Delta

[FTW]

Michiko really rewards early creatures. Does this want to be even more aggro and less control?

[Reeplcheep]

Michiko really rewards early creatures. Does this want to be even more aggro and less control?

I thought 8 1 drop token makers was already as aggro as I could be. Before I was running 4-6. What were you thinking?

[FTW]

Well Wizard Class, Omen of the Sea, 3feri all play towards a more control plan. They provide lategame card advantage but don't really backup the early set of bodies or synergize with Michiko.

What about playing more pressure instead? More tokens or creature-enchantments so there are more possible targets.

[Reeplcheep]

Well Wizard Class, Omen of the Sea, 3feri all play towards a more control plan. They provide lategame card advantage but don't really backup the early set of bodies or synergize with Michiko.

What about playing more pressure instead? More tokens or creature-enchantments so there are more possible targets.

Wizard class and omen of the sea were just because the blue count got really low trying to maximize serra's sanctum. They are replacing preordain/ponder so they seem more aggressive than the normal cantrips. Wizard's class could be replaced by warlock class to be a bit more agressive but it seems like my blue count would suffer
Teferi is more of an engine and helps vs combo, what do you think it should be replaced by? I need some generic interaction without prismatic ending and 3feri synergizes well with all the 1 drop enchantments and history of benalia.

[Reeplcheep]

The only more aggressive cards I could add are Myth Realized, Hidden Stockpile and Bitterblossom. Neither of these flicker particularly well or curve well with Serra’s.

[Reeplcheep]

Being low to the ground and aggressive is definitely a good idea. It makes michiko and Serra’s better, and the deck already has lots of mana sinks in the late game between paladin class and yorion.

If we cut history for myth realized (better at powering up Serra’s sanctum and taking the buff from michiko), trial for oath of Kaya (i found that with aminatou it offers a ton of reach and stabilization), qnd wizards class for ponder (better at letting us hit land drops) we would end up with something like this that is very aggressive:


4 On Thin Ice
4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion’s Landing
4 Paladin Class
4 Myth Realized
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

4 Michiko’s Reign of Truth
4 Omen of the Sea

2 Oath of Kaya
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Plains
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
3 Prismatic Vista
2 Polluted Delta

1 Yorion, the sky serpent
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Rest In Peace
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Back to Basics
1 Nevermore
1 Engineered Plague


The new cards aren’t as good at being copied with estrids, but should make the beatdown plan A more consistent. And then plan B would be to resolve estrids or aminatou to reload, protected by paladin class & 3feri. Plan C is cast yorion or tick up paladin class to get over the finish line with a final burst of value. The previous list was probably too much plan B, not enough plan A. Estrids copying omen/sarcomancy is still very good. And with more creatures, estrid plus michiko should just one shot people (I believe two instances should stack?)

The premise of why this deck could be good is that it is a UWx deck that gets to play 4 cloudpost level lands. AFAIK no one has gotten brainstorm to work in cradle decks. We are doing similar things to the 8cast decks; a bit slower but more difficult to hate out and more interactive.

[Reeplcheep]

I goldfished a few times. Sequencing is difficult since you don’t have any 1 mana blue enchantments and on thin ice wants basics. Trying to turn on Serra’s leaves you with not enough non-white sources. It is possible is should play a few dimir signet. It would be a payoff for 2 white mana early, and lets you turn the white mana into blue and black later.

4 myth was too many, I should probably trim to 2 and play 4 ponder.

[Reeplcheep]

This could be the third “aggressive” one drop we need. Pretty marginal value to blink, but it is evasive once it finally flips. It being black one drop is really nice for curving with sarcomancy off of a snow basic.

https://preview.redd.it/s2pyywq8b9f81.png

https://preview.redd.it/x1t16l79b9f81.png?width=258&format=png

Edit: image isn’t working. It’s a saga that drains for 1 twice and then flips into a 2/2 menace for B.

[FTW]

Oh, you're still playing an 80-card Yorion build. Then 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder to avoid issues with mana and sequencing.

Hidden Stockpile works well with flicker. Flickering anything (including Stockpile) sets off the Revolt trigger. Fetches and token death also trigger Revolt.

Oath of Gideon? It's a bad History of Benalia, but it does give your planeswalkers extra loyalty.


What about enchantment-creatures?

Brain Maggot is both a creature and disruption and can work well with flicker.

Sythis, Harvest's Hand would be ideal but is off color

Riptide Chimera is another "flicker" effect that happens to have a 3/4 flying body. Convenient size in a meta with 3/x flyers and 3/4 reach creatures, but maybe too expensive.

Daxos, Blessed by the Sun? Underworld Coinsmith? Heliod, Sun-Crowned? Aphemia, the Cacophony? Alseid of Life's Bounty?

Edit: I see you cut History of Benalia?

[Reeplcheep]

I am worried about playing too many enchantment creatures since they would usually expose your estrids invocation to swords to Plowshares. They also usually have less good etb effects, and so if they get hit by ending it is less of a card advantage gain. The premise of the deck is that when all your cards make 2 permanents, removal.dec is going to have trouble. If they ending the sarcomancy they still are getting hit by the dude, and if they ending the dude you copy it with estrids and make a new one.

History of Benalia is the strongest target, but the deck already has a ton of mana sink (Paladin class, yorion, legion’s landing, omen of the sea) . I think yorion is essential for Serra’s sanctum build since it is such a good payoff for lots of white mana. I am worried playing 4 of a 3 cmc permanent hoping to untap and play another 3 cmc permanent might be win more. I also wanted to lower my curve as much as possible to turn on Serra’s sanctum. The 1 cmc enchantments are all non-blue so I had to cut some non-blue card. Maybe I should play 2 though.

I liked the reach of oath of Kaya which was in the history of benalia slot, but this probably makes path unnecessary. I like hidden stockpile since it has extra synergy with michikoro as the tokens are artifacts. But there is only so much room for non-blue token generators >1 cmc, and history is stronger with Serra’s sanctum and estrids.

Draft:

4 On Thin Ice
4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion’s Landing
4 Paladin Class
4 Okina Reckoner Raid
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Michiko’s Reign of Truth
2 Trial of Ambition
2 Omen of the Sea

2 History of Benalia
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Swamp
1 Snow Plains
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta

1 Yorion, the sky serpent
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Torpor Orb
1 Rest In Peace
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Damping Sphere
1 Nevermore
1 Engineered Plague

[Reeplcheep]

I ran this through 2 leagues. I didn’t do particularly well but the deck had some absurd highs like killing someone from 18 with 2 2/2 vampires in one shot.

Props:

Michiko was suitably insane when it had a creature to target. The aforementioned one shot was estrids etb copy michiko targeting one vampire, both estrid and the OG michiko part 2s trigger, use Serra’s sanctum to level up paladin class to level 3, attack with a 11/11 double strike lifelink vampire and a 6/6 lifelink vampire.

Serra’s sanctum combined with impactful mana sinks like yorion and paladin class was very good and worth the deckbiilding contraints. Paying 8 mana on t5 to add it and cast the sky noodle in one turn (making 2 zombies, a vampire, making op sac a creature and preordaining) felt like cheating.

History is enough better with flickers than the 1 cmc enchantments that I want at least 3

The deck was as good vs spot removal as I predicted.

Etutor for energy flux vs 8cast.

Slops:

I felt a tiny bit short on removal.

Okina gang was good at enabling Serra’s sanctum but was too bad as a creature for michiko and too weak of an ETB for Estrid's. I need to replace it with a 1 cmc enchantment that is either a better creature ( Gnarled Scar-Hide or Alseid of Life’s Bounty?) or a better ETB ( warlock class?) instead of doing both things poorly. Edit: or go up the curve for bitterblossom/Spirited Companion?

Land sequencing is a bit awkward at first and needs tuning.

The unfair matchups were pretty bad but perhaps I just need to refine the etutor package.

[Reeplcheep]

Continuing to test the deck. Going 40%.

I tested prismatic ending. It was good since you often tap Serra’s sanctum for an extra white mana. Although compared to 3feri it leaves your blue count very low.

Strix is a great card and good for your blue/creature count. It’s is really awkward for mana sequencing however since it neither turns on Serra nor can be cast with it.

The meta seems very durdle right now. I tried court of grace over history of benalia and was impressed. Curve wise it is pretty easy to have 4 mana on t3 but impossible to have 3 mana on t2.

Playing trial of ambition, I missed the lifegain and pw removal of oath.

[Reeplcheep]

I did some further testing in leagues, and I am winning a bit closer to 50% now.

Hidden stockpile was fun in theory with michiko but it was too bad by itself in practice.

Monk class was actually not terrible as flexible removal. The more powerful alternatives (ending and 3feri) are not enchantments and hurt your blue count/clog your curve.

Michiko gives the deck a lot of aggression but I need more 1 drop enchantments that can attack on t2. Maybe I should revisit myth realized.

Trial of ambition plus flicker is disgusting vs the top decks (d&t/GW/delver) and and is the reason this deck is esper instead of bant.

This is where I am at now:

4 On Thin Ice
4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion’s Landing
3 Paladin Class
3 Myth Realized
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Michiko’s Reign of Truth
3 Trial of Ambition
3 Monk Class

3 History of Benalia
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Plains
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta

4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Yorion, the Sky Nomad
1 Graffdigger’s cage
1 Rest In Peace
1 Engineered Plague
1 Humility
1 Damping Sphere
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

[Reeplcheep]

I ran a bunch of leagues and talked to a few yorion esper vial players for advice. I got a few breakthroughs to improve the fail rate of the deck.


If you only have white enchantments, you need to fetch white to cast those enchantments but then Serra’s only makes more white. This screws up your land sequencing. 2 paladin class and 1 on thin ice to 3 warlock class helps immensely in making Serra’s plus a fetch hands more keepable.

The deck is super cold to lage without strix, but strix and sanctum do not play nicely. Added a karakas, the blue channel land, and cut a on thin ice for swift reconfiguration for more outs.

Ending is really good in a deck with spare white mana.

One trial changed to oath of Kaya as an etutor target post-board against karn/JTMS.



Thoughts?


4 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
2 On Thin Ice
1 Swift Reconfiguration
2 Paladin Class
3 Warlock Class

3 Michikoro’s Reign of Truth
2 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea

2 History of Benalia
1 Oath of Kaya
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Karakas
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
1 Vista
2 Snow Swamp
1 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

[Reeplcheep]

Still tuning the list. Found out a few things: lost to mana denial a bunch, I don’t think the utility lands were worth it.

Strix is definitely a good card if I can make it castable. Not auto losing to lage is the most important. Extra bodies for michiko and removal while supporting my blue count too. Swift was underwhelming since so many creatures do more than just attack right now. On thin ice doesn’t flicker super well and can’t really curve into strix.

You can’t just have the 1 drops as flicker targets; a few more 2 and 3 cmc targets are needed to turbo charge your engines.

Retooled list to support both strix and Serra’s sanctum is below. It is a lot worse at the t2 Serra’s sanctum for WW nuts, but should be more stable.

4 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
3 Paladin Class
3 Warlock Class

2 Michikoro’s Reign of Truth
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Baleful Strix

2 History of Benalia
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
2 Vista
3 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains


Humility has been good as etutor target and I am excited to try Out of Time as a boardwipe. The sideboard discard was unimpressive, and could be more targets or extra force of negations.

[Reeplcheep]

I tried a bunch of different versions trying to make the deck faster/more token heavy. That did ok vs fair blue but fair non-blue and combo ignored it. The card quality also diminishes quite a bit once you get past sarcomancy/legions/michiko. I think the strength of the deck is the recursive hard removal so maybe I should just focus on that. Additionally, many of the effects in the deck get stronger the longer the game goes, so perhaps slowing down helps my aggro plan.


4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion’s Landing
3 Paladin Class
3 Warlock Class

3 Michiko’s Reign of Truth
4 Trial of Ambition
1 Oath of Kaya

4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Baleful Strix
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

4 Vista
4 Delta
3 Flats
3 Strand
4 Serra’s
1 Tundra
3 Sea
1 Scrub
1 Plains
2 Island
2 Swamp

[Reeplcheep]

Inventive Iteration saw play in the esper vial list that top8’d the showcase. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2022-03-07#heynongman_th_place)

Inventive Iteration
{3}{U}
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.)
I — Return up to one target creature or planeswalker to its owner’s hand.
II — Return an artifact card from your graveyard to your hand. If you can’t, draw a card.
III — Exile this Saga, then return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.

Living Breakthrough
(Colour Indicator: Blue) Enchantment Creature — Moonfolk
Flying
Whenever you cast a spell, your opponents can’t cast spells with the same mana value as that spell until your next turn.


It’s essentially a bad 3feri as an enchantment, although it has really good synergy with strix, and the backside is a finisher against combo. Perhaps I should consider it as a finisher over the expensive token makers or removal enchantments? It can stabilize, answer Jace/karn/constructs, and helps my blue count.

[Reeplcheep]

The token deck is great against fair blue but other decks did the vomit tokens onto the board thing better (8cast, 8mulch).

Rather than focusing on the token maker + Estrid’s interaction, you could focus on removal enchantments + estrids. Hitsegu consumes all is seeing play as a 4 of and is the enchantment boardwipes a control build wanted. I initially dismissed it since it was off colour and has dissynergy with tokens and 1 drop enchantments. But a hard grixis control build could avoide those issues.

Draft:

4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition

4 Estrid’s Invocation
4 Hitsegu Consumes All
2 Court of Ambition

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Fatal Push
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Snuff Out
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Baleful Strix
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

2 Vista
4 polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Badlands
1 Mountain
5 Island
5 Swamp

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Yorion, the sky serpent
2 Blood Moon
2 Meltdown


I have a high amount of discard. The reasoning was A. Yorion decks are inherently better against fair decks than combo B. If I am building around a boardwipes, I’d rather make sure the boardwipe resolves than just cast another removal spell.

Recurring removal/boardwipes gives this deck a niche over UWx decks. it is close enough to the current grixis builds that it can’t be too bad. The question is if the estrid/Yorion thing is better than narset/days undoing, but it isn’t unreasonable to suppose that.

[Reeplcheep]

Some conclusions from a lot of looking through sample hands and theory crafting:


Bolt is the best 1 drop removal since the deck is so cold to planeswalkers.

More inquisition over Thoughtseize to enable snuff out.

Magus over blood moon because of 8mulch/12post.
Energy Flux over Meltdown since hitsegu already answers the cheap stuff.
I felt a bit light on cantrips and enchantments, thinking of adding 2 consider & 2 Disinformation campaign.

