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On November 12 2014 19:59 Ephemerality wrote:
I think everyone is failing to see the better deck, RW Heroic. It's faster than UW, and you can still run the same things like god's willing and ajani's presence. Against control decks you get to run Hammer of Purphoros, and Dragon Mantle as well as Titan's Strength are really good.
It's not a bad idea, I just prefer the Ascendancy combo to the stock rw heroic. If I'm playing heroic, I'm likely just going UW.
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On November 12 2014 19:59 Ephemerality wrote:
I think everyone is failing to see the better deck, RW Heroic. It's faster than UW, and you can still run the same things like god's willing and ajani's presence. Against control decks you get to run Hammer of Purphoros, and Dragon Mantle as well as Titan's Strength are really good.
I thought the strongest part of the UW heroic deck was that Thassa's Mantle provided enough card advantage to overpower the opponent before they could stabilize?
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With only a few games on MTGO, I feel Heliod's Pilgrim is what makes the deck over the top. It allows you to play interactive enchantments (or non interactive ones like Aqueous Form) without taking many slots in your deck.
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On November 13 2014 00:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2014 19:59 Ephemerality wrote:
I think everyone is failing to see the better deck, RW Heroic. It's faster than UW, and you can still run the same things like god's willing and ajani's presence. Against control decks you get to run Hammer of Purphoros, and Dragon Mantle as well as Titan's Strength are really good. I thought the strongest part of the UW heroic deck was that Thassa's Mantle provided enough card advantage to overpower the opponent before they could stabilize?
You mean Ordeal of Thassa? I hope so, or I'm forgetting something important.
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can't beat ub control in standard
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On November 13 2014 02:26 deth2munkies wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2014 00:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:On November 12 2014 19:59 Ephemerality wrote:
I think everyone is failing to see the better deck, RW Heroic. It's faster than UW, and you can still run the same things like god's willing and ajani's presence. Against control decks you get to run Hammer of Purphoros, and Dragon Mantle as well as Titan's Strength are really good. I thought the strongest part of the UW heroic deck was that Thassa's Mantle provided enough card advantage to overpower the opponent before they could stabilize? You mean Ordeal of Thassa? I hope so, or I'm forgetting something important.
Yes, that
The card Tom Ross kept using to draw cards while smashing face Ophidian style.
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Ordeal of Thassa and post-board Treasure Cruise let the deck fight through a pile of removal and discard effects. UW is more stable against a prepared field, RW goldfishes a lot better against unprepared decks. Heroic Ascendancy feels a lot more like the RW deck than the UW deck in that it has a powerful goldfish, but it trades stable mana and some consistency (and a lot of percentage against mono-red) to gain the ability to kill from more board positions.
The UW version has the best sideboard options which likely makes it the best choice going into a larger event.
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Im curious to see the longevity of UW heroic. I've played a few matches with it on MTGO and it seems so solid. But I'm skeptical because Tom Ross tends to be able to be the only guy to succeed with decks like these.
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On November 13 2014 14:37 RoieTRS wrote:
can't beat ub control in standard
what are you playing?
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On November 13 2014 17:11 Whole wrote:
Im curious to see the longevity of UW heroic. I've played a few matches with it on MTGO and it seems so solid. But I'm skeptical because Tom Ross tends to be able to be the only guy to succeed with decks like these.
#Truth
Its like watching all those miracles players thinking they're as good as Joe Lossett and bringing Miracles for the first time into a 200-300 player event and wondering what they're doing with 3 draws.
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As someone new to Magic, just recently bought a bunch of boosters the UB Control seems odd to me. Lots of draw, lots of counter spells / clears but runs only a few creatures and no burn. What exactly is the win condition here? Disrupt all opponent creatures and just play your 1-2 Pearl Lake's and call it a day?
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Exactly. Since Pearl Lake Ancient is nearly unkillable, you just keep the board cleared until you have a critical mass of cards over your opponent (no other deck has the same about of card draw), and then you drop Pearl Lake Ancient with protection (and if anything goes wrong, you can bounce him back).Then they'll typically die in about 3 turns.
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Ah...yeah does seem annoying. If you somehow lose your 1-2 Pearls though you're facked.
I'm currently making an Abzan Midrange, friends helped me out with good deals. Got a lot of Fetch's, 4 Rhinos, 1 Sorin, etc. Hoping to end up as an Abzan Reanimator deck which looks pretty sick. Would either get smashed by the UB Control?
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That's why you play a one of Cranial Archive and deck them. That was last season's control.
About playing Abzan, I wouldn't really worry about one deck specifically as an "auto lose" scenario. This format has a lot of play and really just requires having the right combination of cards and experience to get the job done.
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Ub should be favored against most midrange decks but it's not a free win or anything. There are no guarantees playing a slow deck against thoughtseize.
As for reanimator vs ub, it depends a lot on your build.
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On November 14 2014 02:35 MCMcEmcee wrote:
Ub should be favored against most midrange decks but it's not a free win or anything. There are no guarantees playing a slow deck against thoughtseize.
As for reanimator vs ub, it depends a lot on your build.
