@DJ

I've been testing that slot a lot. Anchor hasn't been good enough IMO.. mainly bc it's not instant or permanent removal. I'm currently testing Celestial Flare, and it's decent.. gives me an out to Gaea's Revenge.. but my damage gets fogged that turn. I can typically get it to hit what I want with all the tapping shenanigans.. and it's easier on the mana/cheaper.

As much as I don't want to.. I really think slotting 2x Reprisal might be the right call.. then I can add a 24th land of something else. I'm also testing an Esper variant of the deck that splashes a teeny bit of black for Reave Soul. Reave Soul and Reprisal cover each other's weaknesses very nice. Jorubai also made that list. Its still a work in.progress.. but the control/removal package is the only debatable part of the Azorious list.

Celestial Flare also gives an out to Primal Huntbeast.

Totally agree... no way you need 24 lands in this deck.

All good. Here's the issue, with 11 sources of blue mana in the deck (let's pretend 12 thanks to some draw from the Thief), you will have Claustrophobia or Willbreaker in hand, and be unable to play it on t5 roughly 1 in 5 games - you need to decide if that = loss when it happens. You are basically okay with those 11 sources if you cut Claustrophobia (although I might still go to 12). White is also a bit of a problem, as with 5 WW 2 drops, you've got about a 1 in 5 chance to have a WW card in hand and be unable to play it on t2 (you'd need a whopping 20 - possibly 19 - sources to be safe there, lol, I'm not actually suggesting that).

I haven't played the deck enough to be able to say whether any of these things are issues. Don't take this as criticism, the deck is really good. In fact, I'm going to see if I can improve on it, because I like it a ton!

p.s.: you should definitely be running 4 guildgates over Evolving wilds. I don't think there is any benefit to wilds here. I don't think that change is super important though.

Edit: it really is 21 sources of white needed for high consistency. 18 on the low end.

For what it's worth beast, I'v run your deck in my personal gauntlet whole week, ofc with my personal preferences as we discussed.

Turns out I think our discussions are irrelevant for meta reasons. This is an extremely potent aggro deck with mid- game tech that's just delicious, but currently it is a perilous myr and twinbolt meta. This drags the deck down. It is at it's most devastating vs midrange / control / any deck around PROVIDED they don't drop double myr/bolt. Now on steam, thanks to hakeem i've been seeing truckloads of golgari control and thopter decks; so yeah, your deck kinda folds to their better hands imo. I love it though and I'm sure the shell will stay relevant throughout future meta transformations.



Math aside, i'm not talking out of my ass guys, i've been running this deck. there is NO WAY with the current deck idea and the supporting mana that you will be dropping council's luitenant every time turn 2. You just have to accept that; sometimes, you dont WANT that. But you can get pretty close if you have around 18 sources. I run 16 because that seemed to me as far as I could push it without forsaking turn 3 blue.

Also I disagree with dj about taplands. more than half the time, this deck does not want to skip a turn on it's threat level. This is not a build where you are gonna play around languish. You gonna die to it, or you will be better in the race. You wanna fix asap, and you don't wanna draw tapped lands.

Evolving wilds are also taplands. He had 2 of them, I think the Guildgates are betterer, but they both aren't very good. I wish we didn't need either, but that's probably for the expansion.

This is what I'm trying... having very little trouble getting 2 White by turn 2, and the deck sings. Of course, it was already singing, can't tell if it's that much louder now, lol.

-3 Claustrophobia, +3 Suppression Bonds
+3 Plains
-1 Island
-2 Rogue's Passage
-2 Evolving Wilds
+2 Azorius Guildgate

Suppression Bonds could be good.. it's not like that, Claustrophobia or Celestial Flare are turn 4 plays all that often anyway. I like having at least one Rogues Passage.. for the Thopter decks.. can't tap all that shenanigans down typically. The Evolving Wilds went in bc Covert GoBlue made a good point about not having an island for Dauntless River Marshal.. I thought it was sound to put in a few outs to that. The Gates are ok.. there's plenty to do at 2-3 mana.

I agree, I'd like to add Rogue's Passage too, but I just don't think the mana can withstand it, as it's tight already - can we really break a draw with them? I'm not so sure, and I didn't run into thopters, yet. Wilds v. gates is a bit of a toss up for me: Convert is right, you want an island for the Marshal, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference. What you really need is blue for its activation IMO. The gates do that without screwing up your requirements for white mana. I could make the same argument, in the other direction, thanks to the heavy mana requirements of the Irregulars, I think it's close to a wash, but I prefer duals here (if slightly).

