My Tournament Matches in Review.


Moral of the story. Cut the creatures. Focus on less interactive means of winning, such as maybe Nahiri, the Harbinger=Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger OR Tamiyo's Journal=Part the Waterveil=12 damage + Shambling Vent/Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

@Gemini -
I haven't been watching the videos but I agree with some of what you said... are you suggesting you want to go to 4 colors for Nahiri?

Planeswalkers are the least interactive win conditions there are aside from stuff like brain in a jar into zombies. And Abbey.

You are talking about win conditions but I think you can find huge room for improvement in improving your control shell. For example, Dispel is just too highly specialized. The premiere removal in the format is a sorcery (declaration).

Also I have to share my thoughts about the Xbox tourney. I am happy and not too surprised to see Esper performing well, but I am QUITE surprised to see that things ended up with PureSynesthasia on top. I am going to post his list here for a conversation starter.

PureSynesthesia's Fight Club Decklist
Creature(3)
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Instant(15)
3 x Telling Time
3 x Horribly Awry
3 x Spell Shrivel
2 x Scatter to the Winds
2 x Anguished Unmaking
2 x Confirm Suspicions

Sorcery(9)
2 x Declaration in Stone
1 x Angelic Purge
2 x Languish
2 x Tragic Arrogance
2 x Planar Outburst

Enchantment(3)
1 x Oath of Jace
2 x Suppression Bonds

Planeswalker(4)
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Artifact(1)
1 x Tamiyo's Journal

Land(25)
2 x Plains
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Shambling Vent
3 x Island
2 x Sunken Hollow
2 x Swamp
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Glacial Fortress
1 x Submerged Boneyard
2 x Isolated Chapel
1 x Meandering River
4 x Evolving Wilds


This violates a number of rules of what I consider control deckbuilding! Is Synesthasia lucky or is there something I am missing?

The mana curve isn't really a curve... it is nearly a straight line 0-9-9-6-9-2. With only 25 lands to support this, and the deck will probably have to sac a land in order to cast Angelic Purge. Overall the answers are reasonably powerful, but there is so much sorcery speed and such high mana costs. I did not expect this deck to perform so well. Average CMC is 3.6 vs for example me with 3.333 and two more lands.

I am not going to watch all the matches on twitch, I am mainly interested in this from a deckbuilding perspective.

I haven't spent too much time looking at the Xbox tourney setup - maybe very little aggro to punish this sort high CMC decklist? Anyone else have thoughts?

I have to say...that decklist brings up a few good points.

The meta I have been running into on Steam would fall for that deck type hook, line, and sinker. Almost nobody is running counterspells and a surprisingly small amount of good removal has shown up. There are still the standby options (Declaration, Anguished, Firecraft, Suppression), but they are somewhat few and far between. Normally having both Kalitas and Ulamog in a decklist would seem terrible for a control deck, but with practically none of the removal that you would normally have to worry about it actually leads to a significantly higher chance of them staying on the field long enough to actually mean anything.

That said, there are some things that don't make sense to me...Angelic Purge is one in particular that I would like to see PureSynesthasia explain to me. At first glance, Horribly Awry looks like a bad choice as well, but I actually think that is a good choice since some of the biggest threats to this decklist would be creatures.

He's also running 6(!) sweepers...wow...that seems nuts and I would never run Tragic Arrogance with that list with all the planeswalker options he has available...

However, all this aside, he's winning! So I guess I can't say too much.

I am running a similar deck idea in Jeskai, and I kept cutting creatures until they were all gone besides man lands and Knight tokens. The fewer creatures you have, the more likely they will die. Heck, I am hesitant to even use a man land, as if my opponent has any W/BB/R open, it will probably die.

Just a little update:



I think Mega is right, but not primarily because of the life loss. The impact of the Abbey has been negligible in every game I have played it. Sometimes it has provided a little extra pressure but it never really felt like the card I wanted.

