Mardu "control" ?
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Sept. 25, 2018, 1:36 a.m. by 6ixer
First of let me state that this is not going in the direction of the already well established mardu pyromancer lists/talks.
My deck:
Mardu and friends
Modern
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To make this make sense of my in the end question, back some years ago I was playing a brew of Boris taxes. Your typical mid range ETB triggers style deck with creatures. After a few weeks at modern I realized the deck had late game issues so I put in one Elspeth suns champion, knight-errant and an ajani vengent. And it seemed to do better... for a home brew. Later on i said why not drop the vials and most of the creature base and make it boros control (this was before nahiri and emrakul were thought of) and it did great. One problem is It just has a super hard time with straight control so I just dropped the deck all together. The I guess the moral of the story is I was always told play a deck style you enjoy and work at it as along at your happy. I'm the kind of guy that is happy with 4-1/3-2. So I learned I like control with out counter magic. Don't judge lol. So basically non blue superfriends.
So my thought is why not take aspects of black white control and splash red. Ajani a single lightning helix or two? Anger in the side maybe. Basically what kind did years ago added white so they could play vengent and lingering souls hard cast if they needed to.
Now I would not be playing sorin of any kind at the moment of thinking of this because that requires the pace of the deck to change. I was thinking maybe too last meta of to ago but like my old Boris deck did. Wall of omens restoration angel. Elspeth Gideon ajani. I can post a deck real soon I just wanted to type and get thoughts. Lilly and ob nixils to obviously but yeah sorry grammar is lacking lol
And remember it's what I wanted to try thanks
I your right I miss used the word control and yes I'd like to stick with superfriends idea.
My only thing is I don't want it getting close to a tokens style list.
I forgot about Gideon of the trials as I do have one copy thought. He's in an EDH deck of mine.
Not to get too gimmick-y I thought well of omens is just a good well body and it draws a card and can...CAN syngerize well with restoration angel. Like I said I like a walker list that I saw a year ago it was just allllll the Gideon' s with your a-typical black white "control" shell. How ever I love ajani vengent hence the splash for a few red cards
September 25, 2018 3:34 a.m.
Not to get into sarkans "theme " but do I play a dragon or two over baneslayer or just use him for draw/discard
September 25, 2018 3:37 a.m.
So I took out the 2 suns champion and ob for 2 Gideon of the trials and a single sarkhan. Thoughts on the wall and Angel ideology
September 25, 2018 3:47 a.m.
In my humble opinon unless you have some other novel idea to break dragons - beside sarkhan - one of his + abilities is garbage.
Despite that he is a perfectly good "must be dealt with" walker, his other +1 is reliable card filtering, which is very strng (and for some reason undervalued), while his ultimate is game winning.
Wall of Omens (just like Deceiver Exarch) is not what is used to be, since the printing of various delve creatures like Gurmag Angler & Hollow One - as with enough build around any deck can have a bigass beater that eats that wall alive, not just GBx goodstuff that costs so much you need to sell a liver to play it....
September 25, 2018 6:37 a.m.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #7
Here are my attempts at doing something really similar: Die Pigs ($350 budget midrange) and Sugar-free Oreos.
September 25, 2018 12:10 p.m.
Okay so that being said wall and restoration come out. Now I have a wide open 8 slot...so what? up the amount of Gideon? Put ob nixilus (how ever you spell him) back in? Maybe a little bit more removal
September 25, 2018 1 p.m.
Not to potentially split my own thread in two but like I said I always like the superfrirnds style I liked it years ago in standard as well. My other thoughts given that last statement was maybe doing junk friends but it's like okay what's the green for only thing I can think of is abrupt decay and not that I would do it but one of the garruks. Or maybe jund friends but then why not just play jund haha
September 25, 2018 1:08 p.m.
Maybe not play jund midrange because its not the "BEST DECK" in modern. Its just an okay midrange deck. To put it otherwise, playing the pile of the best individual cards, doesn't mean you are playing the best deck - but likely means you are playing the most pricy one.
September 26, 2018 8:52 a.m.
Yeah that's true good point. Last time I got into modern kinda hardcore was about 3 years ago when jund was IMO top 8'ing alot
September 26, 2018 3:20 p.m.
