[Brianstorming] Metagamed UB Control

[alphastryk]

I didn't see a thread for anything like this, so I figured I would go ahead and open up some discussion.

Basically, I've been thinking about what a good control deck wants to be playing in the format right now, and came up with the following:

To beat the various Show and Tell decks, I want to be playing Vendilion Clique and Spell Pierce. To beat Thresh, I want to play Counterbalance and Innocent Blood. That puts us at playing UBx.

While I have seen a lot of people playing BUG control decks to success in the past, Counterbalance and Pernicious Deed do not overlap well, so I decided not to splash green. I saw little benefit to splashing white, as we do not need the white spot removal or wraths right now. Red I may consider again at some point, primarily for REB out of the sideboard.

For now, I decided to play some good solid mana and some utility lands and stick to 2 colors.

The current list I have arrived at is:


4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Spell Pierce
3 Innocent Blood
1 Darkblast
1 Ghastly Demise
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
3 Snapcaster Mage

2 Vendilion Clique
1 Dismember
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Vedalken Shackles

3 Jace the Mind Sculptor

3 Force of Will

4 Polluted Delta
5 <other blue fetch>
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
5 Island
1 Cabal Pit
1 Karakas
2 Wasteland

// SB:

2 Perish
3 Surgical Extraction
2 FlusterStorm
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Dark Confidant
1 Innocent Blood
1 Force of Will



I know some of the card choices may looks odd, but I think they all serve a purpose:

Karakas, while a colorless land is a good, uncounterable answer to Emrakul. It may be that this is not good enough, but I think I can afford to test it for now without too much harm on my manabase. It may turn out to not be worth it without a way to search for Karakas when needed.

Cabal Pit provides a colorless answer to Mother of Runes, as well as letting me cheat on my land/spell ratio a bit. It may turn out to not be good enough, but I feel it is worth trying.

Having access to Wasteland & Crucible can help you win long games against thresh or SnT decks, and crucible can be used to re-buy fetches to out-mana control opponents.

Splitting up the removal spells lets us have good answers to a resolved Mongoose as well as the larger creatures from Thresh or Maverick. Playing Dismember also increases the count of 3-mana spells for counterbalance against SnT.

I'm going to be playing this tonight at a local legacy tournament, and I will post back with any updates.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[MGB]

Have you thought about Ancestral Vision as a draw engine?

[xfxf]

I am counting 57 cards in the maindeck. 3 pointed discard maybe?

[alphastryk]

Have you thought about Ancestral Vision as a draw engine?

I had, but I'm not sure we can afford to play a draw engine that slow in the format right now.

I am counting 57 cards in the maindeck. 3 pointed discard maybe?

Yep, left out 3 Inquisition of Kozilek. Fixing it now. Whoops!

[Freggle]

I've been brewing a similar list, but I like your list better.

I'd like to see a whole set of Gitaxian Probe to strengthen the game info and cantrip into more business though.

It may also come in handy to see a 4th card with top under Counterbalance.

Edit: Also with all of your sacrifice effects & shackles you likely want Duress over Inquisition. Either way Lingering Souls will be annoying until you land a Jace.

[xfxf]

I've been thinking a little about this. Basically you are taking the current BUG control skeleton, removing Pernicious deed and Life from the Loam so that it will go down to two colors for stability. With their exclusion you are bringing in the Counter-Top package. Another notable difference is the lack of Lilianas.

This deck has both stack and board control elements . However it doesn't have a way to wipe the board or to deal with problem permenants other than creatures. Effectively it plays different than regular slow control decks where they aim to go to the late game, stabilize and push inevitability. Counter-Top is a good way to stabilize against decks like RUG but I'm not sure how effective it is against a wide range of decks (in an open meta). Since this deck isn't geared towards that kind of a stabilize and lock strategy I think it needs to be pushing in the red zone and shouldn't play the waiting game.

5 creatures and 3 jace may not be enough for this and the first thing which comes to my mind is Tarmogoyf... Obviously it goes against the 2 color requirement you've understandably set in thefirst place.

Maybe I'm underestimating the Counter-Top package and how it can lock games out (also considering the shackles you have mainboard). Overall I think this is a deck which can come out as a strong alternative to UW-Miracle decks because black offers discard, sacrifice effects and nice board sweepers for green/white creatures (from the board) while UW decks are just trying to stand on the shoulders of Swords and Terminus.

Also how did the playtesting go? I don't have much time to play Magic lately and unfortunately can't take a similar list out for a spin.

[jrw1985]

Liliana of the Veil
It lets you attack their creature base, which is awesome. Once you establish Countertop you can use Liliana to keep them from hording spells until they find an answer, and you don't care too much about discarding your cards because you're gaining CA from Countertop. She works well with Jace since Jace's BS can keep you drawing and playing cards while activating Liliana also.
I think it also helps your curve.
Top
Counterbalance
Liliana
Jace

[alphastryk]

Apoligies for the delay, last week turned out to be quite a bit busier than planned.

