[DTB] Blade Control

[Dzra]

Anyone have any more results testing with Restoration Angel?

And does anyone have thoughts on the discard split? 2/2 vs 3/1 IoK/TS

(And once more about FoW... I've been more than happy to double FoW to keep SFM alive against RUG (pre-board) because I know that once Batterskull sticks it is over. 2for1ing yourself seems bad on paper, but winning the game is winning the game.)

[Jessenator]

Anyone have any more results testing with Restoration Angel?

And does anyone have thoughts on the discard split? 2/2 vs 3/1 IoK/TS

(And once more about FoW... I've been more than happy to double FoW to keep SFM alive against RUG (pre-board) because I know that once Batterskull sticks it is over. 2for1ing yourself seems bad on paper, but winning the game is winning the game.)

I don't understand why people are running Restoration Angel, it almost have no synergy with Snapcaster unless you have a substantial amount of mana. I rather play another Clique basically, it has utility on earlier turns of the game and is less mana reliant.

I've been going 3 Thoughtseize and 1 IoK with 2 Cabal Therapy in the sideboard. I am still a bit unexperienced with Cabal Therapy right now so I'm probably not using them in the right power level. Does anyone have some tips to help me with this? I have seen a lot of people siding in Jace Beleren for slower matchups, reminds me of the Caw-Blade days.

[Tormod]

A week ago i switched to running from running md 4 FOW, 1 TS and 3 Inquisition sb 1 TS

To MD 3 FOW, 2 TS, 3 Inquisition, sb 1 FOW. With 4 snaps MD, i am preferring more 1 Mana discard.

This change wasn't necessary or needed but I am finding I am knowing my opponents hand often. I also dropped 2x flusterstorm from my sb. I wasn't running into storm often, and even without FS the other disruption pieces were effective enough to beat storm.

My disruption package:

3 pierce
3 fow
1 CS
3 Inquisition
2 TS
Sb
1 fow

[Tormod]

Lingering Souls, is it really necessary?

I played with it before and now I'm adding back to my sb, but I'm still unconvinced.
I think its great it can chump a snap, but I find the 3 Mana commitment and awkward. I feel LS is a late game card.

I am thinking I rather run 2 timely reinforcements, the 6 life gain is highly relevant especially in post sb match ups where batterskull can be a liability. I rather 3 mana for 3 chumpers then having to commit 3 for 2 or 5 for 4. Also snapping back timely is huge. It improves our goblin match up significantly.

I know of the argument for having evasion, but in the match ups I would bring LS in, it would typically be to chump ground creatures.

Thoughts?

[Dzra]

I don't understand why people are running Restoration Angel, it almost have no synergy with Snapcaster unless you have a substantial amount of mana. I rather play another Clique basically, it has utility on earlier turns of the game and is less mana reliant.

Restoration Angel is nice because of its 3/4 body. It blocks Goose and Delver all day. RUG has to 2-for-1 to kill it. Unlike Lingering Souls, it doesn't require you tap out during your turn (my biggest problem with Souls). I'm not sold, but it does a lot of nice things. Getting value off Snapcasters and Cliques is just gravy.

I've been going 3 Thoughtseize and 1 IoK with 2 Cabal Therapy in the sideboard. I am still a bit unexperienced with Cabal Therapy right now so I'm probably not using them in the right power level. Does anyone have some tips to help me with this?

I'm not sure I love Cabal Therapy in this type of deck. It's best in decks where your opponent can only produce a small number of cards to actually threaten you. For example, Dredge naming Surgical Extraction (or Swords to Plowshares). Stoneblade can name things like Knight of the Reliquary and then promptly get GSZ'd... or Tin-Street Hooligan and they play a Matron or Ringleader.

I suppose Therapy is ok against combo decks? Naming Show and Tell slows them down quite a bit. Against Storm, it's probably hit and miss since they have so many tutors and so much redundancy. It's a powerful card, but I'm not a fan here.

