I've found the shard lands to be sufficient so far for black mana. Banefire has definitely helped to close games. While Inspiration does help you dig through your deck, I think the marginal value of the fourth Inspiration is less than having a single copy of Banefire.

So I finally tested banefire and agree that as a 1 of it is very good. It was in our original list but we wanted an extra angelic edict. We just cut the wrong card, inferno titan is not good in the current meta.

Also go on bmlewis. I hope you can take down the tournament, I really believe this is the best deck in the game.

So where are you sitting right now? My list has 4 Think Twice, 4 Inspiration, 1 Angelic Edict, and 1 Banefire.

wow, this is big words coming from Monk. I need to visit this four-colour pile

where's the banefire in the deck? I don't see it.

Only five creatures? How does this deck win? Can someone explain to me how the heck to use that damn Obelisk. That card is going to give me analysis paralysis trying to decide what to do with it

Look at the board then consider the five modes. Pick the best one for the current board.

Gah! A deck that requires skill and judgment? I think I'll go back to Rabble Red or devil's Yes Sir deck. Thinking is for chumps.

I have updated my list here

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4995&start=20#p234179

I am currently at 4 think twice, 3 inspiration, 2 angelic edict, 1 banefire.

Winning is easy once you have control of the game. Even 7 attacks with rhox war monk will do. Usually I have 4+ cards in hand whilst my opponent has none and I have control of the board. From there it doesn't matter.

The most common win is through resounding thunder and banefire going to face.

Here is a simple breakdown of what I do with obelisk.

1. Use the white mode if I am going to die and don't have a lifelinker in play

2. Use the green mode to save a creature or gain extra life with a lifelinker whilst still pushing through damage.

3. Use the black mode to kill a creature or save baneslayer from reprisal.

4. Use the blue mode if you are in a right game and you need more gas or a specific answer, holding land here is useful to discard.

5. Once you have control it's time for the red mode to close the game fast. Remember sometimes the green mode may be slightly quicker.

I hope that helps.

Hearthstone is great and all but stick to your roots, Monk. Magic is where it's at.

I'm sad Hearthstone separates American and European servers, though.

Well now that my initial crazy obsessive hearthstone session is over I am happy to come back to magic. I will probably end up doing both but yes magic will always win for me.

And for our differences in deck list. I like the second edict, it helps vs giant monsters before we have enough mana to ground assault them and also doubles against angelic edict, seance or any other nonsense. Especially as we don't have planar cleansing.

I just don't like tapping out early, so two copies felt a bit much. It's a nice out to Terra Stomper, but I think I'd rather just jam Inspiration in most games to get deeper. We can counter those enchantments.

I also don't like drawing both early but I think 2 is fine. I tried the 4th inspiration before banefire but there were times when I would draw into more draw spells and die before doing anything relevant. Not that the 1 spell difference actually, the deck is still insane.

Agreed, we pretty much solved the format. The reason this deck is so good is that there are just no bad matchups. We have Anger plus War Monk against aggro, Ground Assault, Edict and counterspells against midrange, and uncounterable burn against control.

I call it "Total Control" in my deck editor.

I'm making a new post for this deck because I've featured it on YouTube and I want to be able to link to it from there. This is more Monk's deck than mine, but I want to showcase just how awesome it is. The table will reflect any changes made after the recording of the deck tech.

Wow I am really excited. I have been seeing a lot of decklists running a similar control shell that is mostly UR but I consider it to be weaker to aggro than I would like due to only 2 angers. I can't wait to start dropping war monks - a lifelinked 3 drop that survives anger.

The one thing I am curious about is the lack of Darksteel ingots. Even though this deck runs Visions, I prefer ingot for the sake of Obelisk. You could also run more basic lands that come into play untapped. I love ingots in my current 3 color (UWR) draw-go deck, and I think I would want them even more with 4 colors.

