UBw (s)trix with scour

[catmint]

The deck is built around abusing Thought Scour and Baleful Strix and has a fairly aggressive gameplan with efficient flyers, but also good long-game grinding potential with ton's of card advantage. Disruption is primarily based on discard and removal, but the deck can also support counter magic.

The basic idea is to make Thought Scour worth more than a card. I like to think of it like 1.25 cards. This can be achieved by playing good flashback spells: Cabal Therapy & Lingering souls and cards that abuse the graveyard like Snapcaster mage, Tombstalker & Unearth. Baleful Strix is not only strictly card advantage but has a very important role in flashing back cabal therapy. Against all the decks where strix is not used for its defense qualities (control & combo), strix cylces while enabling flashback for cabal therapy providing a lot of value!

Current Decklist:


//Manabase, 19 color lands - not 100% sure on this configuration, but I think 19 is enough
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats

//Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Baleful Strix
3 Snapcaster mage
2 Tombstalker
2 Lingering Souls

//Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ghastly Demise

//Filter & Utility
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thought Scour
1 Unearth

//Sideboard
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Thoughtseize
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Extirpate


Specific Card Choices:

Delver of Secrets
T1 Delver can get you very far, but even in the late game it is a decent wincon if the rest of the game is traded off or stalled. It restrains deck design in terms of number of instants or sorceries making Stoneforge mystic, planeswalkers & cards like bitterblossom less attractive.

Unearth
It’s supergood against non-white decks and the synergy with Strix & Snapcaster is just sick, but I had to cut to 1 since the other MD & SB slots seemed more important.

Pithing Needle
I value needle relatively high in this deck sine it is very easy to find good targets vs. the tier decks . SD.top, deed, mother, ooze, vial, SFM, equipments, EE, Planeswalkers while at the same forcing an opponent to
crack his relic or tormods crypt.

Timely Reinforcements
If you are not able to get the full value out of it you are ahead on board which is probably not too bad. Maybe it’s not worth a slot, but I found it is the best options against deck with reach and a more aggressive game plan.

Vendilion Clique
Very good versus combo and control, where Tombstalker is rather weak.

Ghastly Demise & Zealous Persecution
I run a lot of spot removal and no mass removal except for Zealous Persecution. The spot removal is necessary, because there are a lot of problematic creatures (especially island walk, piledriver, ooze) that just have to die as soon as possible, so you don’t have the luxury of running cards like Perish or EE.

Surgical Extraction & Extirpate
Graveyard hate should be flashback able with snapcaster.

Wasteland
With that many color requirements you do not have the luxury of running wasteland to sometimes manascrew your opponents, however it is not necessary for the Gameplan.. Killing utility lands is nice, but Maze of Ith is not as bad if you play tokens. Again Needle can stop EE/Academy ruins, volraths stronghold or stuff like that.

Force of Will
Although I find myself often shuffling it away or boarding it out a ton, since it is usually not necessary to protect our gameplan I still think it is decent in most of the matchups and especially in G1 a broad answer to whatever might be coming.


Matchup analysis

I thought about the following decks and could made some conclusions from testing already, but I am far away from judging about the MU overall. For most of the MU’s I feel you have good game, but it really depends on your skill to make it a positive matchup. Casting Cabal Therapy correctly plays a major role in getting skill advantage, but since you are very proactive with almost all of your spells you have to carefully consider what to do first.

Maverick
Playing a lot of RUG, I know that flyers are your best shot to win against Maverick playing aggro/tempo. With Delver, Tombstalker & Lingering Souls I feel equipped to win in the air, while providing enough removal & CA from Strix & Snapcaster for their critical creatures.

RUG
The mana is probably the best way they can attack you and their forked bolts will serve them well. However, you can just overwhelm them with removal and good defensive creatures to stay out of bolt range.

Esperblade / UW Miracles
Jitte & Batterskull should not go live, but there is discard & needle from the board to give you a g good chance to overwhelm them with tempo & CA. You have to play smart against Terminus, but Strix & Lingering souls can do damage by investing only ½ of a card making their Terminus much worse. Cabal Therapy really shines in this Matchup!

Combo-decks:
It is a “tap-out deck” and not being stuck in the late game with Pierces & Dazes is an asset vs. control. Still the disruption suite is not as heavy as in RUG or TA. You rely on heavy discard & Force of Will supported by V.Clique, Surgical Extraction or Pithing needle if applicable.

Goblins:
This matchup is very good. Piledriver has protection from blue and you have to stop their stupid stuff like Krenko or chaining ringleaders, but they cannot deal with flyers nor the removal & CA. Not having Countermagic but discard is supreme against Goblins.

