I do not see a problem with -2 for Visionary there to get ahead on resources. Discarding there probably hurts me more than him.

Both of you are at 7 cards a piece and you could easily afford to dump a creature working towards the ultimate. Not to mention you've already got a decent grip and could play the Visionary in hand first to find out your draw before considering your discard. In essence, if we use what folks have been talking about, you're already ahead at that point (you've got the board, a PW and 7 cards to their 7 cards). Evenly discarding cards to stay at the same hand size as your opponent is not a disadvantage when your currently ahead (even if it is only slightly ahead). Fighting your opponents hand when you can recur your discards (w/ ETB's) IS advantage.

You seems stuck on your own discard too (a couple times you've referred to it hurting you more). That deck of yours draws/thins like mad and can easily compensate for the cards you dump (and in most cases more than your opponent will be able to manage). And so you don't think I'm theorycrafting, I've played your deck a lot and know it can easily handle this line. The control aspect is not just how much advantage you create for yourself but the disadvantage you put your opponent in. They are often forced to rush their plays/hand to the board to compensate for the discard which improves your removal and makes the emblem even stronger. Even if they have draw (), your deck can easily keep pace in most cases.

The point of the example is that it's a line with a win condition you're excluding. Recurring the visionary is going down a line to find other win conditions instead of taking the one that's already presented to you. You're ahead in the mid-game and can start to play the discard line with very little down-side (the difference in the draw from the graveyard Visionary does not outweigh the potential of the emblem here). Heck, the Languish in hand can sweep whats left if you were in a huge bind (or with an emblem, steal the whole board). With Lily out, your graveyard is still active and should be considered part of your hand when you make this sort of decision.

I truly believe that game is a perfect example of what we've been talking about here and why you should have chased that line.


elk

Lilliana's ultimate is not a win condition, it just puts you ahead (by alot). Same goes for Jace (not gonna bother talking about Gideon).
Triggering either of these you can still lose to an evasive attacker or burn if you can't kill them [your opponents] outright.
Nissa and Chandra's ultimates are win-cons because they can win the game on the spot (and usually do).

My post may have been misleading and you're absolutely correct that; in a vacuum, Lily's ultimate won't win the game on it's own (or that there's still the potential of losing to things like burn). The implication I was trying to make was in a control shell. The extra value you gain out of your own deck is huge but utilizing your opponents board/deck is the win condition you gain (most control shells only have a few outs for wins) on top of the lock you create (which; in your example, would imply you never draw any answers again while being beaten down therefore never obtaining the board lock. It is possible though).


elk

you could say locking the game down is the endstate of any control deck victory you don't need lily's ulti to do that. and if we're really being honest with ourselves golgari evolpea is not a control deck, more of an extended midrange deck

in fact I used to go for her ulti I figured out I could probably just easier to win the game faster then bleeding my opponent dry

I may be a vampire but I'm not that sadistic

Here is an Abzan ramp/control deck that Binderato and I have been testing and working on, and its been pretty successful through our private 1v1 testing as well as normal versus battle. The deck has a good amount of life gain via Shadows of the Past and Nissa's Revelation, which can become a win con in the late game versus other control decks or aggro decks if you're able to set up early. One card that I've been really impressed with is Hixus, because not many people I run into play around it, so it ends up soaking up entire boards at times. So far in normal versus battle I'm 13-2, seems strong and a lot of fun to play. Going to continue testing it a bunch and updating as we go.

2 x Perilous Myr
4 x Gatecreeper Vine
2 x Shadows of the Past
2 x Evolutionary Leap
2 x Reave Soul
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 x Nissa's Pilgrimage
2 x Languish
2 x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
2 x Outland Colossus
1 x Conclave Naturalists
2 x Hixus, Prison Warden
2 x Angelic Edict
2 x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder
2 x Nissa's Revelation
2 x Gaea's Revenge


3 x Plains
6 x Swamp
9 x Forest
2 x Golgari Guildgate
2 x Orzhov Guildgate
2 x Selesnya Guildgate

Why Acid Moss? That card is sooooooo bad. Do you really wanna draw that poop on turn 5+?
Why Nissa's Pilgrimage? What is ramp doing for you here?

This looks like a great place for Tragic Arrogance, and two other cards.. possibly the other two Reave Soul or 2x Bitter Revelation. Other than that.. I like the list a lot.

We haven't really tested anything else in those slots actually. As far as the Acid moss and the other ramp goes they haven't been bad, it always gives me all the mana I need to play with and the possibility to mana screw my opponent if need be by destroying a tapped land. The early turns are usually spent filtering lands out of the deck and setting up your enchantments anyways. We did consider adding more removal though, so cutting some of the ramp and adding in the other two copies of Reave Soul or Bitter Revelation could be better.

That ramp would be ok if it didn't only fetch Forests. Where's Evolving Wilds and the checklands in the mana base?

Agreed. I would go down to 1 of each of the Guildgates (so you can fetch them if need be with the Gatecreeper Vine) and put in max copies of the checklands plus all of the Evolving Wilds.

Also, I would up the Perilous Myr Count to 4, droppping the inconsistent ramp and adding in either 2 Tragic Arrogance, 2 Bitter Revelation, 2 Read the Bones, or 2 Cruel Revival. Yeah, a lot of choices, not sure what would be better so I gave you some options.

The reasons I'm so down on Moss are:

Land Destruction is only good if you have enough of it to keep the opponent down, 2 copies can slow them maybe.. but you don't know if they don't have another source in their hand, and you don't have enough LD to get rid of that too. You're just taking a chance, and not advancing your board for said chance.

