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Thread: Sol Control

  1. #1
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    Sol Control

    Took a rough new brew concept to Card Kingdom Seattle Monday Night Legacy. Went 3-1, beating D&T, Cephalid Breakfast, and Sneak and Show. Lost to Elves, but I actually felt more favored in that matchup than the 3 I actually won - felt like I lost to a combination of both strong play and excellently aligned hands. Idea is still loose but thought I'd share it here for potential feedback; I'll include general thesis, list, and match specifics below.

    General Thesis: People have been noting for a while that most of the good proactive cards in UWx control decks are at the 3+ mana slot. Rather than trying to play Staff of the Storyteller or Faerie Mastermind, etc, I decided to play essentially mono 3/4 drops and use the "space below" for a cascade package. Preboard, you're cascading into Wheel of Fate so that it's an effective 8x Day's Undoing 7x Narset-Effect Turbo-Wheels deck that wheels into the control cards necessary to mop-up what's left over. Post-board, you can replace the Wheel of Fates to play a UW control deck that cascades into the appropriate hosers for the matchup Turn 2 (be it Containment Priest, Null Rod, etc).

    With the potential exception of Alms Collector, the eyebrow-raising element isn't the spells as they're pretty much all "bangers" doing largely established powerful stuff (and yeah I'm slightly cheating by categorizing "Ardent Plea" in that way, but it's being used here as a 2-land Wheel of Fortune with a post-board transformational ability so I'll go ahead and call that 'established legacy power-level'). The real trick is here the dependability of the manabase supporting them in these numbers. I believe the combinatorics work here though, and so far even playing against D&T-level mana-disruption has felt reasonable.

    If Brainstorm and Ancient Tomb are the two biggest largely independent pillars of the format, this is me attempting to power a control deck off Ancient Tomb instead of Brainstorm, and working a manabase and spell-suite around that conceit.

    Moxfield (may be altered from list below as I toy around with idea): https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ccUPYg5a50eV2zUDRNKtJw

    Planeswalkers(10)
    1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    3x Narset, Parter of Veils
    4x Teferi, Time Raveler
    2x The Wandering Emperor

    Creatures(8)
    4x Alms Collector
    4x Solitude

    Sorceries(10)
    4x Day's Undoing
    4x Supreme Verdict
    2x Wheel of Fate

    Instants(4)
    4x Force of Will

    Enchantments(4)
    4x Ardent Plea

    Lands(24)
    4x Ancient Tomb
    2x Karakas
    4x Mystic Gate
    1x Otawara, Soaring City
    4x Remote Farm
    4x Saprazzan Skerry
    4x Skycloud Expanse
    1x Tundra

    Sideboard(15)
    Companion: 1x Kaheera, the Orphanguard
    1x Ashiok, Dream Render
    1x Chill
    1x Containment Priest
    1x Ethersworn Canonist
    2x Force of Vigor
    1x Gideon of the Trials
    1x Inevitable Betrayal
    1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
    1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
    1x Null Rod
    1x Rest in Peace
    1x Sorcerous Spyglass
    1x Torpor Orb

    Report From Monday:

    You'll have to afford me a few liberties here as I played these games on Monday night and I'm typing this up on Wednesday so I may hand-wave over elements I don't remember intimately or make some small mischaracterizations if my memory is off.

    Match 1: D&T

    Game 1 - I reveal a Kaheera Companion, and my opponent and I banter about why I would have a Kaheera Companion and if I was playing Cat Tribal. I flash in an Alms Collector Turn 2 and my opponent says that he's excited that it actually is Cat Tribal. I untap Turn 3, Solitude his Thalia, and Days Undoing. Game becomes a laugher.

    Game 2 - I remember there being a game 2 that I lost. I could be wrong because part of me also remembers winning in 2, but it feels more courteous to err on the side of humility and regardless I'm still at least ... 75% sure there was a game 2 that I lost. Again, it's been a couple days.

    Game 3 (2?) - I cascade into a Torpor Orb and Supreme Verdict his board once or twice. He eventually answers Orb and Imperial Recruiters for Spirit of the Labyrinth and plays Spirit alongside Aether Vial on an empty board. I Companion Tax Kaheera to hand, Force of Vigor both Vial and Spirit and eventually Undoing him down to an 8-1 'cards-in-hand-advantage'.

    Match 2: Cephalid Breakfast

    Game 1 - I remember him combo-killing me on either Turn 2 or Turn 3. I also remember thinking that if I had sequenced it better on my turn I could have potentially survived his combo turn, but I don't remember the details or why I thought that.

