Unmoored Ego

Sorcery

Choose a card name. Search target opponent's graveyard, hand, library for up to four cards with that name and exile them. That player shuffles their library, then draws a card for each card exiled from their hand this way.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

Apollo_Paladin on Esper Rites (Competitive) 4/6 update

10 months ago

+1 Just for seeing another Arena player here using TappedOut.

It looks like you prefer a style very similar to my own. I'm normally Orzhov by default, but I've been dabbling with Esper too.

I feel like this is the kind of deck I could suggest something for, but only after playing against it a few times with a variety of deck types.

One thing that has worked well for me in a number of BO3 SIDEBOARDs for my Orzhov/Esper builds that you might try is Necromentia, particularly with all of the combo threats out there now in the meta. It's nice to be able to steal any potential threats you may struggle to deal with before the opponent can even cast them (once you realize what they are). There are other spells along this line such as Unmoored Ego but if you end up pursuing this line, I find that potential 2/2 zombies are much more reliably dealt with than potentially giving the opponent card draw. Especially in a deck running Boardwipes.

I realize the hand hate you run is already one way of dealing with this, but requiring the opponent to already have those threats in-hand is a lot less reliable than just building to 3 mana and giving it the axe from their entire deck (particularly stuff like Farewell that can really nix your strategy).

It can be quite an easy swap to make for the Thoughtseize-type cards as well, using the first game to determine the best threat(s) with hand-viewing & then determine if swapping in Necro for them is worthwhile.

Feel free to add me on Arena if you want to run some test games, or even just discuss deck builds & meta threats. Info is on my profile here.

Either way Cheers & Good Luck!

God-Eternal-Magic-Player on Mill.ionaire [Modern UB Mill]

1 year ago

Cool, good for you! I don't have the money for Modern currently, and I have an Anowon, the Ruin Thief EDH deck, so Modern Mill is something that I really have been thinking about. This is a very nice list, does it come cheaper?

Yeah, Unmoored Ego would be useful with Emrakul around. I'd say it's worth experimenting.

Ammonzy on Mill.ionaire [Modern UB Mill]

1 year ago

God-Eternal-Magic-Player

Thanks, friend. Yeah, I've won plenty of FNMs or placed in my local area of Kansas City & Lawrence since playing modern mill back in 2017. I'm the only guy known to play mill but I do well enough where people have Emrakul, the Aeons Torn quite often in the sideboard.

People actually are doing it enough where I'm experimenting with Unmoored Ego to exile it without having to fish it out while hoping to have Soul-Guide Lantern on field or Surgical Extraction in hand.

nbarry223 on Viga-BOOM! (better mana)

1 year ago

Yeah, the only cards that make sense which I didn't really consider (I've seen them a few times) are Pick the Brain and Shimian Specter - still don't think they make the cut. Shimian Specter seems pretty disgusting if you can get it to stick around, but that would be quite the challenge in a creature based deck like this. I could see it being a decent game 2 tool in a control shell if you play little to no creatures, making them side out most of their removal, but beyond that, it is a little too fragile. I've contemplated Surgical Extraction before, but it relies on them already playing their threat, which is too late for me, since we don't have any targeted discard or mill. I ran Necromentia and Unmoored Ego for a while, but the colorless aspect of The Stone Brain just makes it worth that extra mana of investment.

Vicarian on Lockdown

1 year ago

Anyway, as far as card suggestions go, you can't be guaranteed that your opponent will be running instants or sorceries, so a full playset of Test of Talents might be a bit much. Against token strategies, Detention Sphere or Temporary Lockdown could be good. Not sure I'm a fan of the plan for Ethersworn Adjudicator, but it could be a decent way to close out the game. You could reduce the number of creatures overall and go with a typical control finisher, such as Chromium, the Mutable or Hullbreaker Horror. In the same vein as Extirpate, Necromentia or Unmoored Ego could be useful. With the number of enchantments you have, Sphere of Safety might be a fun way to prevent combat. You may want to include a way to remove creatures if they do get any onto the field before you can pull them out of the deck, so Supreme Verdict, Settle the Wreckage, Day of Judgment, or similar.

