Of Control and Denial

Modern* ducttapedeckbox

SCORE: 20 | 63 COMMENTS | 5481 VIEWS | IN 7 FOLDERS


Match History || Pre OGW Update —April 12, 2015

Now that I have a relatively solid shell, I'm going to start recording my match history.

  • Abzan Midrange || 2 - 0 ||. Early Blood Moon works wonders on their mana bases, both games my opponent scooped without playing the game out.
  • Assault Loam: || 0 - 2 ||. Not much to say here, besides big Goyfs' hurt a lot.
  • Bloom Titan: || 2 - 0 ||. Since they typically only run one basic Forest, we usually have a great match unless they sideboard in enchantmant hate. Other than that, they essentially have to scoop once Blood Moon hits the field.
  • Elves: || 0 - 2 ||. SO MANY ELVES
  • Grixis Delver: || 3 - 1 ||. Getting an early Blood Moon can stall this deck rather easily until we're able to drop a threat and win.
  • GR Tron: || 2 - 1 ||. As long as we can deny them their land fetches and get a Blood Moon out early, we have a pretty good match up here.
  • Hatebears: || 1 - 2 ||. Choke :(
  • Infect: || 1 - 2 ||. There's not much we can do against a T3 kill except for hoping we have the counter magic to prevent it.
  • Merfolk: || 0 - 2 ||. Overly aggressive decks filled with creatures are insanely hard to keep up with with this deck.
  • Naya Zoo: || 2 - 0 ||. It takes a few turns to stabilize, but our land hate cripples their shocks and fetches. We just have to be weary of Destructive Revelrys, but that's nothing our counter magic can't handle.
  • Soul Sisters: || 2 - 1 ||. Stormbreath Dragon is our MVP, and gets some help from Pyroclasm after game 1.
  • UR Aggro/Delver: || 0 - 2 ||. If we can't deal with their Delvers and Pyromancers, then we have a problem. Blood Moon doesn't do much in this matchup unless they're splashing black for Tasigur, so they get sided out games 2 and 3.
  • U Tron: || 1 - 2 ||. Counter-wars can go either way, Blood Moon does not affect them as much as GR.
  • OTHER: || 2 - 0 ||. This includes rogue decks and other decks that don't fit under a general archetype.

JexInfinite says... #1

Come on, Shadow of Doubt is better than Squelch.

March 27, 2015 9:18 p.m.

@ JexInfinite - I'm not sold, but I have been following that recent thread comparing the two. It comes down to what I'm facing, and when I play this exclusively on Cockatrice where I face Abzan at least 50% of the time, I prefer Squelch. Not only does it mess with their fetches but also slows Lili, Tasigur, manlands, Gavony Township, and the occasional Scooze if I'm desperate.

March 27, 2015 9:44 p.m.

JexInfinite says... #3

At worst, Shadow of Doubt is a cantrip. At worst, you can't even cast Squelch.

March 27, 2015 9:59 p.m.

@ JexInfinite -- That's true, but if the deck I'm facing doesn't have a significant amount of search/activated abilities to counter, then I wouldn't side in either anyways.

March 27, 2015 10:09 p.m.

YES, finally a fun looking blue moon deck. Mind if I use this a bit on untap?

March 29, 2015 9:53 p.m.

@ FAMOUSWATERMELON -- As long as you share your results!

I just swapped out the Shackles for Stormbreath. What do you think of that and Mirror Mockery? Both have worked well in the testing I've done versus Abzan, BW Tokens, burn (4 color burn, no basics, meet Blood Moon), and RG Tron.

March 29, 2015 9:56 p.m.

Looks fun to me :)

March 29, 2015 9:57 p.m.

Sounds good, I look forward to hearing your results!

March 29, 2015 9:58 p.m.

DRUM ROLL

Playing results! So, only got to play VS 3 different decks, but I got an idea of how this thing plays.

WON against American Control. It was actually hysterical to counter EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS THREATS. And get out a Blood Moon when he ran no basics. Very good times. Stormbreath Dragon was certainly a winner, because Path to Exile...

LOST against R/G (maybe colorless actually) Tron. Whaaaaaaat??? Isn't that supposed to be the point of this deck? To wreck Tron? Well, believe it or not, I could not find a single Blood Moon despite running through half the draw spells in the deck. And, yeah, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is sort of hard to get rid of.

WON against Storm. How did I do that, you ask? Oh, just by keeping a Spell Snare handy :) Again, I won with Stormbreath Dragon just being himself.

WINNERS

Stormbreath Dragon. This guys deserves his reputation. By a long shot. Pretty much impossible to get rid of.

