[DTB] Blade Control

What do people think of trying to put delver in stoneblade with a list like this, which is more aggressive? Jace and possibly Elspeth could be in the sideboard, but the MD is more of an aggro-control deck than a more straight up control list.

4 delver of secrets
4 stoneforge mystic
1 umezawa's jitte
1 batterskull
2 vendillion clique
4 lingering souls
4 force of will
4 spell snare
4 swords to plowshares
1 vindicate
2 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
4 tundra
3 underground sea
1 scrubland
4 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
3 marsh flats
1 swamp
1 island
1 plains

Tempo Blade was top 8 at BoM I think it is a beast. This is the list I am going to run at a local tournament this weekend.

4 delver of secrets
3 stoneforge mystic
3 snapcaster mage

3 lingering souls
3 force of will
3 daze
2 spell snare
2 spell pierce
4 swords to plowshares
2 inquisition of kozilek
1 thoughtseize
4 brainstorm
2 ponder
1 umezawa's jitte
1 batterskull


3 tundra
2 underground sea
1 scrubland
3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
3 marsh flats
2 island
1 swamp
1 plains
3 wasteland

Sideboard
3 surgical extraction
2 perish
2 intangible virtue
1 force of will
1 spell pierce
1 inquisition of kozilek
1 disenchant
1 vidicate
1 engineered explosives
1 umezawa's jitte
1 zealous persecution

I like your list except for a few things. The first is related to the fact that this deck is much more mana hungry than RUG delver. Despite also having many cheap spells, I don't think that either daze or wasteland fit as well in it for a number of reasons. First of all, Stoneforge is much better if you can reliably get to 5 mana, since then it really IS a two-for-one. You get a batterskull with it on, say, turn 3 or 4. Then they kill it - which happens all the time. But then a turn or two later you have a batterskull anyways. The same is true with Lingering Souls: if you can cast both halves on the same turn, it is much more powerful. I think that lingering souls and stoneforge are the two most powerful cards in the deck, except for Jace, and that there should probably be 4 of each. Therefore, I wouldn't play daze or wasteland, since these disrupt your curve and stop you from fully utilizing your two most powerful threats: stoneforge and lingering souls. Also, if you are running 4 stoneforge mystics, it makes sense to run the fourth discard spell, since getting both a stoneforge and an inquisition/thoughtseize is very powerful, since it often means resolving stoneforge and cheating batterskull into play. Delver, as far as I can see, is good in that it randomly will give you a good clock and be very aggressive, especially iff you get 2. It is also good, however, because people will kill it and then you can cast stoneforge and have it live. For this reason, having 4 stoneforge as well is good, because it increases the likelihood that this will happen. That was also a good reason to run both dark confidant and stoneforge in older esper stoneblade lists - whichever you want to live, play the other one first: they'll usually kill it since both simply win the game unanswered, and then you can play the other one, which is backbreaking.

Another thing: you simply CANNOT play this deck as if it is RUG delver - they are entirely different. Esper delver is not a tempo deck, it just happens to have an extremely efficient creature avaliable that can randomly kill them really quickly. You don't have burn, many of your threats only become truly powerful as you get more lands out, etc. So I don't think doing the wasteland/daze thing works as much as just lowering your curve and playing something that is still more similar to Esper Stoneforge than it is to RUG delver or Team America. If you can fit in wasteland as an ansewr to random utility lands, that's great: but I don't think it is worth having it in as a tempo thing.

The second thing I would change is this: if you max out on stoneforge and lingering souls, you have a lot more card advantage than if you only play 3 of each. This allows you to play yoru fourth force of will without as much of a penalty. I think this is worth doing, if you max out on your card-advantage threats and lose the tempo stuff.

You might want to play a vindicate or two, as it is a nice way to both have some extra removal against decks where this is important, and also having a way to kill Jace and other problematic permanents. I've lost too many games playing Stoneblade when my opponent resolved a crucible/wasteland lock and I simply couldn't deal with it.