[Jessenator]

Restoration Angel is nice because of its 3/4 body. It blocks Goose and Delver all day. RUG has to 2-for-1 to kill it. Unlike Lingering Souls, it doesn't require you tap out during your turn (my biggest problem with Souls). I'm not sold, but it does a lot of nice things. Getting value off Snapcasters and Cliques is just gravy.



I'm not sure I love Cabal Therapy in this type of deck. It's best in decks where your opponent can only produce a small number of cards to actually threaten you. For example, Dredge naming Surgical Extraction (or Swords to Plowshares). Stoneblade can name things like Knight of the Reliquary and then promptly get GSZ'd... or Tin-Street Hooligan and they play a Matron or Ringleader.

I suppose Therapy is ok against combo decks? Naming Show and Tell slows them down quite a bit. Against Storm, it's probably hit and miss since they have so many tutors and so much redundancy. It's a powerful card, but I'm not a fan here.

Are you actually going to realistically get to "5" mana against RUG with all the Wasteland, Stifle, and Dazes at their disposal? You can do so much more with 4 mana, at sorcery speed of course. Like Elspeth is amazing once resolved against a lot of the field at the moment.

Therapy in Stoneblade decks is for combo and especially for grindy matchups such as Stoneblade mirror and UW Miracles. The tokens in the mirror match are the breaking point and the Cabal Therapy is like the final nail in the coffin. The longer a game goes, the more value the Cabal-Intuition-Souls package will have. I have played the mirror with and without Cabal Therapy-Souls-Intuition, and I found that Intuition/Souls is maybe the best card in the matchup against UWx Control decks.

I'm not saying I don't understand why its there, my proficiency and familiarity with the card is not the best since I haven't played with it too much.

[Jessenator]

Lingering Souls, is it really necessary?

I played with it before and now I'm adding back to my sb, but I'm still unconvinced.
I think its great it can chump a snap, but I find the 3 Mana commitment and awkward. I feel LS is a late game card.

I am thinking I rather run 2 timely reinforcements, the 6 life gain is highly relevant especially in post sb match ups where batterskull can be a liability. I rather 3 mana for 3 chumpers then having to commit 3 for 2 or 5 for 4. Also snapping back timely is huge. It improves our goblin match up significantly.

I know of the argument for having evasion, but in the match ups I would bring LS in, it would typically be to chump ground creatures.

Thoughts?

Lingering Souls as a 3 of is extremely needed in this meta in my opinion. How does UW Miracles deal with this card efficiently once you get to 5 mana? Or at all? You can maintain turn player's priority and flash it back immediately to not get it Surgical-ed. In the mirror match is pretty amazing since it can hold equipments and keep Planeswalkers under control. A pretty big chunk of the format is UWx Miracle or Blade Control, Lingering Souls may even deserve a spot in the main deck in my opinion. The card is never bad at all, you do sacrifice some interactiveness once casting it, but I never found the card to be horrible to draw. Against RUG, if you're able to fetch for all your basics, you can use the Lingering Souls as a very valid chump blocker, especially against Delver, or blank a couple combat phases until you can find that much needed Terminus.

[Dzra]

Are you actually going to realistically get to "5" mana against RUG with all the Wasteland, Stifle, and Dazes at their disposal? You can do so much more with 4 mana, at sorcery speed of course. Like Elspeth is amazing once resolved against a lot of the field at the moment.

I'd much rather force an Angel through Daze than try pushing an Elspeth through Daze and Spell Pierce.

[Jessenator]

I'd much rather force an Angel through Daze than try pushing an Elspeth through Daze and Spell Pierce.

How much of an impact is Restoration Angel going to have against your various matchups? For a whopping 4 mana? There are so many other things you can do. In order to get "value" you have to have a Snapcaster or a Vendillion Clique on the board already.

[Dzra]

How much of an impact is Restoration Angel going to have against your various matchups? For a whopping 4 mana? There are so many other things you can do. In order to get "value" you have to have a Snapcaster or a Vendillion Clique on the board already.

