My favorite Deck to play with in the current Meta, it's resilient, fast, and fun!!
The deck revolves around tempoing out your opponent until you have at LEAST 7 lands, play scapeshift, find a Valakut and 6 other mountains, for a grand total of 18 damage going to your opponents face!!
Since Yun's GP winning decklist,the archetype rose its popularity. This deck is a Tier 1/1.5. A primary problem with this deck (with any other combo deck), is GB/x decks, and heavy aggro decks. The deck lost its favorite match ups (POD and Delver), Now that those decks are not dominating, The deck now has to face the wrath of GB/x decks, and aggro decks. The discard package in GB/x decks hinders our plan, and the aggro decks beat us down before we can combo off.
Fast forward since Eldrazi Winter. I've come back to do more testing with this deck. Some notable inclusions are Hour of Devastation, Sweltering Suns, Supreme Will, and Sheltering Thicket.
The Lands
Generally Speaking I have 10 mountains in the deck (4
Steam Vents
and 4
Stomping Ground
, 1 Mountain, an 1 Sheltering Thicket. When I shift. I search for a Valakut, and at least 5 other mountains. So here's how the math works
1 Valakut + 6 Mountains = 18
1 Valakut + 7 Mountains = 21
2 Valakuts + 6 Mountains = 36
2 Valakuts + 7 Mountains = 42
The max. amount of damage that I can do is 60, but that rarely happens.
The Creatures:
4x
Sakura-Tribe Elder
: Our guy to ramp with. He's a blocker and we can search for lands.
3x
Snapcaster Mage
: He's pretty amazing once the GY starts filling up with our spells. Now that modern has more aggro decks than control decks, sometimes, Snapcaster Mage becomes an Ambush Viper
The Sorceries:
4x
Search for Tomorrow
: Our turn 1 suspend for ramp.
4x
Scapeshift
: The deck's Ace of the Spades. It Allows to sacrifices lands in order to retrieve the lands in the deck.
The Instants:
4x
Cryptic Command
: This card is amazing. It allows to tap down creatures, counter a spell, bounce a permanent, and draw a card. All four modes are very useful.
4x
Remand
: The decks tempo counter spell. Returns the spell back to the owners hand, and I get to draw a card.
3x
Supreme Will
: The new dig spell, I think its better than
Telling Time
,
Peer Through Depths
, and
Anticipate
. I like this spell because the deck wants versatility spells. Also this adds another soft counterspell early on, but towards the end of the game it can dig for more cards.
1x
Electrolyze
: This card is good in some match-ups. For the most part, I cast this card to get my opponent down to 18. The draw effect is nice though.
1x
Repeal
: This card is so good in the aggro match up. Bouncing permanents is what the deck like to do. Stall/Tempo out as much as possible. The draw effect is really nice as well.
2x
Izzet Charm
: The decks' looter. For this build, it doesn't matter if things can go to the graveyard, The fact that I can get it back with Snapcaster. (Beware of
Scavenging Ooze
). Most of the time, the modes are Countering and dealing 2 damage to a mana dork.
2x
Sweltering Suns
: The new boardwipe. I like better than anger because we can cycle it earler, and then snap it back latter if needed. I think that the deck wants more usefully cyclers because the deck needs to dig deeper to find scapeshift.
3x
Lightning Bolt
: To dome our opponent to get under 18, and to remove a mana dork or any other creature that has 3 toughness or less.
SIDEBOARD:
2x
Obstinate Baloth
: Anti-Discard Creature, also a good creature that gains life. Its a good card against Burn, Death's Shadow, Junk, Eldrazi, and other grindy decks.
2x
Hour of Devastation
: The new control sweeper. I think this is the perfect card for RUG because it hurts a lot of Heavy Hitting decks like Eldrazi, Death's Shadow, as well as be the 3-4 sweeper against heavy creature decks.
2x
Dispel
: Standard Counter spell.
2x
Relic of Progenitus
: Graveyard hate for Dredge, Abzan Company, Lantern, Junk/Grixis/Jund decks.
2x
Ceremonious Rejection
: Another counter spell for a lot of colorless decks; Eldrazi, Tron, Lantern, Affinty.
So there you go, I hope you enjoy reading my decklist and my opinion on it. Leave some feedback so that why I know I'm doing a good job.
1x
Pulse of Murasa
: Lifegain spell that can recover lands from land destruction like Ghost Quarter.
1x
Creeping Corrosion
: Artifact Sweeper for Affinity, Tron, and Lantern Control
1x
Surrak Dragonclaw
: Anti-counter spell to beat other control decks and to protect our creatures. This card is part of the transformation SB.
1x
Negate
: Standard Counter spell
1x
Vendilion Clique
: Standard anti-combo spell for Scapeshift, Living End, Abzan Company.