I want something high impact that can make a difference on any board state, vs any deck. Right now I have 6 cards (confirm + PW) that generate significant card advantage, but it is pretty common that one of them gets answered and I spend half the game drawing one for one removal and a few sweepers without any way to leverage the board stall in my favor.

The meta on Steam seems to be shifting towards late-game decks with strong control elements, and they can frequently disrupt my PW before I really get value. I have also seen enough tutelage decks that another answer to resolved enchantments would be nice. Plus I still want an effect that I can force through counterspells. I am not necessarily counting on Ulamog to win me the game since there is so much declaration floating around, but two uncounterable exile effects seem pretty damn relevant.

I think the biggest weakness of this deck is variance in drawing answers. I draw a handful of early game kill spells - which is useless against ramp. I draw a handful of counterspells - which is useless against aggro. Even in the games I lose though, I can usually stall things out for a while. 10 mana is not unreasonable for this deck. I do not want to tap out, but I like having an uber answer that deals with any resolved threat (or two of them).

I am not sure if I am going to like seeing him exiled for two mana, but in general my awakened lands / man lands have been soaking up a lot of the declarations anyway. I also like bouncing him in response to / in anticipation of declaration via Jace or Deterrence in order to be able to re-use his exile ability again.

He is worth testing. I think my control pile is nearly finished!

I will say that I hate seeing Ulamog, even if I have a Declaration in hand and plenty of white mana. Even if he never gets to swing, the ability to exile changes games. I had to get rid of the damn thing three times in a game I eventually lost. It was brought out with Ever after, and I had to Brutal it back to his hand. He hard cast it and I used Celestial Flare on it. (which by the way, apparently if you use after attackers are declared but before the attack, he doesn't mill you. At least that was my experience). Then he was brought back w/ Pulse and I finally had the Declaration for him. But by then I was down to 5 land and a few Oaths out. It didn't take long from there. I hate Ulamog, and it seems like he is in about 40-50% of the top decks. Well worth it if you can reliably cast him.

I play PureSynth this round and I fear that with both our decks happily durdling, even a countered Ulamog 3-for-1'ing me would be crippling.

I hate to say it divine but in general I think he is favored in the matchup, partially because of Ulamog but also because of suppression bonds + arrogance. He starts off with 2 more answers to planeswalkers, and if he shackles a PW he can then get extra value out of arrogance as long as the shackled PW sticks to the board.

HOWEVER he has 0 game against manlands. I think your best path to victory is to ride a vent to victory. He has zero ways of interacting with a manland you activate on your turn aside from Ulamog. If you awaken the land it becomes vulnerable to Jace, Ob Nix, Sorin, Ulamog and the two declarations. He should win the long game but his deck is remarkably weak against vent.

Also divine - based on your experience in the tourney and in online play, would you make any changes to the decklist?

Based on experience in the tourney, I could see

-2 Horribly Awry
+1 Grasp of Darkness
+1 Broken Concentration

But for the most part, I like how my list has done.

So I am playing against a sultai-based goodstuff deck. He has Gaea's Revenge in his yard because of Bitter Revelation and he milled Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger into my yard. I have been beating on him with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar but I only have one source so my counters are offline.

My opponent goes for Necromantic Summons. What does he pick?

I am much more afraid of Revenge. Both revenge and Ulamog are > 10 power, but I can chump block Revenge all day long with Gideon's tokens. I can only chump Ulamog for three turns since I will run out of library. Moreover I do not have any removal in hand that can handle Ulamog.

Lo and behold my opponent went for Revenge. I had to chump with a manland to keep Gideon alive. But after a few turns I answered Revenge with a topdecked Celestial Flare like a pro and soon enough Gideon won the game for me.

I am curious: what would you have done if you were the Sultai player picking reanimate targets here? I know that my deck is low in exile removal, but if my opponent was working off the assumption that I have 2x Declaration in Stone then I think his choice was logical.

So far, Ulamog has been milled and served as a terrifying creature in my yard I do not want my opponent to reanimate. Oh and I lived the dream and Sorin +1ed Ulamog for 10 to the dome.

