[DTB] Blade Control

point taken - I think I may disagree as far as the effectiveness of deathrite in the deck goes, but I see your critique. A bit of devil's advocate - you do have some other ways of pushing damage through, so the damage isn't necessarily unimportant. Like lingering souls, stoneforge, vendilion clique, etc. I guess the question is: can the deck really play aggro-control? If the answer is yes, then in my opinion, deathrite may be a good card for the deck, because he plays the role of both accelerator and also of damage, life-gain, as well as of hate for various things you don't have too many answers to. If the answer is no, then the damage isn't that meaningful and yes, you're right he may be a glorified mana dork. But on the other hand, even the BUG landstill decks that were doing fairly well for a while a couple months back were playing deathrite, as does gifts combo in modern - so who knows lol

Very stock list. Disfigures have been excellent against all the DRS decks.

4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique

3 Jace, the Mindsculptor

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Lingering Souls
2 Preordain
1 Vindicate

4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Force of Will
2 Disfigure
1 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell

4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
2 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas
1 Scrubland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

Sideboard:
3 Flusterstorm
3 Rest in Peace
3 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Thoughtseize
1 Disenchant
1 Perish
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

I'm playing the red splash. Mainly due to meta changes, more removal is better now than ever. With mid range decks every where like Bug,Deathblade, Jund etc. 4 Stp, 4 Bolt, 3 Grim, 4 Snapcaster might look like overkill but in this meta, it's justified..

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Hi Ivanpei, the core of the deck (4stp, 4bolt, 3grim, 4snap) sounds very interesting to me.. can you share your actual decklist with some comments?
I am looking for a deck with 4 bolts and 4 stp and everything I can find is Patriot.

Thx!

Sure, here's my list:

4 Brainstorm
4 Force
2 Spell Pierce
3 JTMS
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
4 Swords
4 Bolt

4 Snapcaster
4 Stoneforge
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Clique

4 Scalding
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa (I play a high number of fetches to feed Grim Lavamancer, so as not to mess with Snapcaster, also fetches are great at grabbing basics for SB Bloodmoon)
1 Karakas
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic
4 Island (I play a lot of basics due to SB Bloodmoon, as well as basics being very useful against wasteland. As a Miracles player I've learned that basics are very very important)
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Moorland Haunt (Generally I like it better than Academy Ruins or Riptide because I don't run EE and Riptide is win more, you seldom have mana open and a Wizard on the board. Moorland Haunt IMO is the best utility land for this deck because of the higher creature count, 14 and also it's a late game token generator. I have had alot of games where I wished I had a token generator like Esperblade. Since idle equipment that does nothing is a major problem in the control mirror. Generally this is a pretty common problem for Stoneblade and the 1 utility land matters in grindy long games)

SB has some mix of Bloodmoon, EE, Detention Sphere, REB, Flusterstorm, Surgical and the sorts.

So why red over other splashes (especially black)? The primary answer is tempo. Red gives you Bolt and Grim Lavamancer. Bolt is the 2nd best 1cc removal spell in the format after Swords. Grim Lavamancer gives you the all important threat @ 1cc to smoothen the curve nicely. The red splash Stoneblade is very efficient tempo wise. The answers are cheap, the bombs are also cheap. You rarely run out of removal. Snapcaster also almost ALWAYS has a removal spell to flashback. Unlike running non-burn removal spells, burn can be thrown at the head of combo/control players, or used to take down walkers. Generally burn is very useful, especially if they use Jace to bounce your threat, only to have it taken down by a bolt.

I also dislike discard in a control deck because when you hit the midgame and you are both in topdeck mode, discard is almost always a dead draw. In a grindy slugfest, the discard oriented deck is at a disadvantage. Also, discard is tempo lost because you are paying mana to strip something from your opponents hand and sometimes it does not gain you any tempo. If you thoughtseize a guy who has multiple 2cc drops, you can take the better drop but he can just cast the other one. With removal you just wait for them to cast their threat, and you just proceed to deal with it for 1 mana. Tempo wise, removal/counters are more efficient than discard.

Of course, there are downsides to red. I won't lie, the preboard matchup against combo is pretty bad. I run 3 REB, 2 Flusterstorms and 1 more Spell Pierce in the board to deal with this. Control MU wise, Red is about the same as Black because Red has REB while Black has Vindicate and Lingering Souls. Of course a 1cc REB is much cheaper at taking down Jaces compared to Vindicate and Lingering souls, but Lingering souls is hard to counter/answer with counters.