The thought process I'm using is that I'd always rather have a gate and a plain in my opening hand than a plain and a wilds. Getting +1+1 on a marshal is a secondary condition, to being able to play every card in the deck. Btw, this is even more likely to be true if you keep the claustrophobias in the deck.

Back on the subject of thopters... I think this deck has a better chance of breaking them with early pressure than late game shenanigans. I may be wrong on that, I'm going to go seek out some opponents, and get back to you.

I wish I could test.. I'm on a boat, headed out the inlet for a 5-7 day fishing/diving trip. I'll be eager to hear your results when I get back.. and read Covert's next diary installment.

Went 4/4 so far. Only real challenge came, oddly, from the worst mono red goblins I've ever seen, it was aggro, with no hope against anything other than aggro. Lol. Random. Good against the META so far, bad against garbage.

I'd have done more, but the matchmaking makes me want to toss myself off of a bridge. I'll test more later. Noteworthy: 0 mana problems in those games. I had all mana I needed to play every card in the deck except willbreaker in each game.

I've been working on the Artifact Mill archetype some more, and here's what I'm currently testing:

2 x Perilous Myr
2 x Knight of the White Orchid
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 x Sigiled Starfish
4 x Alchemist's Vial
4 x Celestial Flare
2 x Telling TIme
1 x Displacement Wave

3 x Esperzoa
2 x Sphinx's Tutelage
3 x Artificer's Epiphany
2 x Solemn Offering

1 x Archangel of Tithes
2 x Countermand
2 x Thopter Spy Network

2 x Tragic Arrogance
1 x Angelic Edict

9 x Plains
5 x Island
2 x Glacial Fortress
2 x Foundry of the Consuls
4 x Azorius Guildgate
3 x Evolving Wilds


Some notes:

We have plenty of busted enchantments and plenty of enchantment removal, which is fantastic in a format dominated by powerful enchantments. We have answers for everything, and we have plenty of ways to cycle though our deck and loot away situational cards that might not be so relevant in certain match-ups.

I'm currently testing 2 of each cheap defensive creature we have available, for 6 in total so we draw at least one most games. Knight of the White Orchid is an all star with under-costed stats that draws a card and ramps us for the low, low price of 1 mana. Starfish is a value engine that often warrants a removal spell from the opponent, but loses some value in multiples and makes the board weak to board wipes, so it's hard to justify a third. Myr actually falls to third place here despite its obvious synergy with the deck.

Tragic Arrogance is completely broken in this shell. We normally have one enchantment on the board, 1-2 Vials, and 1-3 creatures. Setting up a game breaking one-sided wrath with this sort of board state is really easy. Note that many of our creatures are artifacts, so we can choose to keep them alongside other creatures. We could choose to keep an Esperzoa as an artifact, an Archangel of Tithes as a creature, and have our opponent keep a 1/1 for example. Their 1/1 dies to our Myr's death effect, and then we re-play the Vial we bounced with Esperzoa, followed by attacking to deal 7 damage and draw another card off of our Spy Network.

We can win by attacking or win by mill. Esperzoa is a pretty fast clock just by itself, especially if it can start attacking on turn 4.

I'm running 2 Countermands because we have plenty of instants, and there are some spells in the game that we really don't want to be resolved. I'd like to run a third, but the list I'm testing is already at 61 cards and I can't decide what the worst card is.

I have yet to draw my Displacement Wave. I haven't cast that card a single time, ever. It seems pretty fun to bounce our Alchemist's Vials and our opponent's tokens/cheap threats, but I have no idea how the card actually performs in the deck.

I tried running a dimir mill build with the artifact package; similar idea, BUT totally soft to opposing enchants. Shadows of the past, evoleap... very bad news.

Going white and trading languish for tragic arrogance , getting access to antigaea tech and enchants is full of win.

I've done a jeskai shell with only one wincon: Disciple of the ring; besides the burn the synergies are the same.

Very curious how this one performs I do think you cannot pass disperse though. countermand is an inferior way of protecting tutelage imo, unless you think the deck can afford to wait to turn 7 to drop tutelage bs green decks, which it might.

The deck only has 4 cards that actually mill the opponent, and the 2 countermands are there more for the hard counter effect than the mill effect. I'm more in favour of just jamming a Tutelage when I have spare time and if they don't have removal for it they lose. If they have removal for it I can win with the next enchantment or win by attacking. My goal is to exhaust the opponent's resources, not their library.

That said, I've played primarily against aggro and midrange decks that run out of steam if you kill enough of their threats. I've played against a few Evolutionary Leap decks, and in general they rely entirely on their Leaps for card advantage, so once you deal with that enchantment you end up with a superior control deck regardless of whether you can stick your tutelage. I'd rather save Countermand for something like a Nissa since I don't have instant speed removal to prevent the flip and won't usually have 4 power ready to swing in and kill her. (If I have a resolved Spy Network going or an Espezoa drawing me a card every turn I usually win pretty quickly.)