[kombatkiwi]

The list I played at FNM a couple of days ago:

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

4 Omen of the Sea
2 Omen of the Forge
4 Spreading Seas
4 Estrid's Invocation
1 Detention Sphere
1 Counterbalance
1 Humility

5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island

SB
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Court of Grace
1 Rest in Peace
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Blood Moon
1 Energy Flux
1 Deafening Silence
3 Pyroblast
1 Kaheera

1-1-1 vs UR Delver
2-1 vs Chalice Post
2-1 vs Ninjas

Not sure about the esper builds with the tokens, too alien of a strategy to me and can't figure it out just from looking at it how to offer any suggestions

Omen of the Forge is not that bad and may be okay for your Grixis build also but part of what makes it good is Humility and you can't really play that with Yorion. Its possible that with Trial of Ambition you don't need it. I don't think Hidetsugu has that much synergy with Estrids but Estrids + Trial is a very good combo and maybe Hidetsugu is just a good enough card by itself. Could be interested to test a grixis build.

I recommend considering spreading seas as a extra thing you can copy to draw, kills Urzas Saga, doesn't die to Hidetsugu, more Yorion target, etc

Edit: Im also quite surprised you didn't test Tribute to Horobi

Enchantment - Saga 1B
[I] & [II] each opponent creates a 1/1 rat rogue
[III] exile and flip

back side: Echo of Death's Wail
Enchantment Creature - Spirit 3/3
Flying, Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield gain control of all rat tokens
When ~ attacks you may sacrifice another creature if you do draw a card

At 2 mana it curves well into estrid:
Turn 2 play this make 1 rat
Turn 3 tick up to II, make 2nd rat, play estrid to copy it, make 3rd rat
turn 4 flicker your estrid make 4th rat, mainphase tick up estrid first make 5th rat, then original saga flips, gain control of 5 rats, attack with 3/3 flying haste draw a card

Seems good both as an aggro card for a deck that also has Sarcomancy, or even as a standalone finisher for a more controlling list like how I wanted History of Benalia to work in my original build (sadly a nonbo with the hidetsugu saga though). The fact its a mana cheaper and as a card by itself it potentially draws 2 cards is pretty nice

[Reeplcheep]

Omen of the forge is nice if I am in red but Oath of Kaya or Life of Tostiro Umezawa do similar things without requiring a splash.

You didn’t find that seas was too awkward vs daze? Did your estrids copying it ever die to wasteland? I could consider it replacing strix, but strix seems so much better vs delver and jeskai.

Tribute seemed quite strong, but the non-bo with trial seemed too strong to include. I thought the estrids plus trial interaction was the reason to play the deck. Also I was worried that it made the deck too weak to prismatic ending which otherwise the deck handles always at card advantage.

Out of Time is a boardwipe that gets better with our own tokens and has a very high synergy with aminatou. It seems like a good option to avoid splashing for hitsegu; Have you tried it?

[kombatkiwi]

Omen of the forge is nice if I am in red but Oath of Kaya or Life of Tostiro Umezawa do similar things without requiring a splash.

You didn’t find that seas was too awkward vs daze? Did your estrids copying it ever die to wasteland? I could consider it replacing strix, but strix seems so much better vs delver and jeskai.

Tribute seemed quite strong, but the non-bo with trial seemed too strong to include. I thought the estrids plus trial interaction was the reason to play the deck. Also I was worried that it made the deck too weak to prismatic ending which otherwise the deck handles always at card advantage.

Out of Time is a boardwipe that gets better with our own tokens and has a very high synergy with aminatou. It seems like a good option to avoid splashing for hitsegu; Have you tried it?

Against daze/wasteland deck you just spreading seas your own basic islands. Strix is probably better overall, assuming you can cast it and haven't had any issues lacking Estrid targets

The nonbo with trial and horobi is only a short window until you flip it and steal all the rats (which can be an issue due to powerful threats like murktide, but doesn't seem too bad)

Haven't tried out of time

[Reeplcheep]

Against daze/wasteland deck you just spreading seas your own basic islands. Strix is probably better overall, assuming you can cast it and haven't had any issues lacking Estrid targets

The nonbo with trial and horobi is only a short window until you flip it and steal all the rats (which can be an issue due to powerful threats like murktide, but doesn't seem too bad)

Haven't tried out of time

Strix is definitely not free. I had to cut on thin ice for it since you can’t lead on basic plains. But with the above lists it isn’t too bad.

The non bo is probably not as important as how weak it is to removal. Your opponent Ending or bouncing it after chapter 2 seems very annoying to deal with.

[kombatkiwi]

The non bo is probably not as important as how weak it is to removal. Your opponent Ending or bouncing it after chapter 2 seems very annoying to deal with.

Hmmm yeah that's fair, for a more controlling build I guess the best wincon is some kind of court rather than the tokens plan

[Reeplcheep]

Hmmm yeah that's fair, for a more controlling build I guess the best wincon is some kind of court rather than the tokens plan

The idea of the tokens builds are that your 1 drops are 1.5 for 1s against removal. If they ending the token, you can punish them with your engines (estrid and aminatou) making another one; if they ending the enchantment you punish them with pump effects (paladin class/reign of truth/nettlecyst/life of umezawa) so they can’t ignore your token. that is something unique to the deck which is more interesting imo than the normal UWx plan of 1 mana removal + generic CA engine.

Perhaps I should give the “ jitte” saga another try. If you are copying it with estrids it is basically a -2/-2, and it pumps the tokens to 3/4 power so the opponent needs to answer them. Higher floor but lower ceiling than the “nettlecyst” saga. If you think trial + estrids is the strongest part of the deck having 7 copies of each is a lot of consistency. The deck becomes more black heavy, less white, so Serra’s sanctum gets a bit worse.

What about this:

2 Warlock Class
4 Sarcomancy
3 Legion’s Landing
3 Paladin Class
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Baleful Strix
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Life of Yoshiro Umezawa

2 Out of Time
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

3 Serra’s Sanctum
3 Snow Island
3 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Plains
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
3 Marsh Flats
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Yorion, the Sky Nomad
1 Graffdigger’s cage
2 Rest In Peace
1 Deafening Silence
1 Humility
1 Tsabo’s Web
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

[Reeplcheep]

Going about 40% with the below. Strix had a ton of conflict with sanctum and estrids so I cut it and the list feels a bunch smoother. having something powerful to copy with a estrids in combo matchups is great.I had to add plow and karakas to not fold to marit lage though. The “jitte” saga is working out as intended; never amazing but works well with all the parts of the deck.


4 Sarcomancy
3 Legion’s Landing
3 Paladin Class
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Life of Yoshiro Umezawa

3 History of Benalia
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Estrid’s Invocation

4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Karakas
3 Snow Island
3 Snow Swamp
1 Snow Plains
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
3 Marsh Flats
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Yorion, the Sky Nomad
1 Out of Time
1 Rest In Peace
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Deafening Silence
1 Humility
1 Tsabo’s Web
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

[FTW]

Agree with your assessment. The antisynergy between Sanctum and UB stuff is enough of a problem that you probably need to decide between being a Sanctum deck and being a general Esper ETB value deck.

It probably helps to streamline the mana. Do you want to be UWb or UBw? (or WBu??). Equally-balanced UBW seems unstable for 80 cards. The Sanctum plan tilts towards UWb. Maybe that means leaning more into the white answers (4 Plow, 4 Ending) and cutting back on turn 1 black stuff. How's Curse of Silence?

[Reeplcheep]

The core of the deck imo is removal enchantment into blink engine. Which is why I have 7 of both. It is a card advantage engine that is tempo positive instead of negative; it is distinct from legacies normal efficient interaction into durdle control shell.

Strix was too hard due to the UB and the “nettlecyst” saga was too all in/low floor. I have liked Umezawa due to a decently high floor and synergizing with the whole deck. The deck wants to be WBu since the best interaction is white and the best blink cards are black. I thought cutting ponder and brainstorm was sacrilege however and I am already low on blue count for forces. The point of warlock class was to support a WBu take since it is a black cantrip that enables Serra’s. it is quite inefficient though.

If you went to UWb you would probably cut the 1 cmc token producers and move them up to stuff like court of grace. This makes Serra’s a lot worse however which is a unique flavour to the deck.

[Reeplcheep]

Assuming cutting ponder isn’t blasphemous, a WBu build would be:

4 ponder -> 2 cling to dust 2 warlock class
3 history of benalia -> 3 3feri (you need to keep blue count up)
Island -> plains
Swamp -> scrub
Island -> tundra

The problem with cutting the black 1 cmc enchantments is that your 1 land + Serra’s hands are pretty bad; you can’t enable Serra’s without getting a dual and missing one of your colours.
A UWb build would probably involve:
4 sarcomancy -> 4 Preordain
1 Serra 1 karakas 1 swamp -> 1 tundra 2 fetches

A UBw build would lose both Serra’s and ending which seems bad.

What do you think is best?

[kombatkiwi]

Played this at FNM
2-1 vs GB Smog Nicfit
2-0 vs Grixis Hullbreacher
0-2 vs BUG Zenith

4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Scalding Tarn
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Spreading Seas
4 Estrid's Invocation
2 Force of Negation
2 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Omen of the Forge
1 Detention Sphere
1 Humility

SB
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
1 Deafening Silence
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Court of Cunning
1 Stony Silence
4 Pyroblast/REB

Main change compared to previous build is add 1 more Sevinne's Reclamation to the maindeck as the "White Uro", the midgame/lategame card that doesn't just lose to your opponent out-carding you with Iteration and 1-for-1 you with counters

The other realization I had was that playing court of grace in the sb "to dodge pyro" was stupid because the deck is already based on a 4x 3-mana blue enchantment so opponent pyro will always be able to do something. Court of Cunning can come down earlier and can be recurred by Sevinne

Because I have 2x Sevinne in the deck now and it seems a relatively important part of gameplan in different matchups I cut the RIP for a Soulguide lantern

I planned to play Eidolon of Rhetoric / Canonist and Magus of the Moon in SB so I preemptively cut the Kaheera but I didn't end up finding copies of those

In the end Court of Cunning overperformed by a lot and I ended up boarding it in every game. The deck doesn't have super ability to control the board of creatures (Humility but no sweepers etc) but you can do the combo of copying it with Estrid to gain monarch back and mill the opponent for 20 per turn anyway. I want to move it to the maindeck over one of the Omen of the Forge and then keep 1 of the omen of the forge (or swap it to some other wincon), just to have a wincon that lets me beat opponents that don't lose to mill (e.g. they have Emrakul in their deck) or you don't want to mill them (they are a Past In Flames deck or something)

Option:
a) Direct damage
- Omen of the Forge (or the Amonkhet red trial I guess)
- Impending Doom
- Words of War
b) Make tokens
- Omen of the Sun -> Also lifegain which can be relevant
- Improbable Alliance (in a vacuum this card is quite strong I think but its a bit scuffed vs narset)
- History of Benalia
- Ravens Warning (seems spicy but might warp the sb too much or just suck in general)
- The 1WR capenna card that makes 2 Citizens
c) An enchantment creature
- Riptide Chimera
- Restoration of Eiganjo / The Modern Age (Fall of Konda would be ok if the creature didn't have defender)
d) A non-enchantment creature (you can't copy it with estrid but it might be good enough anyway if its 3 cmc so you can return it with Sevinnes). A problem with creature options like this (and above, category C) is that they get bricked by Humility, which could be a problem because Humility is pretty decent in the Emrakul matchup where Court of Cunning is bad.
- Mentor
- TNN
e) Something that costs more than 3 (probably an enchantment so that you can copy with Estrid for maximum payoff)
- Court of Grace
- JTMS
- Shark Typhoon

The detention sphere is generally pretty weak and maybe should be a SB card (e.g. replacing the Seal of Cleansing)
I also think I might want to play 1 copy of Porphyry Nodes somewhere

So then the maindeck would be
-1 Omen of the Forge +1 Court of Cunning
-1 Omen of the Forge +1 Other Wincondition (Maybe)
-1 Detention Sphere +1 Flex Slot (Maybe)

and Sideboard:
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
2 Magus of the Moon / Ruination
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Energy Flux
1 Seal of Cleansing / Detention Sphere
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
4 Pyroblast/REB
1 Pithing Needle / Porphyry Nodes / Flex Slot

Esper can maybe be okay because Trial of Ambition is good and you might get some more interesting options for the backup wincon, but Pyroblasts are great and I think you also need red for nonbasic hate vs the Mulch deck

Edit: Thinking about it more I think 1 Raven's Warning might be ~okay~
Stage 1 of making a 1/1 flying and gain 2 life is pretty good, can stabilize vs Delver ('Murktide Buffer') with Estrid copying.
Idk if I would add any weird card to SB like Terminus/Entreat or whatever, most likely there are enough decent options with a "normal" sb

[FTW]

Big fan of Sevinne's Reclamation. Glad to see it at work.

Court of Cunning sounds effective for many reasons.

Riptide Chimera is not good. I tried to break both it and Esperzoa when they were printed but it was never quite good enough, too easy to disrupt. Those cards remain relegated to casual.

[kombatkiwi]

Big fan of Sevinne's Reclamation. Glad to see it at work.

Court of Cunning sounds effective for many reasons.

Riptide Chimera is not good. I tried to break both it and Esperzoa when they were printed but it was never quite good enough, too easy to disrupt. Those cards remain relegated to casual.

Yeah im definitely leaning toward one of the token maker enchantments for that slot but just wanted to brainstorm ideas as wide as possible

[Reeplcheep]

Main change compared to previous build is add 1 more Sevinne's Reclamation to the maindeck as the "White Uro", the midgame/lategame card that doesn't just lose to your opponent out-carding you with Iteration and 1-for-1 you with counters

Because I have 2x Sevinne in the deck now and it seems a relatively important part of gameplan in different matchups I cut the RIP for a Soulguide lantern


I am hoping Yorion provides the same role in my lists but I like the logic for sevinnes in yours.




The other realization I had was that playing court of grace in the sb "to dodge pyro" was stupid because the deck is already based on a 4x 3-mana blue enchantment so opponent pyro will always be able to do something. Court of Cunning can come down earlier and can be recurred by Sevinne

In the end Court of Cunning overperformed by a lot and I ended up boarding it in every game. The deck doesn't have super ability to control the board of creatures (Humility but no sweepers etc) but you can do the combo of copying it with Estrid to gain monarch back and mill the opponent for 20 per turn anyway. I want to move it to the maindeck over one of the Omen of the Forge and then keep 1 of the omen of the forge (or swap it to some other wincon), just to have a wincon that lets me beat opponents that don't lose to mill (e.g. they have Emrakul in their deck) or you don't want to mill them (they are a Past In Flames deck or something)
I agree with your points on court of grace, but I am trying history instead because of Serra’s and the greater token focus

On ravens warning I was hesitant to play it without a lot of flyers. If you can’t reliably proc the second stage you have a 3 drop that essentially dies to bolt. The most obvious extra flyers are a bit awkward with estrids. (bitterblossom/strix/uncommon alliance)

[Reeplcheep]

Where I am at for my esper list is below. The focus is on the removal into blink engine curve since that is what sets the list apart from other control decks. The were only two real innovations.

First, the “jitte” black saga tying all the decks loose ends. It is a pump to make the tokens relevant attackers, murders small creatures to complement trial, and is additional trials to more consistently curve into the 3 drop engines.

Secondly, the white march lets us complement prismatic ending. We need to have answers to instant speed lage, and strix contorts the mana and plow leaves us with too much creature removal/not enough non-creature removal. The deck inherently has more white mana than coloured mana later in the game too because of serras.



