UB Mystical Teachings Control, Draw-Go style
Hit land drops, counter things, destroy things, draw cards, eventually win. The early game is designed to just survive. Once you get to the late game, use
Dreadship Reef
to build up more mana than the opponent, use a chain of Mystical Teachings to get the silver bullets you need, refill with Blue Sun's Zenith, and grind them out attacking with Creeping Tar Pit and Vendilion Clique.
I don't really play Modern, but I got interested in building this type of decklist since it doesn't require any of the Zendikar fetches, and thus is a more budget option (minus the clique and snapcasters, which I already owned.)
Here's an explanation of some of my deck choices:
-Creature suite: 3 Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique. These numbers seem right. Also huge synergy with Teachings, as I can fetch any of these at a moment's notice.
-Blue Sun's Zenith is the hand-refiller of choice because it shuffles back in (and I can tutor for it again), it prevents me from decking myself, and if I run out of win conditions, I can build up a lot of mana with the reefs and point it at my opponent as a last ditch effort to mill them.
-Darkblast is very handy in removing the small utility creatures, and the dredge synergizes nicely with teachings and snapcasters.
-Counterspell suite: I run 2
Delay
as a way of stalling the game more, and it works great against opponent's countermagic. Dimir Charm is flexible and is never a dead card; if there's no creatures or sorceries to counter, I can always Fateseal the opponent of filter myself. 3 Mana Leak seems like the right number. I only run 1 Remand since it's a hard control deck, not tempo; I need to be able to permanently deal with threats. I like the opponent to know that I run it, and try very hard to play around it when I don't have it in my hand most of the time (but can still tutor for it if need be.) 3 Spell Snare since CMC 2 is very high in Modern.
-Spot removal suite: Consume the Meek is a wonderful sweeper. 2 Doom Blade 2 Go for the Throat feels like the right distribution.
Far
is a very versatile removal/mini sweeper when played right, and it's very important to have the sac effect against cards like
Thrun, the Last Troll
or eldrazi. Slaughter Pact ensures I can always kill something at 0 mana.
-
Dreadship Reef
the way this deck wins games is by having more cards and more mana than your opponent. the storage lands are fantasic in Draw/Go style decks.
-Echoing Truth important bounce spell that has extra utility against tokens or possible 2-for-1's
-3 Inquisition of Kozilek in the early game to peek at their hand and strip important early threats I might not be able to eliminate. Debating running 3
Mindstab
in that slot.
-4 Mystical Teachings the core of the deck. It's almost always the correct play to flashback teachings to fetch another teachings.
-4
Shadow of Doubt
. Normally this slot would be 4 Think Twice, however I'm testing the Shadows as a way of screwing with the metagame. There are so many Fetches and other search cards in the format; Pod, Gifts Ungiven, Scapehift, etc. Running this as a Sideboard card isn't that great since only stopping a search once might not stop the opponent, but running 4 in the main should make them feel very scared, and in this deck the main function is as an instant speed cantrip that also happens to screw the opponent over occassionally.
-Surgical Extraction. Randomly strip out opponent's best card from their deck in game 1. I run the extraction as the singleton because I can always tutor for it and cast it for 2 life; Extirpate comes in aganist the decks that I want to use this effect more on, but want to ensure it doesn't get countered or responded to, which still leaving one as a way to tutor/cast if I only have 4 mana.
Sideboard:
-Crypt Incursion is nice graveyard exile, but the lifegain is probably more important against the Aggro decks as a way of getting out of the red zone once I stabilize.
-Damping Matrix as a way of shutting off Affinity and other combo decks, without harming my deck at all
-Extirpate against combo decks.
-
Hibernation
against green decks
-Hurkyl's Recall to slow down the Affinity Matches
-Negate against combo and control decks
-Spellskite against Aggro and Twin/Storm
-Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir against control and combo
