Planeswalker Control

[Blue Lotus]

Updated List:

3 Jace the Mindsculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Confidant
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Vendillion Clique

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Sensei's Top
1 Vampiric Tutor

4 Force of Will
1 Thoughtseize
4 Mana drain
1 Echoing Truth
1 Mind Twist
1 Engineered Explosives

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
5 Mox
1 Sol Ring

3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Flooded Strand  
2 Island
1 Swamp

------------------------------------------------

Powering out Jace early is is a great way to win games. He is a powerful threat that is hard to interact with and can just work over your opponent when left unmolested. A lot of jace's power is that he is an unconventional permanent. There are not many great answers to planeswalkers in vintage, especially if you have some creatures to block for them.

With this in mind, I wanted to make a control deck that powers out the two vintage playable planeswalkers: liliana and jace. These two are very good standalone cards but also have great synergy.

First, they curve out into each other. The casting costs are at odds, but there are many u/b lands to build a mana base with. Next, brainstorm and liliana's +1 allow you quick incremental advantage. The extra cards you draw that are unneeded, such as additional walkers or extra lands, are binned by liliana. Also, the bounce and sac effect pair quite nicely.

So to begin, there are 7 planeswalkers:

3 Jace the Mindsculptor
4 Liliana of the Veil

Walkers are also paired well with a simple creature base:

4 Confidant
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Vendillion Clique

Confidant is a natural draw engine to use with many walkers. Bob works very will with liliana, filtering your draws and stripping thier resources. Obviously works well with JTMS brainstorm. Snapcaster Mage is another natural fit with Lilana, giving you a way to get value off your discarded cards. Clique's 3 power makes a great blocker, but is a fine standalone.

Add in some standard vintage fair:

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

And 23ish mana:
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
5 Mox
1 Sol Ring

1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Underground River
2 Island
1 Swamp

And that leaves you with eight slots. You can add auxiliary win conditions like tinker bot or vault key or skeletal scrying or just eight counters/duress/removal, depending on your meta and preference.

Is anyone else playing around with something similar? Care to share thoughts?

[brokenbacon]

That's a sick list. After some testing, Worldslayer and I concluded that Lilliana is really really good in a tempo sort of way. He and I were throwing around the idea of something similar (a Landstill shell mostly), but nothing that good looking came out. Looks like a solid UB Thresh list almost haha
Although are you sure about Underground River? Seems bad, add more fetches, basics and Academy. I feel like Flusterstorm may have been pushed out of the meta (too many creatures), but maybe 1-2 maindeck Dismembers and 2-3 Mana Drains might work. Looks really good though, good luck!

[vaughnbros]

Ive actually been playing a planeswalker control list for a couple weeks now.  One small local tournament and went 3-0 against fish decks and dredge.  Heres the list that I have:

4 Force of Will
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Mental Misstep
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Vault
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Voltaic Key
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
3 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Lotus Petal
1 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Swamp
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Noxious Revival
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Trinket Mage
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Dismember
1 Misdirection

SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 2 Mishra's Factory
SB: 2 Dismember
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Phantasmal Image
SB: 1 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb

Tezzeret+Jace can let you draw 4 put 1 on the bottom of your library every turn if you have an artifact in hand.

Tezzeret can also generates 5/5's every turn which can creature a quick clock with Jace+Liliana tearing blockers away, or they can act as blockers themselves while Jace+Liliana+Tezzeret generate card advantage.

This list also retains all the delights of a traditional blue control list since its sporting tinker/blightsteel, vault/key, all the tutors, removal, and extra countermagic

[Blue Lotus]

Although are you sure about Underground River? Seems bad, add more fetches, basics and Academy. I feel like Flusterstorm may have been pushed out of the meta (too many creatures), but maybe 1-2 maindeck Dismembers and 2-3 Mana Drains might work. Looks really good though, good luck!

The mana is definitely up in the air. The lack of academy is certainly an oversight on my part. I think i'll make these changes:

-2 underground river

+1 Academy
+1 Flooded Stand
+1 Library of Alexandria as kind of a spell that happens to make mana.
+1 Sensei's Top

@ vaughbros:

What's the point of noxious revival? Has it been particularly powerful or is it just the 60th card?

