I keep seeing UWR Stoneblade decks pop up similar to the one played at the Grand Prix and doing well. maybe there is some merit to this deck?
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=23820&iddeck=186009
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15926&d=298117
there are others but these are two with notable finishes. the thing was even MzFroste picked up the deck and they were an avid Miracles player.
I myself have been wondering why the red splash isn't more popular, although to be fair I am a novice to this archetype. Pyroblast is big game!
Because the red splash leaves you with just the UW core. Playing black without going to Deathrite Shaman is just silly, but once you do that you've got a significantly different deck than UWx. I think a lot of people (myself included) find the UWx shell underpowered and needing to lineup well against the opponent to succeed. We're also drawn to the power and flexibility of turning the deck into 3-4 Color Deathrite powered pile. It also took awhile for people to accept that splashing red was more than just SB cards. The lists with results recently are playing Lightning Bolt. Not many people did this at first, but you need the removal with all the Delver running around.
I like the list that Mitchell and Mzfroste are playing. 3 Jace 3 Snapcaster helps the card advantage situation, two Engineered Explosives provide options against small men, and the 2 bolts are quite versatile, giving you options like Bolt Snap Bolt that can also provide reach.Originally Posted by phg22
I'm not sure you can really compare this deck to the Deathrite Shaman Deathblade decks. While many of the cards are similar, I believe that in each deck the cards are played in a different manner. I believe that the Deathblade decks are trying to play more like an aggro deck (jam your creatures, remove their threats out of the way, attack attack attack, dead) where the UWR version is trying to play more like a control deck. Picking it's spots during each game to play their threats, not just jamming them willy nilly during the first few turns. While games like this do exist, I think it's the purpose behind when the cards want to be played that define the attributes of the archetype.
Part of what I was going for in my response was how different UWx is from a DRS deck. I think most people who went towards UWx post ban didn't have the right build yet, so it felt underpowered or bad. Most people looking to play a blue Stoneforge deck went towards Bant or Esper Deathblade, and their contributions there weren't relevant here. I'll admit I was writing off the viability of UWR until recent results.
I'm actually more skeptical of UWr than of UWb without Deathrite. UWr is assumimg a very 'fair' metagame where traditional Control would shine, and I'd rather just play Miracles or UBx in that case. Black gives you a second maindeck angle against combo (which is the main attraction to splashing in UW), whereas Red gives you Blasts and little else. UWr is obviously good enough to play, but I think its success says more about the viability of the basic UW Control shell than it does anout Jeskai specifically.
Saying "Red gives you Blasts and little else" makes light of how strong red blast is. It also downplays the fact that there are other red cards that are reasonable too lol
Did you read my post? If you're playing UWr, why not just play Miracles? You're already implicitly assumimg that fair blue pseudo-mirrors matter more than combo.
Because Miracles doesn't run TNN or SFM.
And the upside of UWr over Esper, in my opinion, that UWr mana is much stronger, as you don't have to fetch out the 3rd color, black, t1 to make proper use of it, which forces you to fetch non-basics to not expose yourself to wasteland to hit spells on curve, and also taxes your opener in terms of what basics your fetches allow you to get. And the slots that Thoughtseize take are typically the Spell Pierces from UW / UWr. While I do think having a mixture of disruption in terms of discard and countermagic is better than just countermagic, the UW shell gives you access to some the best hatebears, which still allows you to diversify your hate.
Basically I think you're overestimating the difference in Esper and UWr ability to fight combo, and I think you aren't giving the core strategy of SFM / TNN enough credit for reasons to play the deck over other UW control archtypes.
I am not implicitly assuming anything. I am pointing out that you seem to downplay red elemental blast and or the red splash. You ask why not just play miracles? Because stoneblade is different. I am not saying either one is better than the other. If one deck clearly does everything that another does but in a superior manner, then yes "why not play x deck" but that is not the circumstance here. They are inherently different and thus play differently. I think Mzfroste does a good job articulating a similar point, that miracles and stoneblade are different. As far as the discussion regarding UWr or UWb is concerned, it's probably just preference as determined by a person's unique style
Stoneblade was different before the ban too. Then, the only answer to "Why play stoneblade over miracles?" was because you want to. It was generally accepted that Blade was just worse than miracles. I haven't played with new miracle yet, so I'm not entirely sure what has changed in this regard (and would appreciate if someone would explain what the situation is now).
People are looking for a deck that suits their personal style because the "best deck" (countertop miracle) is gone. I don't think any miracle or stoneblade variant is clearly the best. Each has its strengths and everyone is just experimenting
Yes, people play what they want. I have all the cards for this and miracles and I'm a spike, so I want to know the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two.
Has the reason for playing this deck really changed even with miracles no longer being a thing? I think the big reason (besides playstyle ofc) is how easy it is for this deck to switch from the aggro and control roles. The problem that this deck has always had is the lack of a CA engine like counterbalance, often times this deck gains CA by committing things to the board. So when you can play a deck with an equally high basics count, chess like consistency and a hard lock engine why would you play any other control deck? I think that Mzfroste hit the nail on the head with how powerful SFM/TNN are, you can often ride some combination of the 2 to victory.