Dead_Blue_ on Murky Waters

1 year ago

I read your whole comment and appreciate the time you took for the write up. I really don’t want this to be a Dimir deck but I am planning to replace a few graves with Misty Rainforests

You’re not wrong in your assessments, having played Control as a secondary deck for years now I’m very familiar with almost all the cards you mentioned.

The thing you said about top decks, is why I used to have Think Twice in this deck over Consider… this deck pretty much never wants to go to top deck mode

Anyway instead of breaking down the pros and cons of the many viable cards you listed here’s where my head is at. I know Cryptic Command is too slow, I have barely ever cast it in any match up. I’ve been using it as a middle ground between the 4th copies of Dismember and Archmage's Charm I’m just not sure which I need the 4th copy of more since both have been all stars, what is your opinion?

Next on the table is Snapcaster Mage, it’s such a legacy card that it feels bad to want to cut it but I’ve seriously been thinking of dropping it in favor of 2x more Consider. What are your thoughts? Only thing that concerns me is cutting snap makes Unlicensed Hearse worst.

I think Unmoored Ego does need a sideboard slot, probably in place of Iymrith, Desert Doom which is only there for testing & flavor right now …do you think Surgical Extraction might be a better choice?

zapyourtumor on Murky Waters

1 year ago

Card Suggestions Show

I've listed all these below with explanations, I just have to put them at the top so I can check mark them as suggestions. Drown in the Loch, Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, Damnation, Unmoored Ego, Sunken Ruins, Ledger Shredder, Aether Gust, Mystical Dispute, Remand, Spreading Seas, Memory Deluge, Orvar, the All-Form

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I think the main decision you have to make with this deck is whether you want it to be a true control deck or a tempo deck. A true control deck would try to trade one for one and build card advantage before dropping a threat like Murktide or Jace or simply winning with Snappy beatdown. A tempo deck on the other hand would try to turbo out a quick Murktide and then protect that threat.

Mixing control and tempo is nothing new, and it sometimes works quite well. But because a lot of the cards from each type of deck don't necessarily go well together, you can sometimes end up in an awkward situation.

Here, you definitely have a mix of both types (which, I'd like to emphasize, is not necessarily bad). Archmage's Charm, Counterspell, Cryptic Command, Snapcaster Mage, Devastation Tide and Jace, the Mind Sculptor are all heavily control-flavored cards in your deck. They all either break even or generate card advantage, or massively stall out the game.

On the other hand, Force of Negation, Otherworldly Gaze, Thought Scour, Spell Pierce, and Subtlety are all tempo-flavored cards.

The problem with this combination in this deck is that half of your cards aim to turbo out a Murktide Regent as fast as possible with Otherworldly Gaze and Thought Scour and then protect it in the short term with cheap spells like Dismember, Force of Negation, Subtlety, and Spell Pierce. The main problems with these cards is that they are pretty terrible topdecks late game. Scour isn't too bad because it cantrips, but topdecking a Gaze when you really needed a counterspell or card advantage engine or a Murktide would probably feel terrible. And all the control-type cards aim to reach that stage of the game.

One example of a problem that arises when you try and combine these two archetypes is in the manabase. Tempo decks typically don't need many lands; depending on the deck's mana curve, we are generally looking at 19-20 lands, and occasionally even 18 or less. On the other hand, control decks almost always want at least 22-23 lands, sometimes up to 24-26 lands in order to reliably play their more expensive spells on curve like Archmage's Charm, Cryptic Command and Snapcaster Mage, and to also always have mana held up during their opponents turn for a reactive spell.

Of course, many cards fit very flexibly into both tempo and control decks, for example Counterspell is just so strong it works in both, while Consider being a cheap cantrip also fits into both types. So in my opinion one of the most important decisions you should make, if you want to make the deck more cohesive and just function smoother as a whole, is whether you want to lean more towards tempo or control.

