Looking for Heroic Control lists.
Modern forum
Posted on Nov. 23, 2015, 7:43 a.m. by kengiczar
So I am wanting to build something truly budgety and I noticed to this day no successfull brews have been built with any of he cards below:
Sage of Hours
Battlefield Thaumaturge
Mindreaver
Artisan of Forms
Now back during their standard day people did try varying concepts such as +1/+1 counters + Sage, Artisian playing the role of another "beefy" creature but for the most part those were only "meh" in standard with Thaumaturge seeing a brief spotlight in a WotC article with Aurelia's Fury.
Mindreaver meanwhile has went almost completely unnoticed, and for good reason. You have to sacrifice him! Still I feel like having seen how powerful repeated acivations of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver have been the the card Mindreaver just might be worth sticking around.
Considering the worlk that Ahsiok can do by removing dangerous burn spells, thereby allowing you to save sometimes stockpile things like Dispell in your hand, I've come to realize that Ashiok is incredibly powerful versus pretty much anything except Abrupt Decay so long as you've kept the board clear.
With Mindreaver the ability is similar, except it's ok to let them have ONE attacker if you are able to keep giving Mindreaver protection from whatever.
Any lists promoting the others would certainly be welcome as well.
Bioshift and Hardened Scales might be some good places to look for getting Sage of Hours to come on line more easily. Vorel of the Hull Clade could make that a free turn for you.
Have one Sage of Hours give all its counters to Sage of Hours using Bioshift while Hardened Scales is out and the second one gets an extra, they both get targeted by Bioshift so they both get two more counters after they're moved. Use Vorel of the Hull Clade to double the counters on either creature and it gets an extra from Hardened Scales.
In essence, any recursion you can assure every turn like Isochron Scepter + Noxious Revival to put Bioshift on top of your deck every turn.
The exact interaction is assuming Hardened Scales and Bioshift work together correctly with the wording being "place" and "move" respectively. I hope that helps as a jumping point!
November 23, 2015 8:47 a.m.
Now the Isochron Scepter + Noxious Revival recursion makes it so you will only get Bioshift, or whatever card, every turn if you decide to do so, so you'll need a wincon on the board before you combo.
November 23, 2015 8:50 a.m.
If you were to use Bioshift + Isochron Scepter , it doesn't cast the Bioshift, so it won't trigger Heroic
Edit: I'm dumb and skipped the word cast. Ignore that :P
November 23, 2015 8:53 a.m. Edited.
AndWelcomeToTheJam says... #7
I have a friend who used to run this idea in Standard. He played Bant with Fleecemane Lion as the main beater and Ajani, Mentor of Heroes as the combo engine to produce a long-lasting turn lock. Artisan of Forms was there to copy Sage of Hours or other troublesome creatures on the opponent's side to keep the combo safe. Battlefield Thaumaturge and Mindreaver weren't used, but I bet you could combine Thaumaturge with Solidarity of Heroes to make multiple large Sages at a time. If you want I can try to draft a Modern version of Bant Sage Control.
November 23, 2015 8:54 a.m.
AndWelcomeToTheJam says... #8
@Gigi_Year The interaction you mentioned does work. Bioshift has 2 phases; removing counters from a creature, then adding the same number of counters to another. Hardened Scales recognizes the 2nd part of this spell, and adds accordingly.
November 23, 2015 8:57 a.m.
GeeksterPlays says... #9
The closest I've got to a working Sage of Hours deck was pairing him up with Ajani, Mentor of Heroes and Hardened Scales so you could add 4 +1 counters from Ajani and 2 +1 counters from any Targeted spell, then have an extra turn straight away & repeat until you could use Ajani to gain 100 life, at which point you pop down a Sanguine Bond and win.
However extra turns alone don't win you the game, and there are much better decks out there that do the extra-turn stuff than relying on a tiny fragile creature to do so.
November 23, 2015 9:05 a.m.
canterlotguardian says... #10
U/B/x control sounds good. You get the Sage of Hours you want but with something like Agent of the Fates for creature control.
November 23, 2015 12:14 p.m.
JaceArveduin says... #11
Battlefield Thaumaturge can be used with Descent of the Dragons and Dragon Tempest for combo kills. When it was still standard legal, I once hit a guy for 60 damage in one turn, and seeing as he was quite happy to be at 60 the turn before when I was at 2, he was salty all of a sudden when he died. I've tried to find a way to bring it to modern, but it's not working too well so far.
MollyMab says... #2
The answer is, you are having to 2 for 1 yourself to do anything. You cast a spell on your creature, in response bolt before it triggers so the hexproof etc is irrelevant.
There is no source of repeated card advantage to make up for the weakness of heroic cards.
November 23, 2015 8:13 a.m.