    Game 2 - He laughs when I play Llawan, Cephalid Empress (Turn 2 I believe). I eventually Ardent Plea Cascade into both Rest in Peace and Torpor Orb, and he moves onto the Urza's Saga Plan. I start bashing in with Double-Exalted Cephalid Empress. He comes close to stablizing but I play a 3rd Ardent Plea to force him to Chump with his last Construct and win the game against Cephalid Breakfast with Cephalid Beatdowns. He then reveals his end-of-game hand complete with 6 Blue Creatures he was unable to cast.

    Game 3 - I quickly establish Rest in Peace and Torpor Orb again via Cascades, and we end up playing a long and complicated fair-game. He eventually bounces the Rest in Peace, mills himself sufficiently to produce several combat-ready Narcomoebas, and we play some grindy Control + Beaters (some with Lifelink) vs. Beaters + Equipment (some with Lifelink). I believe I navigate game into a position where I won't end up losing and he only has somewhere around 9 to 12 cards left in deck but - likely my fault - we end up going to time with him at 42 life. I attack with Solitude to make sure I gain the life on my turn vs. attacking Narcomoebas, but I miss the exalted trigger on the board. My opponent declares a block, and the judge who is one of the handful directly watching our game (since we are one of the two tables that went to time) points out the missed trigger. An issue then arises with the ruling where, since (and I'm not a judge so you'll have to forgive me), since it's a mandatory trigger the gamestate is simply "updated" to include the +1/+1, and my opponent is not afforded the ability to reselect blockers as I never "had to" announce the trigger for it to apply. I don't think this changes the outcome of the game in any way but it's certainly discouraging to my opponent as he blocked with a 2/1 Narcomoeba under the assumption that the attacker was a 3/2, and now he's effectively being punished because I was too lazy to remember there was a Exalted trigger, which I did explicitly declare over and over again in the previous game. I understand the "onus was on him" nature of the ruling, but it's a feelbad and I don't like feelbads, you know, and assuming the ruling was accurate it does seem to me like it creates a bit of an ethical hazard? Like, if my interest was purely competitive, under this set of rules, why wouldn't I intentionally make great pains to declare the trigger again and again and neglect to declare it when I thought it would benefit me for my opponent to assume the trigger rulings worked the way they did before that update some years back? Anyways, I end this game both feeling good about the deck, great about the fun gamestates it generated, and kind of bad about the aftertaste of the ruling confusion at the end.

    Match 3: Elves

    Game 1 - I completely fail to register the fact I've played against this opponent before, he was on Elves the last time, and is still playing with a Craterhoof Playmat, so I keep a hand that's suboptimal vs. Elves and he gets a quick combo-win. I go to game 2 pretty happy though, as I feel my 4x Sol-Land Powered Supreme Verdict control deck with Cascade Access to Hate Pieces is pretty favored in the matchup.

    Game 2 - Turns out control deck feels pretty good in the matchup. I eventually start pressuring him with Solitude and a few Samurai Tokens and he scoops.

    Game 3 - I keep a hand with 2x FoW, Turn 2 Cascader for Hatepiece followed up by Turn 3 Supreme Verdict, all with exactly the cards in my opener. I feel fantastic, and I keep. My opponent plays a Turn 1 Dryad Arbor and passes the turn. None of the cards I kept are Solitude so I can't punish that, but that's fine, so I just play a Sol-Land and pass the turn back. My opponent starts his T2 with Allosaurus Shepard, turning off my FoW package, but that still seems okay to me even without Solitude, follows up with a Gaea's Cradle and spills out his hand of little green men. On my turn I Ardent Plea with both Torpor Orb and Containment Priest in my deck, and I hit Containment Priest. I then pass the turn back, still ready to wipe the board on my Turn 3. On his Turn 3 he plays Craterhoof from Hand and I take 21.

    I lost this round, but I left it feeling like it was still a positive

    Match 4: Show and Tell

    Game 1 - He plays Show and Tell. I bring in Alms Collector. He brings in Griselbrand. I solitude Griselbrand on his turn like a dope and he dazes it. On my turn I just solitude Griselbrand again and start beating down with Alms Collector. He scoops after a turn or 2.

    Game (2?/3?) - Plus or minus some fighting on the stack, I remember it going Containment Priest, Wheel-Combo, Scoop.

