Breakthrough at FNM. I cut Urza's Saga

Why did I cut [[Urza's Saga]]?

I kept having these turns where I would have to decide on activating SFM, [[Shadowspear]], [[Nettlecyst]], [[Aether Spellbomb]], [[Relic of Progenitus]] , or [[Urza's Saga]] and I always felt starved for mana if [[Urza, Lord High Artificer]] wasn't on the board. At first I thought it was nice to have the options but the more I played the more I started to dread the turns that I'd sacrifice saga because I already had springleaf drum on the table and felt starved for more mana. Then there were all the games I'd lose to a turn 2 [[March of a Otherworldly Light]], [[Pick your Poison]], or [[Wear//Tear]] and I started to get pretty discouraged. Also in my experience the games where Urza stuck around for even a full turn cycle I almost never lost but he was difficult to protect so it just felt like more construct beats if I didn't have the infinite combo.

I tried some stuff like [[The Enigma Jewel]] but it was so bad in multiples and it wasn't tutorable. I tried upping the land count but it's always so tough to cut any cards without feeling more vulnerable to other decks in the format.

I knew I wanted [[Counterspell]] more than any other card. Playing urza and leaving up counterspell sounded wonderful but I quickly realized that counterspell was really tough to play alongside saga in a deck that wants white on turns 1 and 2. I ended up with two lists. One that cut SFM and shifted the deck to be more blue for [[Whir of Invention]] and another that cut the Saga package for a [[Cryptic Coat]], which was always so mana intensive in the other version that I cut it and didn't look back, and both versions had 4 counterspell. I decided that I liked the look of the sfm variant better so I made the changes and resleaved.

I went 3-0 Friday night and didn't drop a game. Most games were not close.

I played against U/R Control, Mardu Scam, and Leyline Rhinos and honestly felt pretty unstoppable.

Things I learned: - I forgot just how good sfm is with counterspell. I missed that from back in the caw blade days.

• Cryptic Coat pulls a lot of weight in interactive games and was often my number 1 choice to grab off SFM if I didn't have counterspell backup for [[Khaldra Compleat]].

• This deck really likes having another copy of TOR. I might add the 4th. It has so much lifegain with Thoptersword and Shadowspear that I never once felt like I couldn't afford to tick up the counters on it but I did have situations where I had multiple copies in hand and had better uses for my mana so I still have 3 in the list.

There are only a few slots I'm not happy with. I'm 70/30 on [[Portable Hole]] over [[Dispatch]] but unfortunately cutting Hole makes dispatch much worse. [[Aetherspell Bomb]] is just nice. I always had so many lines with the Saga version that I often thought about adding a second copy but for now it's just a pet card. On Friday that slot was [[Lion's Sash]] which felt too slow. That slot can be a meta call for now.

Anyway thanks for letting me ramble. Happy Urza-ing! I love this deck a lot more this way and highly recommend you give cutting Saga a shot.