Merfolk:
Name of the game is to stop Islandwalk. Much tougher than Goblins and probably slightly negative overall.

Burn:
Negative matchup, but not unwinnable.

General notes

Playing versus graveyard hate.
Loosing the yard sucks, but the deck has a decent game even if you play against Leyline of the void. The 1 shot graveyard hate like crypt or surgical has value against the deck, but can only attack from a certain angle and not stop “the engine”. Also with the Cantrips and Thought Scour you can easily fill up your graveyard pretty fast again. An effect like relic is much worse and ooze is the worst that can happen.

Sideboarding
I would not touch Thought Scour, Strix and Cabal Therapy too much but rather side out Force of Will against most of the decks like Maverick, RUG, Miracles, Esperblade, Merfolk & Goblins to bring it better answers/threats without 2 for 1 yourself.

Love to hear thoughts and comments.

[Spike]

I think thats a cool idea, but there are some things I would change:

1) Only Force and Therapy seems to be not enough against Combo and Show and Tell. So I would add at least 3 Pierces to the MD to also have additional spells to fight Counterbalance, Stifle etc. I would cut the Unearth (cute and surely powerful with Snappy, but also a bit narrow), one Ponder and the Ghastly Demise therefor.
2) I like the synergy between Souls, Therapy and Scour so I would try to squeeze in a third Souls, perhaps cutting another Ponder. Lingerins Souls is such a strong card that can turn games around by itself. Besides that the tokens are the best sac outlets for Therapy imo.
4) Manabase: I think not playing at least two Wasteland can´t be right. It´s necessary to stop Punishing Fire shenanigans etc. and is still useful turn 5 against slow decks like Esper while improving the Pierces. It can also protect our Manabase by destroying opposing Wastelands while we only have basics on our side but perhaps other nonbasics in hand that would get killed otherwise. I would cut the third Island and a fetchland therefor.
5) Sideboard: Darkblast seems to be a good sideboard card since it wrecks Maverick, Elves and Goblins and also has some nice synergies with the rest of the deck (Stalker, Snappy, Souls, Scour, Therapy, ...). Besides that I would definitely play two Perish, but that´s a bit of a meta choice since there are a lot of Nic Fit, Elves and Maverick decks in my meta. Its also an additional out against Mongoose.

Edit: I also see the option to play additional discard instead of Pierce since you want to tap out with this deck pretty often. It also has nice synergy with Therapy and frees up some SB slots.

[catmint]

Thanks for the input Spike. Here my comments:

I think thats a cool idea, but there are some things I would change:
1) Only Force and Therapy seems to be not enough against Combo and Show and Tell. So I would add at least 3 Pierces to the MD to also have additional spells to fight Counterbalance, Stifle etc. I would cut the Unearth (cute and surely powerful with Snappy, but also a bit narrow), one Ponder and the Ghastly Demise therefor.

I can get behind cutting unearth (altough main synergy is with baleful strix and not snapcaster mage) but I am not sure how spell pierce plays out, since you want to tap out a lot. Sure protection would be good, but playing 4 Cabal therapy is more discard than playing 4 thoughtseize and I do not like the downside an a "reactive draw". Especially if you play early thought-scours you have the chance to get at least 1/2 of a cabal therapy making it more likely to disrupt your opponent. I might be wrong, but I think it is enough to beat combo. Anyway in the current meta I would devote more SB slots to combo for that and tune the maindeck to beat the "big 3".

2) I like the synergy between Souls, Therapy and Scour so I would try to squeeze in a third Souls, perhaps cutting another Ponder. Lingerins Souls is such a strong card that can turn games around by itself. Besides that the tokens are the best sac outlets for Therapy imo.

True... souls is pretty strong! 4 Ponder seems a must for running low lands, but maybe some other creature can be cut? Strix & Delver are no option for me and snapcaster has also premium synergy. The 2 tombstalker are very strong against red decks... Maybe a third souls in the SB for grindy matchups?

4) Manabase: I think not playing at least two Wasteland can´t be right. It´s necessary to stop Punishing Fire shenanigans etc. and is still useful turn 5 against slow decks like Esper while improving the Pierces. It can also protect our Manabase by destroying opposing Wastelands while we only have basics on our side but perhaps other nonbasics in hand that would get killed otherwise. I would cut the third Island and a fetchland therefor.

I hate running no wasteland and 2 would feel much better. Maybe the manbase can support it but I did not really try it. My feeling is that you need all 3 colors early so desperate that a colorless land drop hurts more than the random utility of wasteland brings. Needle & surgical should help against punishing fire or other engines... But if you test successfully with wastelands I would also try it again.