I went 2-2 with the deck last week, beating Reanimator and UR Delver, but losing to Dredge twice.

With my losses, I decided to go ahead and board Leylines, as we have mlittle other way to interact with dredge decks.

Liliana is definitely worth including. I have replaced the Dismember with here, as she functions as removal, and is a 3 drop I want to keep in versus SnT combo decks, unlike Dismember. Because we now have a spell with BB in the cost, I went ahead and cut the karakas for a second swamp.

I also decided to go ahead and make the switch from Inquisition to Thoughtsize, as I want to make sure I can take things like Jace, Hive Mind, Sneak Attack, etc, while still hitting creatures.

Updated List:


4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Spell Pierce
3 Innocent Blood
1 Darkblast
1 Ghastly Demise
3 Thoughtseize

4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
3 Snapcaster Mage

2 Vendilion Clique
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Vedalken Shackles

3 Jace the Mind Sculptor

3 Force of Will

4 Polluted Delta
5 <other blue fetch>
3 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
5 Island
1 Cabal Pit
2 Wasteland

// SB:

2 Perish
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Dark Confidant
1 Innocent Blood
1 Force of Will

[TraxDaMax]

The new 1/1 flying deathtouch bird seems like a legit wall, which could work miracles with an academy ruins perhaps. Just an idea..

[rxavage]

I've been toying with this build here and there. I really wish I could just settle on one deck and master it.


CREATURES 3
3 Tombstalker

ISTANTS 19
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
2 Innocent Blood


SORCERIES 10
4 Ponder
2 Thought Scour
4 Thoughtseize

PLANESWALKERS 7
4 Jace The Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil

LANDS 21
4 Polluted Delta
2 bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
2 swamp
3 Islands
4 Wasteland

[Freggle]

list

With these lists how well does non-recursive creatures intermingle with symmetrical creature control?

Has anyone tried Gitaxian Probe? I could be missing something very important, but I don't see how it hurts a list like this at all, and shows you how to best line up your business while thinning your deck a card.

With fetch / storm and "free" probes your bound to be able to dig for what you need at a given moment.

To me it looks like this deck plays more like a combo deck than anything else due to it's bomb-y nature, and low threat count. That means the work that Thoughtseize is doing will almost always be the same thing Duress would do. Pulling opponents disruption. So why not save the life and run Duress?

When are you going to want to nab a creature over disruption when your playing Jace / Lilianna & Innocent Blood?

This would give the deck relatively the same shell as flash / hulk. A very good deck at forcing your agenda through. This list just it doesn't win on the spot though.

[rxavage]

With these lists how well does non-recursive creatures intermingle with symmetrical creature control?

Has anyone tried Gitaxian Probe? I could be missing something very important, but I don't see how it hurts a list like this at all, and shows you how to best line up your business while thinning your deck a card.

With fetch / storm and "free" probes your bound to be able to dig for what you need at a given moment.

To me it looks like this deck plays more like a combo deck than anything else due to it's bomb-y nature, and low threat count. That means the work that Thoughtseize is doing will almost always be the same thing Duress would do. Pulling opponents disruption. So why not save the life and run Duress?

When are you going to want to nab a creature over disruption when your playing Jace / Lilianna & Innocent Blood?

This would give the deck relatively the same shell as flash / hulk. A very good deck at forcing your agenda through. This list just it doesn't win on the spot though.

It's a very slow deck and dies to burn usually. You mention Probe but then talk about saving life and not running TS???. Thoughtseize is better and that is why i run it over duress or inquisition. I haven't played enough games to were I can truly optimize it. Liliana+Jace= game most of the time. Obviously Innocent Blood isn't cast when tombstalker is on the board unless it is utterly life or death.

[Freggle]

It's a very slow deck and dies to burn usually. You mention Probe but then talk about saving life and not running TS???.

Duress will help with burn. Probe is an optional 2 life where Thoughtseize is not. You can pay the if the MU or your hand deems it. Your playing blue and a lot of lands

Also, Burn can be handled through the sideboard. Like Hymn to Tourach which will also come in against combo.

I haven't played enough games to were I can truly optimize it. Liliana+Jace= game most of the time. Obviously Innocent Blood isn't cast when tombstalker is on the board unless it is utterly life or death.

Neither have I just trying to help. When I was asking about the interaction between your creatures and your removal I was sincere. I wanted to know if you ran into issues or if it was just perceived. I didn't know. I have run lists with Innocent Blood and Tombstalker together in the past, and it was often not an issue, I just didn't know with what you were running.

Tombstalker is good but dosn't play as well with Countertop. I see you cut that. I think Coutertop is well placed in the meta. What was this change a reaction to?

[rxavage]

Tombstalker is good but dosn't play as well with Countertop. I see you cut that. I think Coutertop is well placed in the meta. What was this change a reaction to?

I think counter-top is better with miracles and I just found that it took up alot of space and convoluted the deck. I put the Stalkers in because I wanted a clock and Creeping Tarpit wasn't cutting it, too many games went too long. For the burn match-up I'm thinking of Vampire Nighthawk for the sb.