Hello everyone, and welcome to another Daily Arena. Today I’m back with a final update on what I’ve found so far while playing U/B Scarab God. How it matches up against other decks, possible criticisms of the deck, as well as a gameplay video.

First, here is the deck list. I took me a while, but I finally collected all of the cards.

ZuBBy1986's U/B Control

I have some data on match-ups. For each new match-up I have enough data on to mention below, I’ve got some notes on why/when the U/B Scarab God deck seems to be good or bad against it. I’ve also included a gameplay video near the end.

First, my win percentages with this deck vs. other decks (the first number is my win percentage against the deck, the second number is the percentage of reported matches that were against that deck, I’ve organized it to put the most popular decks at the top of the list):

W/B Vampires – 69% ( 14% )

( ) R/G Monsters – 44% ( 14% )

( ) Red Deck Wins – 60% ( 8% )

( ) G/W Tokens – 38% ( 7% )

( ) U/B Control – 57% ( 6.1% )

( ) W/U Control – 33% ( 5.3% )

( ) G/U Merfolk – 83% , ( 5.3% )

, ( ) U/R Spells – 50% ( 3.5% )

( ) B/G Explore – 100% ( 3.5% )

( ) U/R Control – 67% (2.6%)

These are stats for matchups that I didn’t see enough to derive any real information from the win percentage:

B/R Control – 100% ( 1.8% )

( ) Bant Midrange – 100% ( 1.8% )

( ) B/R Pirates – 0% ( 1.8% )

( ) Mono-Black Control – 50% ( 1.8% )

( ) W/B Procession – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) G/W Dinosaurs – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) U/R God-Pharaoh’s Gift – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Sultai Explore – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) Mono-Green Stompy – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Boros Auras – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Bant+Red Midrange – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) B/G Midrange – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) Mono-White Procession – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Grixis Control – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) W/U Legendaries – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) W/U Flyers – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) B/W Zombies – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Esper Cycling – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Mono-Black Rat Colony – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) Five-Color Approach – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) White Weenies – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Jeskai Historic – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) Esper Historic – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) Mono-White Knights – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Jeskai Approach – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) R/G Aggro – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) W/U Approach – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) Esper Control – 100% ( 0.9% )

( ) U/B/R/G Good Stuff – 0% ( 0.9% )

( ) R/W Aggro – 0% (0.9%)

My overall win rate with this deck is 53.5%.

B/G Explore

B/G Explore is the one match-up that showed up in significant numbers that I haven’t discussed in previous posts about this deck. I have a 100% win rate against this deck, and all I can say is that it just seems too slow to put The Scarab God off balance enough in the early game, and it’s too fragile to recover from early removal/countering of its payoffs.

Criticisms/Possible Changes

One strong criticism of this build is the lack of mass removal like Golden Demise against very aggressive decks. My win rate against the most popular aggressive decks was high enough that it didn’t seem like a huge issue, but if it is an issue for you, you can probably replace Dusk Legion Zealot and/or Arguel’s Blood Fast with small-creature board wipes. In fact, you could possible cut out one or more copies of The Scarab God or Liliana, Death’s Majesty for these, and pull it more from the midrange to the control end of the spectrum.

Playing this deck for a month or so while collecting statistics was a great experience. It doesn’t give you the fast pace that tuned aggro decks do, but I learned a lot about timing of counterspells, managing removal resources, and when to hold onto my bomb and when to cast it, even if I’m likely casting it into a counter or removal. Playing against control match-ups was especially rewarding, as I eventually learned a bunch of non-obvious lines of play (like purposely casting The Scarab God into removal when I know I can use Liliana, Death’s Majesty to get it back with low risk of a blowout). The deck has gotten noticeably worse since Syncopate and Karn, Scion of Urza started showing up, and I’m excited to go to a new deck playing with the new Dominaria cards.

For further details on other match-ups, see U/B Scarab God Progress Update #1, U/B Scarab God Progress Update #2, and U/B Scarab God Progress Update #3.



As promised, here is a gameplay video. This is a random selection of my most recent matches, edited together…enjoy!

And that’s all for this update, and all for this deck. I’ll be back soon with some draft-related stuff and a new deck tech.

As usual, please hit me up with any questions/comments/criticism here, on Reddit, on Twitter via @DailyArena, or on Facebook via the @DailyArenaMTG page.

Peace.

Joseph Eddy is a Father, Husband, Son, Brother, Software Developer, and Gamer. Magic is his favorite hobby, and he’s looking forward to seeing you all on Arena. He streams Magic Arena on a weekly basis (or more), but currently is unable to keep to a set schedule.