I like counterlash with kozilek. Counter a spell, draw 4 and have a 12/12 in play.

It's really good with Utvara Hellkite too and Darksteel Colossus to a lesser degree.

Hellkite turns into 6 damage next turn.. 12 evasive power, if not answered.. 24 evasive power the next turn.

It's been a while but I tried your idea Henwen and I think incorporating Counterlash in this deck was a good idea:



Basically I just swapped 2 Traumatic Visions for 2 Counterlash and swapped 1 Mountain and 2 Swamps with guildgates to compensate for the loss in mana fixing.

Haven't had any significant mana issues so far and Counterlash is really doing well in this deck, not only to put Charmbreaker Devils into play but also the Rune-Scarred Demons or pretty much anything else above 4 mana really. The fact that the Devils can pick it up again later makes me less worried about spamming it to put whatever creature into play.

As the game is coming to the end of its shelf life I'd love to post my favourite deck.... But as an iPad user I'm finding it difficult to use the deck manager so I figured I'd just list my choices and reasons why.... The deck does quite well but I'm sure some expert could tweak it, but it is my most successful deck. Apologises if it looks the same as anyone else's.

Card draw

2 quicken ( 1 mana instant speed card draw, can also turn one of the 4 sorcerys into instants
3 think twice
2 inspiration
1 Kozi

Counters

3 dissolve
2 counter lash (love this card)

Recursion

4 archeomancers
2 rescue from the underworld (to fetch the archeomancers)

Life gain

2 tributes
1 suffer the past

Burn

1 banefire
3 shock
2 anger of the gods
1 inferno Titan

Removal

2 auger spree
1 flesh to dust

Misc

2 rune scar daemons
1 time warp


Typical control deck, burn remove what gets through, counter what you can't, use the Wizards to get back instants, use the daemons to fetch get out of jail cards or finishers.

Finishers tend to be counter lashed titan or Kozi or banefire. Daemons usual fetch counter lash, Titan, Kozi, suffer (for lifegain or to disrupt graveyard play) or rescue.

Fun things.

Counter lashing a sorcery then casting time warp
Counter lashing a creature into a deamon to fetch time warp to free the daemon from summoning sickness to attack with an auger spree.
Saving an archeomancer with rescue and returning another and grabbing 2 spells

Hope anyone who tries this has fun

Altashheth

Edit: lands
6 islands
4 mountains
3 swamps
3 crumbling necropolis
3 of each guild gate

Altashheth: Thats actually a pretty cool list.. when I get some free time, I'd like to give it a whirl.

Let me know what you think, it's my first proper proper magic deck for a number of years.

I will in 5-10 days. I'm headed offshore for a fishing trip. Hopefully somebody else around here gives it a play before then.

Been trying this one out for the last day or so. It's very fun and pretty good. I went 6-0 online and 3-3 against the AI playing what I consider to be strong decks. Feels slightly slow (at least, for the ipad meta, which is pretty aggro heavy).
Here's my comments:

1. Against tokens, of any variety (Boros, Izzet, or spider spawning), anger of the gods will win you the game. Especially strong with Quicken, which lets you cast it in response to your opponent tapping out to cast their own instant. That said, only 2 angers and only 3 card draw spells that you are likely to cast before it's too late (ie you cant count on casting an inspiration to draw into an anger, to cast on your fifth turn). Shock and auger spree help delay, but those aren't usually great trades against a token army.
2. Counterlash + Kozi is a tough win condition to find. I never came across it as my first win con. I certainly could have tutored it through rune scarred at various points, but by then the game was largely stabilized in my favor and any 5 power creature would win the game for me. Counterlash is also a dead card against aggro. If you make it to turn 6 against most token decks (spider spawning aside), you've probably won already.
3. I love decks with archeao + time warp. I try to make it work in all sorts of lists. Here, it was more often than not just a zero mana cantrip.
4. Multiple times I had a dead rescue from the underworld in my hand, as there was either no creature on the board or no creature in my graveyard. When I could cast it, it was a game winner. It might be in the same boat as counterlash for me - if you can cast it to full effect, a different and faster card would probably also win you the game.