3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
2 Paladin Class
1 Warlock Class

3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea

3 History of Benalia
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Prismatic Ending
3 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
3 Vista
2 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
2 Snow Plains

[kombatkiwi]

On ravens warning I was hesitant to play it without a lot of flyers. If you can’t reliably proc the second stage you have a 3 drop that essentially dies to bolt. The most obvious extra flyers are a bit awkward with estrids. (bitterblossom/strix/uncommon alliance)
This is kind of true but all of the token makers have this problem. Like if you aren't going off with estrids then 1 Omen of the Sun or 1 History of Benalia is also relatively non-threatening by itself and is unlikely to really do anything if your opponent's removal spell has no other target anyway.

Improbable Alliance is not that awkward with Estrid (you still get 2x the amount of faeries) I think my only reservation about it is just that it doesn't make tokens if your opponent has Narset, which seems a bit annoying but maybe isn't the most important consideration

[Reeplcheep]

This is kind of true but all of the token makers have this problem. Like if you aren't going off with estrids then 1 Omen of the Sun or 1 History of Benalia is also relatively non-threatening by itself and is unlikely to really do anything if your opponent's removal spell has no other target anyway.

Improbable Alliance is not that awkward with Estrid (you still get 2x the amount of faeries) I think my only reservation about it is just that it doesn't make tokens if your opponent has Narset, which seems a bit annoying but maybe isn't the most important consideration

History at least is 4 damage to a planeswalker with no support through a removal spell. The esper list has tokens and Yorion to stretch their removal. Also that is why I like the “jitte” saga so much, it is a low opportunity cost way to make the tokens real threats. The nettlecyst saga Michiko’s reign of truth had a higher ceiling for the same role but a much lower floor. I agree that the vanilla token makers by themselves aren’t as good for you as court of cunning.

As an aside, I haven’t found blast to be too much of an issue in esper. Paladin class protects it on the stack and then it is usually white or black after that.

Improbable alliance could be a nice fit for a jeskai list; I just really like trial and aminatou. Alliance plus baubles and ravens warning could be good; you could try ledger shredder too.

[kombatkiwi]

The esper list has tokens and Yorion to stretch their removal.
Yeah but my list doesn't, and that's the context I'm talking about. Sorry if that wasn't obvious


As an aside, I haven’t found blast to be too much of an issue in esper. Paladin class protects it on the stack and then it is usually white or black after that.
I find that a little bit hard to believe as the deck looks very anemic without Animatou/Invocation/Yorion


Alliance plus baubles and ravens warning could be good; you could try ledger shredder too.
All I want is 1 optimal card that functions as a second wincon if my opponent has emrakul in their deck and I can't mill them with court. I think the rest of my list is fine. I don't want to rebuild the the deck by playing multiple extra wincons (Alliance + Warning) or adding bauble etc

Omen of the Forge / Improbable Alliance:
PROS
- Only 2 mana
- Can provide some reasonable earlygame stabilization by providing removal / multiple flying blocker
CONS
- No lifegain
- Works with estrid but doesn't take over the game in an overwhelming way
- Alliance disabled by breacher/narset

Omen of the Sun / Raven's Warning:
PROS
- Lifegain
CONS
- Not super good earlygame stabilization without invocation (tokens are a combination of weak/few/nonflying)
- Works with estrid but doesn't take over the game in an overwhelming way

History
PROS
- Big combo with Invocation, take over the board and kill opponent super fast
- 2x decent size token + buff just by itself is ok to pressure pw
CONS
- No lifegain / flying makes it a weak defensive option

Court of Grace / Shark
PROS
- Powerful card in its own right
CONS
- 4+ mana (Harder to resolve. Can't recur with Sevinne must protect it on the stack. Can't recur with Sevinne so can't play the line of milling yourself with Court of Cunning to find it)

Other option is to e.g. cut 1 Spreading Seas for Dovin's Acuity to get lifegain from a different card then re-evaluate these pros/cons

I don't want to play ledger shredder because I don't want to clash with my own humility and I don't want to turn opponent's removal on. If I wanted to play some random creature wincon it would probably just be mentor

An interesting thing I realised is that even UW(+b) without red gives you some good tools vs Mulch because you have Detention Sphere (+Estrid every turn) to deal with Zombies (or even Virulent Plague maybe). Still somewhat vulnerable to boseiju but at least it's something to be aware of

[Fox]

It should also be noted that it would be quite difficult to find a worse time in the entire history of legacy to play Ledger Shredder. The connive mechanic is a forced draw that an opponent is able to trigger, at a time when Mind Twist + Timetwister are both inexplicably legal in the form of Day's + Narset passive (on top of LED/Echo)...meaning that DnT is spamming quad-laser Labyrinth in response to the presence of banned effects in the format. Note that DnT also just got a flash shatter-bear and Solitude to help trigger connive on their opponent's turn.

Now imagine if your opponent has that Narset or Labyrinth effect ..imagine it's your upkeep...imagine of they proc a connive trigger...it's gonna be frowntown, population you once the draw step comes.

Now imagine it's any point during your turn vs Narset or Labyrinth...how exactly do you think this is going to end when you put any spell on the stack and the opponent responds by casting a must-counter spell...you sure you want to trigger connive by playing that FoW?

[Reeplcheep]

Yeah but my list doesn't, and that's the context I'm talking about. Sorry if that wasn't obvious


I find that a little bit hard to believe as the deck looks very anemic without Animatou/Invocation/Yorion


All I want is 1 optimal card that functions as a second wincon if my opponent has emrakul in their deck and I can't mill them with court. I think the rest of my list is fine. I don't want to rebuild the the deck by playing multiple extra wincons (Alliance + Warning) or adding bauble etc


Sorry I wasn’t sure how specific we were talking.

Blast is definitely strong against the deck, but my point is that with more non-blue targets you can dodge blast’s removal mode pretty easily.

In that context perhaps ravens warning is the best, even with 0 support maindeck. It seems like you care about stabilization more than value. Lifegain, a flying blocker, and the ability to get terminus/meltdown/entreat/insert target combo hate seems like it should stabilize you against everything.



It should also be noted that it would be quite difficult to find a worse time in the entire history of legacy to play Ledger Shredder.

I am also skeptical that shredder is good right now. But many good magic players such as Matt Vook are singing its praises as a flying 2 drop for control decks that can’t play strix. This is a control deck that can’t play strix but wants 2 drop flyers. It’s worth testing.

[Reeplcheep]

I am still working on the esper deck, and losing a lot in leagues.

The problems:

You need something to make the tokens relevant, but those types of cards are generally terrible if you don’t have tokens
All the sorcery speed removal leaves a big hole in answering eot marit lage.
Using Serra’s for WW on t2 is inconsistent, but using it to cast a 3 drop on t3 isn’t really acceleration
Blue count is iffy, especially if you add more token generators.
History and strix strain the mana.

I added court of grace to help. The tokens contest/protect monarch (1), makes flyers (2), makes Serra ramp relevant (3) and is more reasonable to cast off basics than history (5)
I also added 3feri as an additional engine. The combo with aminatou is extremely strong and he lets endings answer lage (2)and helps blue count (4)
Karakas added to help with lage. (2)
As mentioned earlier, reign of truth to life of Umezawa since it ww t2 wasn’t consistent (3) and it is still removal/lifegain if you don’t have tokens (1)
As mentioned earlier, strix to omen of the sea for castabilit (5) t3 ww from serras (3)

[FTW]

You need something to make the tokens relevant, but those types of cards are generally terrible if you don’t have tokens

In that case, your best token producers are the cards that do both. History of Benalia

Hidden Stockpile? It doesn't goldfish as aggressively as the 1-mana ones but it's much better at lasting control, lasting presence, and giving tokens something relevant to do.



All the sorcery speed removal leaves a big hole in answering eot marit lage.

What happened to the 4x Swords to Plowshares?

StP is the best control spot removal spell in the game. Auto-include in any UWx control.

3x Prismatic Ending, 3x March, 0x StP seems wrong. March is good but should be competing for space with Ending or disenchant effects, not StP.



Using Serra’s for WW on t2 is inconsistent, but using it to cast a 3 drop on t3 isn’t really acceleration

Trying to "combo" Serra for WW on T2 seems unreliable in an 80-card deck.

T3 Serra still helps play around Daze or pay for mana sinks. Maybe that should be the plan instead of trying to aggro WW on T2.



Blue count is iffy, especially if you add more token generators

Maybe you don't want more aggro token generators then.

Serra's Sanctum aggro probably needs to be some 60-card deck with a lot of 1 drops (like Aggro Enchantress). 80-card Yorion with high blue count and 3 cmc flicker tilts towards the control role. 1-mana "create 1 token" cards seem bad in control. Maybe you need to pick a direction instead of trying to do it all. Control seems more likely to win.



I also added 3feri as an additional engine. The combo with aminatou is extremely strong and he lets endings answer lage (2)and helps blue count (4)

3feri seems good in general, especially if you lean into the control role. Stack control, card draw, reusing ETB enchantments...

Edit: What about something more controlling like this?


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
2 March of Otherworldly Light
3 Force of Negation
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

//Enchantments: 22
2 Trial of Ambition
2 Spreading Seas
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Hidden Stockpile
4 History of Benalia
4 Estrid's Invocation
1 Court of Grace
1 Humility

//Planeswalkers: 5
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Lands: 29
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Snow-covered Island
2 Snow-covered Plains
2 Snow-covered Swamp
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Storm Giants
3 Serra's Sanctum

...

Realistically you probably cut History for more 2 CMC control value (Spreading Seas, Trial), Timeless Dragon, or Shark Typhoon

In the aggro direction, you could reduce reliance on blue


//Enchantments: 25
4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion's Landing
4 Paladin Class
2 Curse of Silence
4 Hidden Stockpile
4 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
3 Estrid's Invocation

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

//Spells: 10
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 March of Otherworldly Light

//Lands: 22
4 Serra's Sanctum
4 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
2 Scrubland
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Island

[kombatkiwi]

Played in a big-ish local event

4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Scalding Tarn
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Spreading Seas
4 Estrid's Invocation
2 Force of Negation
2 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 History of Benalia
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Humility
1 Court of Cunning

SB
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
1 Deafening Silence
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Detention Sphere
1 Dovin's Acuity
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
5 Pyroblast/REB

Round 1 UB Ninjas 0-2
Feels winnable/favoured but I think I just hit my bad side of variance, didn't see any pyros in g2

Round 2 Burn 1-2
G1 feels unwinnable, Dovin's Acuity carried G2, G3 he REB the Acuity, I Sevinne it back but don't have enough time to copy it

Round 3 Elves 2-1
G1 Humility, G2 he eventually GSZ->Archon, G3 he has a slow start and I am able to set up engine and grind him out. Spreading Seas was quite good here.

Round 4 Mono B Midrange 0-2
I get greedy g1 and don't FoW his needle, he just names Strand when I need white and of course I topdeck Strand then Vista while I die to Voidwalker + Saga. If I drew them in the other order I might have been fine. G2 I just get ground out by Hymn + Bob before my Sevinne can recover

Round 5 UG Omni 2-1
G1 He combos me turn 4 with Veil backup, game 2 despite all my hand-wringing about needing a non-Court wincon vs Emrakul decks I try to mill him anyway because I want Emrakul to proc to shuffle away the Escape food for his Uro. In the end he missed the trigger and died with no cards in library and his other Emrakul in his hand. G3 I just control the game with Pyro + Estrid and kill with History alphastrike

Round 6 UR Delver 1-2
G1 lose in the typical way where they have 1 more threat than you have answer. G2 everything goes in my favour with the Pyro + Sevinne plan. G3 he plays Court of Cunning and Maddening Hex on back to back turns and I don't have the immediate response so I die

Maindeck Humility and especially Nodes are both meh/bad, it occurred to me that I think a better maindeck would be esper basically just for trial of ambition where you just make the logical manabase swap (-2 Tarn +2 Delta -1 Volcanic +1 Underground -1 Mountain +1 Swamp) then -1 Humility -1 Nodes +2 Trial

You keep everything else the same including the 1 Court of Cunning +1 Other wincon. I assumed there would be some good life drain enchantment in black that can replace History of Benalia and consolidate the Acuity slot but perhaps not? The best thing I can find is Curse of Leeches, which is alright but not that great. History is ~fine~, a couple of games with 'paper clock' the fact that it can alpha strike 20 damage in 3 turns mattered, but this could be Raven's Warning or any of the other suggestions. Oath of Kaya would be an absolute slam dunk if it wasn't legendary.

Losing blast from SB probably hurts a lot though

[Reeplcheep]

Thanks for your insightful comments guys.



You keep everything else the same including the 1 Court of Cunning +1 Other wincon. I assumed there would be some good life drain enchantment in black that can replace History of Benalia and consolidate the Acuity slot but perhaps not? The best thing I can find is Curse of Leeches, which is alright but not that great. History is ~fine~, a couple of games with 'paper clock' the fact that it can alpha strike 20 damage in 3 turns mattered, but this could be Raven's Warning or any of the other suggestions. Oath of Kaya would be an absolute slam dunk if it wasn't legendary.

Life of Umezawa is decent for lifegain/removal but is probably too low a power level if you can’t use the pump ability. Oath of Kaya is indeed awesome if the legendary doesn’t matter (with aminatou).



Hidden Stockpile? It doesn't goldfish as aggressively as the 1-mana ones but it's much better at lasting control, lasting presence, and giving tokens something relevant to do.

I have tried it. It’s fine but unimpressive. It also strains the mana a tiny bit (primarily with ponder) and wants you to use your fetches at sub-optimal times for cantripping.



What happened to the 4x Swords to Plowshares?
StP is the best control spot removal spell in the game. Auto-include in any UWx control.

Trial and other removal spells are the most tempo efficient/uniquely powerful thing the deck can do. The reason to play the deck over other control piles is trial into estrids to kill a creature every turn of the whole game starting on t2. I was worried that plow would cause us to have too many cards that only hit creatures. As a 80 card deck with minimal stack interaction maybe the point is moot though. More 3feri helps us too in being less prismatic dependant.




3feri seems good in general, especially if you lean into the control role. Stack control, card draw, reusing ETB enchantments...

Edit: What about something more controlling like this?
...

Realistically you probably cut History for more 2 CMC control value (Spreading Seas, Trial), Timeless Dragon, or Shark Typhoon

In the aggro direction, you could reduce reliance on blue


I like the timeless dragon suggestion. It doesn’t blink well, but is an excellent mana sink either for the t2 WW or the later 3+ white mana. It also helps keep fetch + serras hands. You don’t want to go island ponder because then your serras is definitely not making any mana t2, but plains or swamp into enchantment leaves you without any way to get blue mana. Previously warlock class was in that role, but is a much weaker card. The black requirements of warlock make it much worse as a mana sink and the flickering is only minor value.