THere is no such thing as a free win but the Abzan midrange sans fleecemane is definitely the closest thing to a free win there is in standard right now for UB control. In testing I haven't lost vs it yet and in REL events I haven't either. I've lost games but I have yet to lose a match.
But on another note the deck has serious issues with Mono Red and Heroic decks running god's willing and ajani's presence whether it be UW or Jeskai.
I've honestly thought about moving thoughtsieze to the board because it's only good in the control mirror which is rare and vs Abzan for hitting their nissa's and Charms.
I've also been playing the ashiok version of UB and not the Peral Lake version. I think the Pearl Lake version is better but too often people over value ashiok and give you an extra turn by attacking her. Liliana Main deck is also house.
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On November 14 2014 06:13 Shotcoder wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2014 02:35 MCMcEmcee wrote:
Ub should be favored against most midrange decks but it's not a free win or anything. There are no guarantees playing a slow deck against thoughtseize.
As for reanimator vs ub, it depends a lot on your build. THere is no such thing as a free win but the Abzan midrange sans fleecemane is definitely the closest thing to a free win there is in standard right now for UB control. In testing I haven't lost vs it yet and in REL events I haven't either. I've lost games but I have yet to lose a match. But on another note the deck has serious issues with Mono Red and Heroic decks running god's willing and ajani's presence whether it be UW or Jeskai. I've honestly thought about moving thoughtsieze to the board because it's only good in the control mirror which is rare and vs Abzan for hitting their nissa's and Charms. I've also been playing the ashiok version of UB and not the Peral Lake version. I think the Pearl Lake version is better but too often people over value ashiok and give you an extra turn by attacking her. Liliana Main deck is also house.
Even with Fleecemane (my deck) it sucks for us. I do run a 1-of Whip of Erebos maindeck and it's responsible for most of my wins.
Looking into Stain the Mind in the sideboard just because I can basically end the game if it resolves by naming Pearl Lake Ancient.
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So I'll weigh in here since I have been playing mostly UB Vault for the past month or so with an emphasis on Delve (I am running 7 fetches, 6 mainboard discard spells) to power out either a turn 4 Dig or Treasure Cruise (much less likely to pull the trigger on this one) fairly consistently. Also I am playing Dissipates over Dissolve, the scry is irrelevant to me at this point since I do have cruise, jace's, and I can power out a Dig. For comparison's sake, the life gain from my Radiant Fountains and Dismal Backwaters has been more relevant than the scry cards. Ashiok is complete garbage in that deck and serves no purpose outside of UBx mirrors.
UB Vault versus Abzan was like the UB versus Frites match up from a while back, it looked bad at the start, but actually its quite good once the UB player identifies the relevant cards and keeps them from ever resolving. Nullify is your absolute best card since Abzan is very much a 1 spell per turn deck and if you trade with them that early on, it's hard for them to win. Basically if you stomp their Whip, nothing else really matters. I swap Bile Blights out for Murderous Cuts and let my Vault do the talking, if you resolve Vault on to an empty board, it's problematic for any midrange player, but Abzan just has more play because they have Whips if they can try to overwhelm the Vault (usually a losing proposition for them).
Stain the Mind I feel like isn't the answer, I think the best answer is Chord of Calling, it's efficient, you can probably nail them on the turn they play Vault (via the elf) and buy you some tempo play there. The reason why I don't feel like Stain is the Answer is that you are assuming that they didn't board in Prognostic Sphinx or another win-con against you and if they did....ehhhhh. The game revolves around Vault more than it does for Pearl Lake. Basically I think Chord is just more pro-active than say Stain since they could play a PLA before you resolve a Stain. Just a bit too many hurdles to be jumping through.
Now Thoughtseize mainboard I'd say is only justified if you are trying to power out a turn 4 Dig, otherwise it's not that great. PLA rebuying Radiant Fountains is just too good in some match ups (like Jeskai) since it literally puts the game out of their spells.
Edit:
One of the best ways of beating PLA right now is just crushing UB's tempo. This is something that has always confused me about my opponents online and IRL. They try to go for value plays instead of stacking removal, there's a huge difference on losing 3 lands and losing 6 lands for a control deck. It's not like UB has reach, your threats are literally right in front of you, I dunno, just confusing overall. It's made me want to squeeze red in for Keranos.
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On November 13 2014 14:37 RoieTRS wrote:
can't beat ub control in standard
Hammer of Purphoros.
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On November 14 2014 00:48 Slardar wrote:
As someone new to Magic, just recently bought a bunch of boosters the UB Control seems odd to me. Lots of draw, lots of counter spells / clears but runs only a few creatures and no burn. What exactly is the win condition here? Disrupt all opponent creatures and just play your 1-2 Pearl Lake's and call it a day?
A control deck tries to keep the board clear/counter the opponents spells if they are not playing to the board. Once you have established control by killing all their stuff and drawing additional answers it is completely incidental what you use to win the game with. Your win condition should take up as little space as feasible. Ideally it should double as a control piece so you do not need to devote cards to finishing the game at all. The most common control deck in the previous standard format could end the game by taking an opponents threat with Jace, Architect of Thought's ultimate. Jace also provided card draw and defense so you could dispense with finishers completely. (Most people played an Elspeth or two though.)
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EPT