    Deck seemed sufficiently powerful and fun. Was accidentally pretty budget as you really don't need the 1x Tundra. The combination of spells was obviously reasonable in a casting-cost-agnostic way, the only question was how the manabase fared when actually under pressure from an opponent, or when the game went long, etc, etc, and I never seemed to really stumble over the mana save for maybe being Ported off-white for a turn lategame vs. D&T before just getting yet another whitesource. Playing 4x Supreme Verdict when you can cast it pretty consistently off 3 lands is just a nice feeling, and cascading into various silver-bullets is quite satisfying.

    Will probably run it back at some point. All critical feedback welcome.
    Last edited by Rationalist; 05-04-2023 at 08:52 AM.

  2. #2

    Re: Sol Control

    Looks like a glorious mess but the good kind. I like.
    Haven't read all of your report so forgive me if you mentioned some things already.

    Some assorted thoughts:

    Is Alms Collector better then Hullbreacher?

    Do you want some Brazen Borrowers or are 4x3feries + other removal good enough?
    Would be another win con at the cost of Kaheera.
    On that note, maybe go to 80 cards with Yorion? Not sure if that works well with this plan.

    Skycloud Expanse with ETB tapped and Mystic Gate with both ETB tapped + Tomb seems really bad.
    Lands I'd rather play:
    Adarkar Wastes
    Hallowed Fountain
    Hengegate Pathway
    Seachrome Coast
    Celestial Colonnade maybe as one off.

  3. #3
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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Looks like a glorious mess but the good kind. I like.
    Haven't read all of your report so forgive me if you mentioned some things already.

    Some assorted thoughts:

    Is Alms Collector better then Hullbreacher?
    As a card without context, no. Here however he has 4 Toughness, immunity to Redblast, and enables a Companion that in turn enables Force of Vigor. Not objectively worth the additional mana but in a deck with 12 Sol Lands 4-mana doesn't feel like that big an ask for the security and side benefits. A flash blocker to protect planeswalkers is also not entirely irrelevant.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Do you want some Brazen Borrowers or are 4x3feries + other removal good enough?
    So far in practice (well, the 4 matches of it) 4x Solitude + 4x Supreme Verdict + 2x Wandering Emporer + 4x Teferi + 1x JtMS has been sufficient creature removal, but if you mean non-creature permanent removal that's certainly a shortcoming maindeck.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    On that note, maybe go to 80 cards with Yorion? Not sure if that works well with this plan.
    I don't think I could make this manabase work if I had to scale it up by 6 or 7 cards.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Skycloud Expanse with ETB tapped and Mystic Gate with both ETB tapped + Tomb seems really bad.
    No, that being good is the whole premise of the deck. (See below)

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    These lands all seem very bad. For reference, do bear in mind that I'm playing with the 4th Mystic Gate before even touching the 1st Tundra, and I have no idea why you'd want to play most of these cards over just more Tundras.

    Skycloud Expanse Consistently casts either of the 1WU spells off of any Sol Land, including Ancient Tomb. In fact, Skycloud is the entire reason why an Ancient Tomb 4x Supreme Verdict deck can make sense. Remember, there is nowhere in the deck where you're trying to cast a spell with a U or W casting cost, so Skycloud is strictly better than Tundra here outside of when you're trying to cast 3-mana spell off of exactly Triple-Skycloud-Expanse, which is combinatorically unlikely.

    Skycloud >> Tundra > Every single land you listed, with regards to casting the selected spells.

    Similarly, Mystic Gate is what lets Remote Farm cast Narset, or Skerry and Ancient Tomb hardcast Endurance, or even provide the double-white for Supreme Verdict.

    All of these lands are worse than Tundra, and the entire premise of the deck is that Skycloud and Mystic Gate, here, are better than Tundra. The combinatorics of the manabase absolutely would not work without filter lands. It sounds like you think I'm not running Tundra for some kind of budget reason. I'm not. That's not what this is about. This is accidentally a budget deck in that I didn't even add the Tundra until the last minute, but that's not a *goal* of the deck that I'm knowingly making sub-optimal manabase decisions for. I'm actively choosing these filter lands because I believe I have created a manabase that serves this set of spells (in these numbers at least) better than traditional manabases do.

    Filter Lands are usually bad because they can't, for example, cast Ponder (or similar cards). I'm not playing ponder (or any similar cards).

    The only place where any of the filter lands here fall short of Tundra in any reasonable way (ignoring specifically 3x Skycloud and nothing else or specifically 3x Mystic Gate and nothing else) is that Mystic Gate + Ancient Tomb fails to cast exactly Day's Undoing where Tundra would succeed. That's an extremely niche case to justify downgrading Mystic Gate to a Tundra. The filter lands are the deck. If you replaced them with 8 Tundras you would fail to cast your spells as consistently.