[vaughnbros]

@ vaughbros:

What's the point of noxious revival? Has it been particularly powerful or is it just the 60th card?

Its a really powerful card and an auto include in pretty much every list i play now.  I'd place it around the same power level as mystical.

[boggyb]

I really do love Lilliana. And Lilliana + Bob is a terrific combo. Bob + Jace is too. And so is Jace + Lilliana. So including all 3 seems just smart to me.

Thoughts:

• Clique seems a bit underpowered lately. Tried Trygon instead? Or maybe just more board control in that slot?
• Have you tried one with Rituals + Seizes + Tendrils/ETW? Enables more turn 1 Bobs and Lillianas this way, meshes well with your proactive gameplan
• Isn't 4 Jace/3 Lilliana better than 3/4?

[bluemage55]

The list doesn't have enough disruption.  Aside from the fact that disruption spells have very high synergy with both Bob (trading cheap 1-for-1s quickly wins by attrition) and Snapcaster, you're also going to have a lot of trouble actually resolving your expensive bombs.  On top of that, I don't think there's nearly enough Snapcaster targets.

Also, the mana base could use some fixing.  Underground Rivers are super janky when you have fetch lands (especially now that shock duals exist), and with 8 artifacts and blue heavy spells like Jace and Snapcaster, you could probably utilize Tolarian Academy.

[Blue Lotus]

Its a really powerful card and an auto include in pretty much every list i play now.  I'd place it around the same power level as mystical.

Interesting. Personally I hate mystical so thats probably why I immediately dismissed this card. Maybe I overvalue a single card too much, but I hate mulliganing so its no wonder I can't stand these kinds of cards.

I mean, I don't know if I would run mystical if time walk wasn't literally game ending with a combination of any two of jace, liliana, and bob out. So that's where I am on those types of cards. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Thoughts:

• Clique seems a bit underpowered lately. Tried Trygon instead? Or maybe just more board control in that slot?
• Have you tried one with Rituals + Seizes + Tendrils/ETW? Enables more turn 1 Bobs and Lillianas this way, meshes well with your proactive gameplan
• Isn't 4 Jace/3 Lilliana better than 3/4?

I actually like clique. I'm playing a lot of counters in my final slots so it's nice to be able to do something with my mana if they just pass. Also 3 power ends the game real quick with your 2 power value guys. I have not tried a splash. I'm not saying it's not viable, but you have heavy color requirements with liliana and jace. If I was to splash I think I would start with red. Bolt and fire//ice are good cards to have. But green with trygon also sounds appealing.

I have not tried with rituals. It does sound interesting, but my trepidation with such a thing is that liliana likes the long game and storming out goblins doesn't facilitate this. Also Dark ritual is really bad at casting jace. I think you would have a deck with two polar opposite goals and the end result wouldn't be too powerful. But please build it I would like to see that monster!

I went with 3 jace because I originally had a gifts and didn't want one million 4 drops. Four liliana may be too many. I would try 3/3 before four jace.

The list doesn't have enough disruption.  Aside from the fact that disruption spells have very high synergy with both Bob (trading cheap 1-for-1s quickly wins by attrition) and Snapcaster, you're also going to have a lot of trouble actually resolving your expensive bombs.  On top of that, I don't think there's nearly enough Snapcaster targets.

Also, the mana base could use some fixing.  Underground Rivers are super janky when you have fetch lands (especially now that shock duals exist), and with 8 artifacts and blue heavy spells like Jace and Snapcaster, you could probably utilize Tolarian Academy.

The list up top is 52 cards.

I added Library (which I now think is an autoinclude in any deck with bob), top, tolarian academy, and another fetch and cut two underground rivers. Maybe a shock land or probably just another fetch is better. In any case they are both terrible, but I want to be able to cast both planeswalkers off 3 lands + mox/sol ring reliably which you cannot do with two basics out.