Finally, for all of these reasons I would take out a ponder from the list that I posted above (right before yours), for the fourth underground sea. Also I like that you play snapcaster - I wanted V-clique instead for more hand disruption and a better clock, but obviously snapcaster is great and I would like to get some in my list if I could find some space.

rchinnock thanks for the input I agree Daze is pretty bad in this deck
-3 Daze
+1 Stoneforge Mystic
+1 Lingering Souls
+1 Thoughtsieze

Force of Will-Now I loves me some force of will but I think I want to go 2 main deck 2 sideboard. The real issue is how badly force and snapcaster play together. Force removes blue cards that you want to be filling your graveyard with to snapcast while at the same time being a terrible target its self.

I really like wasteland I cut one of the basic islands for a fourth one. It is more of a utility card then a tempo card in this deck but that's fine. if you need it for mana then just save it and hit their utility lands. It also adds more disruption against combo.

updated list

4 delver of secrets
4 stoneforge mystic
3 snapcaster mage

4 lingering souls
2 force of will
2 spell snare
2 spell pierce
1 vindicate
4 swords to plowshares
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 brainstorm
2 ponder
1 umezawa's jitte
1 batterskull


3 tundra
2 underground sea
1 scrubland
3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
3 marsh flats
1 island
1 swamp
1 plains
4 wasteland

Sideboard
3 surgical extraction
2 perish
2 intangible virtue
2 force of will
1 spell pierce
1 vendillion clique
1 disenchant
1 engineered explosives
1 umezawa's jitte
1 zealous persecution

JBlaze - I like your defense of wasteland. It is obviously good as an out against utility lands, but I hadn't really thought about the fact that it gives more disruption against combo. With those two things going for it, I am more interested in playing it than I was before. Its always surprised me by how relevant it is when I actually do play it.

Another thing I like about wasteland in your list is that it works well with spell pierce. For the same reason that tectonic edge used to interact very well with spell pierce and mana leak in Caw-Blade mirrors (post stoneforge/jace bannings), wasteland works well with spell pierce. It would with daze, obviously, as well, if we were to run it. For this reason I'd like to get some spell pierce's into my list. Also, both spell pierce and spell snare work well with inquisition/thoughtseize, since you can take the things that these counters don't hit, which leaves you with very efficient counters for the spells that they, awkwardly, are left with no choice but to play.

As far as force of will goes, I think what you say makes sense, although you can also always ust pitch snapcaster himself if you are worried about having nothing to flashback with him. I personally have never had the courage to not play 4 forces! I would like to try at least going down to three though. Hands like: stoneforge, thoughtseize, force, ponder, 3 lands - these hands suck sometimes. You have to randomly pitch your ponder to your force, and then sometimes you completely run out of gas. So yeah - I agree, don't know about 2 though :)

Another thing that might be cool would be to play Dark Confidant. Maybe instead of Lingering Souls? I knonw lingering souls is great, but it is slow and bad against combo, and also to Thalia. Dark confidant might be better against decks like Maverick, Combo, and control decks which do not play a lot of spot removal which can easily pray on him. Also, he is just awesome in general.

One last thing - I think that Vendillion Clique might be getting better. Esper stoneblade was big for a while, and the presence of lingering souls made V-clique get worse. Yet V-clique is still excellent aginst every other deck in the format ... And Stoneblade also seems to be getting less popular. It has hardly been doing well at large tournaments for a month or so now. So it might be worth playing some, and just hoping you don't randomly get paired with a bunch of stoneblade decks. Its also not necesaarily too bad against stoneblade, since you might be able to actually snatch away one of their lingering souls with it, or render stoneforge useless, etc. I'm currently running 3 V-cliques instead of three snapcasters - I'm not really sure which is better though.