  4. #4
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    Re: Sol Control

    Interesting tech.

    I like how Kaheera enables greedy pitch costs (like SB Force of Vigor).

    Using Ardent Plea to tutor into singleton SB pieces is cute too.

    Is the 4th Mystic Gate worse than the 2nd Tundra? Skycloud seems more consistent. Here's my reasoning...

    On 2 lands, Skycloud Expanse is good with every other land in the deck except other Skyclouds.
    Skycloud + Tomb = 1WU.
    Skycloud + Skerry = UUW
    Skycloud + Farm = WWU
    Skycloud + other land = WU
    Skycloud + Skycloud = dead (3/23 other lands)

    But on 2 lands, Mystic Gate has more fail cases:
    Gate + Tomb = 3
    Gate + Gate = 2

    Gate + Skerry = UUU or UUW or UWW
    Gate + Farm = WWW or WWU or WUU
    Gate + Skycloud = WU
    Gate + other land = WU or WW or UU

    That's 7 bad pairings instead of 3. Not making 1WU with Tomb is a big drawback. You could have multiple Tombs and Gates in play and be stuck on 0 colors.

    Compare that to Tundra
    Tundra + Tomb = 2W or 2U
    Tundra + Skerry = UUW or UUU
    Tundra + Farm = WWU or WWW
    Tundra + Skycloud = WU
    Tundra + Karakas = WU or WW
    Tundra + Otawara = WU or UU
    Tundra + Tundra = WU or WW or UU

    Tundra has no bad pairings. It's only marginally worse at filtering some of the monocolored lands (can't turn into double of the other color).

    By running fewer copies of Mystic Gate (not necessarily 0), you reduce some of the fail cases.

  5. #5

    Re: Sol Control

    I admit that the things I type late at night might not always be the most well thought out.

    I missed the filtering aspect which is indeed very relevant.
    However, I'm not sure if it's worth possibly bricking yourself as FTW listed above.
    Looking at the list, there is actually not that much which uses 2 colorless mana.
    Doesn't that actually make Skycloud Expanse a requirement to make proper use off Tomb?
    Looking at the depletion lands, I would guess the only thing that you need to be able to cast asap with 2 mana of the same color asap Verdict.
    1 depletion land + Tundra still lets you cast most cards.
    With the depletion lands depleting themselves, being cut off from colored mana by Wasteland is also a big threat.
    In the end I guess it is a meta call and needs to be tested further.

  6. #6
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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Interesting tech.

    I like how Kaheera enables greedy pitch costs (like SB Force of Vigor).

    Using Ardent Plea to tutor into singleton SB pieces is cute too.

    Is the 4th Mystic Gate worse than the 2nd Tundra? Skycloud seems more consistent. Here's my reasoning...

    On 2 lands, Skycloud Expanse is good with every other land in the deck except other Skyclouds.
    Skycloud + Tomb = 1WU.
    Skycloud + Skerry = UUW
    Skycloud + Farm = WWU
    Skycloud + other land = WU
    Skycloud + Skycloud = dead (3/23 other lands)

    But on 2 lands, Mystic Gate has more fail cases:
    Gate + Tomb = 3
    Gate + Gate = 2

    Gate + Skerry = UUU or UUW or UWW
    Gate + Farm = WWW or WWU or WUU
    Gate + Skycloud = WU
    Gate + other land = WU or WW or UU

    That's 7 bad pairings instead of 3. Not making 1WU with Tomb is a big drawback. You could have multiple Tombs and Gates in play and be stuck on 0 colors.

    Compare that to Tundra
    Tundra + Tomb = 2W or 2U
    Tundra + Skerry = UUW or UUU
    Tundra + Farm = WWU or WWW
    Tundra + Skycloud = WU
    Tundra + Karakas = WU or WW
    Tundra + Otawara = WU or UU
    Tundra + Tundra = WU or WW or UU

    Tundra has no bad pairings. It's only marginally worse at filtering some of the monocolored lands (can't turn into double of the other color).

    By running fewer copies of Mystic Gate (not necessarily 0), you reduce some of the fail cases.
    Gate + Gate is nonfunctional, but Tundra + Tundra isn't really casting anything the deck is playing either. There are no 2-drops, aside from the occasional sideboard Containment Priest that is usually cascaded out.

    Tundra + Tomb is indeed better than Gate + Tomb at casting specifically Day's Undoing.