So that now leaves seven slots (by dropping a liliana). What I have been playing:

1 Thoughtseize
3 Mana drain
1 Echoing Truth
1 Darkblast
1 Engineered Explosives

There is nothing really INSANE to drain into but still I hate main boarding stuff like flusterstorm which is just dead vs shop, dredge, and creature decks. So that's much more disruption.

If you want to add tinker/bot or vault/key that would trim those numbers.

[Qube]

- Have you thought about Hymn to Tourach?  Maybe it would be a good addition to liliana (as the opponent has to discard anyway) and jace (to start fateseal after some discard). Then you can also play either Tourach in your phase or Clique end of drawstep of your opp. But it isn't an instant..

- Could you imagine to play something like this after :

+2 Sensei's Divining Top
+4 Temporal Mastery

-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Vendilion Clique
-3 ??

Then you would get alot of eot -> extra turn for your planeswalker / bob. with 3 Top & 3 Jace the lifeloss should be fine (I hope)..

[Blue Lotus]

Hymn is definitely good with liliana. I think mindtwist would better suited though because of the artifact acceleration and mana drain. I know I will more reliably get than   (even on turn two).

Maybe -1 darkblast +1 mindtwist. Blast should maybe go in the board, which I am still working on.

[bluemage55]

I added Library (which I now think is an autoinclude in any deck with bob)

I disagree.  Bob alone already puts you in an advantageous early position if it resolves, and if it doesn't, then the attempt to drop it means your Library won't be active for the rest of the relevant game anyway.  Further, Library has a major dissynergy in your deck given the large presence of UU and BB in your casting costs.

Maybe a shock land or probably just another fetch is better. In any case they are both terrible, but I want to be able to cast both planeswalkers off 3 lands + mox/sol ring reliably which you cannot do with two basics out.

This is the unfortunate necessity created by having Jace and Liliana in the same deck.  I do think that shock lands and fetches are superior to Underground Rivers though.

[Blue Lotus]

I disagree.  Bob alone already puts you in an advantageous early position if it resolves, and if it doesn't, then the attempt to drop it means your Library won't be active for the rest of the relevant game anyway.  Further, Library has a major dissynergy in your deck given the large presence of UU and BB in your casting costs.

Well if you have library going, you don't need to try to force out a bob. It has been very good for me, but if it isn't your cup of tea you can replace it with a spell. That's what it is. The fact that it taps for mana is a bonus, I'm playing plenty of mana without it.

This is the unfortunate necessity created by having Jace and Liliana in the same deck.  I do think that shock lands and fetches are superior to Underground Rivers though.

For sure, i've changed the mana around.

[serracollector]

I really liked the idea of adding trygon.  When someone mentioned Hymn's, I was thinking the exact same thing.  I implemented some of the idea's from the JUND deck that made t8 recently, and instead seen how we can replace the CA cards of Bloodbraids, Bolts, and Grudges, with good old fashioned counterspells and Jace/Lil.

This is my current build.

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Dark Confidant
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Trygon Predator

4 Force of Will
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Brainstorm
1 Nature's Claim
1 Temporal Spring

3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Bayou
3 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Library of Alexandria

I haven't had much time to test it, but in the few games I have played it on Trice vs legit tier decks, it has done well.  Birds really help get those planeswalkers out faster, help get that 2 black for hymns, and helps improve the manabase altogether.  2 Trygons, Claim, and Temporal Spring are great tempot cards as well.  Ooze and Goyf apply the fat pressure.  Rest seems self explanatory. 

LiL + Hymn + Ooze is really good synergy. 

Temporal Spring can be hurk's or steel sab or w/e bounce, I am just testing temporal with the aid of birds, and with snap, and being in the colors it seemed an interesting option atm.

[bluemage55]

Well if you have library going, you don't need to try to force out a bob. It has been very good for me, but if it isn't your cup of tea you can replace it with a spell. That's what it is. The fact that it taps for mana is a bonus, I'm playing plenty of mana without it.

You usually don't want to try to play bob if you have library going due to the overlap, which is why it's a dis-synergy.  Also, the fact that it taps for mana is a penalty because it comes from the fact that Library is a land, which eats up your land drop.

Still, so running a suboptimal choice like Library isn't a horrible choice, so feel free to run it if you prefer.

