[DTB] Blade Control

Geist is terrible vs. combo. There really can't be any discussion on this. The only time it's "faster" is when you draw multiples of your discard spells AND you aren't dead to their topdeck. How is this faster than the Clique which hits for 3, doesn't tap you out, AND set them back a turn? How is it faster than SoFF, a card which you can actually play without instantly dying?

If you have Geist in your sideboard for control, and you decide to also bring it in vs. combo, fine--as long as you already brought in all your disruption and aren't taking SFM/Clique out.
If you have Geist in your sideboard for combo, then you are doing it wrong.

That all said, I'm not sold on how Geist is good vs. control. Maybe vs. Miracles, but it's still a 3-mana sorcery that dies to Snapcaster or Mishra's Factory.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malakai

Geist is terrible vs. combo. There really can't be any discussion on this. The only time it's "faster" is when you draw multiples of your discard spells AND you aren't dead to their topdeck. How is this faster than the Clique which hits for 3, doesn't tap you out, AND set them back a turn? How is it faster than SoFF, a card which you can actually play without instantly dying?

If you have Geist in your sideboard for control, and you decide to also bring it in vs. combo, fine--as long as you already brought in all your disruption and aren't taking SFM/Clique out.
If you have Geist in your sideboard for combo, then you are doing it wrong.

That all said, I'm not sold on how Geist is good vs. control. Maybe vs. Miracles, but it's still a 3-mana sorcery that dies to Snapcaster or Mishra's Factory.

---

It's mainly good against miracles yes. However at the last starcity i think i've seen someone board it in in the mirror (feature match). Why i don't know thouch since geist dies to lingering souls but maybe the additional pressure and the fact geist kills planeswalkers like a boss is a big advantage. Like i said before, the miracle versions played now are RIP helm versions 99% of the time. The classical miracle control really is less strong than the RIP helm version. Those decks don't play snapcasters/factories etc... Geist for them is a nightmare, at least i know it was for me when i played miracles. You need terminus asap or you are dead. And even if they play 2 snapcasters, they just have 2 additional cards that'll maybe help them, still worth it to run geist because of the free win when it's unanswered, the fact it kills their planeswalkers even if they have a blocker.
Against comb geist is quite relevant. I lost some combo games where i had some discard, double force and counterspell. I lost because i had no clock whatsoever. My opponent had enough time to set his hand up with flusterstorms, combo pieces etc... like someone said before me, He's mediocre when you need to hold mana open, but he is a beast when you open with discard and know it's safe to tap out.

What i've often heard is that geist is also good in matchups where you need strong topdecks, i haven't tested it though. I never board geist in against BUG/jund because in my eyes he just dies to any blocker, but i could be wrong and he could actually be very good. He avoids all their removal, bites chunks out of their life totals (relevant for Bob), And most of their blockers die to geist: think about: bob, bbe, drs. If they block your geist and geist dies, fine then he acted as a removal+burn spell. Geist could actually push them to be more defensive because otherwise they'd just die to him. The cool thing with geist is, when you can keep a clear path geist just wins the game. We have the tools for this: STP+snapcaster.

I just reconsidered my opinion about geist vs creature decks while typing this, and i'm going to test it. Not saying he's the bee's knees, but i think he has potential in a lot of matchups and Vidianto wouldn't still play geist if it wasn't good. At least for me, he has worked just fine. He makes me play the aggro role well vs control and he helps me have a better clock against combo (alongside discard). Also, he may not be the best in each of these matchups, but he's good in all of them and the fact that he is good in different situations must be seen as a strong attribute too.

Is there any way of playing the deck without black successfully? Esper really outclasses the UW version that much? I kinda dont have money for USeas and want a UW version which can compete with tier 1 decks. Any ideas? :frown:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scarixk

Is there any way of playing the deck without black successfully? Esper really outclasses the UW version that much? I kinda dont have money for USeas and want a UW version which can compete with tier 1 decks. Any ideas? :frown:

---

Playing Esper isn't necessary - a lot of people play U/W. I like adding B for several reasons - Lingering Souls/Bitterblossom, Bob, discard, etc. There's the obvious budget choices of Shockland versions, or you could use things like Underground River, River of Tears, etc. Luckily, with U/B/W in the same deck, Marsh Flats work great so that helps with budget right there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scarixk

Is there any way of playing the deck without black successfully? Esper really outclasses the UW version that much? I kinda dont have money for USeas and want a UW version which can compete with tier 1 decks. Any ideas? :frown:

---

I played UW for a long time before the switch to Esper. A few things:

-Lingering Souls makes Esper far better against fair decks like BUG, Miracles, and especially UW Blade.
-Being proactive with discard is not strictly better than reactive with counterspells.
-The discard spells enable the deck to apply a stronger clock against combo decks (as you don't have to keep counterspell mana up and can run out a stoneforge more safely).
-Black provides the strongest sideboard options of any other color.