I agree about the downsides of discard in control - even though everyone plays it, which confuses me. It always feels inconsistent and bad to me when I play it though. Tempo loss, the worst top-deck possible, etc.

You may want to try and squeeze in a couple more counterspells if your combo matchup is bad - you may be able to do that without disrupting the deck too much by, say, playing -1 lavamancer -1 bolt / +2 izzet charm or something, or maybe +1 spell pierce +1 counterspell or something like that. You could still have an excellent array of cheap removal to beat up on midrange decks while also having a slightly better combo matchup.

Yes if my meta has more combo, I will make those changes you suggested. From my experience, Izzet Charm on paper seems great because it's versatile, but in testing the 2cc is a major barrier. Keeping 2 mana open for a spell Pierce is too restrictive. Therefore it's mostly used as an expensive shock. I like the + 1 spell Pierce and + 1 counterspell idea better.

Generally I don't mind being weaker against combo game 1. Because games 2 and 3 are lopsided in the blue decks favor. Also combo decks can just mull to death in game 1 or may draw a bad hand. In that case minimal disruption can win you game 1. I prefer to be more midrange oriented preboard and leave the combo hate in the board. But if combo decks pop up left and right, then. Some tweaks have to be made in the main.

nice, yeah that all makes sense to me. I was thinking it might be fun to try and play standstill in a UWR list some day, since because you have so much turn 1 removal (bolt, swords) and also lavamancer, you should be able to resolve a turn 2 standstill fairly easily. Similarly to how the original UW mystic decks which could play it because they had misstep to keep turn early threats off the board, UWR could possibly play it with bolt as its additional assurance of killing turn 1/2 creatures in order to resolve a standstill. Anyone have any ideas on how would standstill be in a meta like this, if you had the right support cards?

You will need some number of factories to make it work. 3 colour deck + factories is not a good mix. Feels pretty greedy but can work against control matchups. Also you lose blood moon's power from the board.

Its true that its greedy, but many landstill decks have been 3 colors - one of the most successful ones was (BUG). But ya, of course you wouldn't be playing blood moon - but I'm not sure I would anyways. THe main thing is that you'd have to play like 24 lands or so. You could also play a couple sensei's divining tops - they are a nice colorless way to make your deck more consistent. A potential list could look something like:

4 stoneforge mystic
3 snapcaster mage
4 force of will
3 spell pierce
4 swords to plowshares
3 lightning bolt
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
4 jace, the mindsculptor
1 sensei's divining top
1 batterskull
1 umezawa's jitte

4 wasteland
3 mishra's factory
4 flooded strand
4 scalding tarn
3 tundra
2 volcanic island
1 plateau
1 island
1 mountain
1 plains

haha I have no idea. I've never played a landstill deck. Just messing around

Ivanpei, you cut Restoration Angel. I think that decision was wrong, as that card provided an important function in the deck.

I'm not quite sure if Restoration angel is critical in this deck. It works with Cliques, SFM and Snapcasters. However it's a high cc drop on the same cost as Jace & Elspeth etc. Ideally I'd like my high cc drops to be as game ending as Jace since they cost the same amount of mana. Even if I were to play Restoration, I might play 1-2 copies because a 3/4 Flying body is quite useful. It's the perfect size to block delvers, mongoose and cliques. I don't see why you can't play a few copies in the board for those MUs. In general I'd prefer my 4 drops to be more "game over" like Jace. Also Jace is blue and can be pitched to force in a pinch. Restoration angel is the classic case of the win more card. If you have something to blink, you should be in a good position to win. Once you cast SFM, it is 90% likely its going to die, or you win with Batterskull beatdown. Once you cast Clique, same thing, no one will leave a 3/1 flyer unharassed. With Snapcaster, it's 5-6 mana since you need to pay the flashback cost as well. You can't really afford to keep 4 mana open to blink a dude in response to removal, it's simply too much mana.

Unlike Jace/Elspeth, Angel is not good by itself. It requires you to have another creature to abuse the blink, and it has to be the right creature to be devastating. I'd prefer to just play a walker which is devastating anytime, everytime. I'd play Angel in the board for matchups where a 3/4 flash body can ambush creatures. Thats probably where the card shines in my opinion. Right now it's slightly on the "narrow" end. I really want Angel to be good since I have a foil one and it's such a cool card.

