Jeskai Control

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Originally Posted by Minniehajj

There are a few cards that I think could reinvigorate this archetype a little bit, that need to be tested as a way to recover Tempo while also being proactive, which I believe is the lynchpin to be successful in today's competitive and efficient Legacy. The fundamental problem you are presented with in a control deck is that you need something to recover from the early game while also allowing us to overwhelm our opponent with powerful cards. Nothing bridges that gap between turns 1-3 and turns 6-10 anymore, and things like SFM and Standstill and such leave a LOT to be desired, as we've mentioned multiple times.

There have been a few cards that I think we need to seriously look at more, even if they seem dumb as concepts. I think they have a chance at stabilizing and pulling us ahead in the times of need. The cards are: Thing in the Ice, True-Name Nemesis, and Gideon of the Trials. My good friend Nicklas Lallo (ItIsUnfair) on mtgo is having some luck in working on TITI based control shells, and the UWR version is one he has not tested heavily. TITI and the shell built around it might just be enough to regain lost tempo enough to proceed into the lategame.

Draw-go control is simply not feasible, I don't think, as we simply don't have the efficient tools we need to "hang" with the big dogs, so to speak.

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Do you have a list to start working on ? TITI could be good enough (I don't believe in TNN beside the SFM package and Gideon seems pretty unconsistent).

Also on Nahiri / Emrakul gameplan, I don't believe on this. Emrakul is less cluncky than it is in Modern thanks to cards manipulation but Nahiri is so less powerful than Jace, by so far...

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Originally Posted by Minniehajj

Powerful, but extremely clunky. That's 5 4 mana cards....

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And one completely uncastable 15 mana card.

Made some adjustments to the deck.

Main

Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Council's Judgement
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Engineered Explosives

Planeswalkers
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
3 Wasteland
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain

Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Containment Priest
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
3 Flusterstorm
1 Disenchant
2 Pyroclasm
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Blood Moon

Thoughts
1) Dropped Standstills. After significant testing, have concluded that its a win-more card in this shell.
2) Shifted Cliques to MB. We don't have enough SB slots to ensure give us a strong edge against any type of deck, which means we need to have a strong fighting chance against combo, and random in G1. Cliques tend to shine in those matchups.
3) Wastelands are consistently good. Gives us an out to SneakShow - Boseiju. That, with the inclusion of BEB, containment priest, canonist, flusterstorm and the red blasts gives us a strong fighting chance against it.
4) Closing out games is still a major concern. Although Clique + Snap beats with bolt is now a legitimate direction. Will test out Dragonlord Ojutai in place of Gideon.
5) i dont feel like there is any unwinnable matchups, but at the same time, i dont feel like we have any very favourable matchups either.

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Originally Posted by Nestalim

Do you have a list to start working on ? TITI could be good enough (I don't believe in TNN beside the SFM package and Gideon seems pretty unconsistent).

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http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...gue-2017-05-12

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Originally Posted by Fjaulnir

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...gue-2017-05-12

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Inspired by the above list, I am going to test the following

3 SCM
3 Titi
2 Mentor

4 Ancestral vision
2 as foretold

4 brainstorm
4 ponder

4 StP
3 Pfire
1 EE

4 FoW
2 Counterspell
1 Spell snare

2 JTMS

21 lands with 3 groves

AV is good to catch up with massive card advantage, even without the help of foretold. T1 av suspend/ponder, T2 titi, T3 foretold following up with av curves super good.

Current List:

4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Spell Snare
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Council's Judgement
1 Kozilek's Return

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain

Sideboard
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blood Moon
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disenchant
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Containment Priest

This is the most streamlined version of the deck I've tried yet, and while it doesn't play out much differently than earlier iterations, the Gideons add a lot of closing speed. It might be better to cut a piece of 1 CMC countermagic than he Preordain, but I'm not sure which is truly better.

I convinced Anders Thiesen to play that list -1 Snare +1 Preordain (since both of us dislike snare a lot)
He's streaming it here: https://www.twitch.tv/alakazimdk

Thanks for the link. I'll watch it sometime soon (if it's archived).

