Actually going to drop a sygg instead to run the playset of snaps as they are needed in this list.

ScottKindle....thank you so much for providing such great information about your testing! It's super helpful!

I have been fiddling too...trying to find the perfect balance...you may be right about three snapcasters....I'll give it a try tonight. I've never tried Ashiok; but I LOVE planeswalkers! They represent life gain (as the opponent has to deal with them) and resource advantage (as you get to cast a spell each turn they are in) and that is before their abilities take effect! I will give it a try to see how I like it!

I've found that the filter lands have been REALLY good in this deck and that one Reflecting Pool is actually a really good idea. Beyond that....I'm now just trying to make a list of the absolute worst match-ups so I can get nbarry223's help with the sideboard....

I have a lot of time to test tonight; so I should be able to provide data like ScottKindle has! I'm gonna have to add you guys as "co-brewers" of the deck given all of the help you've provided :) Thanks so much for your help!

Well, this inspired me to make my own modern control deck (something I haven't done yet surprisingly, since people get pissed at me when I play control) so thanks for that :)

I ended up choosing UBw as the colors, with white being there mainly for lifegain. I found some cards that can be used creatively, like encoding Hidden Strings onto my Creeping Tar Pit to basically reduce it's animation cost every turn, and I'm a big fan of Smallpox too, simply because it hits them where it hurts, and I can generate enough cards that I'm throwing away something useless (or a Think Twice I can flashback anyway).

I don't really see either one fitting in here all that well though, but you can consider them if you really want to.

One thing that you might find useful, however, is Reverberate or Twincast (whichever color you want to commit to more heavily). It's a very flexible card that can do pretty much anything. In mirror matches, they are far more useful than counterspells, as it is a counterspell that can be something else too (nothing like Cryptic Command ing theirs for 2). Just something to think about, if you see yourself making room somehow.

My only concern is you have a lot of "target player" in your cards, which ends badly when someone sides in Leyline of Sanctity . Just another little something to think about.

My list is here, although I've barely playtested it so far, so it's nowhere near done. It is more geared toward the midrange decks prior to siding, and has a sideboard that really messes up the more aggro decks. There's still probably a few holes I need to cover, however.

I LOVE Smallpox ....this deck, funnily enough...started as a Smallpox deck (as you could discard the Sedraxis Specter to it, Rise and/or Snapcaster Mage a card back as well....I agree that it ends up fitting much better in your deck, however.

You are absolutely right about Leyline of Sanctity being tough on me. I will work tonight to ensure such decks/idea don't cripple me. The "copy" spells are really interesting as well. In control matches they are super powerful, and worst-case scenario; I can always copy a Blightning , Lightning Bolt , etc, and still get value out of the card. I will definitely try these out tonight....

Love the idea with the Creeping Tar Pit ....it probably does the majority of the damage of all of the cards in the deck; so enabling it to basically have vigilance is huge.

Your deck is awesome! I'm sorry you are going to be hated in your play group :) They are just going to have to deal with it and figure out a way to win! ha.

Hey guys, I know how much you like Batterskull , so I'm going to recommend another piece of equipment that has served me well: Sword of War and Peace . Now, since you've removed Vendilion Clique and Vampire Nighthawk from the deck, it might not be perfect here, but since the removal in Modern is Lightning Bolt , Path to Exile , other burn...protection from red and white is strong right now.

I'm not a huge fan of Raven's Crime unless it is in a mono-black discard deck with really efficient spells. Usually playing that land is more important than discarding it in control, as whoever has the most mana available wins in most cases. Sword of War and Peace is good if you can get it out, for sure, but that's a lot of mana to invest, plus it doesn't come with something already wielding it. I generally don't like equipments simply because they are such a huge investment, and leave you close to tapped out. However, this is more of an aggro/tempo build, so it works better than Batterskull if Dark Confidant is out for it to get equipped to. But if there's no body, it's just a dead card (and liliana really hates on it with her +1 also). It's worth testing, but I don't like either one of them as the lifegain slot tbh lol.

Things like Bloodchief Ascension and Sangromancer look more appealing for that function, although the creature is a bit susceptible to removal.

Also, Vampiric Link works as psuedo-removal on creatures with no abilities, and it can gain you life if you can get it on something you control (I find it useless for the second part in control games though). Just figured I'd mention it in case anyone liked that idea.

