Those 3 cards compliment each other nicely in a variety of ways and sometimes see play in UWR midrange, replacing cards like Ajani Vengeant and Sphinx’s Revelation from control. Midrange’s late game is weaker, its early game is stronger, and the opponent’s removal is more effective. Geist is great against UWR decks, and plays well with lightning helix because it’s a card that wants to win races and sometimes needs the help of 3 extra life against faster decks. Clique is at its best against combo decks, where the information and hand disruption are valuable and it’s less likely to fall behind against cheap creatures backed by lightning bolt. Restoration Angel as a potential blocker can be a real headache against agro and midrange decks. I have no strong feelings as to whether UWR midrange is much better or worse than control in the current meta, play whatever suites you.

I am interested in your opinions on the following cards: Geist of Saint Traft, Restoration Angel, and Vendilion Clique.

That’s a great comment Doug, thank you! One of the great things about UWR control is how much room it has to adjust to your local meta and your personal preferences. I think 2 sweepers main is perfectly reasonable, 3 is starting to push it and I may want a Desolate Lighthouse to replace a Tectonic Edge so I can loot them away, and 4 is probably too many. Two things I dislike about sweepers are that they are high variance where I prefer to be consistent, and that even in match ups where they are good my opponents often try to play around them simply because I’m playing a control deck. I find I can get away with playing just 1 main and relying on burn spells to answer most creatures while still being useful in matchups where sweepers aren’t.

I think cutting a Tectonic Edge for a Calciform Pools is a good idea, and I’ll probably try it out next time I play the deck.

I like Izzet Staticaster against Pod, Affinity, and Twin, which are 3 of the most important matchups in Modern. It’s more effective than a sweeper when your opponent is playing 1 creature at a time. It combines nicely with a Lightning Bolt to kill a 4 toughness creature. Against Affinity it snipes a manland, keeping the rest at bay and potentially stopping a hit from Cranial Plating.

I agree with bringing in Relics against Tarmo Twin. I plan to update this article to add some more content, including a seperate SB plan for Tarmo Twin.

Against Storm, Electrolyze vs Helix is an interesting decision. I agree that Lightning Helix is a better answer than Electrolyze to an on board Electromancer because it costs less mana. However, I think most of the time we’ll prefer Electrolyze for 1 of 3 reasons: 1) They don’t have Electromancer so we just cycle it at their face to dig for a better interactive spell 2) We have a Lightning Bolt for their Electromancer leading us back to reason 1. 3) We have enough mana that we can afford to pay an extra mana to draw a card. In my experience grapeshot usually does plenty of overkill, and they know my hand from Gitaxian Probe so I’m probably not going to surprise them.

I’m also scrutinizing my manabase a lot more. I don’t like quad Tec Edges – in fact, I don’t like them at all. This isn’t a tempo deck where throwing the opponent off of a turn 5 play is a big deal, after all. I’ve replaced my Edges with Calciform Pools. It’s still the same bad colorless land, but it also means that you never waste mana, you “hit” more land drops with charges, and you occasionally get allstar Revelations. I found it was really good when I’d want to attack with Colonnade but leave Cryptic mana up. So many of the games with this deck involve hitting land drops and getting more and more mana. They’ve been working really well. I don’t want to be in a position where double-Edging someone on turn 4 is my best play.

Since Bitterblossom isn’t really a thing, is Izzet Staticaster still valuable at all? Is that sideboard spot just better as another Anger?

I’ve also found a lot of value in bringing in Relics against Twin. Blanks their Snapcasters and also keeps Oozes and Goyfs from being actual threats.

Four Electrolyze looks really gutsy. I like it.

Against Storm, I’d be cutting Electrolyzes before Helices since you save a mana on killing Electromancer – the only relevant target anyway. I’m not pleased with the idea of paying 1RU to just cycle Electrolyze away. Also, Helix, Snapcaster Helix can make the Grapeshot math a lot harder.