I agree with what Min said earlier about Gideon of the Trials. He's been quite good for me so far. I played with Ally of Zendikar a lot over the last 2 months of Miracles being legal and was very happy with it. Looking back on it though, he was basically always good vs non-white decks where he came down, made a knight, and attacked until the opponents was dead. Because the 2/2 is usually just a chump anyway and the main deck weak to "planeswalker that shits out 2/2s" is gone, I think Trials is much better now. Even ignoring the difference in mana cost (which is huge) I feel what Gideon of the Trials does is much more what we're looking for than AoZ. Of course, if abrupt decay becomes a major concern, AoZ may be better suited for the win condition role.

I watched the video last night and tonight, and wanted to make a few comments. I haven't had time to test at all this week, so I don't have my own testing notes.

Wear/Tear: Disenchant is usually easier to cast.
21st Land: I tested a Karakas over the Preordain/counter for a bit and it was fine. It makes Clique a bit more resilient (and therefore a better threat) but it does mean cutting a spell from that slot.
On proactivity and power: I can definitly see where this criticism is coming from, but there really aren't any options in UWx that are powerful enough and don't cost a lot of mana. Ojutai might be bteer than Gideon but he's still slow and expensive. There were also a couple points where I think Anders would've been better served fatesealing with Jace rather than continuing to Brainstorm, but that doesn't solve the proactivity issue.

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Originally Posted by btm10

And one completely uncastable 15 mana card.

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Well, you'very got a better matchup vs Sneak and Show! :laugh:

Hey guys I am on Miracles currently. The lists are down to 2 miracles which means that UWr control may be a better option. I was thinking of increasing the Planeswalker suite.

Mzfroste is playing 2 terminus but ItIsUnfair and ozmanosguney are both playing the full 4 terminus + Entreat, I still think the deck will be called "Miracles" even if there's only two. We still call the Modern artifact aggro deck "Affinity" even though it doesn't have any affinity cards except the occasional Thoughtcast

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Originally Posted by Richard Arschmann

Mzfroste is playing 2 terminus but ItIsUnfair and ozmanosguney are both playing the full 4 terminus + Entreat, I still think the deck will be called "Miracles" even if there's only two. We still call the Modern artifact aggro deck "Affinity" even though it doesn't have any affinity cards except the occasional Thoughtcast

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I know it's still Miracles. Just the fact that 4 used to be a must. And there has been success with 2. Just wondering if it is fully necessary.

I have been playing around with this UWR Control deck based on Joe Brennan's GP Trials winner

https://mtgdecks.net/Legacy/rogue-de...brennan-692770

I took one Blood Moon out of the Main Deck to add a TNN to make it a little less of a "Blue Moon " deck and address a little of the inherent fragility of the light creatures in the deck. It runs very solidly and efficiently.

1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Monastery Mentor
1 True-name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique*

1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor

1 Engineered Explosives*
1 Blood Moon

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Council's Judgement
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Blessed Alliance

20 lands
3*Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2*Plains
1 Mountain
4*Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn

Side
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Vendilion Clique
1 True-name Nemesis
1 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Blood Moon
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Wear/Tear
1 Blessed Alliance

In all seriousness, all of these lists are "almost good" but missing a solid beater to stabilize early and kill people fast. Why not just drop Red for Green and use Tarmogoyf?

Every List
Lightning Bolt
Keranos
Red Elemental Blast

Some Lists
Blood Moon
Nahiri, the Harbinger

That's what you lose from dropping Red. In green you get Tarmogoyf, and Rhox War Monk, which pretty much solves your burn problems, and gives you the clock you need to fight combo more effectively. Let's compare options to what you're losing:

Lightning Bolt - literally a dozen white removal spells, you can't go to the dome, but you can still kill critters/walkers/permanents
Keranos - Sylvan Library does something sort of similar for a lot less mana
Red Elemental Blast - no direct comparison, but other blue decks weren't your main problem before
Blood Moon - you still have Back to Basics
Nahiri, the Harbinger - you don't need her since you have faster two mana win cons, and it's not like UGW is missing strong 'Walker options anyway

I'm not trying to harsh your alls vibe, but without the dominating power of 1 mana sweepers and a lockout combo, and without a lot of pressure from say, more burn and haste dudes, you're just going to be, at best, 50/50ing everything off the strength of the blue shell.