Due to this, I don't think UW blade can compete now, but it's Lingering Souls that makes the difference. UW Blade tries to act as a straight control deck and can therefore easily be outclassed by a deck like Jund or BUG. UW gets 2 for 1ed far too easily, while Souls pulls the deck far ahead enough to resolve or Skull. I used to think that the red splash was better than the black, which in the right metagame it is (REB and Sulfur Elemental are very powerful cards), however Lingering Souls gives the deck the reach it needs to fight against the midrange/aggro decks.

TL;DR, If you're on a budget, sell one Tundra for one Sea and just play Lingering Souls, although in the long run just play Esper.

Hey guys, I need your help for a meta tuning on a UW deck.

My deck is tournament ready in an Esper form with a rather classical decklist that I don't need to improve yet considering its result. However, I only have 1 set of all my cards and thus, while not playing tournaments, I shatter this main deck into smaller ones, it allows me to play more decks in my casual environment.

One of these decks is a UW Stoneblade, decklist as follow:

Shattered UW Stoneblade

Lands (23)
4 Island
4 Plains
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
1 Riptide Laboratory

Creatures (12)
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Vendilion Clique

Instants (16)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce

Artifacts (4)
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Planeswalkers (5)
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

No sideboard. The deck loses way too much for what it should and the money it has in it in my meta. Yes, I'm still learning the deck, I make mistakes, but I'm sure many cards can be tuned for better results.

Here are the played decks in my meta:

-Custom MBC/Acceleration, using Nirkana Revenant and Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, Royal Assassin, Dark Ritual etc. The deck to beat in our meta.

-Elf Tokens

-Affinity

-Burn

-Reanimator (the guy and the deck are hated, almost no one but me can beat him due to no one else playing blue)

-Goblin

-Classic MBC/Discard

-Selesnya Tokens

-Vampire


It is a relatively slow meta. No combos, no counterspells, I mean, they're allowed but I'm the only one playing them. And I still lose. In fact, I'm writing this as I lost way too much yesterday vs our deck to beat and I want to tune this UW Stoneblade. I was thinking the following changes:

-3 Counterspell
-2 Spell Pierce
-3 Spell Snare

+4 Supreme Verdict
+1 Geist of Saint Traft
+3 Path to Exile

Could this fix the problems I have? No restriction on what you would add, just keep the mana base the same (no splash) and we're all good. I'll answer all questions too.

Thanks in advance!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by learntolove6

I played UW for a long time before the switch to Esper. A few things:

-Lingering Souls makes Esper far better against fair decks like BUG, Miracles, and especially UW Blade.
-Being proactive with discard is not strictly better than reactive with counterspells.
-The discard spells enable the deck to apply a stronger clock against combo decks (as you don't have to keep counterspell mana up and can run out a stoneforge more safely).
-Black provides the strongest sideboard options of any other color.


Due to this, I don't think UW blade can compete now, but it's Lingering Souls that makes the difference. UW Blade tries to act as a straight control deck and can therefore easily be outclassed by a deck like Jund or BUG. UW gets 2 for 1ed far too easily, while Souls pulls the deck far ahead enough to resolve or Skull. I used to think that the red splash was better than the black, which in the right metagame it is (REB and Sulfur Elemental are very powerful cards), however Lingering Souls gives the deck the reach it needs to fight against the midrange/aggro decks.

TL;DR, If you're on a budget, sell one Tundra for one Sea and just play Lingering Souls, although in the long run just play Esper.

---

I actually don't agree with that . Now, I will preface this by saying that I used to play esper before reverting to strait u/w, and that I have much more success with it than I had with esper, against the exact decks you cited here (and believe me, I want to play with my foil thoughseizes. I really do). For me, the thing is more that if you play well enough (and by well enough, I mean that you must understand the decks you play against), you can afford to play the total control role, without relying on discard spells to pull you ahead. (in other words, it is a matter of playstyle for me. I want to play reactive, more thatn proactive). Saying that uw CAN'T compete is too far of a stretch, in my opinion. It can compete, but it requires you to play tighter, understand what you are doing. Yes, getting 2 for 1ed is happens more for u/w, but most of the time, I saw that I was walking myself there, more than it was the fact that my tools were not the right ones (aka, I was playing badly).

A few points : -Lingering souls is a good card, but more and more decks are packing hate for it, to the point that sometimes, you are the one who will have to take them out. It's not that the card is bad, but more like not as game breaking as it was a few weeks ago, at least, it's what I feel.

