I played fifteen games with it, five wins, ten losses. I'm not about to render judgment on the deck based on that, as I'm not nearly as good of a player as CovertGoBlue, but I think it does suggest that the deck is maybe not awesome. I do like control decks, but have generally gone with more direct (black) removal than this one has, so it's quite possible I'm handling it wrong. I'm at about 80% win rate in 25 game sample sizes with each of my three best decks in BFZ, so I don't think it's that I'm terrible at the game in general or anything. Games went as follows:
W, Mono-U Mill. If your opening hand has Felidar Cub, this is just a fantastic match-up. Drew and played Nissa T4, she flipped T7, easy win.
L, UB Aristocrats. Felbatista specifically. I played really badly. But I don't think it's a good match-up. Too many of their cards created more than one creature, and they had more counters than I had sweepers, and Rites to make sure they came out a card ahead any time I used one-for-one removal.
W, Simic Tempo. Extremely tense game. Won with one life left thanks to Disciple, both copies of Tragic Arrogance, and Lumbering Falls.
W, GW Ramp. Long game, but Emeria Shepherd ultimately took over.
L, RDW. Kept a sketchy hand on the play (5 lands, Kiora, Shrivel), got hit with T1 Glory Chaser T2 Wolf aura (can't remember name, it's the +3/2 one).
L, Esper Mill. Bad keep (two land hand, kept because I had Gideon and had mulled once, decided to gamble rather than go to 6). He had 2x Tutelage, I missed the fourth land drop for four turns and when I finally got land it was Lumbering Falls, which was tapped.
L, Naya Ramp. I feel like somehow I might have misplayed this one. It was a tricky game because for a number of turns I had Tragic Arrogance and a single counterspell, and knew he had Omnath (I'd dispersed it to prevent the trigger when I first played it – no counter at the time). He kept playing lesser threats, and I should have countered the last one, but I think I was probably losing no matter what.
L, RDW. I misplayed and probably should have won (he mulled to five).
L, UW Control/Awaken. Fairly close game. Opponent's list was fairly similar – counters, drowner, emeria shepherd. But he was playing clutch of currents over disperse and running skyspawner. He got his emeria shepherd down and brought back drowner of hope, and that decided things. The next turn I drew and played Kiora, and I had a flipped Jace on 8 loyalty to flash back the tragic arrogance Kiora dumped into the yard, unfortunately, not enough mana to do so that turn and he killed both planeswalkers on his next.
L, GW Aggro. T4 Gideon. I suppression bonds it two turns later, and swept his board with outburst, but then he drew reclamation sage, freed Gideon, and swung for lethal (He'd already gotten a couple good swings in. Had a retreat to emeria.)
L, UG Ramp. 2X Desolation Twin + Ulamog too much. Don't think I misplayed much either.
W, UG Ramp. Jace Ultimate. Jace, Planar outburst and Emeria Shepherd were the keys. Mossed three times.
L, 4C mill. Interesting deck, based on Brilliant Spectrum with Tutelage out. I missed my third land drop for a turn and then was another turn late on my fourth, and he had T2 Jace T3 Tutelage. Didn't draw Felidar Cub. I kept because of already having mulliganed once and my hand had Jace.
L, Temur Ramp/Control. He got an evoleap down T2 and generated massive card advantage throughout the game. Got Kiora down also for even more. I survived his ulamog, responded with Emeria Shepherd and plains bringing back suppression bonds (which my, later, Kiora had put in my yard), but then he had ignition sweeping the board followed the next turn with Umanth and Pillgrimage, and that was game, as I was dead just off the triggers if the elementals died.
L, RDW. Frustrating, long game. Thought I had this one. Flipped Jace pretty early, met his T1 glory seeker T2 aura with disperse, had a sweeper, flashed it back, supression bonds took care of his molten vortex. But he ended up chipping in enough damage to finish me off with traitorous instinct when I played a 4/4 with 4 life left. I certainly could have played differently at points, maybe played better, but I'm not immediately aware of any poor plays. I almost certainly would have won this game if there were a second forest in the deck, as both nissa and the lone forest were in my opening hand, and an extra land would have been decisive (emeria shepherd).
W, UB Aristocrats. He missed his third land drop for several turns, I had T4 Gideon (second game out of 15 I've had him. Deck may have looked better if he'd shown up a few more times.)
Total: 5-10
Thoughts: Often didn't have mana to cast everything in my hand early, which was a problem. I'd really like a second forest. Got no value out of nissa twice because I drew the forest before her. It doesn't feel like there is enough card advantage.
I'd guess on the whole that the deck would have the best win rate forgetting all about having a good matchup against RDW and going with something more like the alternate list CGB posted to aim for really good matches against everything else, or else shifting the mana base to support three Bounding Krasis (which are among the few cards helpful against both RDW and Ulamog, as tapping the big guy down for a turn is often relevant). If the Krasis were added, and perhaps even if they weren't, some number of the blue spell land that keeps a tapped creature tapped seem like a really good idea. They have been fantastic for me in both Simic Tempo and Simic ramp (and like Krassis, are useful against both aggro and ramp).
It feels really awkward to hold mana open for counter-spells with nothing else to do productively with the mana on the opponent's turn. Also, a couple of ramp opponents, when they saw I had Spell Shrivel, just worked around it by only casting stuff they could pay the extra four to force through. One had Ulamog in hand for several turns (he ran Titan's Presence and revealed Ulamog), but waited until he had 14 lands in play to cast him. I kind of like, without testing it, cutting three of the Spell Shrivels for Krasis. Shrivel is often not a great late game draw, and Krasis is a lot better against aggro.
Last, I think this deck should have another land, maybe two given the importance of Emeria Shepherd in long games. There were a lot of games where I had a bunch of high CMC cards and would have gladly traded any of them for a land.
Wow, thanks for going through all that and posting it. Losing sucks, sorry a deck of mine put you through it. One thing that I mentioned is that I have only tested against two decks, so far the results watching others play and reading posts like this shows that the meta is a lot more diverse than it was last week. I am also confident that this deck is not everyone's cup of tea, and that is ok, you may bash my decks appropriately if you so prefer. I also wouldn't play the deck myself if the meta becomes mostly red aggro, and while I still have two days of compiling meta-game data before I write another diaries post about it, I'll give you a preview - it is really, REALLY Red out there.
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