I can see the value of Disperse though, especially in some of the fringe match-ups. One thing I've noticed about how the deck plays is that it's often sitting on a bunch of cantrips and draw without enough mana to play them all alongside the real cards it wants to play. Vial is superior to Telling Time, so I think I could afford to trim at least one of them.

I'll play some games with -2 Telling Time, -1 Displacement Wave +2 Disperse and testing at 60 cards. Maybe I'll test the third countermand in there as well and see if it's too many expensive counterspells or not. If I do that then I should get around to adjusting the manabase for more blue, since having double and triple blue starts to become extremely relevant. I'd probably go up to 4 Evolving Wilds, maybe cut a Plains for an Island, and perhaps even down to 1 Foundry. I'll see how it plays.

Disciple of the Ring is something I'd like to test, but I still haven't opened one.

Just discovered this fantastic site (EDIT: which... I... apparently joined in March of last year. ...I really gotta cut back on the drinking)---after struggling with the fast turnover on Reddit and the abomination that is WotC's official discussion forums... coming here is like stumbling upon Shangri-La.

I've been having a ton of fun running this deck, which was designed by mobius chickenstrips and featured in one of his recent "First Takes" videos: U/W Enchantment Control.

In brief, the deck relies on its suite of fifteen lockdown Auras (eleven plus Heliod's Pilgrim) to control the board, until its strong commitment to draw-fixing digs up one of five win conditions: either Sphinx's Tutelage, or the much flashier Sigil of the Empty Throne. The difference between this deck and similar builds in this thread is its absolute commitment to control: It has only five win conditions, and does not rely on creature beatdown to win (unless you count the Sigil, which is silly). It commits heavily to draw smoothing, digging and tutoring, and runs almost every lockdown Aura in the pool. As an added bonus, I can't imagine a better deck to make Tragic Arrogance absolutely sing.

Here's my current list, which I've tweaked very slightly from mobius chickenstrips' original build (included in spoiler tags below, and listed in the description of the video I linked above):



Aside from the wincons, the real star of this deck is Tragic Arrogance. By saving an opposing creature that's already locked under an Aura, and then saving that Aura, Tragic Arrogance plays like a five-mana Planar Cleansing---situationally, to be sure, but it's a very common situation.

The deck establishes control a lot faster than its reliance on 3+ CMC Auras might suggest, as its fierce complement of scrying and filtering effects smooths out your draws---which makes it both reliable and fun to play. It performs very well against Voltron-style Aura/Renown, Rakdos Treachery/Sac, midrange, ramp and even most aggro decks: Sigiled Starfish is a plucky little defender in addition to being the deck's most reliable draw fixer, and Heliod's Pilgrim is a great speed bump that you're happy to chump block with, as it's already paid for itself. And, though I can't explain why, I've had consistent and surprising success vs. mono-Red... likely because Red isn't as fast as it needs to be for a genuine RDW build.

Its weaknesses are somewhat obvious: token decks, like Thopters and Elves, are often too quick to dominate the board. Triggered abilities (stupid Elves) are another problem, since the deck contains very little actual removal. Main-deck enchantment hate is growing more popular, though this isn't as big a problem as you'd expect---there aren't any Enchantment sweepers, and you tend to have a hand full of Auras, ready to replace those that are lost by targeted removal. I'm not quite sure how well this deck would fare against a bona fide creature-light control deck, as I haven't played against enough of them; most control decks (Dimir, Orzhov, mono-Black) rely on creatures---and with their creature removal being dead draws, this deck does quite well against them.

Before I discuss my changes, here is mobius chickenstrips' original build:

And here are my tweaks:

• -1 Inspiration, +1 Plains --- I always seemed to have more Inspirations than I needed, and the deck really doesn't want to miss its fourth land drop.
• -1 Displacement Wave, +1 Auramancer --- mobius chickenstrips (good Lord, is there a nickname I can use? ) built this before maindeck Enchantment hate became a recognized part of the meta, so I suspect he'll be adding another Auramancer too when he revisits the list. Displacement Wave is there as an answer to those dreaded tokens, but as a singleton... I found I always drew it when I didn't need it, and when I did need it, I didn't draw it. The fact remains, though: Thopter and Elf tokens are indeed a problem.
• -1 Dehydration, +1 Celestial Flare --- Don't get me wrong: Dehydration is essential in this deck to get that critical mass of lockdown Auras (what I wouldn't give for Pacifism...). But it's obviously the worst of the bunch, and an easy cull when I found I tended to have more Auras in-hand than I needed. Celestial Flare is just too good against things like Gaea's Revenge and Primal Huntbeast (since you're locking down so many of their creatures, you'll quite often face big creatures attacking alone---and that's where Celestial Flare shines).