- Discards actually enables you to get destroyed by the top deck of a combo deck (read: brainstorm), while you are trying to beat him down.

- Playing against combo doesn't only have a single way of winning. In my case, I believe that you are killing combo with cliques and meddling mages, not with stoneforges and swords. If you play that way, playing the control role is actually totally acceptable.

-I believe that the only black cards worth to be in my sideboard are actually cabal therapy (played too much of that card) and perish (and with surgical extraction being a different case).

Aside from that, problems against bug? meddling mage is actually good against decay, moorland hunt is also a good card that everyone forgot. Also, spell snare is also very good against most versions of bug

Miracles is a problem? if geist isn't dangerous on his own, sword of war and peace is the sword I prefer to play, precisely because it trumps angel tokens (and ligering souls tokens against esper, for that matter).

tldr: u/w is totally playable, and not as bad as made out to be...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThediscoPower

I actually don't agree with that . Now, I will preface this by saying that I used to play esper before reverting to strait u/w, and that I have much more success with it than I had with esper, against the exact decks you cited here (and believe me, I want to play with my foil thoughseizes. I really do). For me, the thing is more that if you play well enough (and by well enough, I mean that you must understand the decks you play against), you can afford to play the total control role, without relying on discard spells to pull you ahead. (in other words, it is a matter of playstyle for me. I want to play reactive, more thatn proactive). Saying that uw CAN'T compete is too far of a stretch, in my opinion. It can compete, but it requires you to play tighter, understand what you are doing. Yes, getting 2 for 1ed is happens more for u/w, but most of the time, I saw that I was walking myself there, more than it was the fact that my tools were not the right ones (aka, I was playing badly).

A few points : -Lingering souls is a good card, but more and more decks are packing hate for it, to the point that sometimes, you are the one who will have to take them out. It's not that the card is bad, but more like not as game breaking as it was a few weeks ago, at least, it's what I feel.

- Discards actually enables you to get destroyed by the top deck of a combo deck (read: brainstorm), while you are trying to beat him down.

- Playing against combo doesn't only have a single way of winning. In my case, I believe that you are killing combo with cliques and meddling mages, not with stoneforges and swords. If you play that way, playing the control role is actually totally acceptable.

-I believe that the only black cards worth to be in my sideboard are actually cabal therapy (played too much of that card) and perish (and with surgical extraction being a different case).

Aside from that, problems against bug? meddling mage is actually good against decay, moorland hunt is also a good card that everyone forgot. Also, spell snare is also very good against most versions of bug

Miracles is a problem? if geist isn't dangerous on his own, sword of war and peace is the sword I prefer to play, precisely because it trumps angel tokens (and ligering souls tokens against esper, for that matter).

tldr: u/w is totally playable, and not as bad as made out to be...

---

i agree it's playable, but i don't agree with the part of "you need to play tighter". I have played stoneblade for quite some time. I started with the UW version, then bant and now esper. The difference IMO is that esper has better tools to achieve what it wants. UW always had a problems with finding enough bodies for the equipment. Lingering souls solved that problem. Discard makes esperblade even more flexible and gives you the advantage of information. This information has been so important to me, we are playing control after all and knowing what your opponent can or can't do at that very moment is a big advantage. Black also opens up some very strong sideboard options.
In my playing i have found esperblade more difficult to play than standard UW because there's even more options. There's also the land management which adds an extra layer of difficulty.
At least in my testing, the esper version is superior to UW in most cases, and certainly the grindy matchups because souls is so powerful. Talking about lingering souls, that card makes playing jace so much easier. You can use souls as a wall for jace to hide behind till he is in the safe zone or to get some activations from him while the opponentjust attacks into spirits, that's something i missed in each other control deck i played.

I just think esper has the better tools but is even harder to master (uw wasn't an easy deck already). Since you were talking about playing "tightly", who knows you weren't playing the esper version well. Maybe you didn't manage your mana well. Maybe you made wrong choices with discard and snapcaster. It's the fact that esperblade can switch roles, has som many options and has an equal chance against about anything that makes it hard to play. I've seen a lot of pople quit the deck because of this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LDX

Hey guys, I need your help for a meta tuning on a UW deck.

---

Hi LDX,

raping everyone with Storm.dec looks like the most convenient way to destroy your meta. UW Miracles would be the closest thing to your card pool that would dominate the field (4 Terminus, 2 Supreme Verdict should get the job done)- in fact you already own most of the relevant cards. Going with a CBless list looks feasable due to the lack of Combo.