So another list, built with these ideas in mind (and which is not necessarily better against the field but also may be), might look like this:

4 delver of secrets
4 dark confidant/lingering souls
4 stoneforge mystic
2-3 vendillion clique
1 batterskull
1 umezawa's jitte/sword of body and mind
3-4 force of will
3-4 spell snare
2 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek
4 swords to plowshares
4 brainstorm
3 ponder

4 tundra
4 underground sea
1 scrubland
4 polluted delta
3 marsh flats
2 flooded strand
1 plains
1 island
1 swamp

So, in testing out Terminus I think it gives UW exactly what it needs against Delver and Maverick to pull through. It's bonkers against the 2 best decks in the format, and it does have some value against Sneak Attack as well. My question is: to Top or not to Top? UW in the top 8 of Bazaar of Moxen was running it and CB. It just slows the deck down to nothing, which is the problem, but it's also very powerful. This is the list I am testing:

4 Stoneforge
4 Snapcaster
1 Vendilion

3 Jace
1 Entreat the Angels
2 Top
2 Terminus

4 Brainstorm
4 StP
1 Batterskull
1 Feast and Famine
3 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
4 FoW

4 Tundra
2 Volcanic
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
2 Wasteland
2 Mishra
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Karakas

I'm testing the entreat in the position of elspeth, and it seems most of the time I would want it, it would be much better than Elspeth. I'm considering to keep the deck at a reasonable pace to use 2 Ponder over the two Tops, but being able to miracle on their turn is very powerful.

What is everyone's opinion on this list?

Well, let's go over the Moxen's Top 8 version of it:

Quote:

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Stoneblade by Alejandro Henche

1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
5 Island
3 Misty rainforest
3 Tundra
1 Plains
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique

3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

3 Counterbalance
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Terminus
1 Entreat the Angels

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Disenchant
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Flusterstorm
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Path to Exile
1 Terminus
1 Counterbalance

---

The deck literally is a Counter Top deck, with extremely high powered cards thanks to Miracles. The deck feels much more "unfair" compared to the "fair" version seen by Channel Fireball's crew at Worlds and the last Legacy GP. This is extremely important to note since U/W Stoneblade doesn't do anything well or specialize in OP linear plays, so with the inclusion of Miracles with the Counter Top package, makes it very unfair against creature-base match ups.

So looking at your deck, I feel that you should have Counterbalance in the main. It's a mistake to put it in the SB since you really need the game 1 win against Maverick (considering they'll use grips from the SB in the future).

If I had to modify my current deck, it would look very close to his:

Quote:

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1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
4 Misty rainforest
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
1 Plains
5 Island

3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Batterskull

3 Counterbalance
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Terminus
1 Entreat the Angels

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Disenchant
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Path to Exile
2 Meddling Mage
1 Umezawa's Jitte

---

I really want to have 2 Factories at the least with Crucible, but I haven't proper tested it yet without knowing how fragile the mana-base can be. If you scout ahead of time, you can make the correct call and switch the Jitte around for the Sword. You might wonder about why use SoBaM of all the swords, but it fits best in the current meta right now. The token it leaves behind is very important and adding the possibility of deck out is appealing, especially against scrubby Dredge players who probably only invested in the deck for a few days or hours...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Polish Tamales

Well, let's go over the Moxen's Top 8 version of it:



The deck literally is a Counter Top deck, with extremely high powered cards thanks to Miracles. The deck feels much more "unfair" compared to the "fair" version seen by Channel Fireball's crew at Worlds and the last Legacy GP. This is extremely important to note since U/W Stoneblade doesn't do anything well or specialize in OP linear plays, so with the inclusion of Miracles with the Counter Top package, makes it very unfair against creature-base match ups.

So looking at your deck, I feel that you should have Counterbalance in the main. It's a mistake to put it in the SB since you really need the game 1 win against Maverick (considering they'll use grips from the SB in the future).