Hmm. I thought I made more changes than that. Alas, I am not as creative as I thought (though I did work out the background colors on anthonli's spiffy deck planner all by my self). Anywho, here are a few things I'm considering:

• Replacing Inspiration with Artificer's Epiphany: One less mana for one less card, that is the question. If I were going to include a third Auramancer, I think Epiphany might gain the upper hand: In my experience with this deck, digging for win conditions or Tragic Arrogance has been more important than raw card advantage, and you can play Claustrophobia or Heliod's Pilgrim into Epiphany at 6 mana (whereas the 4 CMC of Inspiration left me one mana short on more than a few occasions).
• Fighting tokens with 2x Displacement Wave: I don't think a single Wave is sufficient defense against tokens, but two of them might be. (That singleton Celestial Flare in the original list is a bit different---it's there to handle late-game threats, giving you time to draw it... but tokens are too fast to reliably draw into a singleton Displacement Wave, methinks.) Question is, do I weaken the deck in general to improve my chances against a still-bad matchup?

Lastly, before anyone suggests Jace, Vryn's Prodigy: This is one of those few blue decks that Jace isn't very good in. mobius chickenstrips explains why in his video, but briefly: You don't want to be looting in the early game, something that bore out in my testing: card quality is high with the draw fixing, so you're often forced to discard stuff you don't want to. Moreover, he's not all that great here when you do flip him: Jace, Telepath Unbound really has only one attractive Loyalty ability, i.e. flashing back a spell for 3. In most blue decks, that's worth the price of admission alone---but there just aren't enough Instants or Sorceries in this deck.

I'd love to hear your take on the deck, my tweaks, and anything else you can think of!

As I've said before, that build from Mobius just shows how elegant a deckbuilder he is.

Currently I'm not testing it for reasons you explored in your post :

Currently in the meta where I play we see alot of thopters and golgari control. The thopters swarm this deck and it's high curve mercilessly, and golgari decks have been maindecking 2/3 sages (or 2 + bellower) for awhile now to cover some of their weak spots. All that is VERY bad news for this archetype.

I'm starting to see more midrange builds though that rely on gaea (to which celestial flare is the A++ answer) and what i like to call ' the never ending stream of X/4s', basically variants of jund and gruul decks, that have the trample to push through thopters and the burn on the side to put golgari in a spot of trouble. The lockdown idea will hit alot of their threats profitably, but again, all these decks are running green, so reclamation sage remains a problem.

TLDNR: I love the builds, I'm not sure how viable they are in the current pool.

Thopters are definitely a problem, no argument there. I know a lot of people are reporting a ton of them in the meta, but I guess I've been lucky---on Steam, I've only encountered a few of them. You need to curve into Tragic Arrogance or Sigil of the Empty Throne to have a chance. I'm definitely considering those Displacement Waves, and even a third Foundry of the Consuls despite it being rather slow.

As for targeted Enchantment hate... I've seen quite a bit of it, but the mass of Auras this deck runs definitely mitigates the threat. Recursion aside, we're talking 2-3 hate cards max, with Celestial Flare as backup if they free up a big creature and swing with it. And that's kind of the point of the deck, really: You don't need to be 100% successful in locking down every threat before it swings, and a targeted Enchantment removal spell is only going to free up a single attacker... which you can usually chump block, or suck up the hit, then re-enchant next turn. I definitely need to play against more Enchantment hate to be super confident when I say this, but: I think this deck holds up surprisingly well against it---certainly better than you'd expect. (Of course, if your opponent drops three Reclamation Sages on you by turn six, like poor mobius suffered in one of his games, yeah, there's no recovery.)

TL;DR: If Thopters are a big part of your meta, then this deck isn't ideal. I haven't seen many myself, but if they start showing up in greater numbers, I'll see if two copies of a 2-mana sweeper will help get me to Tragic Arrogance (frankly, as this deck's worst match-up, I'd be happy with a 30% win rate against Thopters---as long as they don't become a big part of my meta). On the other hand, maindeck Enchantment hate just hasn't been the problem I expected it to be... whether by luck or a credit to mobius' design, I always seemed to have the tools I needed to recover.

wait... did they just talk about the exiled one? D:

Oh dear. I detect drama.

nah there's no real drama

Just build and play it!

Feed me!