I absolutely pick Ulamog. The goal as reanimator (or with a reanimation spell) is to win in as few turns as possible. Sure, Celestial Flare hit Gaea's Revenge, but Planar Outburst or Fleshbag Marauder would have as well. This is also why I only want to play threats that can't be chumped - I don't play any Gaea's Revenges in reanimator, but I play the full set of Plated Crushers and a Breaker of Armies.

I probably would've done the same thing and played around Declaration in Stone and Angelic Purge. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger isn't as strong as he was last season, so having the hexproof-pseudo creature benefits the board better in my opinion.

I agree. Ulamog is the better choice in your situation, but in most decks which don't run Flare the only way to deal with Revenge is a sweeper in which case the opponent actually wins a pretty big battle for value. Necro Summons is nowhere near as high-value as Planar Outburst (the only sweeper that can touch Revenge outside of a buffed Chandra or Tragic Arrogance if there is another creature on the field).

He gambled that you were using the traditional wisdom (flare=bad) and I can't say I wouldn't either.

EDIT: This line of thinking is exactly why Flare has such high value right now...it is the BEST card-for-card at dealing with big green stompers like Plated Crusher and Gaea's Revenge

Ulamog is what I would choose. Basically, you have Declaration, Purge, Flare, Nahiri, Tragic (If he has other creatures out) and Bounce that can deal with it. Bounce will work on Ulamog, but generally, that is a desperation move. That leaves Nahiri, Purge and Declaration that will not hit Gaea. On the other hand, Outburst will kill Gaea, but be useless vs Ulamog. So, on pure card count, Gaea wins. BUT..here is how I would think about it.

At best, it is 6 cards vs 2 which would work in Gaea's favor. I am betting that you probably are not running Purge, or at least not 3 of them. so, I am guessing a likely 2-1 chance you have in hand. But, if you don't have in hand, you have a viable chump blocker I can see, and Gideon that will buy you all the time you need to draw an answer. Ulamog puts you on a short clock, probably dead after two swings from mill. I would place higher value on that.

I do see both side, and Revenge is more likely to live. But, until he draws an answer to Gideon, he has basically put the game in a stalemate until someone topdecks something, and I would guess you have more options generate draws (although he may have more answers to the stalemate then you?), not to mention stalemate tends to favor a mill deck. I prefer the more aggressive approach.

Meh, I would choose Gaea, anguished unmaking and declaration in stone are almost 100% in esper lists

I would say Anguished Unmaking OR Declaration in Stone are almost 100% in esper lists.

I still prefer not running Declaration in Stone, but having seen 3 Ulamog show up in my last 5 games (not including the one in my current list) it may prove necessary to start running...maybe a singleton? IDK, hard to say...might be better to run a singleton Angelic Purge instead since that gives me more options to deal with annoying enchants (Visions, Tutelage, Always Watching, etc.)

Good point, I somehow spaced Anguished. Still, I would go for the kill instead of the stalemate.

Darthmask you do realize that celestial flare kills Ulamog and prevents him from milling you? It is a bug, not a bug I go out of my way to exploit but it basically makes flare as good as any other removal when it comes to Ulamog.

Honestly I find Ulamog is usually easy enough to counter/kill. The annoying thing is that he exiles my planeswalkers. Back when I ran 2x Compelling Deterrence my favorite tech was to bounce my walker in response to his ability.

Remember that if you cut counters to add in more/better removal you are leaving yourself vulnerable to other threats, from planeswalkers and enchantments to creatures with powerful EtB abilities. Sure you can exile Greenwarden with Declaration but that puts you 2 cards behind. In the ramp matchup I rarely find that I want more board interaction, the issue for me has always been being able to draw into enough counters in order to answer threats that cannot be allowed to resolve.

hmmm...true enough.

I honestly am not sure what I should cut to add back my 3rd Spell Shrivel but I'm thinking it might be a good idea to try to get back in.

I honestly didn't know about the flare working on Ulamog's mill...I had it happen once, but I chalked it up to a bug.

I thought they fixed that during the SOI/OGW release.