Not playing brainstorm/ponder/force of Will, without a good reason, seems like a deckbuilding sin. it seems like the aggro list will just be a DGA or BW humans list but slower and with bad mana. It also is harder to justify the deck over enchantress.

A possible dragon list based on the above:

3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
3 Paladin Class

3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
3 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea

3 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Timeless Dragon
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Scrubland
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
2 Vista
2 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

[Reeplcheep]

The above build felt much better. I went 3-2 in a league, beating 3 fair creature decks and losing to 8 mulch and dredge. Life of Umezawa into estrids/aminatou in both g1 and g2 vs elves felt particularly dirty.

[FTW]

Looks better. With Trial + Umezawa you have a lot of ways to curve out punishing creature decks.

I think you don't have enough anti-combo for an 80-card deck. Most 80-card UWx Yorion piles play 7 Forces. You could cut a Paladin Class to make room.

What graveyard hate do you have in the side? I notice you beat 3 creature decks and lost to 2 combo/graveyard decks. Small sample size, but it tells me the deck may be lopsided.

[Reeplcheep]

I think you don't have enough anti-combo for an 80-card deck. Most 80-card UWx Yorion piles play 7 Forces. You could cut a Paladin Class to make room.

What graveyard hate do you have in the side? I notice you beat 3 creature decks and lost to 2 combo/graveyard decks. Small sample size, but it tells me the deck may be lopsided.

My blue count is a bit suspect, but perhaps going to 7 is correct. This deck could support thoughtseize/therapy, do you think that would be better than just a pile of forces?

I have 2 rip in the sideboard. I run 3 etutor and 3 IoK to help compensate for the “smaller” sideboard too.

[Fox]

I think the mechanism of loss matters more here than the idea of GY-combo. In either case [8Mulch or LED Dredge] the deck is losing to Field of the Dead and pseudo-Field of the Dead (Bridge from Below); it's losing to meaningless token spam. There is also an issue with sorcery speed vs EoT Lage and upkeep Ichorid. There is a tertiary issue with getting wrecked by FoV (which both of those strats will use).

The wrong answer here is: "I need more dedicated yard hate." What you need is the ability to kill lands + wrath. You do those things and you can get by with the ability to sporadically interact with graveyards, which for UBw is easily maindecked in the form of 2x Cling to Dust and 1x 3cmc Kaya. The SB yard hate slots should be not be redundant; i.e. Surgical is another targeted effect. The SB dedicated stuff needs to be novel (i.e. GY wipe), come out early (preferably on 0-1cmc), not play into the known FoV (which means Relic and/or Spellbomb, where you reset their yard while drawing past FoV's pseudo-card advantage...and this has to happen while blackmailing the opponent into frivolously wasting half of their targeting of FoV on your SB permanent).

So if you correct the maindeck and play three optimal UBw yard-interacting slots, and just have say a Relic and a Spellbomb in the side, then you've covered all the bases you need to against a deck can't compete since the printing of Endurance [LED Dredge]. If you want to hit Dredge even harder without trying to, you stop all the Estrid's stuff and turn your deck into UBw Landstill and chuck 0/0 cycle sharks at Bridge from Below and build towards Karn, which pulls the GY reset buttons from SB to hand. The main point here is that this Estrid's strategy is done chasing down LED Dredge hate beyond this point due to diminishing returns on overall winrate.

The bigger problem here is the opposing token spam stuff and having zero reset buttons [i.e. wrath]. You are ofc not allowed to play wraths b/c it not only nukes your only wincon (other than the opponent gifting you the win with an Aminatoa ult), but it would have also given the opponent the wincon of death by Sarcomancy in addition to win by mill. Let's just take a moment to point out that we're talking about a color set with options of Verdict, 3 mana wraths, and halfsies like Damn...You need to be doing something pretty unique to cover that deficit.

There is the too powerful brute force method of Virulent Plague, which defeats your own deck. There is the diet brute force method of Illness in the Ranks which you can jankily overcome with Paladin Class, but that doesn't necessarily answer the opponent's 2/2 token flood...and at the end of the day you will still lose to FoV +/- them having too many dudes. You're kinda limited to the mix of Humility, anthem effects, and the slow inevitability of edict trigger spam...and all of this is still going to have FoV problems. The Humility stuff is the most coherent option, but you're locked into a pretty bad spot vs actual Field of the Dead...and you can't break out of it b/c color commit is too heavy in 3 directions (UBW) to allow for the easy answer of Wasteland backed up by something more absolute and non-FoV'able like Unmoored Ego name Field of the Dead (or Bridge from Below).
---
While it's fine to take the minimal steps to optimize UBw approach to yard hate and randomly crap on the obsolete pseudo-Field (Bridge from Below), the main issue is actual Field of the Dead - particularly in multiple and Stage on top - and not at all the concept of combo/graveyard...and it's even more of a problem because Field and pseudo-Field are synonymous with FoV spam. As long as the deck is so heavily split in color identity, you just need to take the loss to Field. Don't waste time misidentifying the deck design flaw and spin your wheels on dedicated yard hate.

[Reeplcheep]

One of the more understandable posts from fox. A bunch of great points; I appreciate the minimal use of unique jingo.

Yes the deck is trying to vomit out tokens while still interacting. You did cut to the structural issue: This means that the decks that vomit out tokens harder without interacting beat me soundly if I don’t have hate. 8mulch with field, dredge with bridge, 8cast with Sai.

As a non-enchantment mana sink I could definitely play cling to dust. It is considerably worse than dragon against delver and is also annoyingly black intensive. Kaya could also be a elspeth’s Nightmare

The redundancy is so that I can run the RIPs without etutors in fair matchups (delver/uro decks). That may be incorrect.

I can play either Out of Time or Detention sphere as boardwipes that play well with my tokens and etutor. Inherently that makes their FoV good though as mentioned. Not sure what to cut.

It’s tempting to go to UBw, but prismatic ending and serras sanctum are so powerful it feels bad to leave them on the table. Paladin class/dragon/plow are comparable to discard/cling/strix and could be cut.

[FTW]

Good points Fox. Not being able to run Wraths means overcommitting to 1-for-1s, which is very strong vs fair creatures but weak to instant threats and better token spam.


In either case [8Mulch or LED Dredge] the deck is losing to Field of the Dead and pseudo-Field of the Dead (Bridge from Below); it's losing to meaningless token spam. There is also an issue with sorcery speed vs EoT Lage and upkeep Ichorid.

The wrong answer here is: "I need more dedicated yard hate." What you need is the ability to kill lands + wrath.


Would Spreading Seas improve the Field of the Dead and Dark Depths matchups while still offering unique value/synergy with the core engine?


The SB dedicated stuff needs to be novel (i.e. GY wipe), come out early (preferably on 0-1cmc), not play into the known FoV (which means Relic and/or Spellbomb, where you reset their yard while drawing past FoV's pseudo-card advantage...and this has to happen while blackmailing the opponent into frivolously wasting half of their targeting of FoV on your SB permanent).

Playing around FoV is big. My first instinct was Leyline of the Void over RiP, since T0 is better than T2 and this deck can ramp into 2BB, but losing to predictable FoV SB is a problem. Crypt effects work better.



The bigger problem here is the opposing token spam stuff and having zero reset buttons [i.e. wrath]. You are ofc not allowed to play wraths b/c it not only nukes your only wincon (other than the opponent gifting you the win with an Aminatoa ult), but it would have also given the opponent the wincon of death by Sarcomancy in addition to win by mill. Let's just take a moment to point out that we're talking about a color set with options of Verdict, 3 mana wraths, and halfsies like Damn...You need to be doing something pretty unique to cover that deficit.

The Humility stuff is the most coherent option, but you're locked into a pretty bad spot vs actual Field of the Dead...and you can't break out of it b/c color commit is too heavy in 3 directions (UBW) to allow for the easy answer of Wasteland backed up by something more absolute and non-FoV'able like Unmoored Ego name Field of the Dead (or Bridge from Below).

Out of Time?

Combined with Humility shutting off abilities and Spreading Seas shutting off Field, that should cover most creature strategies that get around the Edict->Estrid thing.

However it's still weak to FoV. The deck will have to rely on stack control or mass-shroud effects to prevent FoV.

Edit: Alternately, Hidden Stockpile? I like that it lets you play Wraths (creates new token at EOT and can sac the others to scry). However that would involve some major changes away from the Sarcomancy plan.

[Fox]

iirc cards like Stage and Vesuva are "hard" copies, while Spreading Seas would turn Field into a "soft" copy. So if you have a Stage target a "hard" copied Vesuva as Island, your Stage becomes a "hard" copy of Island...but if you have a Stage target a "soft" copied Field of the Dead as Island (due to Spreading Seas), you get a fully operational Stage as Field through Spreading Seas. This makes a card like Spreading Seas a really bad answer, even when you're not getting blown out by FoV. The other issue here is putting down a lot of the prison on cmc 2 vs Blast Zone. Assuming the rules work like this still, Seas remains a poor answer to Depths.

Out of Time has issues with a really bad decision by WotC to randomly tamper with phasing rules. The game of magic would also be in a much better place if nonsense like Kaldra could still be permanently dealt with by phasing out the token to exile. Note that if Estrid's copies Out of Time, they just get their stuff back the moment you blink Estrid's from object A to object B.

[Reeplcheep]

Assuming the only decks that can out-pace our removal engines are token based, detention sphere should be good enough as board wipes. It is somewhat unfortunate that sarcomancy creates zombies with the same name. Unlike out of time it can be profitably copied by estrids to kill more stuff or blink multiple sarcomancies at a time. It is also an answer to expensive non-creatures or a fow pitch in a pinch.

Fall of Thran is land destruction that is immune to FoV and REB. It is probably uncastable without a serras in hand however.

It’s hard to cut one of the colours to a splash. Serra’s and prismatic are white, ponder and our engines are blue, and the best targets are sarcomancy and trial. The most reasonable manabase would be WBx but cutting ponder is probably not defensible.

WUB list based on the above:
3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
2 Paladin Class

3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea

2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Detention Sphere

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Cling to Dust
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
3 Vista
2Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
2 Snow Plains

6th basic to maybe cast Fall of Thran and serras is worse with only 9 1 drops and no dragon.

[FTW]

It’s hard to cut one of the colours to a splash. Serra’s and prismatic are white, ponder and our engines are blue, and the best targets are sarcomancy and trial. The most reasonable manabase would be WBx but cutting ponder is probably not defensible.

That was how I arrived at the WBu version above.

White and black are both core to the deck. Blue is only needed for the 3 cmc engines. So blue could be made into a splash if you're willing to let go of Xerox (which forces you to strain blue count to support FoW and fetch differently to support cantrips). Cutting the blue stuff loses consistency and FoW protection, but you gain smoother mana and redundancy (4-ofs in 60 card build). That means seeing Sanctum and Estrid more often to really profit off the deck's unique advantages. Multiple Paladin Class and discard are then necessary to protect you from disruption, without Forces in the deck.

It's not quite a bad BW aggro deck. It looks like that against combo, but against fair creatures you still have the midrange plan of T2 value enchantment -> T3 Estrid/Aminatou -> snowball out of control. Trial of Ambition could replace some other slots.

I don't know if it's better than what you already have, but it is an option.

Edit: What about SB Doomwake Giant? It's slow but answers token spam. Might be worse than just playing Detention Sphere.

[Reeplcheep]

Ok here is a draft for a WBu build cutting ponder for dragon and cling. Not quite as good cards but they play better into the Serra’s sanctum theme. I am still supporting fow and brainstorm though as they require turn 1 U less. This affords us a few more basics.

Teferi to dsphere as per above.


3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
3 Paladin Class

3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Omen of the sea

2 Detention Sphere
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
2 Cling to Dust
2 Timeless Dragon
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

4 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
3 Delta
3 Strand
4 Flats
4 Vista
4 Snow Swamp
1 Snow Island
2 Snow Plains

[FTW]

Once you're in WBu, is Omen of the Sea (splash color) better than Hidden Stockpile (card selection + bodies in WB), Enlightened Tutor (card selection in W), or Warlock Class (card selection in B)?

[Reeplcheep]

Once you're in WBu, is Omen of the Sea (splash color) better than Hidden Stockpile (card selection + bodies in WB), Enlightened Tutor (card selection in W), or Warlock Class (card selection in B)?

I think omen is necessary to support fow without running too many 3 drops. Having a 2 drop that is relevant when removal is not is also good for the curve.

[FTW]

What about Lithoform Blight? That's a black cantrip. Does "loses all abilities and types" happen at a lower layer than "becomes Island", so that Thespian's Stage would copy something with no abilities?

[Reeplcheep]

An alternative package I have thought of is a self-mill/zombies engine.


Warlock Class
The Modern Age
Tymaret Calls the Dead

Master of Death
Cabal Therapy
Narfi, Betrayer King

This lets you support blue without needing blue pips.

[kombatkiwi]

iirc cards like Stage and Vesuva are "hard" copies, while Spreading Seas would turn Field into a "soft" copy. So if you have a Stage target a "hard" copied Vesuva as Island, your Stage becomes a "hard" copy of Island...but if you have a Stage target a "soft" copied Field of the Dead as Island (due to Spreading Seas), you get a fully operational Stage as Field through Spreading Seas. This makes a card like Spreading Seas a really bad answer, even when you're not getting blown out by FoV. The other issue here is putting down a lot of the prison on cmc 2 vs Blast Zone. Assuming the rules work like this still, Seas remains a poor answer to Depths.

This hard/soft distinction has no real basis in the rules at all. How this works is because copy effects apply in layer 1 before any other modifications, so the only attributes that get copied are the printed values of the card (so if you copy a Field with spreading seas on it you just get a unmodified Field of the Dead, because spreading seas modifies Field in a later layer), plus how they are modified by any other copy effects (so if Stage copies Vesuva which originally copied a mountain, then your Stage becomes a Mountain, not a "blank" Vesuva)


What about Lithoform Blight? That's a black cantrip. Does "loses all abilities and types" happen at a lower layer than "becomes Island", so that Thespian's Stage would copy something with no abilities? The only relevant thing is that both of them happen at a later layer than layer 1, so "becomes copy of target permanent" will ignore both Seas/Blight and give you an unmodified copy of the original card

Generally I think that Detention Sphere is probably the best anti-field card. Virulent Plague may be okay too (SB) but it has far less utility in other matchups and like you have identified it's a nonbo here when you're trying to win with your own tokens.

[Reeplcheep]

Displacer Kitten
3U
Creature - Cat Beast
Avoidance - Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, exile up to one target nonland permanent you control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control.
"Isn't she the cutest thing you've almost seen?"
- Doen, purveyor of exotic pets

This could let us go away from the token stuff into a combo control shell.

Draws our deck with baubles and 3feri.

Still a very strong value engine with stuff like omen of the sea

Aminatou plus serras sanctum lets you generate mana and storm off.