If you stricly want to tune Blade there are a few things I would like to suggest:
* lower your curve to keep up with Aggro
* add EE instead of PtE
* cut Clique and Geist altogether (they suck against dedicated Aggro) - could easily be replaced with Lingering Souls
* definitely add Jitte

Here's a first draft for you:

Lands (23)
5 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
2 blue Duals of your choice (U/x, U/y) - for EE

Creatures (8)
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic

Instants (15)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Path to Exile
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
2 Timely Reinforcements (this looks awesome in your meta!)

Sorceries (3)
1 Ponder
2 Supreme Verdict

Artifacts: (7)
3 Engineered Explosives (perfect against tokens, Vial etc., especially with A. Ruins)
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Vedalken Shackles (!)

Planeswalkers (4)
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
[37]

SB:
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Disenchant
2 Blue Elemental Blast (Goblins, Burn)
3 Divert (Burn / Discard)
1 Path to Exile
3 Guilded Drake (Reanimator)
-
Good luck! / Should be fun!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by klaus

Hi LDX,

raping everyone with Storm.dec looks like the most convenient way to improve 90% of your MUs. UW Miracles would be the closest thing to your card pool that would dominate an Aggro meta (4 Terminus, 2 Supreme Verdict should get the job done)- in fact you already own most of the relevant cards. Going with a CBless list looks feasable due to the lack of Combo.

If you stricly want to tune Blade there are a few things I would like to suggest:
* lower your curve to keep up with Aggro
* add EE instead of PtE
* cut Clique and Geist altogether (they suck against dedicated Aggro) - could easily be replaced with Lingering Souls
* definitely add Jitte
* rock 3 Engineered Plague in your SB

Here's a first draft for you...

---

First of all, thanks a lot for your time.

While I understand any Storm deck would obliterate everything in my meta, I don't want my friends' fun to be ruined. They like their Magic games casual and on a kitchen table, and while they like playing with the aggro/control types, introducing the third one wouldn't please them much, as combo is often said as ''playing alone''. I'm thinking about building a small Sac Lands deck to initiate them but it will be in an other time. For now, I'll stick with this.

Now for your suggestions, I appreciate your input on Geist and Clique, I removed them right away. I however question myself on the Engineered Explosive since I only run 2 mana colors. I run two EE in my tournament deck but even there I don't like the card that much, since I find myself using it for Miracle only. Why are you suggesting 3 of them? It could help vs, let's say, the Elf and Goblin decks, but why would you play it over Supreme Verdict?

I also prefer not to play with a sideboard because first, I'm the only one who could afford one, and second, the cards I would have in the sideboard are probably used in other decks at the moment. That's the reason I can't bring my Jittes in, but I could take back my Force of Will and add them to the list. In the past few hours I also thought alot on the cards I could add and a few things like Counterbalance, Humility, Mirran Crusader, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Meddling Mage. To be honest, while I understand it doesn't have its place, the removal of Geist scares me as I wonder on which creature I'll equip everything. You suggest Lingering Souls, but how good is it when you can only cast it once? While I totally love the card in Esper, I doubt on its usefulness in an UW version. Have you tried it? How was it?

I'm sorry if I bother you with my questions, I just try to understand what motivates your choices :)

Thanks for your time!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LDX

First of all, thanks a lot for your time.

While I understand any Storm deck would obliterate everything in my meta, I don't want my friends' fun to be ruined. They like their Magic games casual and on a kitchen table, and while they like playing with the aggro/control types, introducing the third one wouldn't please them much, as combo is often said as ''playing alone''. I'm thinking about building a small Sac Lands deck to initiate them but it will be in an other time. For now, I'll stick with this.

Now for your suggestions, I appreciate your input on Geist and Clique, I removed them right away. I however question myself on the Engineered Explosive since I only run 2 mana colors. I run two EE in my tournament deck but even there I don't like the card that much, since I find myself using it for Miracle only. Why are you suggesting 3 of them? It could help vs, let's say, the Elf and Goblin decks, but why would you play it over Supreme Verdict?

I also prefer not to play with a sideboard because first, I'm the only one who could afford one, and second, the cards I would have in the sideboard are probably used in other decks at the moment. That's the reason I can't bring my Jittes in, but I could take back my Force of Will and add them to the list. In the past few hours I also thought alot on the cards I could add and a few things like Counterbalance, Humility, Mirran Crusader, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Meddling Mage. To be honest, while I understand it doesn't have its place, the removal of Geist scares me as I wonder on which creature I'll equip everything. You suggest Lingering Souls, but how good is it when you can only cast it once? While I totally love the card in Esper, I doubt on its usefulness in an UW version. Have you tried it? How was it?