    You say Tundra "doesn't have any bad pairings", but Tundra + Farm doesn't make UUW, which is what Narset is actually asking for. Also, on 3 lands, we're playing with 8x cards that demand WW and 5 Mono-Blue Lands. Combining Narset, Solitude, and Supreme Verdict (and even things like hardcast Force off Farm + Tomb) just seems like it's coming up more than specifically Day's Undoing off of Tomb+Gate. The deck never needs to make a lot of the combinations that are preventing "bad pairings" in the list above, like UW, or W2. Those spells aren't in the deck.

    The deck primary wants to make

    1UW x8
    1WWU x4
    3UU x4
    3WW x4
    3W x4
    2U x4
    1UU x3
    2WW x2
    2UU x1

    I suspect if the outputs on those tables were weighted appropriately for these outputs and also included 3-land combinations, Mystic Gate would be clear standout over Tundra.

    Now there's still a non-zero chance that I'm wrong about the 4th Gate vs. the 2nd Tundra specifically for Day's Undoing off 2-lands as the weighting in that assessment isn't pure combinatorics but also play-patterns, but at the moment I don't feel I am. If experience starts punishing me for making Day's Undoing slightly less castable, however, I'll keep the option in mind. Overall cards like Narset are what I'm a little more focused on making castable at the moment, though, and it would take a more persuasive case to convince me I'm wrong there (but which I obviously would appreciate if I am).

  7. #7
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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    I admit that the things I type late at night might not always be the most well thought out.
    Yeah, it's all good man. No personal judgement. Between you and me many of Phil Gallagher's worst videos are because I'm brewing something at 3am, make it into a mess that obviously won't work, and decide to just give him $60 to see if he can fix it so I can convince myself to put it away, go to bed, and move on to better things. We're all compromised deck builders on low sleep.

    (Honestly I think I've done maybe 20 or so donations this way so far, so in all seriousness if he's playing a trash fire there's probably something like a 50% chance it was specifically me going "and then I'll cast Swords to Plowshares through my own Sanctum Pre ... aah, fuck it" before going to sleep)

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    I missed the filtering aspect which is indeed very relevant.
    However, I'm not sure if it's worth possibly bricking yourself as FTW listed above.
    I responded to that above. I think it bricks less often.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Looking at the list, there is actually not that much which uses 2 colorless mana.
    There's nothing that uses 2 colored mana either. There's no 2-mana spells.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Doesn't that actually make Skycloud Expanse a requirement to make proper use off Tomb?
    Not for Alms Collector, or Wandering Emporer, or Day's Undoing, or Hardcast Solitude, or Hardcast Force of Will (the latter 2 of which come up more often in a 12 Sol Land deck).

    You're not wrong that Tomb is marginally worse here than in a colorless deck with the exact same spread of CMCs though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Looking at the depletion lands, I would guess the only thing that you need to be able to cast asap with 2 mana of the same color asap Verdict.
    Well the filter lands are there specifically to give flexibility to that "2 mana of the same color" thing. It's their interaction with the Masques Lands that are providing the backbone of the manabase.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    1 depletion land + Tundra still lets you cast most cards.
    The only thing that depletion land + Tundra casts (of the spells in the deck) that depletion land + Mystic Gate does not is exactly Day's Undoing. That's it; one specific card off of one specific combination of 2 lands (not counting sideboard singletons that are primarily intended as cascade targets). That's not insignificant, you are right that it is a real shortcoming of the manabase, but I do believe it is more niche than what Mystic Gate is providing as a land that makes either UU or WW in a deck with 18 Maindeck cards with either UU or WW in their casting cost, and 11 Mono-Color lands being pressured by 4 Ancient Tomb to match the appropriate colors of the cards.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    With the depletion lands depleting themselves, being cut off from colored mana by Wasteland is also a big threat.
    Oh definitely. I'm definitely making choices here that are making me (theoretically at least) better against a general field at the cost of making myself weaker to wasteland. At least anecdotally, however, the deck's manabase seemed to function fine when under direct attack from Death and Taxes, and Lands kind of isn't a huge presence anymore these days, so I feel like, coming from a world of decks that evolved in an environment where a lot of respect had to be given to wasteland, as Lands seems to fade in popularity making choices to increase a deck's general power level at the cost of being weaker to wasteland may well be an appropriate direction for a lot of decks to move.