I agree with ivanpei that 4cc spells should be sickly powerful (Jace) or fulfill a very specific role that no other card can (ala Supreme Verdict). And if we're going to start using 4cc "cute" peripheral creatures, then I'd run Venser, Shaper Savant before anything else.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

Sure, here's my list:

4 Brainstorm
4 Force
2 Spell Pierce
3 JTMS
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
4 Swords
4 Bolt

4 Snapcaster
4 Stoneforge
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Clique

4 Scalding
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa (I play a high number of fetches to feed Grim Lavamancer, so as not to mess with Snapcaster, also fetches are great at grabbing basics for SB Bloodmoon)
1 Karakas
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic
4 Island (I play a lot of basics due to SB Bloodmoon, as well as basics being very useful against wasteland. As a Miracles player I've learned that basics are very very important)
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Moorland Haunt (Generally I like it better than Academy Ruins or Riptide because I don't run EE and Riptide is win more, you seldom have mana open and a Wizard on the board. Moorland Haunt IMO is the best utility land for this deck because of the higher creature count, 14 and also it's a late game token generator. I have had alot of games where I wished I had a token generator like Esperblade. Since idle equipment that does nothing is a major problem in the control mirror. Generally this is a pretty common problem for Stoneblade and the 1 utility land matters in grindy long games)

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4 Bolts, 4 Swords to Plowshares and 3 Grim Lavamancers is definitely overkill. By the way, running the full set of Snapcasters and Grim Lavamancers will make it more their antisinergy to matter with a greater impact. You can argue that "you can just remove lands with GL to leave fodder for SCM", but it's also true that in the initial stages of the game you don't have that many cards in the graveyard, especially considering that Stoneblade plays high-end cards and not just all 0-ccs and 1-ccs as, say, Threshold does. I'd seriously try to trim those numbers down, they're totally unnecessary.

Generally speaking, Your take on the deck runs an excessive amount of narrow cards (as they are removal just working on creatures and PWs) that reduces your blue count and doesn't help the deck in fightning the wide array of threats Legacy packs.
You're really light to Counterbalance and Sylvan Library, just to give an example; but you're also cold to certain etb creatures, such as opposing Snapcaster Mage, where removing the body is not a real 1-for-1, as they have drawn advantage from their creature.
You're also cold to Entreat the Angels and randomness such as Chalice of the Void. I can see the urge to push the deck into a configuration more suited to fight creature-based midranges, but in this way you're losing so much ground against lock elements, combo, and card advantage tools that it is not optimal.

The first thing I'd definitely consider is to cut at least 1 removal (better Stp than Bolt) and a Lavamancer for 2 Spell Snares. Then, I'd try to cram a single Counterspell, which is a great catchall cards in all scenarios, and 1 Engineered Explosives; I repeat myself- Stoneblade built in that way just loses. You may also pursue the way of constantly 1-for-1'ing your opponent's creatures, and that may be correct, given that most of power-weenies as of now needs to be answered immediately (SFM, Confidant, DRShaman, Lackey, Thalia slightly less, ecc); I still find, though, that a single Supreme Verdict is just an amazing tool because it solves boards where something has fallen off your control and, in general, is also an amazing topdeck when you're behind.

Stoneblade's 1-ofs (see Esperblade) may seem randomic, but in reality they serve the purpose of being very good universal answer to lots of problematic cards. By cutting them to play all squared sets of removal you're as much strenghtening certain matchups as giving away any chance against others. I'm also thinking to BUG honestly, where AVisions and Tourach will work their way and Bolts and Stp won't matter against Agents and Strixes as long as they're constantly replacing themselves until they slowly out-resource you.

This is what I'd consider basic improvement over your list, with futher changes to be tested. Ah, I forgot to suggest that also Ponder has so many utility (reducing color/mana screws, helping to plan your future 2 turns, giving a turn 1 investment when otp, more probability to find Jace when needed).


4 Brainstorm
4 Force
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
3 Swords
3 Bolt
1 EE


4 Stoneforge
3 Snapcaster
3 Clique
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 JTMS

4 Scalding
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa (I play a high number of fetches to feed Grim Lavamancer, so as not to mess with Snapcaster, also fetches are great at grabbing basics for SB Bloodmoon)
1 Karakas
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic
4 Island (I play a lot of basics due to SB Bloodmoon, as well as basics being very useful against wasteland. As a Miracles player I've learned that basics are very very important)
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins


This is it. My personal thought is that certain cards just don't fit Stoneblade is the way it performs its game: Grim Lavamancer maindeck is just slow, opens you to Wasteland more, and most deck where he is supposed to shine can play around him quite comfortably; a sideboard tool at best, Bolt and Pyroclasm are just superior for timing questions. But that's my personal view, so I won't bother with it.