I really liked the idea of adding trygon.  When someone mentioned Hymn's, I was thinking the exact same thing.  I implemented some of the idea's from the JUND deck that made t8 recently, and instead seen how we can replace the CA cards of Bloodbraids, Bolts, and Grudges, with good old fashioned counterspells and Jace/Lil.

The problem with trygon is the mana base.  This deck is already stretched thin as it is with the need for both UU and BB.

[Blue Lotus]

@Serra

Your list is missing all the tutors (vamp, demonic, mystical, and merchant scroll) I think you want to make room for those.

Temporal spring is unneeded I think. First, its a sorcery. Also, with lots of discard bounce can be straight removal. For instance, it is not uncommon to bounce a creature with jace, then mindtwist their hand away. I bet an echoing truth would be a much better choice.

Also, with birds I think you should be running equipment instead of goyf. Yes goyf is cheaper, but upgrading your birds into legitimate threats with SOFI sounds much better to me.

[boggyb]

Any more motion on this? The four best unrestricted card advantage cards in Vintage right now are Jace, Liliana, Bob, and Snapcaster. This'll remain true until they finally get around to printing some legit planeswalker hate in the next few years -- but until then, since these cards work so well together, seems like the best deck should just jam all of them in together. The lists so far presented are probably overkill (~13 card advantage cards in addition to the regular broken suite is pretty heavy on the do-nothing/high-value count) but if someone can get the numbers right on these and figure out the correct disruption suite to back it all up, I think it'll be a real winner.

My current, very very rough brew is,

4 Dark Confidant
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Nature's Claim
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs

SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Darkblast


Demarsy, and very low on win conditions to improve consistency at the cost of a bit of brokenness, the theory being that Jace is broken enough and if you're at the point where casting Tinker is a good idea (and it's not T1 with a God Hand) then you're already winning and might as well stick and untap with a Jace instead.

Again, very low on action though, so should probably cut a snapcaster and maybe one or two of: Mystical Tutor, Ponder, Mental Misstep(s), and/or MD Hurkyl's for more maindeck board and/or stack control. Liliana is truly significant board control on her own, though, so don't want to overdo it. Thoughts?

[bluemage55]

Ditch the green.  The biggest inherent design flaw of the deck is already in the mana base because it's difficult to consistently get both the UU and BB needed to cast all your spells (especially in the face of potential attacks on your mana from the opponent).  Adding a third color on top of that problem just to get Nature's Claim is pretty foolhardy.

Drop Library for similar mana reasons as well as its dissynergy with Bob.

[boggyb]

Thought about that a bit, and it's not so obvious to me:

- you don't NEED to get BB and UU to cast all your spells, just one or the other as the variances in your draw affect your gameplay. That is, if you draw bob and liliana, you need BB; if Bob and Jace, UUB, etc. The high density of draw and manipulation effects lightens this load. Once you've satisfied one of the combos and untapped, you've pretty much won.
- It is also very useful to be able to run 2 additional fetches (i.e. verdant catacombs) that can fetch either the basic swamp or a blue source.
- Snap + Nature's Claim = a blow out
- The deck does need some measure of board control against shops -- steel sabotage is subpar and having just the singleton hurkyl's is too fragile a strategy. Energy Flux main? Too narrow -- doesn't answer vault. What, then?

I dunno. In the ~20 games or so I've had against shops, mana hasn't been an issue and Claim has shined. It's only 20 games, though.

Yeah you're right about Library, I think. Latest build is

-1 snap
-2 misstep
-1 library
+3 thoughtseize
+1 tropical island

Just trying out the seizes, no idea if they're good since I haven't actually drawn a seize when it would've been relevant in the past few days. But I like em and have good duress targeting skills, and they seem like they'd synergize very well with the turn 3-4 curve this deck wants to top out on, so I'm trying em out.

edit: Oh wait, yes I did -- on turn 2 vs a shops opponent I DT'd for Lotus, then played Lotus Thoughtseize Bob and won quickly after that.