Counterspells. Denying things over and over and over is beyond fun. It's sadistic and I like it that way :)

LOOSERS

Serum Visions. WHAAAAAAT??? IT'S AN AWESOME CARD. I know. The sorcery speed just killed me too often, where I had to waste a turn to cast it, and could not counter my opponent's threats. Don't take it out though. Maybe I just had bad luck.

Drawing. May sound weird, but there's just not enough digging.

SUGGESTIONS!!

Run the final Blood Moon. It just makes it that much easier to find.

Run a BIT more card draw. I don't want to upset the amazing counterspell thing going on here, but not being able to find that Dragon pisses me off. Maybe Anticipate? Or Telling Time?

Right, so that's it! I will continue to try this out, as I really like to play it!

March 30, 2015 11:24 p.m.

Damn FAMOUSWATERMELON, thank you! I'll leave a detailed responce later :)

March 31, 2015 1:25 p.m.

So, FAMOUSWATERMELON.

That's really tragic against Tron; I actually had the same experience hah. And I'm really happy with the Stormbreath > Shackles. Mockery fills that slot really well, and costs much less.

As for Serum Visions, what if I just distribute the counts into the deck? Add another Moon, Remand, Mana Leak, andddd Snare?

April 1, 2015 3:47 p.m.

I would keep the visions as maybe a 2-of, but another remand and maybe another moon would definitely work.

April 1, 2015 4:29 p.m.

@ FAMOUSWATERMELON -- I've switched one for one with Blood Moon and I'm going to do some testing later. Let me know if you have more results!

April 2, 2015 2:02 p.m.

Saljen says... #14

What's Mirror Mockery doing for you? I run Blue Moon as well and I really don't see it being very good unless there's some sort of hidden interaction that I'm missing. Vedalken Shackles can just win games, whereas Mirror Mockery at best stops 1 creature from attacking you. Removal is better. Blue Moon is in a really good place in the current meta. Very favorable matches against Azban and Twin and solid matchups for the rest of the meta. Mmmm... Blue Moon is my deck if you feel like checking it out. If you're having issues with drawing into Blood Moon against Tron, running a couple Magus of the Moon helps a lot. I actually run 2 in the main board, but they can be just as effective in the side against the right decks. Also, if you drop Serum Visions then you will run into Blood Moon significantly less. Serum Visions filters through 3 cards for 1 mana, very few other cards can do that. 1 blue mana is very easy to cast in a control deck that runs 23-24 land, especially since your counterspells are 1-2 cmc. Anyways, hope you enjoy your deck; its really my favorite archetype in Modern right now. The lockdown ability of this type of deck is just hilariously fun.

April 2, 2015 2:08 p.m.

@ Saljen -- Thanks for the comment. I'm new to the deck, so I've only played a few games with it and in those games, the Shackles really didn't help... It might've been the games, but I cut it in favor of Stormbreath which has been an amazing addition (not that I'm surprised). To solve the Moon problem, I added a fourth in place of a Serum Visions and I'm going to be trying it out. That said, Mockery hasn't been game changing either, but has certainly saved my hind a few times. Maybe I should be replacing it with more removal or counter magic?

I've been playing UTron for a while and it's a lot of fun, but I wanted to start toying with something else. I'm a control player through and through and don't like playing overly common decks, so I found this and I'm glad I did. If you have any mechanical suggestions for playing or any suggestions in general, don't hesitate to share!

April 2, 2015 3:57 p.m.

BadPapaBear says... #16

Why not use Ponder u basically get to scry three first and then draw and shuffle for one mana??

April 2, 2015 4:38 p.m.

BadPapaBear says... #17

Wait sorry never mind I just your doing modern so scratch that last comment :)

April 2, 2015 4:39 p.m.

Thanks anyways, thekid95! :)

April 2, 2015 5:25 p.m.

grumbledore says... #19

hey man i apologize for taking so long to get back atcha - i like this list a lot. one question though.. why not Trickbind over Squelch? the card draw?

great list though, man. in terms of antimeta, i took my grixis mill (The Grisly Millwright) to modern FNM last night and did pretty good overall. better than i thought i would, honestly. 2-1 vs burn, 1-2 vs TWIN, of all things! lol. and 0-2 against affinity but it was close both rounds. made some changes and i think next time it'll be even more competitive.

April 6, 2015 2:11 p.m.

Don't worry about it, scrotality! Basically yeah, the card draw. I want a lot of my spells to replace themselves. I have yet to test out the SB extensively, as a lot of people on Trice' end up leaving after G1 if I win....

Very nice abut the Mill! I've always wanted to see mill work in Modern, but it's usually a very weak archetype. If only there were other Glimpse the Unthinkable-level cards... If you play on Trice', want to get some games in sometime? I have an absurd amount of work these next two weeks but I can probably fit some games in there if you're up for it.

April 7, 2015 12:15 p.m.