Honestly, my only real suggestion is Bloodchief Ascension though, as the others have pretty serious downsides to them. The only problem is it takes a few turns to take effect, so if you are looking for it to gain life in a pinch, you're screwed.

I love the idea of Sword of War and Peace ProfessorDucky...It is going in over the second Batterskull ....I think the pros simply outweigh the cons at this point with the meta. Great suggestion!

nbarry223....great points on all of the suggestions you made (no surprise there :) I actually fiddled around with Bloodcheif Ascension for a few games when I took out the Delver's (as I wanted an interesting turn-1 play and this deck does need life-gain to stay alive in longer match-ups...also, with all of the burn spells and 2-power creatures it seemed to fit really well...). I honestly didn't test it enough to see if it was effective.

I love your deck btw...I need to test it a little more (as I've only played it once); but such great interactions!

nbarry223....the decks that seem to be the biggest problems for this decks are the smaller decks that play their entire hand on turns 1-2. Things like Zoo, Affinity, and Merfolk are the toughest match-ups. My brother's Elf Devotion (Modern) is extremely difficult to beat due to the fact that he puts out a ton of things quickly and continues to draw 2+ cards a turn while he's doing so (due to the Elvish Visionary , Coiling Oracle , Abundant Growth , and Horizon Canopy , etc.) so I can't remove them quickly enough.

These decks are tough because they generally don't keep anything in their hand for me to remove and they can do a lot of damage quickly.

I've added Anger of the Gods (huge against Merfolk and Elf decks), Shattering Spree for Affinity, and Rakdos Charm (as this is surprisingly good as it deals 4+ damage if they have a bunch of creatures on the board, destroys an artifact for Affinity, is graveyard hate at the same time for things like Living End , and also is funny when Twin goes infinite (as it instant speed kills them with the "1 damage for each creature" option....such a good Modern card :) Engineered Explosives also does well set at 1 or 2 in such match-ups as well.

I would LOVE to hear other sideboard options as well though...anything to make the deck better is always appreciated!

Just as an aside....I've kept two Swamp and two Island just in case of Blood Moon decks.

I really only need one of each to cast nearly every spell in the deck; however it would shut off Liliana of the Veil and Cryptic Command ...I don't have three Islands due to the simple fact that the odds that I would have all three basic Islands by the time a Blood Moon is cast is so slim that it didn't seem worth the cost to the fixing. Liliana of the Veil may be a possibility as she only requires 2-black mana (and getting a turn-1 Swamp is fine given the fact that many of my early plays are black spells).

Let us know what you think!

For things that swarm you like the elves, I'd highly suggest Chalice of the Void set it at 1 or 0 and it stomps all over your opponents (you remove Thoughtseize in those match ups anyway).

It's also extremely powerful against affinity and the like, it really hits a lot of decks, even storm decks and 1 CMC relient combos (Blistercoil Weird etc.)

I'd suggest Ratchet Bomb over Engineered Explosives too, simply because it's less of a mana investment.

Don't go on about my deck, nbarry223. I have two perfect answers for a Chalice of the Void set to 1.

1. Paradise Mantle , Postmortem Lunge for Blistercoil Weird , equip, Boomerang .

2. Disrupting Shoal (Force of Will in most cases) exiling Ideas Unbound .

Anyway, you have a great deck. But please, clear comments.

Matsi883]....at first I didn't really understand your comment; but I think I've got it after looking at your deck...

First off, Storm and Eggs is a REALLY great deck. If anyone was thinking of playing storm and wants to see a turn-2 possibility (rather than those super-slow turn-3 or 4 turn storms decks :) take a look!

nbarry223 can't thank you enough for your great ideas! I will certainly be adding these to the board.

I mean no card isn't able to be got around, but in a control shell, you have to remove it the turn they tap out to play it, or your removal will get countered.

It's the best option to slow down or totally cripple decks that control decks otherwise couldn't handle. I don't know of a single better card with all 5 colors available.

The grixis deck on this page seems viable:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/pr/286

Some cards that are good from it are: Consume the Meek , Cruel Ultimatum , and Mystical Teachings .

I have one question, why run Shattering Spree over a third Chalice of the Void or does it get sided in for something other than affinity?

Mind going through your sideboard cards and elaborating on what they are for specifically?

