Strong opening:
T1 - Serum visions
T2 - Hold up Mana Leak; either counter a threat (e.g. T2 blood moon) or play Growth Spiral EOT to play 3rd land tapped and ramp
T3 - Play 4th land and drop Wilderness Reclamation main phase; hold up Cryptic Command or Settle the Wreckage for interaction on opponent’s turn
T4 - Play 5th land, cast Secure the Wastes EOT for 9 tokens or Sphinx’s Rev for 7 life and 7 cards
The mana base is intensive since we are aiming for access to both 3 blue mana (for cryptic) and 2 white mana (for Supreme Verdict and Settle the Wreckage) by T3/T4 depending on ramp. Blood Moon shuts down most of our stuff so must be countered if possible.
Compared to traditional UW control lists, this deck has the advantage of ramp for T3 board wipes and cryptics, as well as gaining tons of mileage from our Colonnades and Azcanta since we can activate one our both on our turn and the opponent’s turn with Wilderness Reclamation out. The downside is we lose some power and flexibility that comes from JTMS and Terminus.
Since we can stack the untap land triggers of Teferi and Wilderness Reclamation EOT, casting an X spell (Secure the Wastes or Sphinx’s Rev) with a Wilderness Reclamation out means we can cast these spells for 2x the amount of lands we have. With 5 or 6 lands out it often feels correct to cast Sphinx’s Rev for 2 mana or 4 mana less than maximum so we can hold up any interaction we draw. For example, with 6 lands and stacking triggers, casting Sphinx’s Rev for X = 7 instead of X = 9 is still a huge momentum play, but it also means that we can use 2 mana counters and Paths we draw to continue to interact with our opponent on their turn.
I am still debating on the right mix of Wilderness Reclamations and X spells along with a traditional control suite of Teferi/Snap/Azcanta. I opted out of the Jace/Terminus stuff because I don’t have any Jaces and we already have a lot of 4 mana spells to play. Also play testing between Opt and Serum Visions. Any advice on this would be great!