  8. #8

    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    There's nothing that uses 2 colored mana either. There's no 2-mana spells.
    Not for Alms Collector, or Wandering Emporer, or Day's Undoing, or Hardcast Solitude, or Hardcast Force of Will (the latter 2 of which come up more often in a 12 Sol Land deck).
    You're not wrong that Tomb is marginally worse here than in a colorless deck with the exact same spread of CMCs though.
    The point here was that there are 15 spells in the deck that don't require the 2nd colorless mana.
    Given that the curve starts at 3, without Expanse you have a significant chance of running a very bad City of Brass.
    You also never ever want to see the 2nd Tomb.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    Well the filter lands are there specifically to give flexibility to that "2 mana of the same color" thing. It's their interaction with the Masques Lands that are providing the backbone of the manabase.
    The only thing that depletion land + Tundra casts (of the spells in the deck) that depletion land + Mystic Gate does not is exactly Day's Undoing. That's it; one specific card off of one specific combination of 2 lands (not counting sideboard singletons that are primarily intended as cascade targets). That's not insignificant, you are right that it is a real shortcoming of the manabase, but I do believe it is more niche than what Mystic Gate is providing as a land that makes either UU or WW in a deck with 18 Maindeck cards with either UU or WW in their casting cost, and 11 Mono-Color lands being pressured by 4 Ancient Tomb to match the appropriate colors of the cards.
    Narset is the only 3 mana spell that you can't cast with a depletion land and Tundra.
    She also can't be cast with Tomb + anything that isn't Skerry.
    In my opinion, it's about what you want to be able to cast on T2 as you should be fine from T3 onward.
    Realistically, you don't want to cast anything besides Narset or 3feri on T2, so it should be fine.
    At lower priority is what you do when you have depleted your T1 depletion land.
    I feel like a Tundra is more flexible at that stage.

    Have you considered Restore Balance for the SB?
    If you start with a depletion land T1 and use it T2, it allows for the cute play of sacing your land to play Plea to get your opponent on one land + 0 dudes and then playing yours.

  9. #9
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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    Tundra + Tomb is indeed better than Gate + Tomb at casting specifically Day's Undoing.
    Now consider multiples.

    2 Gate + Tomb casts nothing.
    2 Tundra + Tomb casts 2UW or 2WW or 2UU. (Almost every card in your deck)
    Gate + Tundra + Tomb does the same

    Gate + 2 Tomb casts nothing
    Tundra + 2 Tomb casts Wandering Emperor, Alms Collector, Day's Undoing, SB stuff

    I focused on 2 land combinations because your manabase is very weak to Wasteland. You don't want to be in a situation where 1 Wasteland vs 3 lands can be used strategically so you're stuck on 0 colors of mana. Or that you can't cast anything until turn 4 vs Wasteland + Daze. This is a risk of conditional lands.

    Tundra + Tundra is no worse than any other non-Sol Lands.

    As I acknowledged, Tundra's only drawback is not filtering the depletion lands into double of the other color (eg Narset). That seems fairly rare, but perhaps it comes up more than I anticipated.

    I do wonder if say a 2nd Tundra is better than 4 Gates. They get worse in multiples. Did not say to cut all Gates for Tundra.

    Intuition was useful for me when I brewed mono U 8Twist. It helps assemble the combo, or it can put Force in hand to protect the combo. It might be good here too. It would be another reason to favor Tundra + Tomb over Gate + Tomb.

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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Now consider multiples.

    2 Gate + Tomb casts nothing.
    2 Tundra + Tomb casts 2UW or 2WW or 2UU. (Almost every card in your deck)
    Gate + Tundra + Tomb does the same

    Gate + 2 Tomb casts nothing
    Tundra + 2 Tomb casts Wandering Emperor, Alms Collector, Day's Undoing, SB stuff

    I focused on 2 land combinations because your manabase is very weak to Wasteland. You don't want to be in a situation where 1 Wasteland vs 3 lands can be used strategically so you're stuck on 0 colors of mana. Or that you can't cast anything until turn 4 vs Wasteland + Daze. This is a risk of conditional lands.

    Tundra + Tundra is no worse than any other non-Sol Lands.

    As I acknowledged, Tundra's only drawback is not filtering the depletion lands into double of the other color (eg Narset). That seems fairly rare, but perhaps it comes up more than I anticipated.

    I do wonder if say a 2nd Tundra is better than 4 Gates. They get worse in multiples. Did not say to cut all Gates for Tundra.

    Intuition was useful for me when I brewed mono U 8Twist. It helps assemble the combo, or it can put Force in hand to protect the combo. It might be good here too. It would be another reason to favor Tundra + Tomb over Gate + Tomb.
    Hmmm. You have me considering 3 Gate 2 Tundra now. I don't know if I properly weighed Emporer/JtMS on Tomb + X + X. The general adage of "don't play the 4th copy unless you don't mind seeing multiples" may apply and I needed some sense knocked into me.