If I had to modify my current deck, it would look very close to his:



I really want to have 2 Factories at the least with Crucible, but I haven't proper tested it yet without knowing how fragile the mana-base can be. If you scout ahead of time, you can make the correct call and switch the Jitte around for the Sword. You might wonder about why use SoBaM of all the swords, but it fits best in the current meta right now. The token it leaves behind is very important and adding the possibility of deck out is appealing, especially against scrubby Dredge players who probably only invested in the deck for a few days or hours...

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I was trying Body and Mind but with Terminus you get a lot of reach against creature-based decks already. Feast and Famine is a significant degree better against combo, which is still a legitimate threat. This balance is difficult to find, but Spell Pierce and Feast and Famine are very strong. Although, I do agree with you. Body and Mind is insane against the two best aggro decks in the format.

I'm tempted to put CB in the main, but i'm still not convinced.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by learntolove6

I was trying Body and Mind but with Terminus you get a lot of reach against creature-based decks already. Feast and Famine is a significant degree better against combo, which is still a legitimate threat. This balance is difficult to find, but Spell Pierce and Feast and Famine are very strong. Although, I do agree with you. Body and Mind is insane against the two best aggro decks in the format.

I'm tempted to put CB in the main, but i'm still not convinced.

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does someone know if there is coverage of that deck? i'm really interested.

i've been playing the SFM-less build for some days now and i am very enthousiastic about this deck. Personaly i would keep the counterbalance maindeck. Top is the difference between this deck being mediocre and fenomenal and counterbalance is good against rug delver, combo and every other low curved deck out there so i see no reason not to play it main. It has been awesome in every match for me.
I dislike the presence of too many colorless lands in this deck, because it prevents you from dropping counterbalance on turn 2.
however i haven't tested th elist with SFM yet, so that may turn out differently.

(This isn't on the topic of the Terminus/Sensei's divining top list - so feel free to ignore it)

I have been working with the following list and it has been doing well for me. The main difference between it and normal esper stoneblade lists is twofold:
(1) I've cut Jace, because its bad against RUG delver, and seems mediocre against Maverick, with Thalia and Wasteland keeping it off the board, and mother of runes stopping you from bouncing stuff. Also, he's not good against combo.
(2) No lingering souls - for the same reasons: mediocre against RUG delver, bad against Thalia, and bad against combo.

The aim is to lower your curve, yet to keep the power level relatively high. Dark confidant provides another engine, which is exactly what you need if you choose not to play lingering souls or jace. He is powerful, but also cheap, and seems to be better against decks that have a lot of ways to keep you off your awkwardly expensive spells than either lingering souls or Jace.

The list also packs 3 V-cliques in addition to the 4 thoughtseize effects, in order to maximize hand disruption against control, combo, and maverick. I know they are bad against lingering souls but not many people are doing well with that Esper stoneblade list that runs lingering souls anyways, so I figured it shouldn't matter that much.

Here's the list:

4 stoneforge mystic
4 snapcaster mage
4 dark confidant
3 vendillion clique
4 force of will
4 spell snare
4 swords to plowshares
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 brainstorm
2 ponder
1 batterskull
1 sword of body and mind/feast and famine

4 underground sea
4 tundra
1 scrubland
4 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
3 marsh flats
1 swamp
1 island
1 plains

Rchinnock- I haven't tested your list but it looks pretty vulnerable to tempo thresh, especially forked bolt but burn in general. Also the creature base are all chump blockers against goyf and goose not to mention maverick and the deck still doesn't handle geese any better except through batterskull. No offense but I just don't see this deck beating tempo thresh or maverick.
I would be tempted to lower the creature count and switch bob for tombstalker. Basically go esper America dodging submerge and trumping their burn and threats. SFM could stay. Drop scm and change cliques to delvers maybe add vindicates.
Idk maybe others will have a different view though and these are just friendly ideas.

I've been testing this list against Thresh, and it hasn't been too bad. Geese are a serious problem though, and forked both can be bad too. The strategy against this deck is actually similar to that against Zoo. You have to play SFM and bob off of each other correctly. They will almost always kill whichever one you play first (because either one can win the game on its own if it lives), so I've found that if you play one, and then the other, you can often keep the second one alive, especially with discard/force of will to back it up. So often the game plan revolves around trying to resolve SFM through that way. Or you just let it die and try to cast your batterskull a turn or two later.

