I'm a few wins off still, but haven't had tons of time to play. I'm like 12-1 or something with my list.
I can see cutting Thought Collapse and Azor, though I have yet to draw and play the latter funnily enough. Also, I can definitely see running Entrancing Melody; Mass Manip I do think is too taxing on the manabase though.
Your changes definitely signify an approach very differently from mine. I personally value role compression very highly, and cards like Blink of an Eye, Warrant // Warden, Commence the Endgame and (to an extent) Angel of Grace provide just that.
Meanwhile, you put more of a focus on bomb-quality cards like Mass Manip, Ethereal Absolution, The Immortal Sun and Finale of Revelation.
In that regard I'm actually very surprised that you run the sigificantly less powerful 4-mana cards (Kasmina, Elite Guardmage) over the two more powerful options (Karn, Jace).
Cutting Search must be a mistake; keep in mind that its activated ability does not only find instants/sorceries, but noncreature spells (like Narset)
Ixalan's Binding has the slightest niche over Tribunal of singlehandedly shutting down Petitioners and Rats. It's nitpicking, but I like that better than rarely costing 1 mana less.
Regarding the choice of wincons, I think that's up to personal preference by quite a bit. I don't think Absolution is worth the splash personally and I dislike The Immortal Sun in a deck with 6+ planeswalkers; but to each their own.
It's definitely possible the approach is wrong but I just don't see why Blink of an Eye is worth running for example. It's just a 4-mana cycler. Commence the Endgame doesn't make sense either, you draw 2 cards and make what's likely to be a 4/4? vanilla creature, but you could equally be casting Finale of Revelation to draw even more cards (most of which would be stronger than a 4/4 vanilla). Angel of Grace is usually a big flash threat. I don't doubt it's playable, but I wanted to keep the curve lower.
Kasmina is quite strong: she's proactive, has a relevant static, and if unmolested puts 4/4 worth of stats on the board while looting twice. I think power level wise she's stronger than Jace. Jace draws a card every turn but that's it - he has no other relevant abilities and the ultimate is not strong either. Coupled with his UUU cost I think he's just inferior. As for Karn, I tried him and he wasn't impressive since you draw weaker cards, and his -2 mode is poor. 2/2s block better than 1/1s after all. Elite Guardmage is probably replaceable. He was okay, but not spectacular.
It's possible Search is great especially since it's 2 CMC. I didn't run into any Petitioners or Rats decks, but against those I imagine the sweepers would win the game. With Kasmina, Conclave Tribunal's mana reduction can potentially matter (it happened for me).
As for Ethereal Absolution, I think it was worth it. With four rare duals, I'm 4x more likely to be able to cast it than I am to have it dead in my hand. The effect's very powerful, immediately impacts the board too. The Sun might just be a legacy of me playing Selesnya tokens in GRN standard. I'm OK with it shutting off my own planeswalkers since I'm going to win eventually anyway.
Anyway we certainly have different approaches. You try to not tap out, while I'm happy to do so. It's the same approach I take in limited - if I have something to cast, I do it, otherwise I hold up countermagic. It could certainly be my lack of experience playing draw-go control though.
|
