Hey! I haven’t written for Troll Trader in a good long while and as I have joined their team once again, I felt like it was high time to change this! I recently played a few events with a UW control deck that team mate Lewis McLeod gave me a list for, and managed to have a series of very good results, culminating in me making the Top 8 of the recent Magic Card Market event in London.

Event One

The first event I played with this innovative UW deck was a lowly win-a-box in Leeds, roughly 20 players. I used the exact list Lewis sent me, featuring a number of cards you will not find in my current list (i.e. Spreading Seas) but it gave me a good starting place.

The event went pretty smoothly, smashing Death’s Shadow Zoo to pieces with Ghost Quarters and Spreading Seas limiting how many spells he could play, and Wall of Omens doing his job extremely well (he always does! Great fella). Burn was another similarly easy matchup, with huge Sphinx’s Revelations putting my life total way out of reach. I managed to get to the finals, where me and my opponent agreed to split (we played for a bit of credit, and I lost).

Event Two

After this, I decided to lock in the deck to play at the PPTQ the next day, which was the Bank Holiday Monday at the end of August at Fanboy3 in Manchester. After seeing a UW control deck make top 8 in Lille, I decided to make a few alterations which led me to playing this list.

This is pretty similar to the list I end up playing at MKM, but we will get to that soon!

The tournament started as well as my win-a-box, managing to again go 3-0 and then double ID into top 8. On the way, I play vs a Mardu Control deck which couldn’t keep up with the card advantage, a Jund deck which again struggled vs hefty planeswalkers like Gideon and Elspeth, and Troll Traders own Jake Baron on Abzan. Jake drew a few too many Path to Exile’s game 1 which makes a tough matchup even tougher, and I don’t remember game 2 much but I imagine it was a classic UW stomping!

In the top 8, my quarterfinals opponent was unfortunately playing a Krark-Clan Ironworks deck which I have to imagine is a poor matchup for my deck – I will have a tonne of dead cards and a pitiful clock (Restoration Angel most likely). In game 1, I manage to keep up Cryptic Command for a very long time, whilst hitting a lot of land drops thanks to Ancestral Vision and numerous Wall of Omens. Restoration Angel and Snapcaster Mage managed to reduce my opponent to 8 life, so my plan was to send in the Celestial Colonnade the next turn for the win. However, my opponent had very different plans for me.

He had drawn his Emrakul the Aeons Torn, and managed to simply cast it using his multitude of ‘Tron lands’ (Urza’s Tower etc). I was thankful I had Cryptic Command up, as I was obviously quite concerned with my opponent attacking with the Eldrazi titan the next turn. Then I realised I could actually afford to take the hit – I had enough spare lands and Wall of Omens laying around to be able to feed the Annihilator 6, take 15 to the face, leave up Cryptic Command for his Open the Vaults, and attack with Celestial Colonnade plus team to take the game!

Game 2 was a lot less of a challenge, with my pair of Ancestral Vision’s providing enough disruptive cards in the shape of Chalice of the Void on 1, a Vendilion Clique, a Rest in Peace and a plethora of counterspells to give my opponent no chance of coming back.

My Semifinals pitted me against Jake on Abzan again, much to his dismay! I do admit, though, that I had a couple of timely draws which helped me gain control of the game where if I missed, I would have been severely behind. A close call in what is normally a cripplingly one sided matchup. I give Jake credit as he did battle as hard as he could, but at the end of the day there’s only so much you can do.

Onto the finals, I was playing with my PPTQ grinding partner and good friend Matt Duggan, who I had given a lift to the tournament! We joked about if he was eligible for a lift back to Leeds if he beat me, but luckily it didn’t come to that. He was playing his trusty Melira Company deck, a matchup I hadn’t played against but was happy to be facing – I’d much rather this than Infect or Dredge.

In game 1, he did his normal business of Collected Company into creature X and Eternal Witness, and eventually managed to assemble infinite life; I was put out of my misery soon after. I can’t remember game 2 all that much, I think it was just a matter of me drawing a million cards off Sphinx’s Revelation and then stopping Matt from ever doing anything again.

Game 3 is the real money maker though. Matt has an incredible start, managing to out-do my turn 3 Kitchen Finks, by assembling infinite life, scrying his entire library, and amassing 14 permanents to my lowly 4 (Tireless Tracker created 2 Clues in the process too!). I decided that I could still win, despite the infinite life, as we have unlimited time in the top 8 and I figured why not! My turn 4 Wrath of God did a lot of work, returning the board to a much more managable state.