[bluemage55]

you don't NEED to get BB and UU to cast all your spells, just one or the other as the variances in your draw affect your gameplay. That is, if you draw bob and liliana, you need BB; if Bob and Jace, UUB, etc. The high density of draw and manipulation effects lightens this load. Once you've satisfied one of the combos and untapped, you've pretty much won.

You always want UU up when you’re running Drain, Jace, and FoW.

The main issue is that you normally only need UU and UB in a Bob/Drain deck, meaning that you’ll be fine with a land distribution like Island/Island/U.Sea, but in this deck, you need Island/U.Sea/U.Sea.  That’s huge when you’re facing Waste/Strip, because the probability that you’ll draw your third U.Sea/fetch/jet is much lower, except when you’ve already won anyway with your CA.

The deck does need some measure of board control against shops -- steel sabotage is subpar and having just the singleton hurkyl's is too fragile a strategy. Energy Flux main? Too narrow -- doesn't answer vault. What, then?

E. Truth is solid, but I don’t actually think more maindeck shop hate is necessary. Shops aren’t actually a bad matchup for you; Bob dominates shops pretty badly. Post-sb you’ll be crushing them once you bring in few more copies of Hurkyl’s for your Snapcasters to play with.

If shops is really such a problem matchup, you could generally improve that matchup along with some of the bigger weaknesses by adding Tinker-BSC.

I dunno. In the ~20 games or so I've had against shops, mana hasn't been an issue and Claim has shined. It's only 20 games, though.

As mentioned, shops aren’t a problem matchup due how Bob smashes them.

The real issue is when you face aggro decks, which already have a strong edge against you (Goyf/Clique/Trygon beats make Bob’s drawback real, and also eat your walkers).  Against, say, BUG fish, you’re more likely to eat a Waste than you are from shops given their CA, and on top of that you won’t be able to freely resolve your draw/manipulation effects to find more land.

Also, if mana hasn’t been an issue, then you’re not actually having tough games against Shop.

[Blue Lotus]

I have not had a big problem against shops. On the draw, if they pump out spheres quick you probably aren't going to win, but most decks lose in that situation.

Similarly, creature decks have been even easier. Liliana and jace dominate the board and liliana especially favors trading creatures off in combat. That's why I would really advocate adding some cliques, they are great defenders.

I'm not as pessimistic about a splash as bluemage, but the deck was designed to be able to go t2 liliana t3 jace. Yes that doesn't always happen, but when it comes up, you want to be able to.

I made some changes above. I cut a snapcaster for a mana drain and cut library...for riptide lab. Lab is ok but it really ties up your mana and is only great when you have a ton of mana, lots of cards in your graveyard and you opponent isn't on much action. Also known as full on rub-ins.

I think another fetch would just be the best. Or maybe academy ruins? Volrath's stronghold? Wouldn't that be the sweetest.

[boggyb]

Current mana base is:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring

1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Volcanic Island
1 Watery Grave

The single volc is in there for sideboard REBs, chewers, pyroclasms, and/or fire // ice (playing around with them), and also for the Bloodstained Mire. Also playing around with engineered explosives. Liliana honestly though is a wonder against aggro strategies all in herself -- she's basically a crucible of diabolic edicts.

[Blue Lotus]

The single volc is in there for sideboard REBs, chewers, pyroclasms, and/or fire // ice (playing around with them), and also for the Bloodstained Mire. Also playing around with engineered explosives. Liliana honestly though is a wonder against aggro strategies all in herself -- she's basically a crucible of diabolic edicts.

I don't hate the red splash, I even said earlier I would look into it. But is what you are adding really necessary?

REB's I think are worse than flusterstorm for what they want to do.
Chewers = hurkyl's recall
pyroclasm = nature's ruin/massacre
fire // ice = darkblast

As for EE I get it up to three pretty often with the off-color mox

You can stay ub and have access to all the same effects. Granted this is an oversimplification. REB's do answer jace (pretty poorly in my opinion, but an answer none the less) and fire // can be tutored with merchant scroll and plays better with snapcaster. But are the additions worth the the stretch in mana and the inconsistencies that come with it?

Also, I definitely wouldn't have red shop answers with only one non-basic red source. Shop players would get wise to the pretty quick.