I'm not trying to say that Restoration Angel is the greatest. But you can't argue that it doesn't have immediate impact on the board. Just as a gigantic Flashed in blocker you are probably getting a 2-for-1. The only thing better that we could do at 4 mana is Jace and that's not right for a lot of situations. Elspeth is good, but not in an environment flooded with Spell Pierces.

[Jessenator]

I'm not trying to say that Restoration Angel is the greatest. But you can't argue that it doesn't have immediate impact on the board. Just as a gigantic Flashed in blocker you are probably getting a 2-for-1. The only thing better that we could do at 4 mana is Jace and that's not right for a lot of situations. Elspeth is good, but not in an environment flooded with Spell Pierces.

Yes, a fat body is always going to make an impact, but at what cost? The newer version of Stoneblade isn't trying to be reactive, it has a lot of proactive strategies. Many of the format's decks are too fast for a reactive strategy to be advantageous. Lingering Soul is one of the best cards for this purpose, since it serves many purposes. Its board advantage cannot be denied and it prevents a lot of damage in couple short turns.

I'm a huge fan of Lingering Souls at the moment for the fact that it does absolutely everything a deck like this asks for. Plus its very very good in the mirror or against any UW decks.

[Tormod]

I decided to run 2 lingering souls in my sb last night. I admit it was very good against maverick and robots/affinity.

I went 3-1 losing my 1st round to variance and bant (Mana screwed), my other match ups were maverick, elves and affinity.

I'm a believer in lingering souls, having chumpers for ink moth nexus is huge.

[learntolove6]

I have been in a constant, torn state between Miracles and Stoneblade. Miracles is really slow, and the hybrid Miracle-Blade version only plays SFM to "win" against RUG delver, and I don't find that it has a ton of function in that purpose. I love Stoneblade. Aggro-control is a ton of fun and applying pressure always feels better than sitting and doing nothing. On that note i'm thinking of lists that will get there and overcome some issues that I found the deck had in the past (notably, Maverick [I understand Esper sides into Perish and LS is good against them, but i'm not a fan]). Miracles, and Miracle-Blade, just never loses to Maverick, which is a plus to the deck, but I find it requires so much set up to play Miracles, that it just slows games down to nothing, even when you apply pressure.

So this is what I have been thinking:

4 SFM
4 SCM
2 Vendilion Clique

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

3 Jace
1 Elspeth

4 Brainstorm
4 StP
3 FoW
3 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
3 Supreme Verdict*
2 Ponder

4 Tundra
2 Volcanic
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Karakas
3 Island
1 Plains
2 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland


*I believe that this card will be the difference maker in lists not splashing black. It's reach is huge against a lot of decks that this deck traditionally had troubles with (e.g. RUG Delver was never particularly easy for me with Stoneblade, and although the uncounterable clause is irrelevant against Maverick, this gives us reason to run it MD).

Can I ask everyone's opinion? I love the Source because it's an open forum to hear from other people who may or may not feel just like I do and constructively tell me why I am wrong.

[Rico Suave]

I have been in a constant, torn state between Miracles and Stoneblade. Miracles is really slow, and the hybrid Miracle-Blade version only plays SFM to "win" against RUG delver, and I don't find that it has a ton of function in that purpose. I love Stoneblade. Aggro-control is a ton of fun and applying pressure always feels better than sitting and doing nothing. On that note i'm thinking of lists that will get there and overcome some issues that I found the deck had in the past (notably, Maverick [I understand Esper sides into Perish and LS is good against them, but i'm not a fan]). Miracles, and Miracle-Blade, just never loses to Maverick, which is a plus to the deck, but I find it requires so much set up to play Miracles, that it just slows games down to nothing, even when you apply pressure.