5) Sideboard: Darkblast seems to be a good sideboard card since it wrecks Maverick, Elves and Goblins and also has some nice synergies with the rest of the deck (Stalker, Snappy, Souls, Scour, Therapy, ...). Besides that I would definitely play two Perish, but that´s a bit of a meta choice since there are a lot of Nic Fit, Elves and Maverick decks in my meta. Its also an additional out against Mongoose.

I even thought about darkblast maindeck, but moved completely away from it for the spot removal slots since ooze, piledriver and merfolk lords are not hit by it. But sure, cards like Perish and darkblast depend on which decks you want to be prepared for.

Btw.: I am more afraid of getting boltet out to the face than beeing able to stall a mongoose hence playing timely reinforcements instead of Perish. :)

In general the sideboard can be tuned in a lot of different directions. First things to figure out are more fundamental points like:
- how good is "the engine"/ what are weaker cards that could/should be replaced.
- which manabase is necessary to support the deck.
- what are possible weak/blind spots that are not covered yet
- how good is the engine against UW/maverick/RUG/combo/tribal -> which 2-3 flex maindeck slots can be tuned if you want to make meta calls.

[metamet]

Have you considered running any number of Intuitions? EOT T3 Intuition, grabbing 1x Souls and 2x Cabal Therapy seems like it would wreck a lot of decks.

[catmint]

Great idea. should be 1 of maindeck I think. Certainly better than running unearth.

[Ziveeman]

Wouldn't Reanimate just be better than Unearth? You get much more flexibility, like stealing an opponent's Mother of Runes, Tarmogoyf, or even a Griselbrand or better if you're playing against Reanimator. Whatever you Unearth won't lose you all that much life anyway (1-2 life isn't much to lose versus what you gain in utility).

[xfxf]

Isn't Unearth great for Snapcaster shenanigans? I tried a similar list with Unearth after Sam Black's deck and there were great plays like Unearthing Snapcaster and then flashbacking the same Unearth to reanimate a Strix and drawing a card with Strix. 3 cards with 1 spell.

[catmint]

Exactly that was the idea of unearth. The life loss of Reanimate is a smaller issue, so that might be better. What is really good about Unearth is that it also cylces by itself. Intuition instead of this spot however provides the advantage of tutorin hate, but can also generate card advantage with lingering souls/cabal therapy. It is much more expensive though... I really enjoyed the t2-3 interactions of unearth/reanimate, cabal therapy and baleful strix.

[xfxf]

catmint, I really like the deck you are brewing. Judging by the decks you used to play, you're currently playing and the deck you're brewing I think we have very similar taste in Magic.

There are two problems I can't address with this archetype. First one is the finisher. Tombstalkers isn't where we want to be imo because we rely on the graveyard recursion and Tombstalker has dissynergy with that. Also one StP is enough to set us back with all that loss from the graveyard.

The second is the tribal aggro rush. It can be overwhelming. They race us, Merfolk can dodge Strix and Goblins can come in numbers, more than our control can handle.

I thought about splashing green for Tarmgoyf (to address the first issue) and Pernicious Deed (to address the second issue) and turn the deck into a kind of Neo-Team America. Less tempo, more Aggro-Control. To be honest I didn't test a green version yet but at first glance it seems like it would be weak to Burn,Zoo,UR Delver strategies. On the other hand cabal Therapy and Lingering Souls package is very synergistic with the deck but I don't know if it could be dropped to address the different weaknesses the deck has.

[xfxf]

Oh, also there's the Dryad Militant. If it starts to see play (I think it will, not only because of its ability but also because of its curve) the whole little synergies this deck is based on will be zilch.

[catmint]

yes.. new spoilers can spoil the fun of brewing.
Anyway I don't know if & how the new GY-hatebear will see play and I am already in a relationship with Vraska so I probalby won't worry about it when the new set is realeased.

Burn streategies are surely a problem, but you have to take the risk of only beeing able to win against those decks with a super good draw.

My testing vs. tribal was different though. The problematic creatures have to die (or discarded) and then they do not really stand a chance. But sure... that is the reason why I play so much spot removal instead of sweepers.

In terms of finishers I see a 2/2 split of lingering souls and Tombstalker as enough (along the 4 Delver, which should not be forgotten). Sure we don't want to accidently mill away our Tombstalker, but so far that has not been a problem. Don't forget you play 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder. Tombstalker could/should come out for vendilion clique against Jace/Swords decks, because of the shitty trade off, but maybe thats wrong since a 5/5 is good versus opponents lingering souls or Batterskull. I will not cut Tombstalker because I find it way to important against RUG or all other decks relying on red removal.

So far I felt comfortable playing against Stoneforge mystic and all kinds of other removal heavy control decks. I had the feeling that whent they thought the get time to breath, I put creatures worth 4+ Power in the air.