Then we started the absolute grind of library counting, and attempting to naturally mill my opponent out. I counted both libraries, and saw that I was ‘winning’ the mill race by about 12 cards, which meant I had a reasonable amount of wiggle room for drawing cards with Sphinx’s Revelation – but not too much.

Grafdiggers Cage absolutely shut off a large amount of Matt’s cards, letting me ignore all the Collected Company’s and Chord of Calling’s he drew, not to mention protecting me from any persist shenanigans. Crucible of Worlds let me use and reuse my Ghost Quarters and Tectonic Edges, turning back on my Mana Leaks. It really was the most fascinating game of magic I have ever played, and to be honest I’m extremely proud I managed to do it in front of a very excited crowd.

Going right down to the wire, I managed to mill Matt out by suspending 2 Ancestral Visions which targeted him upon resolution. That’s 2 events down, and my record is currently 11-1. Not too shabby, which led me to making a very brave decision…

Event 3

For reasons I definitely regretted at time across the weekend, I decided I would get a 5 hour coach down from Leeds to London at 2:45am Saturday morning, so that I could play in the MKM Series event, and then get a 11:30pm train back to Leeds the same day. I just felt so confident with the deck, and seeing as I had won the PPTQ on Monday, there was no local events I could play in. Gotta get that money!

The coach ride down wasn’t that bad, it was mainly the 2 hour wait for the tournament to start which was frustrating. Anyway, onto the actual tournament. This is a lot fresher in my mind, so I will also provide my sideboarding. For reference, the list I played is the same as the one above, only with 1 Vendilion Clique cut from the maindeck for 1 Jace, Architect of Thought, and in the sideboard I took out the Chalice of the Void ,1 Sunlance and the Timely Reinforcements for a 2nd Blessed Alliance, a Ghostly Prison and a Spellskite.

Round 1 – Infect

This opponent was lucky enough to see me win the Fanboy3 PPTQ via milling, so he knew exactly what I was on, and likewise I knew that I had a hard matchup in Infect. However, I managed to draw pretty well and he drew pretty poorly, and I actually managed to crush the round in around 20 minutes. I very much recommend drawing well in this matchup, it’s definitely needed!

IN – 2 Dispel 1 Negate 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Spellskite 1 Sunlance 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Vendilion Clique

OUT – 1 Cryptic Command 1 Sphinx’s Revelation 2 Spell Snare 2 Ancestral Vision 2 Kitchen Finks

Round 2 – RG Valakut Through the Breach (no Emrakul)

I managed to get a pretty cheeky game 1 win here, by Tectonic Edge-ing my opponents green mana after he played a Summoner’s Pact. It also helped that because it was so early in the game (turn 4!) he thought I was on Nahiri UWR so he sideboarded in Grafdigger’s Cage (a very poor card vs UW).

Game 2 I played pretty poorly, concentrating on a very ignorable Gaea’s Revenge and accidently letting my opponent Resolve a Primeval Titan. However, it might have actually helped as he searched for it in game 3 where a Titan would have been much more effective, so maybe that was useful… Regardless, I tried to wake myself up for game 3, and managed to win a very close race with help from Spellskite redirecting Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers.

IN – 1 Dispel 1 Negate 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Spellskite 1 Vendilion Clique

OUT – 2 Path to Exile 2 Kitchen Finks 1 Jace, Architect of Thought 1 Supreme Verdict

Round 3 – UR Delver w/ maindeck Blood Moon

This was a really shocking round to lose, as the matchup is incredibly good AND I managed to win game 1. And again surprisingly, it was because of the Blood Moons my opponent decided to leave in his deck – game 2 was simply lost because I assumed he would side them out. Turn 3 Blood Moon vs no basics was lights out. Game 3 I had a very interesting decision, which I posed to my team after the round.

It’s my turn 4, last turn I Mana Leak-ed his Snapcaster Mage which he played off 2 lands to try flashback a Gitaxian Probe, and he missed his 3rd land drop. My hand is Blessed Alliance, Ghostly Prison, Mana Leak, Jace, Architect of Thought, 2 lands and a Spell Snare. I have Island,Mystic Gate and Glacial Fortress out. My lands in hand are Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge.

My decisions are: just make Jace and probably plus it (letting him die to just Lightning Bolt sucks). Or make a Ghostly Prison with either Spell Snare up or Ghost Quarter in case of Blood Moon. Or make Jace via Ghost Quartering the Mystic Gate for a Plains to play around Blood Moon. Or just leave up Mana leak / Spell Snare / Ghost Quarter. I like the last option the least, because I feel like I should resolve one of my ‘big’ cards that I have.