It takes your whole turn just about.. 4 mana. Ugh!

It only fetches Forests.

I mean.. that card is a CLEAR cut in my opinion. You can do a lot better in these colors. I don't think you need Pilgrimage either. The thinning is nice, but.. what's it really doing for you? Allowing you to play threats a turn earlier? This is a control deck.. you'll get there. With all that glorious fat, I'd be looking to add in a 25th land.. just so you have more color options in your openers, so you don't have to mulligan to 5-6 bc you have 3 forests and no other lands. Finally.. other than Nissa, you have no draw. No Elvish Visionary, no Read the Bones, nothing. You need to be able to dig for answers. Bitter Revelation should be in here. The Scry from Shadows is nice, but it only sees the top card and doesn't really let you dig for answers when you really, really need (like staring down a Thopter army, or a resolved Spy Network, etc.)

acid moss'll be better once BFZ drops for now I don't think it makes the cut

-2 Acid Moss, +1 Myr, +1 Reave/Tragic
I'm such a sucker for decks running Revelation; I'm totally building this when I get home from work.

Ya I didn't make the manabase for the deck Binderato did. So he would be able to explain his selections better. Like I said as far as the Acid Moss goes it was just a test and it seemed to be working fine through all of our tests so far, I know its not "good" but it was originally there to replace the other two copies of pilgrimage that was in the deck. If i cut the Acid Moss and Pilgrimage the manabase needs to be reworked some. So if you have any suggestions as far as cuts/replacements go if you don't mind including how you would change the mana would be helpful.

Edit: Ya read the bones and Bitter Rev were the next cards I was going to put in the deck after my first run of tests. We tried the deck with tragic arrogance and it just wasn't as useful as you may think most of the time. Since you're constantly thinning out your deck and scrying its not hard to find answers either.

Right now i'm playing with -2 Nissa's Pilgrimage -2 Acid-Moss +4 Elvish visionary and I haven't lost yet. I tried playing with the Bitter revelation and the first 3 games i got too low to cast them without being super risky(I still won, but they were dead). The visionary lets me cycle, sac, and chump block. The manabase is the same as the original post which I'm pretty sure isn't correct though.

old deck

26 green
17 black
6 plains


2 of each guildgate to allow for fetching of things like orzhov guildgate to better fix lands. Sometimes you need the green for guildgates to help evo leap but most of the time I found we were grabbing orzhov due to the high forest count. The high forest count was due to us running a lot of nissa's pilgrimage. We were at 4 x before and would have had some dead draws out of it since spell mastery wouldn't be fetching the rest of the forests if we didn't have a lot. Which is why we put a lot of gates for gatecreeper and went with a lot of forests to keep our ramping to our 6 lategame threats relevant. We cut 2 nissa for acid moss since we still wanted to ramp but didn't want to have nissa's pilgrimage lose value since it wasn't hitting the max number of forests.

New Deck

22 green
17 black
6 plains

Since the new deck has no forest fetching after we traded out for 4 x elvish visionary we can trade some mana in for tap lands to fix our colours better since we don't have to worry about Nissa's or Acid Moss losing value. I would shy away from evolving wilds since the deck will now have 16 turn 2 plays and we need a healthy amount of basic lands to make sure our turn 2 plays hit on turn 2. So I would suggest the following manabase.

1 x Orzhov Guildgate
1 x Golgari Guildgate
1 x Selesnya Guildgate

2 x Woodland Cemetery
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Sunpetal Grove

7 x Forest
6 x Swamp
2 x Plains

Pretty much the mana base I suggested a few posts up. I would run the Evolving Wilds, however. It should work out pretty good.

My only problem with this deck is that adding White really doesn't seem like it's adding a lot to the table that couldn't have been done better by keeping out of it. What, 2 Hixus and 2 Angelic Edicts? That's really kind of weak, IMO.

I haven't played this yet, so I could be wrong, but is it really worth it to weaken the mana-base and go from Golgai to Abzan?

I always felt one of the best Orzhov removal packages was the combo of Reave Soul and Reprisal. They completely cover each other's weaknesses. Before everyone tells me, hurr hurr Reprisal is a dead draw all the time.. I think we should look at that scenario more closely.

What is the meta? Gruul Monsters, Golgari Control, Thopters, RDW, Voltron decks.

The only one on that list that Reprisal is weak to is Thopters.. and it still kills Esperoza in that matchup. It flattens Gruul Monsters, where Reave Soul kills Elvish Visionary, Myrs and Gatecreeper Vines only.. it obliterates the big plays made by RDW with Titan Strength and the red auras, it puts Voltron decks on their ass, and it kills Golgari Control's finishers except Gaea.. but you have access to Celestial Flare AND Fleshbag if you fear Gaea. You also have Languish in these decks to cover your weaknesses to Thopters.

I don't feel it's a bad spell at all, especially if you're running Reave Soul.

@Kryder
The Angelic Edicts have been decent because of the flexibility, but as far as hixus goes, that card has been really impressive! The ability to just eat up your opponents entire board is usually unexpected and extremely punishing. He acts like a pseudo removal spell with a 4/4 body for Nissa's Revelation. The edicts might get replaced down the line but as of now they have been "decent"



I wasn't even thinking about reprisal to be honest, but I like your reasoning and I think that since its so cheap and it has speed that it would work pretty well in this meta. It doesn't cover all the bases that edict can though which is the main reason we had It in to begin with.

Angelic Edict is underrated. Being able to nuke Spy Network/Evoleap.. or a bomb.. or a lord.. is really powerful.