So this is what I have been thinking:

4 SFM
4 SCM
2 Vendilion Clique

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

3 Jace
1 Elspeth

4 Brainstorm
4 StP
3 FoW
3 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
3 Supreme Verdict*
2 Ponder

4 Tundra
2 Volcanic
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Karakas
3 Island
1 Plains
2 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland


*I believe that this card will be the difference maker in lists not splashing black. It's reach is huge against a lot of decks that this deck traditionally had troubles with (e.g. RUG Delver was never particularly easy for me with Stoneblade, and although the uncounterable clause is irrelevant against Maverick, this gives us reason to run it MD).

Can I ask everyone's opinion? I love the Source because it's an open forum to hear from other people who may or may not feel just like I do and constructively tell me why I am wrong.

Why are you not a fan of playing black? Why is red better than black?

Also, you are running 7 maindeck 4-drops, which is tremendous. This will undoubtedly hurt you in many games.

As for Supreme Verdict, it's a solid card. I would however urge you to play a 2nd basic Plains so as to better support its casting cost.

[learntolove6]

I just like being responsive, is all. I tried Esper for a while but I personally never liked the discard. Red gives me REB in the side, which i'm a huge fan of. It gives me so much reach and power.

Yeah, I definitely feel the same way. I thought about that right after I posted the list. I think maybe just 2 Verdicts main deck. 6 is still a lot, but Brainstorm will help with that.

Good idea. You're definitely right there.

Why are you not a fan of playing black? Why is red better than black?

Also, you are running 7 maindeck 4-drops, which is tremendous. This will undoubtedly hurt you in many games.

As for Supreme Verdict, it's a solid card. I would however urge you to play a 2nd basic Plains so as to better support its casting cost.

[Dzra]

I just like being responsive, is all. I tried Esper for a while but I personally never liked the discard.

Speaking of which... I've been a little enthused with discard lately myself, but I still like the Black splash. I decided to switch back to a more "reactive" build with more Pierces and some Snares.

The Black splash now is mainly for Vindicate, Darkblast, Zealous Persecution, and to help EE. I'm thinking about a miser's Perish to go along with the two Supreme Verdicts I'll be packing in the side. I'm still not a big Lingering Souls fan, but maybe I can make room.

Once RtR hits, I'm expecting a whole slew of BUG midrange decks (at least in the beginning).

[Jblaze4lif]

Has anyone tried 2 Baleful Strix in UWB Stoneblade? I love the 2 Strix in my UBR Vintage Confidant control deck but without Moxen I think it might be too slow for Legacy.

[Dzra]

Has anyone tried 2 Baleful Strix in UWB Stoneblade? I love the 2 Strix in my UBR Vintage Confidant control deck but without Moxen I think it might be too slow for Legacy.

I like the idea of Baleful Strix as pseudo-removal that cantrips... but I've never actually gotten around to testing it.

[Jblaze4lif]

How important is the 1 Scrubland?

I'm currently running

4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 POlluted delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
4 Basics

1 Dust Bowl
1 Academy ruins
1 Karakas

I like the 4 tundra. I worry about and opening hand with a Scrubland and a colorless land which wOuld be horrible.

I'm running 2 Cliques main so I like the blue.

[Sentient6]

Has anyone ever thought about Izzet Charm in the UWR variant? It's casting cost is certainly a bit restrictive, but it's very versatile. It kills Bob, SFM, Clique, Lackey, Noble Hierarch, Pridemage, Dryad Arbor etc, is no dead removal against combo and can be used to filter in the lategame. It's 2 cmc, but I am willing to try it. Will be running something like:

4 x Stoneforge Mystic
4 x Snapcaster Mage
2 x Vendillion Clique

1 x Batterskull
1 x Umezawa's Jitte (Or maybe SoFaF)
2 x Engineered Explosives

4 x Brainstorm
4 x Force of Will
4 x Swords to Plowshares
3 x Spell Snare
3 x Izzet Charm

2 x Supreme Verdict
2 x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 x Elspeth, Knight-Errand

1 x Academy Ruins
2 x Mishra's Factory
4 x Flooded Strand
4 x Scalding Tarn
4 x Tundra
2 x Volcanic Island
1 x Plateau
2 x Island
2 x Plains
1 x Mountain