As far as goyf goes, it has been the least problematic creature for me. Delver and geese are much worse. You simply have a lot more answers to goyf, with both spell snare and swords, your discard, etc. It can be hard to block but that's the case with every esper deck - you simply don't play creatures that big. Jace would be good against goyf, but it sucks against thresh in general so its not worth it. Vindicate would also be okay here, but its expensive and will be easily countered by that deck, if they even let you get to three lands.

I do like your suggestions though - but the one thing I don't really want to do is play delver in this list. I was playing that for a while, and its impact wasn't low enough - the deck seemed generally too light and didn't have enough serious threats.

Vindicate is also good, obviously. I used to play 2 of those in a list like this and they were great. I think that engineered explosives might be better because it kills geese.

The problem with tombstalker is the problem with hymn to taurach. THey're both good but getting double black against thresh is almost impossible sometimes. So I decided to try and make most of the deck be able to run on a single color. But you might still be right. He is a good threat obviously and between him and SFM, you could have a kind of esper america list that might be good. The question comes down to him vs. Snapcaster Mage, I guess.


Finally, one card I would like to play is Sensei's divining Top. It helps smooth your late game draws out and provides nice resistance against land destruction by letting you find more lands.

This deck's power level can be pretty high for the low curve it plays which is one thing I like about it. The main thing is to make it more resilient against creature decks. Do you have any ideas for cards that will help with this besides vindicate or Engineered explosives? The best thing would obviously jjust be another path or two, but I don't want to over-load on removal since there are decks where they are blanks.

One thing I was thinking about changing also is -2 ponder, +1 path to exile, +1 counterspell, or maybe a vindicate or two - something like that.

You make some goods points about removing the first threat and the double color requirements. I still think stalkers are worth it though, casting them with the same plan following up a sfm with him instead of bob. being immune to counterbalance seems to be more and more relevant these days.

Top is great but I'm not sure this deck wants the heavy mana investment. Could be a 1 of maybe.

Regarding creature decks this is why I would suggest vindicates and/or EE. These allow you to increase your removal density without having dead spot removal in hand. The rest can really be covered with black from the board: perish, dread of night, massacre, darkblast etc I play all of these except massacre currently. Works wonders.

The other issue I see is that you are caught between control and a tempo shell except with more creatures. Not sure since I haven't played changes of this extreme but I would try to focus more on one or the other for maximum effect. I.e. run more tempo cards and wasteland to make sure your threats are superior at that stage of the game state while denying theirs or else include bigger bombs. Also vindicate goes well with wasteland.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Polish Tamales

Well, let's go over the Moxen's Top 8 version of it:



The deck literally is a Counter Top deck, with extremely high powered cards thanks to Miracles. The deck feels much more "unfair" compared to the "fair" version seen by Channel Fireball's crew at Worlds and the last Legacy GP. This is extremely important to note since U/W Stoneblade doesn't do anything well or specialize in OP linear plays, so with the inclusion of Miracles with the Counter Top package, makes it very unfair against creature-base match ups.

So looking at your deck, I feel that you should have Counterbalance in the main. It's a mistake to put it in the SB since you really need the game 1 win against Maverick (considering they'll use grips from the SB in the future).

If I had to modify my current deck, it would look very close to his:



I really want to have 2 Factories at the least with Crucible, but I haven't proper tested it yet without knowing how fragile the mana-base can be. If you scout ahead of time, you can make the correct call and switch the Jitte around for the Sword. You might wonder about why use SoBaM of all the swords, but it fits best in the current meta right now. The token it leaves behind is very important and adding the possibility of deck out is appealing, especially against scrubby Dredge players who probably only invested in the deck for a few days or hours...

