[PRIMER] UB Control

[zemanjaski]

[deck]UB Control Test Version 1.0 - Too Many Kill Conditions[/deck]

Creatures
Ha!

Kill Conditions
2 Curse of the Bloody Tome

Instants
4 Counterspell
4 Deprive
4 Essence Scatter
2 Exclude
1 Oona's Grace
2 Repeal
2 Rewind
4 Think Twice

Sorceries
4 Innocent Blood
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

Lands
4 Dimir Guildgate
4 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Quicksand

10 Island
1 Swamp
[/deck]

Notes:
- mana base is still a WIP. Might experiment with +1 Terramorphic. I think 10 Black sources is plenty for such a light splash; but the fetch lands are actually nice for deck thinning late and play well with Ponder. Might not quite have enough coloured sources either, probably want 19 blue (this has 18; you have to grab 1 black, after that all blue). So -1
Quicksand, +1 Island or +1 fetch is possible.
- perhaps +1 Oona's Grace, -1 Ponder? Oona's Grace is such a powerful draw engine going late, but with Ponder and Preordain you'll have a lot of filtering.
- Brainstorm over Ponder? Might be getting too cute though; and without a fetch it is terrible. I can't run more than 5-6 fetches whereas in legacy you'll typically have 8-9.

1. How the idea came together
- Delver MUC
- MUC
- Problems with both archetypes

2. How this deck wins and strategic advice
- What to counter in each matchup
- How to play draw spells
- Locking your opponent out of the game (inevitability)

3. Key cards And Excludes
- Preordain
- Innocent Blood
- Counter suite (counterspell, deprive, essence scatter, exclude, rewind)
- Draw suite (think twice, oona's grace)
- Repeal (or Into the Roil)

- Mana Leak: Amazing card that I would want to play, except that the games go too long and it ends up being dead too often.
- Prohibit: This card is awful when two of the most
popular decks are Affinity and MBC and their best creatures cost 3+. Awful.

4. Matchup guide
- affinity
- Boroskitty
- faeries
- MUC
- MBC
- Stompy
- Elves
- Kilnclops
- white weenie
- burn

5. Sideboarding
- Crypt Incursion
- Duress
- Doom Blade
- Shrivel / Serrated Arrows
- Nihil Spellbomb

[Mcdonalds]

It's durdles the deck

You have my attention

[zemanjaski]

I've been playing MUC all week that sideboards into the Mono U version of this with a 72% winrate. Innocent Blood and a couple of black sideboard cards solve that archetypes problems. This deck is fucking insane.

[hamfactorial]

Will build and test, too. Who knew Pauper was such a fun format?

[zemanjaski]

It got a lot better after they banned all the degenerate BS.

[LP, of the Fires]

Glad you cut the delvers. I didn't comment on the deck I don't think, but I was like "if he's playing control, mill win con seems better then creature that dies to removal"

Did the trinket mage sideboard plan make the cut? I rarely check these boards...

[zemanjaski]

I haven't found that I have needed it. The only targets I would play are Nihil Spellbomb and Executioner's Capsule; but those sort of ultra slow 2-for-1s aren't that exciting in such a fast format. They also give your opponent small value for otherwise dead removal.

You see so much filtering anyway; Nihil Spellbomb is for GY combo decks (which you also have Crypt Incursion for, only need to find 1); you don't need than 4 removal IMO. The MUC version only lost when they snuck 1-2 guys under countermagic early (usually when you were on the draw), so 1 mana edict solves that; fixed the hexproof matchup (otherwise terrible) and helps a lot vs. affinity and MUC semi-mirrors (turn 1 delver was a nightmare)

[zemanjaski]

Interested in your thoughts on the 60 LP; do they seem logical? Any insight on my notes under the list greatly appreciated.

[LP, of the Fires]

18 blue should be enough. With all the draw you have, you should be able to find the 3rd island in a reasonable amount of time. If you want another oona's grace, just play a mystical teachings. That's like, the perfect 1-of in this deck. Finds everything you could want except Curse. -1 rewind, +1 Mystical maybe.

If you add a fetch and a Mystical, brainstorm gets a lot more appealing as you go from 5 to 7 1/2 shuffle affects.(flashback probably doesn't count as an entire shuffle affect). I actually am kind of liking the idea of 3/1 Brainstorm/ponder. Remember, ponder's also a shuffle affect.

[zemanjaski]

I might need 24 land. I played 22 in MUC and that sometimes felt like 1 too few (hence 23 here); but with fetches taking lands out of the deck, maybe I need 24...still, I play 23 in legacy and that's fine (and that has more fetches).

I don't hate Mystical Teachings at all. I originally wanted Forbidden Alchemy, but the risk of need to dump a Tome was unattractive; sometimes you need both. Teachings avoids that issue nicely and is a long term 2-for-1 which is fine.

I'll test -1 Ponder;
+1 Teachings or +1 Land;

Deck is sick though.

[zemanjaski]

Even 1-3 Brainstorm to play late is very nice; you'll naturally draw into more fetches late and can brainstorm then.

[zemanjaski]

Ponder is better early though, and you've already got a more robust late game than any deck in the format, not close.

[zemanjaski]

Is there anything that transmutes for Curse?

[LP, of the Fires]

Yes. Counter target instant spell. Muddle the mixture. Typed all that to figure out what it was lol.

[LP, of the Fires]

It actually counters target instant or sorcery. And you can tutor it with teaching in a very roundabout way.

[LP, of the Fires]

curse costs 3? DAGGERS.

Murming phantasm. Or something like that. 0/5 defender transmute, Ravnica, City of Guilds.