    EDIT: Wait, not this one though

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Tundra + 2 Tomb casts Wandering Emperor.
    Point still made, however. I'll give it some more focused thought.

    EDIT 2:

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Intuition was useful for me when I brewed mono U 8Twist. It helps assemble the combo, or it can put Force in hand to protect the combo. It might be good here too. It would be another reason to favor Tundra + Tomb over Gate + Tomb.
    That's certainly a tempting idea.

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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    Hmmm. You have me considering 3 Gate 2 Tundra now. I don't know if I properly weighed Emporer/JtMS on Tomb + X + X.
    It doesn't just cast Emperor & Jace. Tomb + X + X also casts Teferi, Narset, Ardent Plea, Ashiok, Alms Collector, etc... Almost everything except Verdict and the pitch cards.

    It's inefficient to waste Tomb for 1 mana, but it sure beats casting nothing at all on Tomb + Gate + Gate. Or it can play through Daze/Thalia.

    What matchup is Nezehal for? Is there not some lower cmc threat that could fill that role?

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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    What matchup is Nezehal for? Is there not some lower cmc threat that could fill that role?
    Oh she/he/it should most definitely be replaced; I just put it in there as I was constructing the deck because I felt the sideboard was not respecting the control matchup and it was the one control-mirror threat that Kaheera would allow me to play.

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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    Oh she/he/it should most definitely be replaced; I just put it in there as I was constructing the deck because I felt the sideboard was not respecting the control matchup and it was the one control-mirror threat that Kaheera would allow me to play.
    Stepping back a bit, do you even need another slow threat vs control? Your maindeck is full of the usual cards that win slow blue mirrors: Jace, Wandering Emperor, Narset, Teferi, Day's Undoing combo, companion bonus card.

    Do you need to board in more threats? Or should you board in more interaction instead? Force of Negation or Mystical Dispute seem like good candidates to board in.

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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Stepping back a bit, do you even need another slow threat vs control?
    Probably not. I probably need *something* for the matchup but I imagine one player has an insurmountable lead before we get to the lategame; I was just hoping it was an uncounterable threat I could land before the lategame given the 12 Sol-Land thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Or should you board in more interaction instead? Force of Negation or Mystical Dispute seem like good candidates to board in.
    So naively I imagine that matchup without any "designed for the control mirror" bullets is, effectively, two UW hands leaning on each other until they can slip a source of snowballing card advantage through. I mean I'm happy with the number of cards that generically line up there well, but they certainly have answers and is that really the kind of fight I want to have vs. the Cantrip-deck?

    I feel like I'll be the dog in the post-board control mirror and I worry that leaning into the same generic tools that they'll be leaning into is a losing proposition. I'm not saying that's not better than (fringe control mirror card from Ixalan), I just worry it's not the right *flavor* of answer to be looking for, and that I need to find a "paper" to fight against their post-board version of "better rock".

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    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    So naively I imagine that matchup without any "designed for the control mirror" bullets is, effectively, two UW hands leaning on each other until they can slip a source of snowballing card advantage through. I mean I'm happy with the number of cards that generically line up there well, but they certainly have answers and is that really the kind of fight I want to have vs. the Cantrip-deck?

    I feel like I'll be the dog in the post-board control mirror and I worry that leaning into the same generic tools that they'll be leaning into is a losing proposition. I'm not saying that's not better than (fringe control mirror card from Ixalan), I just worry it's not the right *flavor* of answer to be looking for, and that I need to find a "paper" to fight against their post-board version of "better rock".
    This is a reasonable concern.

    However being the 7x Narset deck vs the cantrip deck is useful, since you naturally shut down most of their card advantage. Meanwhile their Narset does not hurt you as much (just shuts down your Days engine until you kill it). Being the 4x Teferi deck also shuts down their counters. Yes, they run similar tools, but given that you have more copies of both prison effects and they run more cards hurt by the prison effects, you should be the one coming out on top, right?

    Meanwhile their stock answers (Prismatic Ending, Pyroblast) line up poorly against your 4 cmc white cards.

    Trying to aggro them out before the lategame is another angle. However I doubt that will be consistent with a 1x 7cmc creature in a deck with no card selection... The probability of actually drawing the 1 creature at the right time and having the mana for it seems slim. The probability of them boarding in Back to Basics or Ruination and cantripping into it... is much much higher. And you're stone cold dead to those. Which makes Force of Negation look good.