Edit - removed reference to phantom cultivate

Had some time to do a little playtesting. Aside from the usual mana issues, I lost a game on the play to a lifegain deck that dropped a pridemate on turn 2 and had it up to 7/7 by turn four. My Ground Assault sat in my hand, taunting me. I had a Resounding Thunder but had to use it before turn 5 to kill a missionary. I thought about adding some Reprisal, but basically ground assault is effective 99% of the time and I do not want to change my deck around a corner case. Had I drawn a Shock I also would have zapped that kitty before it grew. Although the lifegain deck is exceedingly common, this is the first time I had seen such an aggressive pridemate deck.

War Monk is ridiculous, but I think I get him out on turn 3 half the time at best. Still need to play this deck more to figure out how to mulligan.

The changes I am considering are cutting two out of three of Banefire, Baneslayer Angel and Resounding Thunder, cutting one land, and adding three Darksteel Ingots. Don't get me wrong, I love BSA, but I prefer the monks because they are easier to play and leave mana open for counters. Banefire is great as a finisher, but it can be an expensive sorcery speed removal that again taps you out. And Thunder - I love it, but 3 copies is sufficient. Another possibility would be to cut all 3 of the above and add Obelisk of Alara #2, which is my preferred finisher.

As far as the manabase, I might cut back slightly on blue and red and add a bit of white and green. Also, since I have Ingots to provide black mana I might switch to using more guildgates, for example boros and simic, so that I do not encounter the problem of the trilands dumping all the W and G mana symbols on the same card.

I have yet to test any of these changes as I want to spend more time getting familiar with what is a very strong decklist.

bump

So I reexamined the list and noticed something I missed the first time - no planar cleansing. Somehow, in my head, I imagined the deck was going for cleansing. The manabase of the non-cleansing decklist works without ingots.

The deck is really consistent - I would always have a hand with playable spells, usually burn, sometimes counters or draw. The list is great for stabilizing, dropping a war monk, and chipping away at them while you counter or burn their creatures.

But I am not convinced the decklist is necessarily the best for steam. I just lost two games to decks that ramped, played big creatures, and hit me with big banefires to the face. I wasn't able to get my rhinos to stick - I had the opportunity to counter the removal that was aimed at them, but I did not want to spend my last counter keeping a 3/4 on the board when I knew my opponents were getting ready to drop bombs.

so basically you lose to jund? one of the most common decks on steam

Actually I believe one was either conflux or blueless. The Jund deck was extremely top-heavy, the only relatively low-cost creature I saw was a sprouting thrinax - which I kinda had to counterspell. The Jund deck did 9-10 damage with two Elvish Visionaries beating me down until he had a banefire.

The blueless deck basically did not apply much early pressure, but had a ton of value cards. Graveborn Muse ate two shocks. Mentor of the Meek and Masked Admirers showed up - I saved my anger for them since it had few other targets, but he drew 3 cards off these two dudes, meaning I lost cards in this transaction. The win condition was again a 15ish point Banefire, I had taken a few damage from 1/1 dudes.

I could have played these games differently - both times I resolved a war monk with counterspell mana open, but it immediately earned a removal spell. I elected not to spend my last counterspell to protect my war monk in both instances, figuring that slow ramp decks generally run a decent amount of removal and that I should save my permission for fatties. Perhaps these games would have gone differently - I don't know.

The issue is ramp and threat density as much as anything else. When my counterspells often cost 5 mana and my opponent is playing threats that cost 5-7 mana, I will often find myself in situations where I have enough open mana for 1 counterspell due to playing sorcery speed stuff on my turn and my opponent has the mana for 2 big threats. Maybe I have Ground Assault, but if my opponent has 10+ threats like Captain of the Watch or Inferno Titan, I am going to fall behind even if I answer every threat.

I am pretty convinced that if I want to do well in this sort of matchup that 2 Obelisk of Alara is key, the lifegain means you can easily stay outside of Banefire range. Beyond that, Nullify makes it easier to counter spells without having to leave scads of mana open, and prevents fatties with nasty EtBs / LtBs from making an entrance. Overall though, most of the card advantage in 2015 is found in creatures, and that makes it difficult to use a deck that relies heavily on one-to-one removal.