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In the main deck section is how the deck is currently constructed, I am going to keep any tweaks made down in the sideboard. The first obvious thing is fixing the mana, its a big investment but probably worth it if I want this deck to stay a competitor. The goal, like any control deck, is to grind out the game and win with one or two of my high curve cards. Nyx-fleece Ram is great at stalling early attackers and the life gain just helps me extend the game, but I am wondering if it wouldn't be better just to run more inexpensive removal in those slots. I'm also contemplating incorporating a blue devotion shell (this is probably trying to do too much), or finding some other way to turn Keranos into a board threat in addition to him being a clock. Thoughts on optimizing cards or others ideas would be greatly appreciated. Let's make America great again.
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So I don't know what happened between like 6:30 and now but I thought I posted a comment on this deck and it isn't here yet you have made a lot of the changes I was trying to mention. I'm really glad you got rid of the Chandra's for the Jace's. Jace is just better for this deck than Chandra, plus the Pyromaster version is just kinda terrible (I'm sure there is a build that can make her worth while but it isn't what you're going for here). I love the three Elspeth's, she is a major win con for you and Ral seems super fun. The america super friends idea seems really powerful. I don't think the blue devotion shell you talked about is worth the value you would lose so I don't think that is the direction you should go. As far as optimizations go, I don't know if there is a good way to consistently get Keranos to be a creature (The best thing I could come up with was Awaken the Ancient) but I don't think you need him to be. Niv, Aetherling and the Elspeth's should be plenty as far as heavy hitting finishers go. And really Keranos' abilities are amazing in this deck, getting him to be a creature would just be gravy. You obviously have some money to put into the mana base to truly optimize this deck and I know that pain just as much as the next guy, I hate spending 10 bucks on a land when I can buy a bunch of other cards that actually do things for my decks for that money, but if you want this deck to stay top tier for you it needs that boost. One other comment as far as optimizations go, Control decks, especially 3 color ones, need to hit their land drops. I wonder if there is room for more draw cards in this deck. Like would Divination (not a great card I know but still worth a look) be worth more to you than Magma Jet? Making sure you get to four plus land seems more important than killing some small creature that you could wipe off the board later. I think it is worth looking at. There is a pro player named Ivan Floch who won worlds during this standard using a W/U control deck that was similar in construction and play style to this deck that ran Divination, Sphinx's Rev, and a bunch of board wipes (he even played Planar Cleansing). I'm not saying you should drop red or anything like that I rather like the red inclusion. But maybe some more draw spells would be of more value than something like Magma Jet, Banishing Light, or even the second Ral.Here is a link to the deck I referenced. I will literally hate anyone forever if they make this deck but it does seem like a total Boyf/Mike deck. It has no win condition really, it just literally prevents your opponent from doing what they want to do until they quit or deck themselves. But I like it as a good reference for control deck construction. It made me really like the card Quicken that I've talked about adding to some of my other decks.http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1209374-Bill
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Thanks for the response on this deck. I realized pretty quickly that I wouldn't want to be exiling cards with Chandra since so many of the cards depend on timing. Both of Jace's first two abilities will help me get through the early game and Ral is at worst two lightning bolts. You are right in that I don't really need to make Keranos function as a creature, his ability is just insane on its own and presents an element of inevitability. I was looking at card draw earlier and its either too expensive at instant speed, or its Divination which is meh. It wouldn't be hard to try out and you may be right, but I think with all my scry sources (which was also a big bonus from Magma Jet) can usually smooth out my draws. I am worried about getting blitzed which is why I wanted to include some early removal at instant speed. I think Jace also helps here in two ways, he nerfs attacks and is another target to buy me more time. Maybe I should make him a four of? I am also considering replacing the Dissolves with Negates since I already have a shit load of creature hate.
With the amount of Scrying and card draw you can do You shouldn't need 4 Jace. With 3 you should see one almost every game if you aren't getting screwed or dead by turn 6. While he is better when you can get him down early so you can ultimate him when you are ready (both with board state and cards in hand) you really shouldn't need more than one. Hopefully you get him out with enough cards in hand to protect him but if he dies it isn't the end of the world because you still hypothetically have cards in hand to hurt your opponents board and draw your finisher. Jace is just really good because he can do (to varying degrees of effectiveness) 3 useful abilities. I understand wanting the ability to kill someones early threat but outside of maybe 2-3 decks that you would play against, taking a couple of early hits before you can cast Anger of the Gods, or Supreme Verdict shouldn't be that big a deal. However if play testing shows that isn't the case then throw them back in, but I really think they are replaceable.Upon further consideration, if you are hurting for card slots, you could drop 1 or even 2 of the Elspeths. Right now as constructed in the side board you have 5 true finishers (Aetherling, Niv, 3 Elspeths) plus 2 pseudo finishers (Keranos). That is a somewhat high number of finishers for a control deck and it may be worth considering dropping an extra one if there is something you really want to include. This is not by any means something I think you should do, its just an option if you really wanted more control cards or something. The one less mana may be bug early with regards to Negate of Dissolve. But with instant speed draw and enough control cards after a few turns the one mana difference should be negligible as well and if you like the more versatile counter with the scry upside I would keep it in. The card I would maybe consider over Dissolve other than Negate is Counterflux. It may not be totally worth it over the scry but the un-counterable counter spell could be really awesome as people start to play more and more counterspells in our meta. Plus the overload possibility could make an appearance as well. Though I'd have to read up on how priority, turn order and such work a little better to know if the overload would ever be helpful in a 1v1 match. A couple extra counterspells may also be more useful to you than Banishing Light. I don't know for sure but being able to protect your finisher in the control mirror may be better than more exile effects.All-in-all though I really like the changes you've made to it. Having 6-10 board wipes plus the ability to really blow up token strategies make this a pretty versatile deck. Biggest thing is going to be tweaking the balance of card draw and control until you find the right distribution.-Bill