    Honestly, without actually playing it, I would assume your UWx control matchup is favorable. I'd be much more worried about the UR Delver matchup. Your deck looks stronger against slow blue than against fast blue.

  16. #16

    Re: Sol Control

    You're also running 4x 3feri which is quite the monster vs control.
    I'd think you'd likely want to swap out the Plea package and then you need enough cards to replace it with.
    Anything that plays Wasteland is probably scarier.

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    Re: Sol Control

    Hmmm. What about Sanctum Prelates as a sideboard option instead?

    They don't hurt me unless I choose 3, 4, or 5 and they don't interfere with the cascade package and they seem pretty solid v. Delver as naming 1 blanks a major portion of their deck as well as all of their removal for Sanctum Prelate (unless they're on the UR Dragons build). I can even power them out quick enough that they're reasonable vs. some Combo decks too.

  18. #18

    Re: Sol Control

    I've been thinking about how this deck would fair against Wasteland and other land hate.

    Enchantment based hate like Blood Moon and Back to Basics hit you super hard and are basically game ending so you have to counter them.
    Unless you want to hope to have one of the 2 SB Force of Vigor in hand + 3 mana to get your pitch cat.
    Adding Force of Negation seems like the best bet even though the card disadvantage hurts.
    Still better then losing.

    Against a single waste, you're probably just significantly delayed but not completely shafted unless you are reduced to unworkable combinations of lands.
    Here, Tomb might actually be useful as lightning rod in G1 before your opponent has caught on what you're doing.
    I don't know how much of the meta atm is able to search for or recur Wastes.
    I'll drop a few interesting cards I found:
    Spiritual Asylum
    Terra Eternal
    Land Equilibrium
    I was also considering Crucible which could also recycle depleted lands but not sure if it's worth it.

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    Re: Sol Control

    Sanctum Prelate could be good. It helps with both combo and some control haymakers.

    Prelate @ 1 would turn off Brainstorm, Ponder, Red Blast, Swords, Minor Misstep... they're stuck trying to Prismatic Ending X=3 it, without cantrips to dig into that.

    Keep in mind you already have 4x Narset to turn off their Brainstorm & Ponder. And you may not need to worry about UW control as much as other matchups.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Enchantment based hate like Blood Moon and Back to Basics hit you super hard and are basically game ending so you have to counter them.
    Unless you want to hope to have one of the 2 SB Force of Vigor in hand + 3 mana to get your pitch cat.
    Adding Force of Negation seems like the best bet even though the card disadvantage hurts.
    Still better then losing.
    The best plan here seems to be to board into Forces. 0-mana answers are the safest. Force of Will (main), Force of Negation (SB), Force of Vigor (SB). Force of Vigor is safe because you can put Kaheera to hand for 3 colorless. Maybe the SB needs a 3rd Force of Vigor to see it often enough.


    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Against a single waste, you're probably just significantly delayed but not completely shafted unless you are reduced to unworkable combinations of lands.
    Here, Tomb might actually be useful as lightning rod in G1 before your opponent has caught on what you're doing.
    I don't know how much of the meta atm is able to search for or recur Wastes.
    I'll drop a few interesting cards I found:
    Spiritual Asylum
    Terra Eternal
    Land Equilibrium
    I was also considering Crucible which could also recycle depleted lands but not sure if it's worth it.
    That works for slow decks like Lands that recur Wastes. What about the single Waste? 1 Wasteland could mean you can't cast Supreme Verdict until turn 4-5. That's a problem against turn 1 Dragon's Rage Channeler.

    Unlike most control decks, this lacks low CMC spot removal. Only pitch Solitude, which can be profitably countered. Fast aggro pressure is dangerous when Wasteland slows down Verdict. UR Delver is the biggest threat for that.

  20. #20

    Re: Sol Control

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    What about the single Waste? 1 Wasteland could mean you can't cast Supreme Verdict until turn 4-5. That's a problem against turn 1 Dragon's Rage Channeler.

    Unlike most control decks, this lacks low CMC spot removal. Only pitch Solitude, which can be profitably countered. Fast aggro pressure is dangerous when Wasteland slows down Verdict. UR Delver is the biggest threat for that.
    Yeah as I said, that would be an issue in slowing you down, but I can't see any really good options around that.
    Everything has its weaknesses.

    Mostly terrible options I could find are:
    Doomskar
    Snapback
    Sunscour

    In that matchup, Plea into Restore Balance, Crashing Footfalls or Inevitable Betrayal seems a valid and better option.

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