Monday 14 January 2013

Modern UW Control

List as of PTQ:
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Collonade
3 Seachrome Coast
1 Calciform Pools
1 Plains
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Hallowed Fountain
5 Island

3 Vendillion Clique
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Restoration Angel
1 Consecrated Sphinx

1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Batterskull
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Supreme Verdict
2 Sphinx's REvelation
3 Path to Exile
3 Mana Leak
1 Remand
4 Cryptic Command
4 Spell Snare

SB:
4 Meddling Mage
2 Celestial Purge
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Disenchant
1 Stony Silence
1 Negate
1 Spell Pierce
1 Path to Exile
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Rest in Peace
1 Linvala Keeper of Silence

MVPs:
Ratchet Bomb
Calciform pool
Vedalken Shackles

LVPs
C-Sphinx
Stony Silence
Path to Exile

Matchups
Twin 3-1 (loss was to RUG with Blood moons)
Poison 1-0
MonoWhite 1-0
RUG Delver 1-0
Storm 2-0
American Midrange 0-1
Jund 1-0

I Apologize for all spelling and grammar mistakes which are sure to follow. They are my mistakes and exclusively the falt of the Canadian Public School system.

I haven't tested the deck much because, I brewed it up mostly 1 hour before the PTQ. But I think all those matchups are things I am very happy to play.

The Genesis:
Early in the week I tried Jarvis and Fabiano's list for a couple of matches and wasn't happy with UW in general. I was losing in 2-mans to competent Jund (Cheon and Orsini Jones) and with the more creature heavy lists I felt only even against combo (as opposed to way ahead).

All the Wraths
Saturday evening I quickly 0-2ed with Zoo (went X-2 at last PTQ) and dropped. Waking up sunday I reviewed the decks at the top tables and realized everyone was playing creatures. Thus I decided I was going to play a bunch of insane cards against creatures. Shackles, Supreme Verdicts and Revelations. This combination of cards is almost impossible for any fair deck to play around (Jund does it the best). Unfortunately you can't really afford to play creatures when your on this strategy so you need ways to no-questions-asked close out the game (thus my choice of BOOMBOOM finishers).

Combo Me? Combo you!
I didn't want to play too many creatures (combo with wrath) and I needed to shore up combo matchups since I had many bricks so I played a crap ton of counters and a maindeck relic. My few early threats were also highly disruptive which helps since you often draw so many prices. V-Clique is also excellent with my boom booms since it easily strips their answer as you curve into your 6 (or 5). Thus I played Sphinx over Sun Titan since I felt I would be able to make it stick more often than previously. The one remand (#whatwouldOriedo?) is NOT an attempt to be cute. I actually think its worse then mana leak (especially with thirst in your deck), but I wanted to play two cantrips because I suspected 26 lands might be low.

Nice Spell Snares Bro
To alleviate the problem of drawing the wrong part of your deck in the wrong matchups i had the Thirst for Knowledge's. Where other people played Jace as a source of persistent card advatange I wanted to play almost exclusively on their turn and use my three drop card drawer to filter for the insane one ofs that were pertinent in each matchup. They are also excellent with situational sideboard cards. For example spell pierce is generally mediocre in the twin matchup. Early on you can just lose to blood moon (so it excels there), but the majority of games go long. So the card is pretty bad usually. Similarly you might want to bring in disenchant against RUG delver (in case of shackles or moon) but you don't want it rotting in your hand forever.

The only way Pikula Makes a top 8*.
Meddling mage is the allstar of this board. In every combo matchup you end up post board with essentially 10 disruptive creatures, 12 counterpells, 4-card drawers and some miscellaneous permanent hate. I like 1 Rest in Peace since its insane against storm (impossible for them to grapeshot you and this deck almost never loses to EtW) and I always bring in one against Jund. Stony silence is obviously #synergy with my shackles, wrath, revelations anti-affinity plan. I think the worst card in the board is probably the 4th path but its almost certainly a necessary evil. Without snapcasters you don't actually have very much removal.

Mana from the gods
The whole point of the deck as to make shackles work. Thus the 3 seachromes. I am also petrified of blood moon so I made the unusual choice to run 2 Arid Mesas. They usually cost you extra life but I like the insurance. The calciform pools was busy firing off revelations all day and I hated having 6 colorless sources essentially but it was probably the best one. The question isn't 25 or 26 lands. Its 26 or 27?

*this is a joke and Pikula was actually within a match in the Sat PTQ I believe (assuming his MODO nick is the obvious). But rather than be whined at for lack of respect (#whathaveyoudoneetc), I figured I would put an asterisk and save myself some flame-mail. Because words mean things.

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