UW Omniscience and Abuelo's Awakening SA RC Report

UW Omniscience / Abuelo’s Awakening Report

Introduction
Why We Chose the Deck
Evolution of the List and Innovations
Matchups and Expectations
Individual Card Choices
Sideboard Options
Ending Thoughts

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Introduction

I’m Gustavo “Scotty” Fischer, a longtime player and brewer from Uruguay. I finished in the top 8 of the South American RC played on June 1st and 2nd (https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/315206 ) playing UW Omniscience / Abuelo’s Awakening Combo. I teamed up with team Worldly Counsel ( https://x.com/worldlycounsel ) for this event, and my teammates finished 1st (Guillermo “Guiyote” Sulimovich - https://x.com/guiyote_mtg ) and 2nd (Matías “Levunga” Leveratto - https://x.com/levunga ), with Guillermo and I choosing to play UW Omniscience / Abuelo’s, with some differences.

Why We Chose the Deck

Going in, we expected Izzet Prowess to be the most popular deck—it’s the “best deck” in a vacuum. We also anticipated a resurgence of Monored and a generally wide, diverse metagame. Despite that, we noticed a distinct lack of countermagic across the expected field. Originally, I wanted to play something involving Cori-Steel Cutter, but I believe in staying flexible with deck choices based on the metagame and recent results, and the deck was being heavily targeted. The weekend before our event, the Canadian Regional Championship was dominated by UW Omniscience, which immediately caught our attention.

We always thought this is an extremely powerful combo deck that thrives when not heavily targeted (Rest In Peace, Vacuum, Stone Brains). What pushed us over the edge was the winning deck’s strong gameplan versus aggro decks and its transformational sideboard strategy, which addressed many of the weaknesses we had experienced when testing earlier, more 'stock' versions of the deck.

Both Guillermo and I played it intensely over the last week with pretty good results (I basically only lost mirror matches - Willy Edel in particular had my number)

Evolution of the List and Innovations

We had prior experience with the 'stock' Omniscience builds that leaned heavily on spells like Moment of Truth and other non-permanents. Those versions consistently struggled against aggressive decks, especially Monored (I played a lot of games vs Levunga with him piloting Omniscience, and he wasn’t able to beat Monored).

What changed everything was the shift to a more permanent-heavy configuration, along with meta changes (Izzet switching to the slower Drake Hatcher and Monored adding Magebane Lizard).

Another major innovation we adopted was Scrollshift, which several teams had begun including. It provided resilience, flexibility and instant speed card draw (tapping out for Stock Up is very dangerous!).

One of the biggest boosts to our confidence was getting the sideboard plan from the RC winner Linden Koot. This transparency helped us quickly internalize the lines of play and refine our understanding of key matchups.

Linden’s original sideboard plan - source:

https://x.com/kooterboi420/status/1927622571119485270

![Linden's sideboard plan image]()

What changed everything was the shift to a more permanent-heavy configuration, along with meta changes (Izzet switching to the slower Drake Hatcher and Monored adding Magebane Lizard).

Matchups and Expectations

Izzet Prowess: We knew it would be the most played, and Omniscience has great tools to handle it, particularly Temporary Lockdown, and the blockers. Them mostly dropping Slickshot Show-Off made them heavily unfavored. Post-board, the transformational plan made it more lopsided. We ended up 7-1 vs Izzet, with me (Scotty) dropping a close match.
Sideboard plan: Linden took out 15 cards for this matchup (although he mentioned it’s “vibes-based”, depending on the amount of hate and countermagic I didn’t take the combo out entirely (especially on the play), skipping on Beza and a few other cards instead. I personally disliked Surge of Salvation
Monored: A tough matchup historically, but the new version’s tools and sideboard gave us a fighting chance. We didn’t face any.
Sideboard plan: This is one matchup where you rely on the combo and don’t bring in the transformational sideboard, instead adding Beza and a few removal pieces.
Orzhov (Pixie/Demons): One of the draws of playing Omni is that it absolutely dominates Orzhov. We went 2-0.
Sideboard plan: cut Lockdowns and a couple of the weaker creatures for Overlords and Countermagic.
Dimir Midrange: This was probably the worst matchup out of the top decks, and it was a deck on the rise and a great choice for the weekend as shown by Levunga. We went 1-2.
Sideboard plan: I went with the full transformational sideboard (14 cards in), leaving an Omniscience and two copies of Abuelo’s
Other decks: Given the expected diversity, we appreciated the deck’s ability to pivot post-board and play like a midrange deck or go over the top with Omniscience, depending on the matchup. We went 5-0 vs “other” decks (UW Control, Golgari, Oculus, Monument and Bunnycorn)

Individual Card Choices

Guillermo and I took the base deck from Canada’s winner Linden Koot

(https://x.com/kooterboi420) and tweaked it to our preferred play styles.

Guillermo’s winning list:

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/362ef952-c2be-4ab2-a2c1-b2ec014d8ced

My “Scotty-fied” list: https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/83e83a55-8003-4182-a00f-b2ed001f6524

We chose to go with Jace, the Perfected Mind as our win condition that serves as a flexible on-board threat (can mill yourself to find Omniscience, stall or soak some damage, late game threat).

Not having Moment of Truth and cutting Stock Ups made Founding the Third Path less attractive, and Invasion of Arcavios is simply irrelevant outside of combo turns.