Our kill condition can be Oath of Kaya so you don’t need any bad cards (other than the baubles and maybe a few petals)

[Reeplcheep]

The “exploding kittens” shell would be:


Part A (blink)
4 Kitten

Part B (permanents to flicker)
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Spirited Companion

Part C (free artifacts or W enchantments)
4 Mishra’s Bauble
3 Lotus Petal
4 Curse of Silence
4 Paladin Class
4 Swift Reconfiguration

Part D (Wincon)
3 Oath of Kaya


The argument to play this over say Aluren would be that perhaps all the pieces are better played fairly/by themselves. And your combo pieces are also protection.

[FTW]

I don't see the reason to make your enabler cost 4 mana and die to any spot removal when these weren't problems before. This is EDH tech. In legacy it seems win-more when it works, lose-more otherwise.

It was never necessary to be token-blink. KombatKiwi's version showed Estrid+Aminatou works blinking value control enchantments instead. I thought tokens was something you wanted to do. If you don't want tokens, you don't need Kitten either. Oath is playable either way.

[kombatkiwi]

5 Snow Covered Island
2 Snow Covered Plains
1 Snow Covered Mountain
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tundra

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

4 Omen of the Sea
4 Estrids Invocation
4 Spreading Seas
2 On Thin Ice
1 Court of Cunning
1 History of Benalia

SB
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Soul Guide Lantern
1 Detention Sphere / Banishment
1 Blood Moon
1 Energy Flux
1 Dovin's Acuity (???)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
5? Pyroblast

I realised that moving to snow lands and playing 2x thin ice in the "flex removal slot" probably solves a lot of issues

New card Banishment instead of D Sphere in sb is debateable (it's 3W detention sphere with flash). Costing 1 more is not a huge deal in terms of curve reasons and having flash and not being pyroblastable is relevant, but you can't bring it back with Sevinnes if they kill it. You could also split that with Thin Ice maindeck maybe if you wanted the extra SB slot

Thinking about whether Dovins Acuity makes sense in SB or whether it should just be like a hard defense card like Solitary Confinement or COP red or something. Also wondering about SB humility now that I cut it from the maindeck

[Reeplcheep]

For a controlling build we could also add

Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward
4W
Legendary Creature - Human Warrior
When Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward enters the battlefield, exile any number of other nonland permanents you control until Abdel Adrian leaves the battlefield. Create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token for each permanent exiled this way.

Choose a Background. (You can have a Background as a second commander.)

People are talking about how he is comboes with animate dead, but he also goes infinite with a oring and another oring or aminatou, as well as being a decent value play.

[Reeplcheep]

The other thing I haven’t tried is Restoration of Eijango. If the heart of the deck is serras sanctum something that creates tokens like history but also “sevinnes” back my land could be strong. I haven’t tried it previously because fitting in plains on top of serras is difficult.

The Restoration of Eiganjo
{2}{W}
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.)
I — Search your library for a basic Plains card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
II — You may discard a card. When you do, return target permanent card with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
III — Exile this Saga, then return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.
Architect of Restoration
Color Indicator: White Enchantment Creature — Fox Monk
Vigilance
Whenever Architect of Restoration attacks or blocks, create a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token.
“A visionary looks at rubble and sees not only what was, but also what could be.”
—Onyx-Eye, architect of Eiganjo
3/4

[kombatkiwi]

The other thing I haven’t tried is Restoration of Eijango. If the heart of the deck is serras sanctum something that creates tokens like history but also “sevinnes” back my land could be strong. I haven’t tried it previously because fitting in plains on top of serras is difficult.

The Restoration of Eiganjo
{2}{W}
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.)
I — Search your library for a basic Plains card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
II — You may discard a card. When you do, return target permanent card with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
III — Exile this Saga, then return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.
Architect of Restoration
Color Indicator: White Enchantment Creature — Fox Monk
Vigilance
Whenever Architect of Restoration attacks or blocks, create a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token.
“A visionary looks at rubble and sees not only what was, but also what could be.”
—Onyx-Eye, architect of Eiganjo
3/4

I thought about this but I think the deck it goes in is something WGx
Even if you decide that replenish is bad/wrong (reasonable), playing Serras Sanc in deck without Growth/Sprawl seems iffy to me and the Eiganjo card seems really nice with Sterling Grove (return permanent with mana 2 or less [this can also be argothian actually], gives the enchantment creature shroud)

With the UWR build I think that actually the manacurve is not so pressed and making things island isn't so crucial (with thin ice in the deck you can flicker estrid on that to mop up constructs) that the deck can afford to play Dovin's Acuity main over some spreading seas, which is generally a better grindy card assuming you have time to use it and it also solves the lifegain problem

So with the list above
Main:
-2 Spreading Seas
+2 Dovin's Acuity

SB:
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Soul Guide Lantern
1 Detention Sphere / Banishment
1 Blood Moon
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Humility
5? Pyroblast / 4+1 Flex slot

edit:bombed fnm with that list, moving forward im just going to netdeck some stock jeskai from the challenge results

Overall I'm not too unhappy with how the idea turned out as a brew (and I think the list I settled on with the 2 Sea 2 Thin Ice 2 Acuity seems good/fine) it's just that the amount of effort needed isn't quite worth the in-game payoff (compare Dressdown -> Narset vs Omen of the Sea -> Invocation for example). Definitely worth keeping Invocation in mind for the future, but it's also difficult to imagine the type of printable 1-2 mana enchantment that's so strong to make the combo worth it. Maybe a Yorion build is also possible.

[Reeplcheep]

Ok I played a few 3-2 & 2-3 leagues. The highs of the deck are awesome but the deck does have issues functioning sometimes.

Building the idea of the deck back from the ground up:


Serra’s Sanctum + Yorion + Force of Will is the core niche of the deck. Serra’s gives the mana to play Yorion in a timely fashion. Yorion provides CA or a blue card for FoW. FoW gives time for the extra sanctum mana to matter. That is the “vintage level” thing this deck does; free counters plus free fast mana gives you such a huge “tempo” advantage over the opponent. There is a reason Tolarian Academy is banned.

Trial into blink engine is the other core of the deck. Putting an abyss into play on t2 is quite strong against fair creature decks and differentiates the deck from the normal control piles of 3 removal into CA or enchatress’s less interactive style.
Should the deck be Esper? Right now what esper offers 2 sets of things:
Discard from Black and the best Hate from White is an extremely good anti-combo sideboard. Thiscomplements Yorion piles inherently having better fair matchups and worse unfair ones. I have been using this to good effect.
Teferi plus strix are the best generic control cards in these colours and have good synergy. They are also extremely powerful with aminatou. I haven’t been using these since they conflict with serras sanctum and Estrids.
Some of the interesting enchantments are legendary (oath of Kaya for killing and protecting PWs, legions landing for more consistent token protection) or are hard to copy (estrids will only copy the weak creature side of flip sagas)



Although I meant for this deck to be an Estrids Invocation deck, I think either it needs to go or we would need to switch to another colour. Estrids is great when it works, but prevents us from using some of the best cards in our colours and does nothing on an empty board.

[FTW]

If FoW + Yorion + Sanctum is the core, you still want high enchantment count and ETB triggers, so Estrid + Aminatou + Teferi fits well. The combo with Trial of Ambition is very strong, too.

How good is the rest of the deck though? Is the token engine the weakest part? What if you tilt towards control? Then you can play Supreme Verdict to beat decks that out-token you, and you don't have to play awful cards like Legion's Landing. Though Sanctum probably needs to be a 3-of if you cut back on the 1-mana enchantments.

For a win condition, Shark Typhoon is a great mana sink at both modes.


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 29
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
3 Serra's Sanctum

//Spells: 25
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Cling to Dust
3 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Planeswalkers: 5
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Enchantments: 21
4 Curse of Silence
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Estrid's Invocation
1 Detention Sphere
1 Oath of Kaya
1 Court of Cunning
2 Shark Typhoon


Curse of Silence could fill a pseudo-"discard" slot against combo while playing well with your enchantment game plan. It does require being good at Cabal Therapy. But if you guess poorly you can at least reset it with Aminatou or pile up with Estrid's (sacrifice is optional).

Dress Down could also be good here as a cantripping blue enchantment that hates on a lot of popular Legacy interactions.

Maybe you can make room for 1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity in the manabase.

1-2 Timeless Dragon seems good for mana stability and threats and white mana sinks, but it fights for space with non-enchantment cards (Teferi? Cling?).

[Reeplcheep]

Estrids obviously make sense in the deck since that was why the deck was built. But you can only have so many 3 drops & 3feri has a better floor. Oath (removal that isn’t dead against control or combo) & strix (best interactive blue etb) are the two targets I really wanted that aren’t really justifiable with 4x Estrids.



1-2 Timeless Dragon seems good for mana stability and threats and white mana sinks, but it fights for space with non-enchantment cards (Teferi? Cling?).
It was good but I think strix is better if the manabase accommodates it. Timeless dragon stretches the manabase in the other direction as well. A lot of plains or white duals in a deck that also is playing 4 sanctum -> uncastable B or U cards.



How good is the rest of the deck though? Is the token engine the weakest part? What if you tilt towards control? Then you can play Supreme Verdict to beat decks that out-token you, and you don't have to play awful cards like Legion's Landing. Though Sanctum probably needs to be a 3-of if you cut back on the 1-mana enchantments.


A lifelink 1/1 is bit worse than a 2/2. But the legendary rule was the biggest issue imo which doesn’t effect 3feri/aminatou. Life of Umezawa also improves the stock of the vampires compared to older builds. The tokens aren’t amazing but I need 1 cmc enchantments with good ETBs for Serra’s sanctum. The list is otherwise pretty short (basically just Warlock Class, to stretch the definition of good to barely playable). With 4 1 cmc enchantments, non of which are non-white, you are going to have a ton of troubled developing your mana even if with 3 sanctums.

Summary of changes, mostly focused on improving the decks floor:

4 Estrid’s -> 4 3 feri. Obviously improves the floor at the cost of a lower ceiling. He also helps vs blue combo.

Omen and plow -> strix. With strix and 3feri marit lage is less of an issue. Retooled the manabase to have the proper 26 UB sources

2 & 3 cmc token producers -> oath and legions landing. Legendary enchantments we can play now.


2 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
3 Paladin Class
1 Warlock Class

3 Life of Tohsiro Umezawa
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Omen of the sea

2 Oath of Kaya
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation

3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
3 Vista
3 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

[FTW]

The tokens aren’t amazing but I need 1 cmc enchantments with good ETBs for Serra’s sanctum. The list is otherwise pretty short (basically just Warlock Class, to stretch the definition of good to barely playable). With 4 1 cmc enchantments, non of which are non-white, you are going to have a ton of troubled developing your mana even if with 3 sanctums.

Do you need to go aggro-Sanctum though? (curve out T1 enchant T2 enchant T3 Sanctum taps for WW)

If this is a Yorion control deck, what's wrong with Sanctum only taking over on turns 5+? Why do you need to mana sink early? If you play more interactive control cards, you can slow down the game. Then you can cash in Sanctum for Yorion / Shark Typhoon without needing to run cards that are bad if Sanctum gets disrupted. Maybe that means only 2 Sanctum then.

If you want to play aggro-Sanctum ramp (ramp with Sanctum as fast as possible), then the deck probably wants green: Utopia Sprawl/Abundant Growth/Exploration/Wild Growth/Oath of Nissa. Those are the best 1-mana enchantments if your goal is to develop mana quickly.

Otherwise the 1-mana cards don't really help ramp or control. They make a mediocre board presence until an engine comes online and it's underwhelming if you never draw Sanctum in the 80-cards. Once you cut Estrid, there's even less payoff for the token makers.

Another possible package is Soothsaying + Counterbalance. Soothsaying comes down turn 1 from Island, then provides a mana sink and soft-lock with Sanctum mana. Both pitch to Force. CB plays well with Omen too. If you're cutting Estrid then you're not constrained to ETB effects.

[Reeplcheep]

Do you need to go aggro-Sanctum though? (curve out T1 enchant T2 enchant T3 Sanctum taps for WW) .
I agree this isn’t enchantress. We don’t need it to make WW on t3. We do need it to make at least W by t3, preferably t2 though. I am not sure the correct amount but I did cut down from 12-16 1 drops to only 10.

In a list like yours where it isn’t reliably making mana we either: are playing a control deck with the equivalent of only 19 lands and 6 good cantrips, or you need to run the equivalent of only 36 non-lands. I don’t think control can afford 3 cards that are completely dead until t4 and can’t be pitched to fow.

[Reeplcheep]

Otherwise the 1-mana cards don't really help ramp or control. They make a mediocre board presence until an engine comes online and it's underwhelming if you never draw Sanctum in the 80-cards. Once you cut Estrid, there's even less payoff for the token makers.

Another possible package is Soothsaying + Counterbalance. Soothsaying comes down turn 1 from Island, then provides a mana sink and soft-lock with Sanctum mana. Both pitch to Force. CB plays well with Omen too. If you're cutting Estrid then you're not constrained to ETB effects


The idea is that Paladin Class and Life of Umezawa are cards that are primarily interaction, but also make the bodies relevant even without an engine. That may be Ill-founded however

Soothsaying/aminatou counterbalance is another approach. The miracles approach probably wants more miracles and less trial/strix though, which were the reasons we are in black.

[FTW]

Re control playing cards dead until turn 4: there are many Yorion piles playing things like Aluren, Primeval Titan, Field of the Dead, Wandering Emperor, Mystic Sanctuary. In an 80-card deck with cantrips the probability of getting flooded with lategame tools early is low. Cutting down to 2 Sanctum may help.

With multiple 2-mana enchantments it's not really "dead" on turn 3. It taps for W like a regular land, casting the 3-mana plays. Then it starts ramping on turn 4 or later. If you play control with Soothsaying then there are even more cheap enablers.


Soothsaying/aminatou counterbalance is another approach. The miracles approach probably wants more miracles and less trial/strix though, which were the reasons we are in black.

1-2 Terminus may be enough without cutting Trial/Strix. Miracles has run Coatl and Strix before, especially in 80-card. You aren't forced into 3-4x Terminus if the rest of the deck already handles creatures well.

[Reeplcheep]

This seems very interesting for the full control builds.

Temporary Lockdown / 1WW
Enchantment
When Temporary Lockdown enters the battlefield, exile each nonland permanent with mana value 2 or less until Temporary lockdown leaves the battlefield.

https://mythicspoiler.com/dmu/cards/temporarylockdown.html

It is better against tokens than out of time, and doesn’t require red like hitsegu consumes all. Eating up your own trials and omens punishes people for removing it.

[Reeplcheep]

The “snapcaster” saga also seems very useful for a controlling build. The first chapter is nice with discard and the third chapter rebuying endings helps a ton with killing planeswalkers. Getting to skip ahead to the mill part makes it actually quite annoying for doomsday.


Founding the Third Path
1U
Enchantment - Saga
Read ahead (Choose a chapter and start with that many lore counters. Add one after your draw step. Skipped chapters don't trigger. Sacrifice after III.)

I - You may cast an instant or sorcery spell with mana value 1 or 2 from your hand without paying its mana cost.

II - Target player mills four cards.

III - Exile target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard. Copy it. You may cast the copy.

[Reeplcheep]

This would be where I start with the control build.