After a few games I switched the following:
- 1 inferno titan, + 1 Charmbreaker devil (easy to hard cast, great synergy with the deck in general. he was my most frequent win con. auger spree or elder mastery is usually a win. You can also suffer the past your own graveyard to charmbreaker a specific spell back.)
- 1 counterlash, + 1 traumatic visions (lowering the curve, and makes the mana a bit more consistent as you can cycle the visions early against aggro)
- 1 kozi, +1 elder mastery (dunno about this one, but turn 4 archeaomancer followed by turn 5 elder mastery won me a game. People do not expect you to make them discard cards in this format. also lowers the curve a bit).
- 1 rescue, + 1 shock (more removal to deal with aggro)

Basically taking out a few of the combo pieces, which is painful, to try and handle early aggro more consistently. You've still got all the major pieces, but now you can hard cast your major win conditions instead of trying to piece together a counterlashed kozi. I'm not sure if this makes the deck better in an absolute sense, but just gives it a bit more edge in the toughest matchup (the strongest token decks). I've never seen anybody (else) resolve a kozi on ipad, so the bombs i have left should be plenty to finish the job.

Hi all, I am new to the site but I have been using the forum for about a week now and I felt I should repay all the ideas I received with a post of one of my many deck lists. I would love to hear the community's input on how it plays / changes you would consider helpful.


Strategy is pretty straightforward by using red burn combined with blue/black discard/mill . The reason for the discard mill is simply for Suffer the Past as an additional damage spell. It doesn't hurt to do it early game if you are struggling for life.

I'll give your ideas a try but I have to say I'm sceptical.

I think you're spot on with aggro being the problem.... Boros tokens, mono white and goblins seem to be my bane.... I've not had a problem with spiders , izzit, or Naya....yet (gulp)

I can certainly see the benefit of charm breakers my worry is their lack of enter the battle field effect, the 8 current creatures all do something when they turn up, inc when lashed or rescued.
Kozi is indeed tutored for on occasion, if I'm rescuing or hard casting a deamon and I have lash in hand.

I'm really not sold on mastery, a 6 mana enchant aura in a 7 creature deck that's trying to play at instant speed (7 due to Titan and Kozi being removed for Devils). At least rescue provides a degree of protection from removal when cast in response, and with those enter the battlefield effects whatever you bring back does something. I admit it's a late game card but with so much value.

Now tokens.... Titan shines here, wiping two or three out on arrival, he's like a third anger but usually dropped after an anger to clean up the reinforcements. I think you've miscounted the draw options, 2 quicken and 3 think twice gives 5 cheap draw, 3 of which can be flashed back.... And those wizards make an excellent token blocker with 1/2 bodies whilst fetching token killing shocks or tributes.. I played a mono white soldier deck yesterday, two mancers, a shock and a tribute (reused twice) kept the soldiers at bay for when I found the anger.... With two lives to go I pulled back an epic win (lashed a banisher priest and dropped the Titan before time warp for two attacks in a row 21 damage (3 lots of 3 and two 6s)

I guess that's a subjective example... I'll give your changes a proper chance

Altash: more workshopping on your list. I cut Elder mastery for Obelisk of Alara, which really shines as reusable removal and a win condition in its own right. Also got rid of time warp for a 4th think twice, and a quicken for another inspiration. Went 2-1 with that version of the deck, the loss coming against a very strange bant lifegain flier deck that I made a horrible misread on a rune scarred demon tutor to lose by 1 turn. I'll try a few more games tomorrow but this is becoming my favorite control deck at the moment.

That sounds like an excellent change.... Could swap the guild gates out for tri-lands to open up Obelisk options... I was struggling with mastery, i have got it to stick properly yet, unless I wait for 9 mana and hold a dissolve for the inevitable removal but it leaves me tapped out for the turn.