Building off what you just said, I was also told that play with a deck your comfortable with and know well and even if they're not top tier cards in theory you can do better just because you know the deck. That being said and don't get me wrong this might be a bad idea of a deck but, I liked how the red white deck I had years ago played and that was before people added nahiri and emrakul how ever and I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of or try it but adding black the that deck and altering the structure of it. The red white one was, control ish I'm the means that it had removal out the wazoo lol and it won by nahiri emrakul or Elspeth token beat down. I thought by adding black I'm theory that adds another "control" aspect to it because you can target their hand and be able to play two really good synergistic cards.... Lilly and lingering souls both for value and the ability to continue to limit their hand. And calls cards like a one of dreadbore is nice to you never know when you'll encounter a planeswalker you can't out right attack. So dreadbore it lol... and like I said the wall Resto "combo" is in there because yeah your right wall is smaller than slot of threats in modern. But it's a blocker that draws a card and usually you draw the answer(path/push/dreadbore/terminate) just examples.... also in the Boris walkers I ran Resto became a win condition slot of times.... EOT flash in, untap combat swing, pass. Again EOT flasb... swing 6 ect. Don't get me wrong it's not always like that... but usually it is. That's why I thought ever at their worst they're not bad they can be used lots of ways.
Thoughts honestly let's hear it and like I said yeah why not play mardu pyro.... i have I liked it but I want to try something new. So please help with some out side meta/ box thinking
Thanks
September 26, 2018 3:43 p.m.
Imho wall of omens is in the same place as fatal push. It should be greatbassed on the past meta, as all except one threat could be blocked by it (and 5 & 4+ mana cards were "unplayable"). But the meta has changed. There are plenty of decks that run creatures that have 4 or 4+ power, similarly people adjusted creature based win conditions to the fact that if its over 4 mana it gets hexproof for free.
wall of omens + resto would be a great combo, if you were to have something other than the wall to bounce with resto for value - but this isnt an RWx kiki deck, its a superfiends deck - at least that is what you planned until now.
Nahiri, the Harbinger probaly has the best ultimate out of all planeswalker you could play in a superfiends deck, even if you don't get emrakul, betting a big fatty for value is often enough. (she is like JTMS or teferi for control or cahndra torch of defiance for decks with plenty of red spells)
If i were in your place i would probably ditch the resto package for more elements that prevent your walker from being attacked, be it bridge, more board wipes, or whatever else you like. (+ mainboard graveyard hate never hurts, even if its stuff like Scavenger Grounds). If you run Lingering Souls then card selection provided by Faithless Looting is worth it even more with negated drawback.
And again, take a look at the "oath of ..." card cycle, of the top of my head i can't say which are the best but thjere are a lot of promising ones, i seem to recall there was one that provided free 2/2 zombie tokens (or something similar -aka. blockers- whenever you cast a walker. So its possible that there is mad value there, just no one has taken a close look at those cards, with superfiends decks in mind.
P.s.: I am bit drunk, so sorry for hte typos & good luck with your build!
September 26, 2018 7:41 p.m.
Haha well inknow when I get home I'll be knocking back some fireball but anyway... yes the oath of Lilly does that and the oath of Gideon gives me for 2w, 2 1/1's and walkers enter with one additional loyalty counter as well. So you said ditch the rest wall thing.... you mentioned faithless looting... I wanted to run in but didn't want to be almost mirroring pyromancer builds lol. And yes run Chandra?? I was thinking of adding 4 loots, and extra walker and another fatty with emrakul that way I can tutor up her ultimate
September 26, 2018 8:48 p.m.
And yes I want to try and keep it a superfrirnds deck it's just what number of walkers to play before it's too much and or the walkers played are even good lol
Xica says... #2
First of i like the idea of the deck but...
You need to know what you want to play. This is in no way, shape or form a conntrol deck. Just because control decks at one time diluted their gameplan with a boatload of threats in the form of planeswalkers, doesn't make superfiend decks control. Control decks are what they are, because they plan on controlling what the opponent has on the field. (Pure control is decks like grixis 8-command, or esper draw-go)
If you want to win, control decks are far from the only, or even the easiest way to do so. However if you want to look like the deck didn't matter just your skill, control decks the easiest way to have an excuse to brag about your achievment....
If you want to stick to your superfiends deck, i would recomend cutting high cmc "control finisher" planeswalkers like Elspeth, Sun's Champion - as they are a liability against control, and will be a liability against Assassin's Trophy decks - you have zero ways to protect her. Why not play some of the best walkers red has to offer, maybe Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Sarkhan, Fireblood? And ditch high cmc creature finishers - play things like board wipes, if your threats are planeswalkers, they are only going to hurt your opponent...
And focuse on the low end of the curve, Gideon of the Trials, Liliana of the Veil... etc. Its gonna cost a fortune, but its what makes superfiends good. (I guess its true for all other deck.... if you don't have a proper mana curve, you will hardly have a good game in any meta that is even somewhat prepared to handle your deck)
playing soem "oath of..." cards also seems like a good idea. However without ramp Call the Gatewatch is a trap.
September 25, 2018 3:22 a.m.