I'm sorry if I bother you with my questions, I just try to understand what motivates your choices :)

Thanks for your time!!

---

Hi LDX,

I understand your points, however at that point the whole concept of tuning becomes invalid due to your extremely casual environment. I guess you have to figure out your own approach to get out of the "I want to win, but I don't want my friends to be sad" dilemma.
Thanks for understanding..
-Klaus

That's my problem with casual games, you want to do powerful things when you are playing Magic for fun but then it leads to optimization, doing broken things and inevitably playing a competitive game. When you have a gentleman's agreement you don't know how much to hold back really and end up not caring enough because you know you are not going for the play you could have made anyways. I like a casual attitude to Magic really with people being fine with tapping untapping their lands, having "oops sorry I play this land instead" moments, not being draconian and uptight about tournament rules but the level of gaming should be competitive from deck selection to plays being made. Sorry for the derail, just felt like dropping it here.

Hi guys, went to a small tournament yesterday and lost horribly against death and taxes. Is this matchup horrible or is it just me? he keeps slowing me down with port and thalia while putting quite a clock. And not to mention that karakas combo is really troublesome. Can someone give me some general strategy and sb choice against this matchup? thank you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sadakiyo

Hi guys, went to a small tournament yesterday and lost horribly against death and taxes. Is this matchup horrible or is it just me? he keeps slowing me down with port and thalia while putting quite a clock. And not to mention that karakas combo is really troublesome. Can someone give me some general strategy and sb choice against this matchup? thank you.

---

I'm a long time DnT player and switched to esperblade last year. The SB choice for DnT for me is Zelous Persecution. 3/4 of their creatures: Mom, Mangara, Thalia, Revoker, Flickerwisp with the exception of Stoneforge and Serra dies to it. Once Vial sticks most of your counters are useless. Jitte is the equipment to watchout for especially equipped on Thalia.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sadakiyo

Hi guys, went to a small tournament yesterday and lost horribly against death and taxes. Is this matchup horrible or is it just me? he keeps slowing me down with port and thalia while putting quite a clock. And not to mention that karakas combo is really troublesome. Can someone give me some general strategy and sb choice against this matchup? thank you.

---

How does your sideboard look like? If you have Zealous Persecution, thats MVP in that's match, killing their thalias, moms, flickerwisps and mangaras. After you have dealed with mom, your stops start hitting avengers and you should be fine :) EE and supreme verdict is also good against them. If you have several D&D players in your area you can also run Virtue's ruin to really wreck them out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sadakiyo

Hi guys, went to a small tournament yesterday and lost horribly against death and taxes. Is this matchup horrible or is it just me? he keeps slowing me down with port and thalia while putting quite a clock. And not to mention that karakas combo is really troublesome. Can someone give me some general strategy and sb choice against this matchup? thank you.

---

I was doing some testing against DnT lately and my experience was quite the opposite: The matchup felt pretty hard to lose. Lingering Souls is awesome against them, so is Jace and the 1 EE, 1 Verdict main (more after siding).
Maybe we run different amounts of land? I am running 24 and really cannot understand the recent successful lists only running 22 (I might get behind 23 with a cantrip over the 24th). I am also running 2 Wasteland, 1 Karakas myself (with Brainstorms and Jaces giving more access to them than DnT has to its 4 Karakas), so Mangara-Karakas was rarely a problem.


On a different point: Are there any really awesome sideboard cards for the Jund matchup? Everything seems sort of mediocre – but that might be due to their deck being just a bunch of good individual cards.

I played against DnT last tournament. It's true that they can make our lives a hell if they hit wastes/ports thalia. But in most cases you can draw yourself out of this. The matchup really is like all other matchups of stoneblade :laugh: 50/50. They hit their mana denial, tax spells and beatdown? they win. We hit our removal, keep them from the mangara combo, get into late game? we win.

I haven't played against it often but i guess it's an attrition war. If you manage to survive till their hand is empty, you'll probably win.

Izzet Staticaster beats their entire deck.

Thanks for the input, guys.
@serbitar: I am running 22 lands with 2 ponders. And my MD list is the exact same as vidianto's list. To me 22 lands is enough except for playing against deck like DNT, I wish I had 24 in my list.
And I dont have zealous in my SB. I will bring it at the next tournament and see how it goes.
How do you guys beat thalia on board with karakas? I don't have wasteland in my 75 and I dont think cutting islands for wasteland would be good for esper manabase.

I did a little review of my take on the deck here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze78C...GIlMpg&index=4

I think esperblade can support 24 lands, no problem. I don't think ponder is the way to go as we are not digging for particular cards like combo or tempo do.