Quick disclaimer: I think it is definitely possible to make the deck more competitive while keeping both tempo and control aspects; however you should probably then trim both the very slow control-leaning cards (Cryptic Command, Devastation Tide, Jace, the Mind Sculptor), and the cheap tempo-leaning cards (Otherworldly Gaze, Thought Scour, Force of Negation) and replace them with cards more towards the middle ground. The rest of the cards, like Archmage's Charm, Subtlety, Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Dismember, and of course Murktide Regent are all flexible enough that they can slot into both types of decks.

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The second important decision to make is what secondary color, if any, you want for your deck in order to complement the primary color (blue). The main issue with mono blue control is that you have very few ways to deal with resolved permanents, which is why most players typically splash white or black (or occasionally red). Blue only has access to bounce spells, which are decent in tempo decks but generally bad in control decks because they are card disadvantage (and also terrible late).

Here, I see you kind of "splashed" black, but your only maindeck spell with black pips uses phyrexian mana anyways, while the only black spell in your sideboard can be casted with only blue mana. In my opinion, since you already have black lands, I would commit fully to a UB manabase by including a few more fetches (U fetches since that's your main color) because it gives you access to a lot of strong options:

Drown in the Loch is a really good spell doubling as both removal and countermagic at only 2 cmc, and only gets stronger as the game goes on. Fatal Push is another great removal spell which is generally stronger than Dismember, although it needs at least around 7 fetches to show its full potential. You can also run discard like Inquisition of Kozilek, although that is more tempo/midrange-esque so it may not be a great fit for this deck. Black also gives you an actual boardwipe in the form of Damnation, which is definitely a lot stronger than something like Devastation Tide since it gets rid of the creatures permanently and indirectly generates CA by trading with multiple enemy creature cards. It also doesn't hit Jace. If you don't think you need it in the mainboard, it can be a great sideboard inclusion. Lastly you have access to some sideboard options like Unmoored Ego.

If all of the blue pip spells like Counterspell and Archmage's Charm have you worried about mana fixing issues, you can run the filter land Sunken Ruins which is great in these types of decks to ensure you can cast both BB and UUU spells.

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Those two main points aside, I have a few other card suggestions I think could work well here, some of which lean more control and some which lean more tempo.

Ledger Shredder is a great card which leans a bit more towards tempo but unlike Gaze/Thought Scour it helps turbo out a Murktide while also growing into a significant threat itself.

Aether Gust and Mystical Dispute are decent color-specific sideboard cards.

Remand is a tempo-leaning card that is generally not great in pure control lists, but could be good here if you decide to stick to the turbo murktide strategy.

Spreading Seas is probably the best sideboard option mono-blue has against Urza's Saga.

Memory Deluge has a bit of antisynergy with Murktide, but a very good digging spell if you decide to go towards control.

Orvar, the All-Form is another great sideboard card which instantly turns the tables on any Creativity player thinking they auto won the game after cheating out an early Archon of Cruelty.

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If you made it this far, thanks for reading all of my comments. I like the deck and I'm excited to see where you can take it in the future. Happy brewing!

Apollo_Paladin on Arena Esper Control Deck

1 year ago

I really enjoy your post about stomping the broken Agent of Treachery. Congrats!

On that topic, you might consider Necromentia over Unmoored Ego if it's an option for you. I used to run Ego in a few dimir builds, but I find dealing with 2/2's for any hand-selected cards is vastly preferential to giving my opponent card draw (even if it's not that often).

Especially with how much control you run in this build, I think giving 2/2 zombies instead of card draw just plays right into the rest of your build. Your mana base is straightened out to the point where I don't think double black mana is going to make or break you, but I concur wholeheartedly on keeping at least a 1-of for a card with that function (either Necromentia or Unmoored Ego if you disagree with my opinion).