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I like both lists so much. Counterbalance and Stoneforge maindeck are sick, also with 1 entreat the angels and 3 terminus to establish and finish the game.
Maybe I'd keep the Crucible maindeck, because it can crash the opponent's manabase with infinite Wasteland, or it can Refresh your top with fetchlands, and if you have Top + CB is sick. Maybe cutting 1 Vendilion for the Crucible? I don't know.
I'm also wondering if the sword of BaM/FaF is better than Jitte in the maindeck... Jitte can kill a lot of thing or it can bring you the life you need to stay alive.

Hey Tombstalker, what about something like this - heeding some but not all of your suggestions :) Liliana could be replaced by Engineered Explosives, but probably not vindicate, because I think you want ways to kill nimble mongoose. Liliana seems more versatile than EE because she can act as hand disruption if you don't need to kill critters.

4 stoneforge mystic
1 batterskull
1 sword of feast and famine/body and mind
3 tombstalker
4 force of will
4 spell snare
2 spell pierce
4 swords to plowshares
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
2 jace, the mindsculptor
2 liliana of the veil

4 underground sea
4 tundra
1 scrubland
4 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
3 marsh flats
1 plains
1 swamp
1 island

Decks that run Tombstalker do so because they can tap out every turn and not care due to running stuff like daze, fow, and snuff out. We dont have that same luxury. Im curious if you find that Tombstalker is better than Snapcaster in a SFM-Jace shell. On paper, i dont see the advantages. Snapcaster 's value increases greatly when running proactive stuff like thoughtseize and inq of kozilek.

That's a good point. The one nice thing about Tombstalker, though, is that he is strong against decks with burn, i.e. those delver decks that can be troublesome. You are still probably right though , in my opinion - I was just putting up an idea.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rchinnock

That's a good point. The one nice thing about Tombstalker, though, is that he is strong against decks with burn, i.e. those delver decks that can be troublesome. You are still probably right though , in my opinion - I was just putting up an idea.

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But doesn't Batterskull already do that? I guess I don't understand what Tombstalker os sipposed to do in a SFM-Jace shell.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Polish Tamales

So looking at your deck, I feel that you should have Counterbalance in the main. It's a mistake to put it in the SB since you really need the game 1 win against Maverick (considering they'll use grips from the SB in the future).

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I like Counterbalance main, but not against Maverick. I board Counterbalance out against Maverick. They have a solid curve preboard 12 1-drops, 10-12 2-drops and 6-7 3 drops and postboard 8 1-drops, 10-12 2-drops, and 7-10 3-drops. We don't really have answers to the 3 drops. Plus, GSZ can equal anything, negating top.

Please let me know why you think CouterTop is a good plan against Maverick and also please let me know your strategy.

My strategy vs. Maverick is to set up an early Terminus and follow it up with Snapcaster/Swords recursion or SFM/equipment while avoiding Choke.

Hey Arsenal - Its very hard to resolve a batterskull against RUG or RU delver. They kill your stoneforge or counter it - almost every time. And then they wasteland and stifle your lands, while keeping daze, force, and spell pierce up, which make it literally almost impossible to resolve a 5 mana non-creature spell. In short, resolving batterskull is difficult, either via stoneforge, or through hard-casting it. By turn 4 or 5, however, tombstalker is a 2-3 mana spell that is easier to resolve: being both cheaper and immune to spell pierce. Also - its just more cards that do what batterskull does, in addition to being easier to resolve, and it is pretty good for those reasons, in my opinion. Its also a faster clock than anything else you have against combo and control, which seems good. Also, we put a lot of cards in the graveyard, even without snuff out or daze, and so I think that tombstalker is not at all awkward in a deck like this. You play 6-8 cantrips, 4 one-mana discard spells, 4 one-mana removal spells, 4-6 one-mana counterspells, 4 force of wills, and 9 fetch lands. By the time you are ready to cast a threat, tombstalker should be 2 mana, and therefore basically a flying Tarmogoyf that shrinks other people's tarmogoyfs.