4 Founding the Third Path
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea
3 Court of Grace

3 Temporal Isolation
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper

4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation

2 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Hall of Heliod
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
3 Flats
4 Vista
1 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
2 Snow Plains


It has a nice blue count, oodles of removal, and a few different wincons. The primary plan is destroy everything and then play a court. Sanctum gets a bit worse with less enchantments but is still reasonably powerful. Third path recurs discard and temporal isolation flickers everything when removal is bad.

[FTW]

Founding looks like a boost for the control version, especially if you don't build around Counterbalance. Now you still have 2 good blue enchantments to curve into Estrid for those games where you don't want a Trial effect.

The backup "Snapcaster mode" is nice (start at Chapter 3). Sometimes it will also freecast a spell from hand. But that also means you need enough spells to gain value, so that it isn't a blank. Note that blinking chapters 1-2 over and over doesn't generate any card advantage. Freecasting Prismatic Ending also fails. You probably need 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder to gain velocity from those freecasts. The 4th Omen is probably also better than the 4th Founding, because Founding is conditional value (the floor is card negative) while Omen always digs.

Why Temporal Isolation? You have oodles of 1-for-1 removal, but the same problem as before vs go-wide decks. Supreme Verdict seems good. You don't need cute stuff like Out of Time if you're playing without tokens. Verdict has no drawback and is uncounterable.

Keeping the same manabase, I would build it in this direction:

//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 27
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strands
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Marsh Flats
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
3 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Spells: 27
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
3 Thoughtseize
2 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Planeswalkers: 5
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper

//Enchantments: 18
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Founding the Third Path
4 Estrid's Invocation
2 Temporary Lockdown
1 Court of Grace

Total = 77 cards

That still has space for 3 more cards. Those slots could be more mana (1 Hall of Storm Giants seems strong late game with sanctum mana). Or the 4th Thoughtseize, more Court of Grace, Teferi, Time Raveler, Baleful Strix, or maybe 1 Sevinne's Reclamation (returns Sanctum and all your PWs, on top of the enchantments). Dress Down seems good for the SB, maybe even 1 main.

Edit: How does your SB mapping usually work? Verdict seems important, but then you also have 10 slots to bring out vs creatureless combo (4 Trial 4 StP 2 Verdict).

[Reeplcheep]

Temporal isolation was supposed to be temporary lockdown. It isn’t uncounterable, but hitting non-lands is huge vs stuff like lands, and hitting our own omens and trials raise the floor considerably.

Your comment on omen vs third path is good.

I really wanted to fit in sevinnes due to the mill and serras synergy, but I was worried it would leave us reasonably likely to just lose to surgical on court and ran Kaya instead. What would you cut?

[FTW]

Temporal isolation was supposed to be temporary lockdown. It isn’t uncounterable, but hitting non-lands is huge vs stuff like lands, and hitting our own omens and trials raise the floor considerably.

Oh, ok. That makes more sense. I still think a split with Verdict is better. Verdict is uncounterable, permanent, and will hit bigger creatures. Lockdown misses a lot and can be uncounterably removed (Boseiju, Decay, Cavern/Vial). Against Vial Aggro, giving them their ETB effects back isn't ideal either.

Maybe you want 2 Lockdown 1 Verdict, with a 2nd Verdict in the SB?


I really wanted to fit in sevinnes due to the mill and serras synergy, but I was worried it would leave us reasonably likely to just lose to surgical on court and ran Kaya instead. What would you cut?

You don't need to cut? The list you had above is under 80 cards. The list I posted has room for 3 more too.

[Reeplcheep]

This is what I get for posting lists stream of consciousness.
It is missing 4 ponder, which is one of the best cards in legacy and also gives a better sorcery density for third path. Based on your version I guess sevinnes is better than the 3rd court?

Pitches to fow and uncounterable is a consideration for sure. With 4 trial 4 plow do I really need to be scared of large creatures? Giving stuff back is bad but so is not hitting vial/kaldra/retrofitter/mox diamond/wish claw talisman

I haven't played the control versions in a very long time. I could keep the etutor package or focus on generally applicable 2 cmc spells. Doubling up on Fracture and hymn to tourach seems quite strong and gives you lots of ins to pair with the removal

[FTW]

This is what I get for posting lists stream of consciousness.
It is missing 4 ponder, which is one of the best cards in legacy and also gives a better sorcery density for third path.

That makes much more sense. I did not understand 0 Ponder in 80-card 3-color control, or playing Third Path without Ponder. So the first tweaks I made were cutting top end to add 4 Ponder.


Based on your version I guess sevinnes is better than the 3rd court?

I think so. 3x Court is overkill. You don't want 2 copies - if the first 1 is working you're already winning, and if it's not then the 2nd one is bad too (or you already have tech to flicker/copy it). Sevinne's has so many good targets in your deck: every single one of your engine cards and value cards.


Pitches to fow and uncounterable is a consideration for sure. With 4 trial 4 plow do I really need to be scared of large creatures? Giving stuff back is bad but so is not hitting vial/kaldra/retrofitter/mox diamond/wish claw talisman

True, maybe you have enough answers for big creatures.

I would just worry about relying on 3x Lockdown as your only sweeper vs opponents who will already board in all their enchantment kill against your deck. Opponent's EOT Boseiju, Who Endures/Force of Vigor/Wear // Tear/Abrupt Decay/Chain of Vapor/Petty Theft will catch you by surprise suddenly resetting their board. Relying on one artifact/enchantment to hold off their board is dangerous for control in this meta (for the same reason, Moat/Bridge/Energy Field are less reliable right now). Opponents could also profit off triggers when their permanents return: Stoneforge, Charming Prince, Baleful Strix, Abundant Growth, Elvish Visionary, etc. Or they may run multiple creatures over 2 mana (Goblins, D&T, Maverick).

Maybe Lockdown is still best main but it would be good to have some other answer in the SB.

ETutor is another way you could have access to strong tools (Lockdown, Court) while only running 1 copy. Plus ETutor improves your access to SB cards.

[Reeplcheep]

I like the 2 cmc spells in the sideboard idea. It’s likely for the opponent to bring in enchantment removal which really hurts vs e-tutor. Third path into hymn is strong but in g1s we can’t afford to fetch BB. I put 2 verdicts in the sideboard then. The etutor plan also has anti-synergy with lockdown. Other sideboard instants added were fracture and surgical.

Ending was trimmed for IoK since it’s role is covered by lockdown/Kaya somewhat. Also, we had too much removal main to have more removal like verdict in the sideboard. I shifted a few things around to better support sevinnes.


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Sideboard: 14
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Fracture
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Back to Basics
2 Supreme Verdict

//Lands: 27
3 Serra's Sanctum
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strands
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Spells: 28
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Force of Negation
2 Sevinne’s Reclamation

//Planeswalkers: 5
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper

//Enchantments: 20
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Founding the Third Path
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Temporary Lockdown
2 Court of Grace

[FTW]

ThrabenU played a version of this deck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCoku6sa5NY


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Spells: 25
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
2 Preordain
3 Terminus

//Artifacts: 4
4 Staff of the Storyteller

//Creatures: 4
4 Baleful Strix

//Enchantments: 12
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
2 Court of Grace
2 Moat

//Planeswalkers: 6
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Lands: 27
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Marsh Flats
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Raffine's Tower
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Sideboard: 14
2 Force of Negation
2 Sheoldred's Edict
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Energy Flux
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Containment Priest
1 Moat


Staff of the Storyteller could be a big boost to this archetype. It blinks well.

I don't love the manabase. Prismatic Vista seems important to get basics. Timeless Dragon could help fix WW too.

Maindeck Moat also seems bad when some of the most threatening creatures in the format are: DRC, Murktide, Marit Lage, Emrakul, Griselbrand, Atraxa, Delver, Brazen Borrower.... is there anything big that doesn't fly?
Probably need to cut 2 Moat 2 Preordain for 4 Thoughtseize to have enough game against noncreature decks.

I think I would play it like this -->


//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Spells: 27
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
3 Terminus

//Creatures: 4
4 Baleful Strix

//Artifacts: 4
4 Staff of the Storyteller

//Enchantments: 10
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition
2 Court of Grace

//Planeswalkers: 6
4 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Lands: 27
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Marsh Flats
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Raffine's Tower
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Sideboard: 14
2 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Energy Flux
2 Fracture
2 Rest in Peace
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Meddling Mage

[Whoshim]

Maindeck Moat also seems bad when some of the most threatening creatures in the format are: DRC, Murktide, Marit Lage, Emrakul, Griselbrand, Atraxa, Delver, Brazen Borrower.... is there anything big that doesn't fly?

Some. Urza's Saga tokens, Uro, Kappa Cannoneer, Hogaak, Goblins/Goblin tokens, Sheoldred, Initiative creatures, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Death's Shadow. I'd say Moat is strong against a fair amount of the meta, but there are a lot of common matchups that it does nothing against. I feel like it is a boom or bust card, as it looks from our lists like some decks only run fliers and other decks don't run fliers.

[FTW]

Some. Urza's Saga tokens, Uro, Kappa Cannoneer, Hogaak, Goblins/Goblin tokens, Sheoldred, Initiative creatures, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Death's Shadow. I'd say Moat is strong against a fair amount of the meta, but there are a lot of common matchups that it does nothing against. I feel like it is a boom or bust card, as it looks from our lists like some decks only run fliers and other decks don't run fliers.

Good point. It still hits a lot. It's reasonable as a SB card. But is Humility just better, especially since this deck runs a lot of 1/1s? Or Dress Down, which comes out earlier, replaces itself, and can be looped with Hall of Heliod's Generosity? Moat just misses too much. 3 copies (with 2 main) seemed excessive.

The other observation from the video is the deck is just stone cold to fast combo. Boarding in 2 Forces and 2 grave hate into 80 cards isn't enough to win both game 2 and game 3. That's why Reeplcheep's version had maindeck discard. Cutting all the discard left the deck weak to unfair decks. There isn't much space to cram it in: either Baleful Strix or Moat. Strix seems to have more value in more situations.

[Reeplcheep]

I’m back here, wasting time on my water breaks. I took an extended break from magic right when
Temporary Isolation
Founding of the Third Path

were spoiled. I’m not as interested in tokens since that doesn’t interact well with the opponent, and seems hated out by the orc/orc answers.

I’m excited to brew again by Hopeless Nightmare which finally gives the control a 2nd cmc1 enchantment. Just like sarcomancy, it sorta gives you a cards worth of value if you squint, and then charges up your engine and serras. I tested a version with dress down instead of the third path due to the prismatic ending issue mentioned above. It did have issues with cmc 4 planeswalkers and durdling however.

I want to try alternatives to ending so that I can play hymn + founding. I think fracture is worth considering, as exile and cheap stuff is already well handled by temporary lockdown. Cling and sevinnes play well with founding and give more outlets for Serra mana.


4 Founding the Third Path
4 Trial of Ambition
2 Temporal Lockdown
4 Estrid’s Invocation

2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Sevinne’s Reclamation
1 Oath of Kaya

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Cling to Dust
3 Fracture
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Hall of Heliod
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Marsh Flats
4 Snow Swamp
1 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

1 Yorion, the sky Serpent
4 Thoughtseize
1 Humility
1 Back to Basics
1 Graftdiggers Cage
1 Court of Grace
1 Rest in Peace
1 Stoney Silence
4 Enlightened Tutor


Hopefully I managed to keep the uniqueness of the deck. Building up resources/big mana like an enchantress deck, but while interacting. The sideboard is the etutor package + 4 Thoughtseize to be able to bring in it be any deck. Any thoughts or advice? Should the TS be IoK/duress so I can bring it in vs delver/burn?

[FTW]

This looks like a good deck for Court of Ardenvale, especially a control build. Sevinne on a white enchantment, with Monarch draw.

If you ever go back to Yorion tokens you may want Staff of the Storyteller. Even though it's not an enchantment, it's an amazing draw engine with the token makers and it blinks well with Aminatou/Yorion.

[Reeplcheep]

I saw court. As a grindy return effect I’m worried it is too vulnerable to removal or countermagic compared to sevinnes. You also don’t get the mill value.

Vs court of grace it doesn’t provide an actual wincon or protect the monarch as reliably. But it does go crazier with only 2 activations.
I was thinking of court of cunning and trying to win with mill. Cheaper and pitches to force, but it gets blasted. Estrids + it should finish games very fast. Is that crazy or genious?

The tokens build would probably drop the enchantment theme and just go tokens + super friends. That might be better at fair games, but it’s both less unique and more durdly. Once your engine is not also interaction, I’m worried that you just become bad enchantress/4c/8cast. It’s hard to make the tokens matter to unfair players as much as exiling all cheap things and mass discard. I’ve tried cabal therapy, jitte, the jitte saga and the cranial playing saga. Maybe I could try opposition?

[FTW]

I tested Court in Standstill and it proved very strong. I think the format is still sleeping on this card.

If you can even hold the Monarch 1 turn, you draw 2 cards + get 1 returned enchantment while having all mana open to interact and protect the Monarch. If you can use those free resources to hold the fort another turn, the advantage snowballs quickly. I found it more powerful than getting a token or milling. Granted you don't have anything as good as Standstill to return (draw 5 per turn), but the planeswalkers and some enchantments could be strong.

Compared to Court of Cunning, a 4cmc white enchantment doesn't die to Red blast, Abrupt Decay, or Prismatic Ending at 3. It's fairly hard for popular decks like Grixis, UB, artifacts blue, monoblack, and monored to remove. Even Jeskai & Esper lean too hard on Prismatic Ending or bounce. It's only really the green-based decks and 4c/5c that will have many answers to a resolved Court.

[Reeplcheep]

I’ll try ardenvale over grace, thanks for the suggestion. In the maindeck, we are looking at a grindy 1 off. I think being able to find reclamation off of founding mill, having a higher floor vs tempo decks, and being pseudo-uncounterable is more important in that role.

Any suggestions for the non hymn 2 cmc spell? The main thing for this card is to hit things that plow and lockdown don’t. The defaults for a normal deck would be prismatic ending, but it non-boes with founding. It also is best against things lockdown already hits and requires a light 4c splash.

I thought of Fracture first as it is best against PWs and saga. It is quite bad vs delver, and you trade exile for instant speed. Vanishing verse, which missed 3feri, comet, saga, artifacts, & that hamster pw, but is better vs most creature decks. Rite of Oblivion has a lot of synergy with my 8 garbage 1cmc permanents. It is the only thing that answers the one ring & it has flashback, but the floor is so low. It also makes serras worse and feels bad against countermagic. Drown in the loch is countermagic with founding synergy, but doesn’t answer anything plow or lockdown misses.

Am I missing anything important for my sideboard?