Fallaji Archaeologist and Oracle of Tragedy are both relevant blockers that forward your game plan. I chose to trim a Fallaji because it gets worse post-sideboard and I didn’t want to mill my Overlords.

Marang River Regent is both a key combo piece and instant speed card advantage. I chose to trim one because it’s slow (4 mana) and you can recur them with Oracle of Tragedy. Today I’d probably cut Jace instead.

Kutzil’s Flanker is a flexible card that serves as combo piece, graveyard hate and instant speed card selection and an additional blocker. Most often sided out.

Abuelo’s Awakening is one of the two core combo pieces and can bring back Overlords and Roiling Dragonstorms and Lockdowns as well

Stock Up: we both ended up on 2 Stock Ups because, despite it being an insanely powerful card, tapping out early can be deadly. I tested Overlord of the Floodpits and it’s not as good.

Ephara’s Dispersal: Key tool to beat aggro, can be used on our own creatures so it’s not a dead card in other matchups.

Scrollshift: new tech that can protect Omniscience or be infinitely versatile. I forwent the 3rd copy in the sideboard because I felt it could be a tad slow and wanted to free the slot, but being instant speed makes it very valuable in the right hands.

Confounding Riddle: flexible card that also gets better in open decklist as they have to respect the possibility of countermagic.

Omniscience: deck’s namesake and core combo piece, one of the most powerful enchantments ever printed, keeps getting cheated into play even in Legacy.

Roiling Dragonstorm: huge upgrade the deck got with Tarkir, it’s a Chart a Course that becomes free card advantage when going off and basically guarantees the win. It’s not a blocker or affect the board so it gets sided out sometimes.

Temporary Lockdown: key card in some matchups (Izzet and Monored), almost a dead card in others (Guillermo lost a game by drawing 3 vs Dimir). I hedged by playing 3 (trimming a card for the extra effects I wanted to add).

Thus far, our decks were the same, with a couple cards being trimmed.

Scotty (my) additions:

One with the Multiverse: a 5th copy of Omniscience, it got much better post Tarkir as you can cheat Marang into play (or Overlord post-board in some games). It gave me a win when I played it and I had Omniscience on top of my library. You can stall well enough in the traditional version, but I liked the extra % it gave me.
Repair and Recharge: not only brings Omniscience into play, but as an enchantment so it dodges removal. My opponents mercilessly targeted it with discard and countermagic all weekend.
Refute: Worldly Counsel teammate Eduardo Sajgalik mentioned it’s one of the highest winrate cards in Omniscience, and it did perform well, I only drew it a few times, but it performed well each time. If I had a time machine I might have added an extra copy in the 75.
Into the Flood Maw: highly versatile card, I chose it over a 4th Lockdown as I wanted more instant speed answers. It did perform OK, as Eduardo said, it’s a generic “good card”. Only downside is it’s not a permanent answer, I might have been better served by a copy of Get Lost.
Manabase: Guillermo went with Fabled Passage, which I hated as it had hindered me several times in testing drawing it on turn 3 . It’s a nod to not getting punished by Sunspine Lynx.
Adarkar Wastes: Guillermo went with 3, I switched 2 for Seachrome Coasts, risking the turn 4 combo but taking less damage.
Cavern of Souls: huge post-board versus countermagic, naming Avatar most of the time, then Dragon, or Human to get a Voice of Victory through. I almost cut one because of the stringent double-colored requirements.

I was greedy and went down to 22 land, trusting in the surveil and Roiling Dragonstorms to set me up, I didn’t end up punished by that, coverage was worried that I wasn’t going to 6 mana but that was not my game plan (I do think Guillermo was aiming for a longer gameplan, I was aiming for more all-in combo especially game 1).

Sideboard Options

4 Overlord of the Mistmoors: I believe it was the MVP over my weekend. Great call by Linden Koot and one of the biggest draws to play the deck
2 Beza, the Bounding Spring: Greatest comeback card ever, a staple in any UW deck. My only complaint is that it can be a tad slow
2 No More Lies: strong card, did its job post sideboard
2 Voice of Victory: they were great, I almost added a third, not sure if it’d have helped vs Dimir as they have removal
1 Negate: staple counterspell
1 Scrollshift: good post-board
1 Soul Partition: generic catch-all, it did pretty well
1 Surge of Salvation: mostly to save Lockdowns, Overlords or Omni from removal, I didn’t like them at all
1 The Stone Brain: Guillermo chose this as his anti-mirror tech, I went with Ghost Vacuum. We neither played any mirror matches fortunately (I was going to play one but I got re-paired and Guillermo was going to play Dimir!!! And he got re-paired against an easier matchup)
1 Get Lost: I chose to play it and it was a great catch-all answer, killed a Ral and I’d have loved to have it vs Kaito
1 Into the Flood Maw: generic catch all as previously mentioned, possibly better to play a more focused card.

Ending Thoughts

I think we absolutely nailed the deck choice, I think it was the deck to play that weekend, with Dimir being a close second but having to dodge Izzet. Besides our finishes, two more ended up in the top 20 playing the exact list from the Canada RC.

I expect the deck’s popularity to rise so be prepared for mirror matches, and I also think you can tweak it (Edel was beating me by playing me more instant-speed cards and trimming some of the blockers). Lorenzo “terlollo” Terlizzi has had success cutting win conditions entirely.

You could tweak the sideboard plan too, and if Dimir continues to be on the rise it needs to be respected.