[zemanjaski]

Brainstorm is in. I played 1 Amass the Components as a way to get rid of dead cards late; with shuffle Brainstorm does the same thing for 1 mana.

[LP, of the Fires]

PERPLEX! It's a bad counterspell, but it's got transmute.

[magicdownunder]

Its quite different, Affinity, Stompy and Delver seem like a challenge - good luck with development.

[zemanjaski]

I was with MUC
50:50 vs Affinity. Black removal is a huge improvement here. All their draw is irrelevant, you just need to counter / kill the 12 relevant creatures. I think this would now improve to 60:40. Maybe better; they run only Pyroblast that's relevant and you've got Black removal anyway.

55:45 vs. the mirror with losses most coming to being out tempoed. Black cards are big here; especially Nihil Spellbomb post board (Oona's Grace is one of the most important cards; I ran two copies in my MUC for this reason, even if the second was blank).

Stompy and Goblins will still be bad. At least now Auras and Kilnclops are very good.

[zemanjaski]

PERPLEX! It's a bad counterspell, but it's got transmute.

I think Brainstorm and Preordain late will be sufficient tbh.

3 Brainstorm, +1 fetch or 4 Brainstorm? I like the 4 Brainstorm. I play 23 land with 8 fetches in legacy and that feels fine. We might want the 6th fetch (-1 island)?

[magicdownunder]

Ahhh, I only seen the MD with 7 'trap' removal and 2 bounces - the decks goal seems to be to 1-4-1 counter every-turn but that hard to do vs fast aggro (esp. on the draw).

Post board you must have a number of removals/sweepers to combat this weakness. (it does seems like a good deck well positioned against the top tiered)

[zemanjaski]

Returned Phalanx is a common.

GG.

[zemanjaski]

Now testing, notes later this week.

[zemanjaski]

4-1 in testing:

2-0 vs White Weenie
2-0 vs Boros Aggro
1-2 vs GW Slivers (had to draw terribly in game 2 and 3 to lose, like bottom 5% of my draws; didn't see any spot removal in 22 cards etc)
2-0 vs MBC
2-0 vs Twisted Memories combo

SB is currently:
1 Crypt Incursion
4 Doom Blade
4 Hydroblast
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Serrated Arrows
2 Shrivel

Oona's Grace was the worst card in the deck and I can see cutting it for another fetch or basic. The Brainstorm + fetch combo is already an enormous endgame and after turn 5+ in any game (except the slivers, where I couldn't find anything to save my life) I had the games won.

More testing / notes to come.

[zemanjaski]

Hydroblast doesn't seem great. It's good vs Kilnclops (already very favourable) and Mono R (not going to win vs. burn anyway) so it can probably be something else. Returned Phalanx?

[Valdarith]

I know little about pauper but Returned Phalanx seems like a great card to run in your deck. With all the late game you have it may as well be a Creeping Tar Pit that doesn't tap for mana and doubles as an early game blocker vs aggro.

[Valdarith]

I wish there was some kind of mana sink you could put in the deck though. I imagine that's what you had Oona's Grace for. Certainly there's a better option.

[zemanjaski]

Honestly I was surprised how good Brainstorm plus fetch was in pauper. Oona's Grace is the best I've found; you get to 6-7 land then convert everything after that into gas. As a 1-of it's ok, I probably just need more games that go long (MUC and MBC).

[DarthStabber]

You could run [card]Jace's erasure[/card] over cotbt, it's only 2 mana as opposed to 3, meaning you can run muddle the mixture to tutor it. It mills for each card you draw, which makes it slightly less reliable but with enough card draw you can balance it out, maybe even tip it to be more effective.

[zemanjaski]

Hmmmmmmm. Interesting. I am afraid of milling myself with that! You would need two in play to generate a kill safely; whereas CotBT can kill with just a single copy....will test; love the rec + works with Muddle which is awesome. Arrigato!

[DarthStabber]

I brought it up because almost every pauper turbofog uses it, and they use a lot of draw spells like this does to accelerate the kill, and grab more fogs.

[zemanjaski]

1-2 vs MUC
2-0 vs MBC
2-0 vs UB Trinket Control
2-0 vs MBC
1-2 vs RB Tortured Existence

[zemanjaski]

2-0 vs Auras

Dat Innocent Blood induced ragequit.

Who maindecks innocent blood? This moi.

[Valdarith]

I have an unhealthy love for Innocent Blood. I wish it were Modern legal!

[zemanjaski]

It makes my legacy deck playable tbh.

[Jack]

I finally got to try this deck. It is nasty.

[Jack]

I do think that a spell that could transmute for our win con could be very useful. Now, I don't play control often (pretty much never before this, actually), but is it typical to have a high number of mainboard creature answers with a sideboard that is also mostly made of answers to creature decks? Are we already so good against control that we can afford to play a few dead spells, or are low-creature decks like this one just really uncommon in the format?

[zemanjaski]

Control decks are a bye; hence the overload on anti-creature stuff post board.

[zemanjaski]

Updated decklist:

[deck]Too Many Win Conditions v1.1[/deck]
Win Conditions
2 Curse of the Bloody Tome

Instants
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Deprive
4 Essence Scatter
2 Exclude
1 Oona's Grace
2 Repeal
2 Rewind
4 Think Twice

Sorceries
4 Innocent Blood
4 Preordain

Lands
4 Dimir Guildgate
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Quicksand

8 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Crypt Incursion
2 Devour Flesh
2 Doom Blade
2 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Returned Phalanx
2 Serrated Arrows
2 Shrivel
[/deck]

Just a bit more tuning. Oona's Grace could still be an Island.