In the end, I decided to make the Jace and plus, in the process Ghost Quarter-ing my Mystic Gate for a Plains. My opponent didn’t immediately have the Blood Moon, but he did later – my 3 Plains 1 Island meant I couldn’t cast the Sphinx’s Revelation I drew. I am still not entirely sure what I am meant to do there, but I felt like since he missed a land drop, I could afford to make this very ‘safe’ play.

Not being able to cast the Spinx’s Revelation cost me, and I was a very sad 2-1.

IN – 2 Dispel 1 Ghostly Prison 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Sunlance

OUT – 3 Cryptic Command 2 Ancestral Vision

This sideboarding was influenced by the Blood Moon’s, as normally I would keep a Cryptic Command rather than a Negate.

Round 4 – Bant Collected Company (yeah in Modern not Standard!)

This was a great matchup for UW, as I just got to do my whole thing of make land drops, play a few counterspells here and there, wrath the board a couple of times, then resolve a huge Sphinx’s Revelation to find a way to win. Exactly as we drew it up on the chalkboard. My opponent made a pretty costly misplay of sending the Glen Elendra Archmage they controlled to take Elspeth, Sun’s Champion down 7 loyalty (the dangerous number!) but my Cryptic Command to bounce it meant that if her Spell Queller attacked the Elspeth instead, it could have been protected by the Archmage.

IN – 2 Dispel 1 Grafdiggers Cage 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Ghostly Prison

OUT – 1 Negate 2 Spell Snare 2 Ancestral Vision

Round 5 – Burn

Another dream matchup! I love playing against burn with control decks, and this particular one is very well set up for the matchup. Game 1 saw him run out a couple of Goblin Guides, but I had a Wall of Omens for each of them! Maindeck Blessed Alliance was also another huge hinderance, and I managed to survive long enough to play a Sphinx’s Revelation with 2 mana left over for a Mana Leak on a Skullcrack.

Game 2 I Wrath’d away his Eidolon of the Great Revel and Monastery Swiftspear, and quickly took control thereafter. Seriously, this matchup is an absolute cakewalk, think yourself lucky if you get paired against burn with this UW deck!

IN – 2 Dispel 1 Negate 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Ghostly Prison 1 Spellskite 1 Sunlance

OUT – 2 Supreme Verdict 2 Ancestral Vision 2 Cryptic Command 1 Jace, Architect of Thought

Round 6 – Merfolk

Merfolk is a bit of a weird matchup, because it looks like you are losing for turns on end. Then, it just takes one turn for you to be in complete and utter control, usually after a Supreme Verdict resolves! Game one took a long time for this to happen, as my opponent had multiple Cavern of Souls which made my counterspells look absolutely pitiful. I managed to hold on all the way down to 3 or 4 life, and managed to salvage the game via a Supreme Verdict into a 2nd Sphinx’s Revelation.

Game 2 was probably my favourite game of the tournament, as it really showcased how effective my sideboard was. My opponent started with an Aether Vial into a Sivergill Adept, (revealing another!) which I matched with Stony Silence into Ghostly Prison. As my opponent was stuck on 3 lands, he was left with the choice of advancing his board (and playing into a potential Wrath) or spending his mana attacking me for 2 or 3. This let me amass a huge land advantage, and it wasn’t difficult to put my opponent into some very difficult spots.

At the end of the game, he showed me 2 Relic of Progenitus he also had in his hand, vindicating my decision to bring in the Stony Silence. This is something I will always do vs Aether Vial decks; just bring in 1 Stony Silence and then bring in the 2nd when I see more artifacts. The simple fact of the matter is that their deck is a LOT scarier for us control players when they have an Aether Vial, so it is always worth bringing in the first Stony regardless.

IN – 1 Stony Silence 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Ghostly Prison 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Sunlance

OUT – 1 Negate 2 Spell Snare 2 Mana Leak

Elspeth isn’t fantastic here, it’s just better than random counterspells.

Round 7 – Jund

After an hour long wait for standings (Wizards Event Reporter decided to self implode and the tournament had to be remade using the result slips) it turned out I couldn’t safely ID into the top 8, which was a little annoying as I was practically dead on my feet! However my spirits were lifted when I saw a jund deck sat across from me, and I have yet to lose vs a GBX deck with UW.

My match is actually covered by the MKM guys, which you can read here! http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/2016/09/10/round-7-rob-catton-vs-francesco-nicolini/

IN – 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Sunlance

OUT – 1 Negate 2 Supreme Verdict 1 Cryptic Command

The Sunlance was because he had Dark Confidant in his deck, which is by far the most annoying card. I’d leave in a Supreme Verdict over this if they have Grim Flayer, a card which is actually garbage vs us (which is nice as it is being played a lot!).