[kombatkiwi]

Yeah I think Hopeless Nightmare is a really huge card for this archetype as well. Is your decklist missing cards? I counted only 71 maindeck and you don't actually include Hopeless Nightmare or very many enchantments to copy

I played court of cunning in estrid before and yes with estrid online it does kill super fast, I think it's the best wincon you can play. 3cmc is great because can return it with Sevinnes Rec as well. The only reason why I wanted to play an additional different wincon was in case of people playing Emrakul in their deck or other archetype that you don't want to mill, but you have Hopeless Nightmare for that (or you can play 1 copy of a token generator or something, if you really want). Not only do some people have emrakul in maindeck from SNT or whatever but it's not uncommon for some decks to play 1 in SB as a plan vs Painter

Court of Ardenvale on the other hand I suspect might be winmore, like reading the described scenario returning standstill is so funny to me. Do you really need your control deck to play 2WW card that donates monarch if you are behind on board to return 1U enchantment that also donates opp 3 cards if you are behind on board. Obv in situation where you are slightly ahead or opponent can't interact with it then it's insane value but I don't think it's correct to build a deck in such a polarizing way.

I would question the underlying assumption that the deck needs to be built with Founding Third Path, you might be able to get away with just playing more generic/non-synergy interaction (Prismatic Ending / Thoughtseize / FoN / etc) and then if you want to keep the density of card advantage / grindy options high then add some Saurons Ransom or something. This deck (Esper Yorion Estrids) is also potentially a very strong starting point for becoming 4c Beans but no idea if the mana can work or you can fit everything

4 Abundant Growth
4 Up the Beanstalk
4 Estrids Invocation
X Forces
X Blue cards (much easier now with Lorien Revealed to have enough blue cards to support a ton of forces in clunky Yorion decks while helping with the multicolour mana requirements and triggering beans)
etc

It also seems odd to me that you built the manabase with 0 prismatic vistas

[FTW]

Court of Ardenvale on the other hand I suspect might be winmore, like reading the described scenario returning standstill is so funny to me. Do you really need your control deck to play 2WW card that donates monarch if you are behind on board to return 1U enchantment that also donates opp 3 cards if you are behind on board. Obv in situation where you are slightly ahead or opponent can't interact with it then it's insane value but I don't think it's correct to build a deck in such a polarizing way.

That's not the only thing to return. That's just an example of one target you can get as an "I win" button if you've stabilized the game at a neutral position. Control does need a small number of ways to completely close the door, you can't just bank on endless 1-for-1 and 2-for-1 attrition. If you're at an empty board, that's a 4cmc to slam to basically say "you can't catch up now" - which is what you want 4cmc plays to do.

In grindier positions, there are other good targets to return: fetchland (ramp), Wasteland, Teferi (bounce something & draw & control the stack), Snapcaster (into removal), other planeswalkers, removal enchantments. I've used it to return Powder Keg multiple times to control small creatures and artifacts. Even if you lose Monarch, the failcase still returns the card to your hand. So if you're permanent-based control, you are guaranteed to get back something useful (hand or play) even if they steal the Monarch. It depends how many interactive enchantments you have to return though.

[kombatkiwi]

I was being a little bit facetious but yea I think the bar for playing a 4 mana card in a control deck is pretty high especially when it's just a value piece, then you have to ask is it better than ring? Usually these slots are limited to stuff like emperor/comet/Karn that can actually function as wincons (I guess you can revive Kaya with court or something to kill the opponent but thats an extra hoop to jump through)

To some extent I agree that you don't always want the top end play of your control deck to be dinky 2-for-1s like Snapcaster KCommand but this deck already has Estrid 4x and idk if it needs to go any harder into the Phyrexian Arena plan

[Reeplcheep]

* the decklist is missing hopeless nightmare, hymn, and sarcomancy.
* the manabase was weird since I already have lots of white from serras. I also needed tons of B for hymn and the 1 cmc enchantments.
* I’m worried that a beanstalk build just becomes bad enchantress, since you will never draw more cards off it than enchantress does from their deck 2 cmc durdle. It’s hard to be 4c and also support serras and trial. I want to interact first and then repeat them.
* I did find in test games that it was hard to have enough spell and enchantment density.
* sarcomancy does provide “value” quickly, but is awkward with the board wipes.

[FTW]

Beanstalk encourages a different direction.

The most successful builds play
Yorion, Sky Nomad
Force of Will
Solitude
Lorien Revealed
Leyline Binding
Forth Eorlingas!

Unless you've made a dedicated build around playing "5-mana" cards that cost 0-2 mana (Terminus too?), it's hard to get consistent value to justify playing the 4th color for Beanstalk.

The current deck configuration is a fundamentally different design direction: 1-2 cmc enchantments into T3 Estrid/Aminatou/Sanctum. That direction doesn't fit well with what Beanstalk needs to shine.

[FTW]

I was being a little bit facetious but yea I think the bar for playing a 4 mana card in a control deck is pretty high especially when it's just a value piece, then you have to ask is it better than ring? Usually these slots are limited to stuff like emperor/comet/Karn that can actually function as wincons (I guess you can revive Kaya with court or something to kill the opponent but thats an extra hoop to jump through)

To some extent I agree that you don't always want the top end play of your control deck to be dinky 2-for-1s like Snapcaster KCommand but this deck already has Estrid 4x and idk if it needs to go any harder into the Phyrexian Arena plan

Good points. In Standstill, a major consideration is that your 4cmc piece has to also function well under Standstill (triggered/activated ability). The One Ring is terrible there. You can't cast the spells you draw & Ring kills you. Meanwhile Court replays everything without casting "spells", while leaving all your mana untapped to interact if opponent ever breaks Standstill. It works out very differently.

In a deck like this you could consider draw engines like Ring (Aminatou flicker resets the number of counters to avoid lifeloss), and you may already get enough lategame value from Estrid. Ardenvale may offer less.

I still think Court of Cunning is even weaker. It dies to more things. The ability doesn't generate any gamestate advantage or protect the monarch, just mill. Mill may even donate resources to the opponent (Delve, Escape, flashback, Reanimate, etc.). Out of all the Courts, the 2WW ones are harder to kill. Ardenvale gives you more value even if you lose the Monarch (1/1 token is weak). Maybe none of them are good enough.

[kombatkiwi]

[Mixed replies to both FTW and reeplcheep, sry if it's a bit confusing]:

If you just want to make a "when my deck is at its operational ceiling how do I draw the most cards" then Enchantress might be better at doing that, but the upshot of beans vs enchantress is that:
(1) beans cantrips on etb while argothian doesn't, so it's significantly easier to stabilize with your engine going especially in games where you mulligan or get double griefed or whatever
(2) The set of cards that trigger beans generally seems more appealing than having to play mono-enchantments. (Force of will is by far the biggest factor here but you can also utilise other generically strong cards like prismatic ending etc rather than having to play a stack of wild growths and such).
(3) Beans has way better synergy with Yorion

Even if this hypothetical yorion estrid deck is not "maximising" beanstalk (i.e. the % of 5 cmc cards in the deck is maybe not as high as "generic beans control" deck) I think Estrids Invocation is a super powerful card to the point that lists using it in the past have played relative junk like Nylea's Presence or Omen of the Sea just to have high enough density of copy targets. Beans is similarly "copy = draw a card" but can scale beyond that when copied (or just be an engine by itself) by triggering from your other spells too.

I think you're thinking of Court of Cunning too hard as needing to fit in this exact role where both players have traded off a few resources and its like turn 4-5 and you aren't clearly winning yet but you want to slam some unanswerable card to push ahead and win the game. In this spot Forth Eorlingas is also usually quite shit (opponent can block/removal 1-2 token leaving you with basically no threat/pressure then hit you on the crackback etc). The upside of Forth Eorlingas (what makes it a really good card) is that it gives you a unique angle being able to make a proactive play getting monarch as early as turn 3 if the opponent doesn't commit anything to the board (or is playing combo), while also scaling into the lategame to just be pseudo-entreat in games where sneaking 1 knight early is not viable. Similarly, for court of cunning you can drop it on turn 3 as surprise proactive play, or much later in game it just kills in 2 turns because you mill them 10x every turn for every Estrids Invocation you have. It doesn't need to be totally unanswerable because you can also kill in other ways like flickering hopeless nightmare or yorion attacking, i.e. the fact that it pitches to force is a meaningful upside. (Not "I can never pitch this or expose it to prismatic ending or pyroblast because it's the only wincon in my deck and I have to make sure that it sticks"). What im trying to say is that in lategame where you have already taken control and have at least 1 Estrid then any type of court should basically be gg. The white ones are maybe slightly better in a not-quite-fully-stable-empty-board situation (because they still give you something each turn if your opponent takes monarch, hoping your opponent can't remove an enchantment) but this comes at a cost of happening at best 1 turn later and requiring 4 lands rather than 3 and being harder to play around daze etc which is a very meaningful drawback.

Im pretty sure I would play 0 copies of sarcomancy. The only reason you wanted this type of card before is because you need your deck to have an actual wincon in it, and with Estrid in the deck you don't need to play some expensive bomb wincon that does nothing until late in the game, you can play some card that interacts early (okay block with 2/2 zombie or attack opponent's pw, sure) and then late in game you use Estrid to retrigger it to kill the opponent. I think Ravens Crime + Shock face is better than 2/2 Zombie that burns you for 1 every turn if it dies, so now with Hopeless Nightmare existing I don't think I would play sarcomancy at all. The primary function of this slot is still to be a wincon in stable games so you don't even need to play many copies of any of this type of card because in a long game you will eventually find it. The argument might be "but I want a lot of 1mana enchantments because I want my serras sanctum to be online asap" but then I think you are contorting the deck too much for sanctum, because the ceiling on sanctum is too low here. You have no spell which you can spend more than WW on except Yorion [edit: Okay I guess Cling escape and Temporary Lockdown and the 1of Sevinnes], and sure if you have a land that taps for WWWW it's great to have Yorion as outlet for that, but Yorion is not like 15cmc Emrakul in enchantress, you can easily just wish and cast it off 5 normal lands (see DNT etc).

Similarly as I said in previous post I don't know if Founding the Third Path is the right card for this deck because it seems to be doing a similar thing like Sanctum where you start from the position that you assume that it's good then you try to think of what cards to add that enable it, without evaluating whether the end result is overall making your deck better or not. I.e. you seem to feel that you have to play a bunch of 2mana spells to maximise the value of chapter 1, and then you end up playing either a bunch of quite bad cards (3 fracture 0 Ending in your 3C legacy control deck should be a bit of an "alarm bells / red flag" moment) or playing Hymn which hurts your mana quite a lot. Like maybe Omen of the Sea is a "worse card in a vacuum" than 3rd Path, just like Plains is "less powerful" than Sanctum, but if it has better synergy with Estrids and Yorion (and Sanctum) and doesn't price you into playing maindeck disenchant or whatever then maybe that's what you should be playing instead.

[Reeplcheep]

I wanted my targets to be interaction, since there are already lots of 1 for 1 interaction + durdle engine control decks. That’s why I was excited for founding. We could go back to “good cards” + a few dress down and omens. I’m not sure that you can go 4c when you have 1 drops in all colours. Abundant growth anti synergizes with Leyline binding.
I think our engines are already such good proactive threats maybe we don’t need any monarch cards at all. Since they are fine when you are behind on board too. I’m very tempted to run multiple oath of kayas and just kill with ye old bolt snap bolt. 2 nightmares and an oath into Yorion is already 14 damage, and your wincons being removal means you don’t have to side them out.
I think you are undervaluing how good having a land that taps for “draw Yorion”. Against fast decks it really helps fuel forces and against slow decks it gives you a painful truths. We could totally add more sevinnes, especially with oath. I agree we can cut sarcomancy, 12 enchantments are probably enough.
The thought behind fracture is that temporary isolation already answers a lot of stuff that pending does, and pending doesn’t kill Urza’s saga. You could replace fracture with vanishing verse (murktide, Leyline binding) or Drown in the lock. I didn’t know how to take into account the mana fixing from founding. It is possible we could get away with less black or play gerrard’s verdict.

[Reeplcheep]

I played half a league. 2 losses vs painter and maverick, 1 win vs D&T.


Cling doesn’t use extra white mana nearly as well as sevinnes
Fracture did lose me games due to not hitting creatures, but it did screw an opponent by killing a t1 saga.
Hymn was awkward as by the time it gets flash backed the opponent had few cards. The first cast was quite strong.The mana affect was real.
There were several times where temporary isolation would have been excellent, but I couldn’t get there in time. With the recurring removal from our engines, maybe it is unneeded.



Some solutions i brewed up:


See the Truth gives us a value card off of founding that is a huge haymaker when flash backed. It also doesn’t contort the mana. It also ignores bowmaster.
Vanishing Verse has advantages (lage, murktide, Leyline binding) over ending and has a better floor than fracture. Hopefully between thoughtseize/oath/fow we can handle 3feri and comet.
Sevinnes is this best outlet for Serra sanctum. On thin Ice gives us another playable 1 cmc control enchantment if we cut temporary isolation, better enabling serras. With vanishing verse we don’t have the marit lage issue that on thin ice/trial/pending had in the past.



4 Hopeless Nightmare
4 On thin Ice
4 Founding the Third Path
4 Trial of Ambition

4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
3 Sevinne’s Reclamation
2 Oath of Kaya

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 See the Truth
4 Vanishing Verse
4 Force of Will

3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
3 Strand
3 Marsh Flats
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

1 Yorion, the sky Serpent
3 Force of Negation
1 Back to Basics
1 Graftdiggers Cage
1 Court of Grace
1 Rest in Peace
1 Torpor Orb
1 Stoney Silence
1 Deafening Silence
4 Enlightened Tutor

[FTW]

That looks strong. Good mix of enchantments good vs creatures and enchantments good vs spell-heavy decks.

Hopeless Nightmare as wincon+disruption looks strong, although it will not police fast combo as well as Thoughtseize so that match may get affected. You just have FoW. Maybe Curse of Silence??

Do you want 1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity as another Sanctum mana sink?

Why 0 Teferi?

[Reeplcheep]

List is missing 4 Thoughtseize main.

Between sevinnes and Yorion i thought I have enough extra grind. And those are more accessible when I need them.

I had to make cuts somewhere for verse, and they have some overlap.

[Reeplcheep]

Gold fishing it a bit and humming and hawing over card choices. It is possible I can be trying to do too many things at once. The core of the deck I want is to make lots of mana with serras, and enchantments making value with estrids. Kombat has a point about focusing on power floor over power ceiling. In light of that:


Omen over founding since it immediately makes value, even if the ceiling is lower. Founding asks for mill synergies and spell density that are difficult to provide without sacrifices.
I think extra enchantments for serras is worth it. If I have less chance of making ww, I also have less chance of making any mana at all which means cutting spells for more lands. Sevinnes changed to tireless dragon, since the floor of getting a land is higher, and the cheaper cost/uncounterable means you can run more.
Run the full 20 esper greatest hits 1 drops to have a functional interactive deck regardless of synergies.
I believe sarcomancy is worth it. I have won surprising amounts of games with 2/2 factories, and once nightmare is in your deck you have given up on stranding cards in hand. Dragon lets you keep sarcomancy, 1 land + serras hands and also turns off the life loss.
A few cling just for lifegain and a hedge against scam





4 Hopeless Nightmare
4 Sarcomancy
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition

4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, time Raveler

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Thoughtseize

2 Cling to Dust
3 Tireless Dragon
4 Force of Will

3 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Scrubland
2 Tundra
1 Plateau
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

1 Yorion, the sky Serpent
3 Force of Negation
1 Back to Basics
1 Graftdiggers Cage
1 Court of Grace
1 Rest in Peace
1 Torpor Orb
1 Stoney Silence
1 Deafening Silence
4 Enlightened Tutor

[FTW]

I like the shift to just running unconditionally good cards for Esper Control: Swords, Prismatic, Teferi, Omen, Cling. You've shed some variance just by running more "good stuff", flexible high power cards with high floors.