Imo people often overstate how bad UWx is against UBx and I think that while you are not favored preboard, postboard you get a variety of tools to deal with the matchup. The only DRS decks i'm terrified of while playing this deck are Jund and Blue Jund (Shardless), those decks are basically unbeatable with this archetype. I think that all the blade archetypes are viable, i'm not really sure why they don't see much play with Bant potentially being the strongest. I guess the allure of 4c DRS is just too much to resist.
Also for the record lightening bolt isn't new tech... People have considered a R splash for blasts/lavamancers/bolts since pretty much SFM was printed.
Last edited by CptHaddock; 07-03-2017 at 10:58 AM.
This largely sums up my point. The main incentive (aside from personal preference) for a more board-focused UWx control deck is that you can (usually) leverage that board presence into wins that are harder to achieve for a control deck (like new Miracles) that doesn't play to the board (and therefore adopt the beatdown role) as well. Since the decks that force UWx Blade into the beatdown role are either 'bigger' blue Control decks (Miracles, Shardless BUG), decks with recursion engines (4c Loam, Lands), and combo decks that can reassemble their kill quickly if it's disrupted once and/or take advantage of Blade's board control elements being dead game 1 to get 'free' wins preboard. I wouldn't play a deck without being able to clearly define why I'm playing the colors/cards l'm playing, especially when there are similar strategies available that check one of those three boxes. Black and red each have advantages in improving Control mirrors, and the differences really do seem to mostly reflect playstyle rather than on being objectively better. Red has a slight edge against Loam and Lands because Blood Moon is a relevant piece of hate. I think the black splash really pulls ahead of the red splash when you start to consider the implications against combo. Having access to game 1 discard means that you have two angles of attack preboard and three post, whereas Blasts simply augment your primary means of interaction and are narrower in what they can hit than discard or even more blue countermagic.
Congrats on your recent performance with this deck!
Would like to ask what is your game plan against grindy decks like jund, lands and Czech Pile.
Seems like the only card that we can bang on consistently is TNN against such decks and hope they dont draw removal against it. Do you miss blood moon in the sb?
Jund is the only one of those decks that is what I'd call difficult, because of the density of both answers for our threats and ways to beat us on card advantage. And yes for Jund I'd say the best bet is to either go all in on TNN, or if their hand is a bit on the diruption light side, set up a sequence to protect a Jace and become the grindy deck. For lands its just the normal voltron up while disrupting them, TNN with skull is pretty good. Postboard with drop of honey becoming popular, you wan't to be ready for that so try to have out a dud SFM or just hold up countermagic and some enchantment removal, and against Czech pile I treat that as another ride TNN to victory, but it's a lot more doable against them, since they have less answers for it when it resolves, and the whole Jace gameplan is more live against them.
Honestly as I play this deck, the more I realize I can't really give a stock gameplan for any matchup beyond the obvious "kill Delver, resolve threat", or "TNN is good here". The deck has a lot of play and game plan flexability from game to game. Sometimes you're the aggro deck going all in on TNN, sometimes you're the control deck getting your value from Snapcaster and Jace. You have to be good / experienced enough to judge those situations every game, based on what your opponent is doing and what is in your hand. I'll say the worst matchups for this deck are the ones where the card to card matchup is bad, not the actual strategies. I never looked at the jund matchups and czeck pile matchups and thought "oh crap I can't win against decks that can out-grind me", but that their LotV, Kcommands, Pyroblasts and Thoughtseizes were going to cause problems. But you can play around individual cards. Save brainstorms for after SFM so you can hide the equipment, wait until t5 to play TNN so you have countermagic backup, crap like that.
As with any variety of stoneblade, match ups aren't incredibly lopsided or favored as the deck is well rounded. The player simply has make judgment decisions within the context of each game like mzfroste said. Pretty standard philosophy for any and every kind of stoneblade type. It can be kind of exhausting. I played stoneblade in the legacy main at GP vegas and was so drained after 15 rounds lol
so what changes, if any could we see going forward in the UWR Stoneblade department?
What I've gathered after playing this deck a while, is that it really seems to struggle against "go wide" decks like DnT and Young Pyromancer and friends. I don't think this necessarily makes the deck bad, but this may be enough of a reason to put the deck down. Like for me, in the LGS tournament scene i'm preparing for, my losses are usually decks that can play more creatures than me making my 1 for 1 removal bad. There are a lot of Grixis decks, Death and Taxes, and some random combo decks and against these decks, I feel pretty unfavored. Targeted discard is really strong vs us. Thinking about trying the 4c Stoneblade list, but honestly that deck doesn't really excite me either.
As far as stoneblade decks go, has anyone tried Maverick?
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