Yeah, mastery was enabling too many cards in our opponent's hands. My changes were moving the deck more towards pure control than your original list, which was sort of combo control. You probably won more games with a big counterlash + kozi / rune scarred / titan, whereas I am winning games with either a hard cast charmbreaker or obelisk, both of which take more time and protection (but both of them provide enough card advantage to support themselves). In the more control oriented version, elder mastery was really just a lightning rod for whatever removal my opponent was holding onto all game. Those are still dead cards against obelisk, typically. In the few games I played with obelisk, I tutored for it every time and won whenever it hit the board.

If you are going obelisk then you want some more trilands- both the G and the W obelisk activations are awesome. And if you have some G mana why not go for ground assault and resounding thunder instead of the less reliable tribute to hunger?

Make a few more changes like this and you end up with something akin to Monkeem 4 color control or my 5 color control. Traumatic visions and trilands make a 4-5 color manabase quite simple.

I think there is an advantage to staying at 1-2 colors, but 3 colors is at kind of an awkward spot, because trilands make it so easy to add a 4th color.

As far as counterlash, it is an integral part of my dimir control build. Since I don't have access to a sweeper in those colors I want to get my big boys to hit the board ASAP. This is a deck without combo pieces that is instead very focused on 1-1 answers and card draw, with a few fatties and counterlash at the end of the curve. Counterlash works best when your opponent has an empty or nearly empty board and you can afford to keep 6 mana open. If you need to tap out in order to cast e.g. Archaeomancer then counterlash may end up being a dead card in your hand. Instant speed answers are key.

My original version was all about the instants, with archeomancers primarily as recursion not to be hard cast until later... Saying that I'm not against counter lashing an Archeomancer into play; and have even returned the lash to hand before.

I'm getting decent return of life fron the tributes, can definitely see where the roiling thunder could fit in, especially against control decks....

I guess at the moment I'm moving back to the first version but looking for where to put an obelisk.

Ground assault is great but isn't it sorcery speed?

I think 4 or 5 color control is probably better than grixis. I have a RGUW control deck with planar collapse and ground assault, and it matches up better against aggro with the extra 2 sweepers and the cheap targeted removal of ground assault + shock. But, it's fun to play something else every once in a while, especially with this game's shelf life coming to an end.

Hi guys.... as an iPad player i'm back to 2015 due to Duels refusing to Connect and no fix in sight and im back to playing around with my fav colour combination.

at the moment the biggest changes are
-1 rescue from the underworld
-2 inspiration

+2 Traumatic Visions
+1 Monomania

The rescue is a fun card and I still have 1 in the deck that can be tutored or held on to, its instant speed, it saves a dude from death and bings him back with his etb effect and fetches anther dude with an etb effect.... its usually a Mancer plus something else which gets that spell back that i really need to cast again and something else...like 3 damage to the face or tutoring a counterspell....

the inspirations just don't help the early game and i often found that I was inspiring at 7 to an 8 card hand.... getting me what I want but forcing me to discard...I hate discarding unless I choose too...

the inclusions:

Monomania wrecks control decks, especially if its a quickened Monomania when they're tapped out...

Traumatic Visions helps to fix one of the early game problems of not having a land by fetching one, it fixes the colours if you need a double red/blue/black and it provides additional counter-spells when the dissolves are used up later in game... with 2 quicken, 3 think twice and 2 Traumatic visions the early card draw/land search is possible with the think twices acting as pseudo inspirations later in game and the quicken powering timewarp/monomania/anger later in game.

the deck feels smoother now and with a little more against other control.

recent highlights are still counter lashing Kozi on turn 6 with a dissolve in hand.. and a stall, stall, stall game that eventually had with counterlashing a runescarred with 3 mana avaliable to dissolve the obvious removal leaving my opponent tapped out; then on my turn swinging and timewarpping whilst Mancering the timewarp back to swing again next turn before finishing with a shock