Timeless Dragon is also a good mana sink for Sanctum and mana fixing, reducing more variance.

Sarcomancy seems bad if you're on the control plan instead of aggro (History of Benalia, etc.). Some form of creature machine seems good, but Sarcomancy can backfire so badly, especially when you can't back up the 2/2 with more fast beatdown. It also puts all your 1cmc enchantments onto black mana.

What about Shark Typhoon? It cycles early and mana sinks late. The only bad thing is it doesn't work as an early enchantment for Sanctum. But maybe you can use some On Thin Ice to fill that role?

Edit: Or even a cheap 2/x enchantment creature like Gnarled Scarhide or Underworld Coinsmith? At least there's no risk of it dealing you damage.

[Reeplcheep]

Between the back half of dragon and all 8 3 drops I thought I have a lot of ways to turn off the life loss. Because enchantments turn on white mana, there is an incentive to run non-white cheap enchantments. Sarcomancy + land + serras lets you have either all 3 colours on t2 or cycle timeless through a wasteland. Curse of silence or whatever doesn’t do that. The other options of wizard class, warlock class or mystic remora leave a lot to be desired. Mill based wincons like Court of cunning seemed higher risk and increased the cmc of the deck. It arguably synergizes with the shocks from Nightmare.
Shark typhoon doesn’t use white mana as well as timeless and requires more mana to be threatening. Perhaps pitch to fow is enough though?
On thin ice would be ideal, but if you give up plow you die to marit lage. If you give up ending you have no answer to non-creatures. If you give up both for on thin ice and Leyline binding you awkwardly need both 3c lands and basics.
Enchantment creatures either don’t have an etb or are more expensive. They also expose estrids to creature removal. If I did run a creature, it would be Spirited Companion.

[FTW]

Although you have a few ways to turn off the lifeloss, you're also an 80-card deck with a slow clock. It might be OK goldfishing, but a disruptive fair opponent should be able to find lines that turn Sarcomancy on you. That lifeloss could be the difference between winning and losing grindy fair matches.

Other potential 1 CMC enchantments that might fit a control deck:
Authority of the Consuls
Curse of Silence
Evil Presence
Sea's Claim
Land Tax
Legion's Landing
Mystic Remora
Myth Realized
Okiba Reckoner Raid
On Thin Ice
Planar Void
Soothsaying
Soul Snare
Warlock Class
Wizard Class

The options aren't great.

Some of them don't copy well (Legendary) or flicker well (no ETB ability or added benefit). Some are not able to be played proactively on turn 1.

The Classes are mana sinks that draw cards, but don't impact the board right away.

Okiba is a B 2/2 creature that has Menace and drains life instead of ever damaging you. Is that better than Sarcomancy? Sarcomancy has higher ceiling (2/2 factory undisrupted) but lower floor.

Planar Void is card disadvantage though it maindeck hates on a lot of decks, and you don't use the graveyard much. It does conflict with Timeless Dragon/Sevinne's though.

Soul Snare could be an opportunity to play StP as a proactive enchantment. On Thin Ice is only sorcery speed removal, so it misses some things StP can answer (EOT Marit lage, Sneak Attack fatty), but Soul Snare can answer those.

Myth Realized might be a powerful enchantment to play early and then turn into a wincon. It both enables Sanctum and then functions as a mana sink/wincon.

Curse of Silence adds disruption and then cantrips. Flickering it is relevant so you can change the card. However you wanted something nonwhite for curve-out reasons.

Evil Presence/Sea's Claim might be the best option as maindeck land destruction. You can hate out a lot of nonbasics or manascrew greedy decks. Spreading Seas is even better if you have room at 2 mana (flickers and copies very well), but you clearly need something proactive at 1 cmc.

If you're willing to go 4c, then you get access to the best option: Abundant Growth.

[Reeplcheep]

I’m worried 4c control won’t actually work with one drops in all colours. Most 4c decks only have bant or bug 1 drops.

Marit lage is the only super concerning instant speed creature. Perhaps we can get away with on thin ice + pending if we have enough flyers. A flyer heavy control token build would also enable staff of the story teller and ravens warning. Those are two cards that have promise but need more than just sarcomancy. How about - plow - sarcomancy - timeless - omen of the sea - cling - plateau + on thin ice + staff of the story teller + the ravens warning + bitterblossom + some vistas & volc/bayou.

A few extra lands due to on thin ice being awkward with serras, and you could put a few miracles in the sideboard . Thoughtseize could be changed to cabal therapy. The deck looks worse against scam between no cling and tons of x/1s, but might be better overall.

[FTW]

Soul Snare does answer Marit Lage.

Or maybe you keep StP but replace PEnding with instant Leyline Binding, since your mana already produces 3-4 colors of mana or you can use Sanctum to pay.

Staff is a good engine but better if you went back to the full token plan (Sarcomancy, Benalia). Bitterblossom is a weak card on its own. I tried to make it work with Staff in Legacy, but the correct 1B token engine is from tribe Orc (or 1BG Insect). The problem is Blossom and Raven are mediocre on their own. You're adding weak cards to enable Staff, and you're an 80-card deck that may never see Staff. Staff is good with Yorion and Aminatou but not Estrid or Serra, so maybe this isn't the deck to force it.

Are Okiba, Myth Realized, or Evil Presence not good enough for the 1 cmc spot?

[Reeplcheep]

Soul snare is effectively 2 mana, doesn’t have any etb synergies, and is not very flexible as removal.

Stp or pending + Leyline binding does make sense, but then you don’t have a 2nd 1 drop enchantment. Warlock class wasn’t totally awful when I played it. It provides a similar “find lands with a serras” role to timeless, and could replace sarcomancy in the 1 drop slot.

Porphyry nodes + binding might be best for creature less. Binding is much easier without also needing basic lands.

I thought staff would be excellent with Serras as an outlet for extra white mana. When you are consistently drawing a card off part 2 and getting temporal mastery with part 3 I thought ravens might be good enough. The more token heavy build other wise would have issues with blue count.

All 3 of those don’t seem like cards control wants and trade down with removal.

[Reeplcheep]

Alternatively,

Flicker of Fate
Scroll Shift
Geistwave
Rite of Undoing

Are interaction that also are sort of engine cards. Rite of undoing seems the most interesting to me.

[FTW]

Those other cards seem too conditional to be playable. Squeezing in some Leyline Bindings between StP & PEnding is probably the best move. Leyline Binding can answer The One Ring, while PEnding struggles (opponent can cut off red).

Sea's Claim/Evil Presence can trade down. But they can also manascrew opponents, convert your fetches into a colored source, or turn off dangerous nonbasics (Saga, Depths, Field of the Dead, Karakas, Blast Zone, manlands, Eye of Ugin, Ancient Tomb, etc). Spreading Seas would be significantly better but doesn't fill the 1 cmc spot. Maybe it's better than Omen of the Sea though? It's a 2cmc draw that flickers well but interacts with opponent instead of just scrying.


E.g.
//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Enchantments: 22
4 Warlock Class
4 Hopeless Nightmare
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Spreading Seas
4 Estrid's Invocation
2 Leyline Binding

//Spells: 22
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending

//Planeswalkers: 6
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

//Creatures: 3
3 Timeless Dragon

//Lands: 27
3 Serra's Sanctum
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
1 Plateau
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Plains
12 fetch

The core looks strong. The outstanding slot is the 1 cmc enchantment. Is Warlock Class your best bet? It gives black a way to dig into other colors and serves as an additional mana sink, even if some of the triggers get underused. Level 3 doubles the clock of Hopeless Nightmare. Before you reach 6B, flickering it is useful to reuse the Level 2 draw.

Porphyry Nodes can't be played proactively on turn 1, so it's bad for the Sanctum ramp plan or the Estrid plan. It's an enchantment that's designed to suicide, not stay on the field.

Okiba is not really a control card, but neither is Sarcomancy. Okiba just seemed better than Sarcomancy (much higher floor). Perhaps not running any 2/2s is optimal.

Myth Realized is a control card. It's a finisher in a spell-heavy creature-light control deck. It's also a proactive turn 1 enchantment. It's not great with Estrid or Aminatou, but it helps enable Sanctum and then acts as a Sanctum mana sink. Is it worth considering? It seems like a better creature than a 2/2 zombie. It doesn't trade down with removal as long as you don't use it aggressively and ignore the 2W mode until lategame. Just let it sit and gain counters as you play Magic. Leave W open and you threaten a blocker, discouraging attacks. If they do attack (representing removal), you get to decide whether to activate and block (drawing out removal) or take the damage (protecting the Monk) or counter the removal & kill the attacker (good trade). It does most of that passively, without you having to dump mana into it.

Wizard Class or Warlock Class would make up for the card selection lost by cutting Omen for Spreading Seas.

Edit: Curse of Silence may be the most disruptive/controlling option though.

[Reeplcheep]

I keep going around in circles with packages. Is 15 cards that turn off the life loss really not enough to run sarcomancy?


Shrieking affliction
Disinformation campaign

Bloodchief’s Ascension
Omen of the forge
Oath of Nissa

Sarcomancy
Staff of the Storyteller
Orc Bowmaster

Moderation
Force of Negation

[Reeplcheep]

In my test leagues unending 2/2s win more than their fair share of games, so I am loath to get rid of sarcomancy.
Maybe we can commit to a sac theme? Between Nightmare and third path we might have a critical mass of enchantments that generate value on being sacrificed and on etb. Bargain spells provide a critical mass of uncounterable sac out lets, while still being interaction. I tried rite of oblivion aaa 2 of during third path testing and it did decently well.


Esper greatest hits (20)
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

Sac/bounce enablers (13)
3 Rite of Oblivion
3 Johann’s stopgap
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou

Bounce & sac targets (19)
4 Nightmare
4 Sarcomancy
4 Founding of the Third Path
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Tymaret’s Blessing

Lands (3 serras + 25)


It’s a bit confusing, but overall the ca comes out ahead.
Nightmare + stopgap is recoil + preordain for B + 1U instead of U + 1UB.
Sarcomancy, founding, rite is a 2/2 into double WB anguished unmaking.
Tymaret rite is 5 mana for vindicate draw 3.

[kombatkiwi]

There's a "Sarcomancy Variant" in the new Ixalan set:


Corpses of the Lost
{2}{B}
Enchantment

Skeletons you control get +1/+0 and have haste.

When Corpses of the Lost enters the battlefield, create a 2/2 black Skeleton Pirate creature token.

At the beginning of your end step, if you descended this turn, you may pay 1 life. If you do, return Corpses of the Lost to its owner’s hand. (You descended if a permanent card was put into your graveyard from anywhere.)

Copying with Estrid gives another 2/2 and also copies the +1/+0 buff. Each time you fetch (or you sac a Saga, Hopeless Nightmare etc) you can return to hand and hardcast for another token too. With the buff and all the tokens having haste it seems it would end games very quickly. (Similar to History of Benalia in that sense)

[murta]

I am new, but I think Corpses of the Fallen has the potential to be a very strong card in Sarcomancy decks. It's definitely a card to keep an eye on.

[Reeplcheep]

The cases from the new set are very similar to quests or classes. 2 in particular play for this deck well enough to encourage me to play magic again.

Case of the Filched Falcon
{U}
Enchantment — Case
When this Case enters the battlefield, investigate. (Create a Clue token. It’s an artifact with “{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”)
To solve — You control three or more artifacts. (If unsolved, solve at the beginning of your end step.)
Solved — {2}{U}, Sacrifice this Case: Put four +1/+1 counters on target noncreature artifact. It becomes a 0/0 Bird creature with flying in addition to its other types.

A blue abundant growth. A 4/4 uncounterable flyer is very relevant. It plays with serras sanctum, the artifact + enchantment land, and rite of oblivion well.

Case of the Stashed Skeleton
{1}{B}
Enchantment — Case
When this Case enters the battlefield, create a 2/1 black Skeleton creature token and suspect it. (It has menace and can’t block.)
To solve — You control no suspected Skeletons. (If unsolved, solve at the beginning of your end step.)
Solved — {1}{B}, Sacrifice this Case: Search your library for a card, put it into your hand, then shuffle. Activate only as a sorcery.

A token maker that draws you a demonic tutor when the token dies. Types match with the curse card above.

[Reeplcheep]

Other neat synergies:

Dress down clears your skeleton’s name so you can tutor. Nothing to see here!

Incidental food creation like witches cottage powers up the falcon case.

Cracking a case turns on descend for the curse of the drowned.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Other neat synergies:

Dress down clears your skeleton’s name so you can tutor. Nothing to see here!

Incidental food creation like witches cottage powers up the falcon case.

Cracking a case turns on descend for the curse of the drowned.

This is weird because cases can only be solved on your end step, so cracking it won't trigger descend that end step.
Unless you solved it last turn and are cracking it this turn.

[Reeplcheep]

This also might be good enough:

1U

Legendary Enchantment

When Proft's Eidetic Memory enters the
battlefield, draw a card.
You have no maximum hand size. At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you've drawn more than one card this turn, put X +1/+1 counters on target creature you control, where X is the number of
cards you've drawn this turn minus one.

Vs omen of the sea, is Scry 2, flash, and non-legendary better than a ton of +1/+1 counters?

[Reeplcheep]

I had a bit of success with a
Tinybones Joins up
Sarcomancy
Rite of Oblivion

Build. That’s a lot of permanents for serras and virtual card advantage. The lack of instant speed interaction did hurt though and that much untrageted discard was clunky.

This new card seems like it could make a beans build good. It’s a build your own recoil with nightmare and it enables beans.

This Town Ain't Big Enough
{4}{U}
Instant
This spell costs {3} less to cast if it targets a permanent you control.
Return up to two target nonland permanents to their owners’ hands.
“All that fancy footwork, and you can’t even dodge one silly little rope? Cryin’ shame, that is.”

[Reeplcheep]

This could be revitalize a staff of the storyteller build. It’s a blue sarcomancy with rebuy a fow if you are floooded. It also helps blue count so you might not need Lorien revealed.

Stormchaser's Talent
{U}
Enchantment — Class
(Gain the next level as a sorcery to add its ability.)
When Stormchaser’s Talent enters, create a 1/1 blue and red Otter creature token with prowess.
{3}{U}: Level 2
When this Class becomes level 2, return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.
{5}{U}: Level 3
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, create a 1/1 blue and red Otter creature token with prowess.