UB Control (cube) (Cube)

most recent draft of the modern cube, ub control. p1p1 was phantasmal image over an oracle of mul daya; i was more in the mood to jam blue than anything (as usual...). p1p2 was liliana of the veil, and black ended up being the most open color. while blue was somewhat contested, this felt like a reasonable place to end up. i tried to cut barry on my right, but his p2p1 of oko pushed him towards blue, and so i didn't just get it all (though he passed me a teferi from that pack!). the mana wasn't great in general, but a late ugin in pack 3 really helped push my deck up in power. i don't love a removal pile like this, but it does have its moments...

our 8th player spaced, and i ended up with the bye round 1. in round 2, i played chris on URg twin. he was all in on the combo, with exarch+pestermite both to pair with splinter twin. in g1 i put some early beats on with aether channeler + cloned aether channeler, and followed it up with a massacre wurm. the wurm was tough to deal with, and his saheeli servos didn't do a great job chumping when their deaths triggered the wurm. chris was just a little too slow to make things work, and venser showed up to clear a final blocker and finish him off. g2 was a great one, a long and slow battle. i was on the lookout for the twin; an early agonizing remorse was countered, and a hangarback walker thopter was picking away as we both sat with piles of cards. my massacre wurm traded for a pestermite+abrade, and i had very little clock, but a hand full of doom blade / eliminate / murderous rider to stop the combo. when mystic sanctuary showed up and got me back agonzing remorse, i was able to exile splinter twin (getting around the splashed regrowth in his hand!). his deck had very few other win cons - saheeli and a sprite dragon really seemed to be all that remained. so saheeli started cranking out servos, and my life total started to go down. a damnation cleared the board, and eliminate got saheeli, and liliana showed up to get the last servo. at this point, he has used faithless looting a few times, and dig through time, and his deck is very very tiny. the sprite dragon was met with doom blade, and he looked at the final cards in his deck with azcanta, the sunken ruin into a concession.

final round vs 1-0-1 barry, on UG midrange value. he had JTMS & oko, tireless tracker & tireless provisioner, hornet queen & ulamog at the top end. his games had all gone VERY long - he could generate a lot of board presence, but finishing games was another matter. i won the die roll and t3 liliana ate his mana elf and started making life miserable. we both discarded to lili, i played aether channeler to get another card, lili ate a tireless tracker, agonizing remorse sniped carnage tyrant, and his hand was empty - i had a liliana and a massacre wurm. one of those great games where liliana completely shatters your opponent. game 2 was tougher; an early JTMS bounced my thief of sanity; i cloned JTMS, but it got taken down by surprise exalted from noble hierarch. barry got the tireless duo out and started triggering like crazy; i played a consecrated sphinx and got to draw 2 from his draw step and 2 from cracking a clue. that draw 4 dug me far enough to find damnation, and when he attacked me down to 4 life and slammed hornet queen, i untapped and used damnation. that was the beginning of the end; i had a handful of cards and while he had some clues, lili of the veil and ugin lurked in my hand alongside my thief of sanity. he couldn't recover from the board wipe, and i took the match.

nice 3-0 with a deck that i felt had middling power; my answers lined up v well vs both opponents.