6-1 put me into 2nd place after the Swiss rounds, which meant I was in pretty good shape; being on the play has its benefits! We spent a good hour messing about trying to divvy up the prizes as we all agreed on a split, good for 425 euros each. However, there was a trophy to be won so we got to work on the Quarterfinals…

Quarterfinals – Melira Company

This match started at around 9pm, so you can probably imagine how tired I am (take a look at my MKM profile picture if you want some evidence, the bags under my eyes are huge). Game 1 was similar to my game 1 against Matt in the last event, an absolute trouncing against infinite life. However, Elspeth Sun’s Champion really decided this was her match to show why she is the real deal. I pretty much traded back and forth game 2, until big ‘speth came down and shut down any sort of plans of attacking.

Game 3 was much the same, but Crucible of Worlds also made an appearance after my opponent decided to Abrupt Decay the Grafdigger’s Cage – a respectable play but it’s really hard to beat an active Crucible. I drew both my sideboard Dispel’s, and they really make a mockery of Chord and Company.

IN – 1 Grafdiggers Cage 2 Dispel 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Crucible of Worlds

OUT – 1 Kitchen Finks 1 Negate 1 Blessed Alliance 2 Spell Snare

Semifinals – Living End

Living End can go one of two ways, really. Either they get the jump on you and overwhelm you by using Fulminator Mages to limit your ability to play stuff like Walls, and also leave up countermagic. OR, they don’t really do much and you can assemble a few key cards – namely a couple of counterspells, and a Wrath of some sort. If you can manage that, then I think it’s really difficult for them to interact profitably. After sideboard, you obviously get Rest in Peace (don’t bring in Grafdiggers Cage, it doesn’t work!) which is fantastic, and if you can manage to untap with a Crucible of Worlds you are in extremely good shape – their best plan against you is land destruction.

As it goes, I had a pretty easy time in this matchup. Game one my opponent had some pretty pitiful Living Ends, not really returning many creatures. I was able to grind through them, and we were off to game 2 pretty quickly. In game 2 my opponent suspended a Living End, but a turn before it ‘went off’ he decided to cascade into one. This resulted in his own board being cleared and I got back the Restoration Angel which died the turn earlier.

Then, we had a very strange game where I have a Restoration Angel back on blocking duty vs my opponents motley crew of 3 Fulminator Mages and some hard-cast Simian Spirit-Guides. Crucible of Worlds sat in play for upwards of 10 turns, destroying one of the Living End deck’s lands per turn via Ghost Quarter, all while I hold up a Negate. I even discarded a Rest in Peace to hand size! I was loving my graveyard too much to let go of it. Finally, my opponent succumbed to my card advantage.

IN – 2 Rest in Peace 2 Dispel 1 Negate 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Ghostly Prison

OUT – 1 Blessed Alliance 2 Spell Snare 1 Detention Sphere 1 Jace, Architect of Thought 2 Kitchen Finks 1 Gideon Jura

Dispel comes in for the Beast Within’s and potential Ricochet Traps.

Finals – Dredge

Unfortunately I had to play vs my worst matchup in the finals, and it didn’t go particularly well! Not to mention, I randomly started trying to race in game 2 when I had an Ancestral Vision on suspend, a card I probably should have sided out anyway! I was pretty tired at this point, at least that’s the excuse I’m going with.

You can find the coverage here http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/2016/09/11/final-rob-catton-vs-aaron-burns-lees/

IN – 2 Rest in Peace 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion 1 Ghostly Prison

OUT – 2 Spell Snare 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Negate

In the end, I didn’t mind too much about losing the finals; it was a poor matchup and I was exhausted, and happy to be starting the long journey home to bed. I got a tube to Kings Cross… where I found out that I had booked my train for 11.30am not pm, and had missed it by 12 hours. Great. There were no trains heading anywhere near Yorkshire at that time, so I decided to get the 1am coach (24 pounds thank you very much) back to Leeds. I’m just glad I did well enough that this didn’t bother me too much, it would have really sucked if I went 3-3 drop and found out the bad news.

If you have made it this far, I congratulate you! This is a bit of a behemoth of an article, but I wanted to write it all as one piece as the tournaments are all interrelated. I will be playing in the WMCQ this weekend, again in London, and plan on taking it down with my beloved UW deck.

As far as changes go, I think I am going to try fit in a 2nd Ghostly Prison as the card was great for me, and it works well in multiples.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions about the deck or sideboarding guides or anything really, leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you!