Hope it may help you.

I still like the Black Splash. Dark Confidant is great for drawing cards and you can fight Jace with Vindicate and Notion Thief. Red splash does sound tempting for Bolts and Red Blasts though.

Here's my current list, based off of Ivanpei's list:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [OV] Mountain
1 [7E] Plains (1)
1 [LG] Karakas
4 [ARC] Island (2)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
2 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [U] Tundra
1 [R] Plateau

// Creatures
3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
3 [TO] Grim Lavamancer
4 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic

// Spells
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [OV] Swords to Plowshares
3 [MPR] Lightning Bolt
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [NPH] Batterskull
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
1 [RTR] Izzet Charm

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 [RTR] Detention Sphere
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [DK] Blood Moon
SB: 2 [A] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [JU] Envelop
SB: 1 [DGM] Wear // Tear
SB: 2 [PS] Meddling Mage

Played it in one of our local tournaments last night. 16 players, 4 rounds swiss, cut to top 4.

Round 1 - Death & Taxes

Game 1: He leads off with a Plains, I lead off with Grim Lavamancer and he frowns. He doesn't have StP for it so Lavamancer shoots his dudes until I run out of cards in my graveyard and he finally gets a swing in with a Jitte. The game goes long though as I land a Jace and continue to kill every creature he plays and I finally seal the deal with a SFM. Interestingly, I finally got to use the new Planeswalker rule with Jaces when I used a Jace to bounce a creature then played a second Jace to Brainstorm!

-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
+2 Engineered Explosives
+1 Wear / Tear
+1 Detention Sphere
+2 Meddling Mage

Game 2: He mulls to 5 and leads off with a Karakas. I drop a Grim Lavamancer and he has a T2 Revoker for it. I drop a SFM and get Batterskull. He Karakas->Karakas into Mirran Crusader. I play a land and pass turn with a StP in hand and ready to drop Batterskull. He plays a Thalia and I Plow his Revoker in response and shoot his Crusader EoT. I kill Thalia on my turn before he can untap with Karakas and that prompts the scoop.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - vs UWr Miracles

Game 1: He leads off with a T1 Top and starts spinning. I drop a Grim Lavamancer, then 2x SFM (first one gets Forced), which gets down the Batterskull and actually connects while I'm aggressively burning my yard away at his head. The second time I swing with Batterskull though, he pops top to Terminus. With the Miracle trigger on the stack, I play Clique... but it gets Forced. Sad times. However, he's low enough now that the Bolt/Bolt/SCM in my hand is enough to finish him.

-4 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 Wear / Tear
+2 Meddling Mage

I think I should've just dropped the 3rd Lavamancer and brought in the Envelop just for Entreat / Terminus.

Game 2: Odd game. I open with Triple Spell Pierce, Izzet Charm, REB, 2 lands and keep it. He T1 Etutors for Top and we fight over Top on T2, which he wins because he has a Spell Pierce for my Spell Pierce. He gets stuck on 3 lands though and I get down a Jitte and eventually a Clique with Karakas. Through much bouncing and fighting on the stack, the Clique + Jitte eventually gets there.

2-0 (4-0)

Round 3 - vs TES

Game 1: I'm on the play and he kills me on T3. Nothing too interesting - my Brainstorm was into StP and 2 Lands. Ouch.

-4 Swords to Plowshares
-3 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Spell Pierce
+2 REB (I wanted this on the play to hit some cantrips - not sure if it's better than EE here for Goblin tokens)
+2 Meddling Mage
+1 Detention Sphere
+1 Envelop

Game 2: I mull to 6 and have a T2 Meddling Mage hand. Mage comes down naming Ad Nauseum and he's sad. I drop a SFM and he EtW's for 14 goblins. Batterskull is great at fighting Goblin tokens.