I like many of those cards scorpix and it does seem viable for sure . There are definitely great Cruel Ultimatum decks out there! We didn't want this to be an Ultimatum deck for a few reasons:

1. It's already been done and done quite well. Of course; we didn't come up with "Grixis" or even Grixis-Tempo-Control. We're not huge on intellectual credit beyond citing ideas you got from somebody else; because most likely every deck has been though up by someone somewhere :). We don't cite sources when the deck idea came from our heads; but that doesn't mean someone didn't also think of the same thing! Also; our decks are "community" decks. We throw the initial build out with the idea for the deck ; and then the great minds on here help perfect it...so no 75 is purely ALL our ideas.
   

Having said this, however, we do like our decks to be novel enough that we can consider them "new brews". We just want the decks to add something to the "Magic Universe" or at minimum the TappedOut Universe :). Patrick Chapin and others have made some great ultimatum decks; and I'm not sure we'd add much more than they haven't.

1. Cruel Ultimatum + Dark Confidant = BAD :)

2. Anger of the Gods currently seems better positioned in the meta than Consume the Meek ...this could change if course; but right now we feel like Anger is probably superior.

Such good ideas in the deck though! Definitely ideas we will be testing. (As its tough to make too much criticism about any deck you've never played...or at least we're not talented enough to do so :). All in all though, great ideas! Some may even end up in here,

nbarry223 I'll get the "Sideboard Update" up tomorrow (a little late now ) with detailed discussion on the use of each card in the board. May end up removing Shattering Spree ; but we'll explain all the choices regardless. Great idea! This should be done on every deck once a deck / sideboard gets to a relatively stable point. Thanks for suggesting it!

Ahhhhh, Ok. Thanks. That was really profound.

Just one more thing: Why is one of this deck's hubs "Delver"?

Ha! Delver was originally in the deck. I'm a Delver nut and start by jamming him into every blue deck I make :). He wasn't great in here unfortunately. I'll remain it. Thanks for pointing that out scorpix.

So, I'm building a control deck of my own, and I've found that you should probably be running 4 Liliana of the Veil if you can get your hands on them. But, because you're running 3, I wonder If I'm mistaken in saying this. Is there any particular reason why you don't run a playset?

Also, despite the fact that Sword of Fire and Ice would make it more difficult to play your Rise on creatures, it's probably a bit better suited in this deck as a control card.

Hello again Skimm3r....I only play 3 Liliana of the Veil simply due to the fact that planeswalkers are like legendary creatures (can't have two on the same side at the same time). You can probably get away with four of them, however...it is an unreal card that is a great top-deck 90% of the time (you are rarely not happy to see it :)

I do love Sword of Fire and Ice and it is probably the "best" overall sword. In this deck, however, we need the life-gain and protection a little more than we would in other decks. That's the only reason it was chosen over the swords that are conventionally better.

Lol, you cold run 1x Cavern of Souls because both Snapcaster and Bob are wizards, it would be fun against the UWR decks. Plus, imagine how confused your opponent would be in game 2 when you led with the Cavern. That's probably not very viable due to the fact that it only makes gray mana most of the time, but using it early on Bob could get you around a Spell Snare and force them to have Electrolyze or something along those lines lest he take over the game for you.

I like Phyrexian Obliterator against any type of red decks (I also side in Leyline of Sanctity so all their burn becomes really useless). Counter anything that's not burn and make them have two losing options, to sacrifice 5+ permanents or take 5 every turn. Of course, he's more of a late game card, which might not be the best fit for this deck.

I'm not too sure how good Cavern of Souls would be in here, as it only covers 8 cards (just utility creatures at that), and is otherwise colorless. If he had a big finisher that was either a human or wizard, it could warrant testing, but right now I don't see it being even worthy of the sideboard.

So after serious testing against alot of different decks i have some updates of my own. First of all i cut sygg all together and added 3 vexing devils and added an anger to the main. Also added 2 think twice as my source of draw to go with electrolyze. In the sideboard i took out dreadbore to add phyrexian crusader mainly against control and is like a 4/4 due to infect and he dodges most of the meta. Also blocks a unpersisted kitchen finks and keeps him from returning lol. I also swapped shattering spree with vandalblast to test it further as i can usually slow affinity down long enough to get there. I havent tried chalice yet but will be this week some. I will post a link with my list for you to see when i upload it in a little while.