-2 REB
+2 EE (I'm on the draw this time, so I need an answer in case he early EtW's)

Game 3: I mull to 6 again, but keep a pretty nuts hand of Island, Spell Pierce, Force, Izzet Charm, SFM, SCM. If I draw a fetch, I'm golden since the Plateau activates my entire hand. Even without a fetch, I'm ok for awhile. He leads off with Gitaxian Probe and goes to frown town at the sight of Force in my hand (post game, he told me he had the T1 kill). He plays a land and passes. I draw a second Force and play my Island. He plays a Bloodstained Mire and passes. I don't draw a land and pass. He EoT Brainstorms and I Spell Pierce it. We then play draw-go for a couple more turns as I drop double EE @ 0 (I figure it's better to drop the second one vs discarding it in case of Abrupt Decays). By the time I draw my second land (a Tundra), my hand is stacked with Triple Force, Meddling Mage, Izzet Charm, Brainstorm, SCM, SFM. The Meddling Mage comes down on Ad Nauseam, then the SFM. He goes off with a mini-Tendrils for 14, but I just let it through and beat him down for 7 a turn with SFM, BS, and MM. He never draws out in time before I kill him.

3-0 (6-1)

I draw into the T4 with Merfolk (I feel that matchup is pretty favorable given the current configuration I'm playing) and we split in the T4.

I've been liking this deck so far. The sheer amount of removal you have makes any of the creature matchups feel really unfair because you just poop all over their dudes. The burn + SCM actually seems to give you surprising reach against the control decks which tend to sit until last minute and get low on life before doing anything and you just burn them out or sneak that last damage in with your Flash guys.

The Game 1 combo matchup is of course tougher since you're not playing black, but I think with REBs and dedicating more of the SB to that since you need less for the Aggro decks, the combo matchup postboard feels alright. I stole the MM tech from Eric Smith's UWR Delver list and have been liking it. It almost feels like the Cabal Therapy of UW. Plus, having 2 different lines of disruption (hate bears + countermagic) vs combo is just groovy.

@Esper3k:

Great report and even better that 3 of your 4 match-ups were against DTBs.

I'm jamming a similar list now (minus the Lavamancers) and more of a controll-y lean, though I'm going to test the Lavamancers because my meta is infested with D&T and Maverick.

The new UWr Stoneblade build shows just how powerful and proactive Bolt is. Love it.

How did you find Izzet Charm and the singleton Plateau?

Thanks! I'm really liking Lavamancer in the overall meta right now with DRS and little X/1 white creatures (read: D&T) all over the place right now.

The Izzet Charm has been fine for me as a 1-of. So far I haven't had the 2 vs 3 damage matter yet and the Spell Pierce option is really nice along with helping this list's rather lower blue count for FoW.

With playing 4 basic Islands, sometimes you end up with Island + Fetch, so I've been liking the Plateau option. We don't play Daze so having all Islands isn't as important to me.

I went 3-0-1 in our Saturday tournament with the same list. I'll post up a report once I can get my computer to like the site again (posting from my phone right now).

After I saw ivanpei's and Esper3k's lists (and made what I now understand to be the horrible UWR Delver deck) I decided to give LightningBlade (or UWr StoneBlade) a whack. Here's my current interpretation:

4 bolt
4 STP
4 brainstorm
4 FoW
3 spell pierce

4 sfm
3 snapcaster
3 lavamancer
2 geist
1 clique

3 jace
1 batterskull
1 jitte
1 explosives

3 tundra
2 volcanic
1 plateau
1 karakas
1 ruins
4 tarn
4 strand
1 mesa
3 island
1 plains
1 mountain

Thoughts & suggestions welcome as I am new to control and this archetype

I really like the name LightningBlade - I may start stealing it!

3-0-2 into the T4 of our weekend Legacy tournament. As always with these blue decks, while you have ample opportunity for many decisions, this also means you can easily screw things up :)

The 403 error is still happening to me, so posting from my phone again means no detailed report.

I drew with Dark Maverick (I saw 1 StP in 3 games!!!) and Jund (I was had the game locked up in G3 just couldnt finish in time) beat a Bg Aggro deck (I wouldn't call it Eva Green because it wasn't very Suicidey), Angel Stompy, and UWR Delver.

I would say this deck is more midrange leaning towards the control side of the spectrum and you certainly need to make sure you watch your time since all the decisions and shuffling can really slow the match down.

why not try to fit a sword of X&Y in the deck since it runs 2 geists.

or put the sword of x&y in there regardless.

further. I am having problems dealing with elspeth. how do you guys handle her.