[Deck] Mono-Blue Control (MUC) [Archive] - Page 7

serendib

05-19-2010, 05:26 AM

I love the discussion we are in. (I'm "maffe" on mtg salvation)

I made some homework Yesterday....

I've made some tests with your list today 7-8 games vs a friend playing counter-top bant (with natural order too). It is actually quite good... vendilion clique is really good and jace too, especially together. cryptic command is obviously huge. I won 5 matchs with your deck.

But then I made 3 games only (cause of few time left for me to dedicate) vs goblins. I defenetly didn't play your build enought to make conclusions. But as a first test, I seems to te much weeker against aggro than my build but stonger against other decks.

If you don't mind I would like to try to resume some match up with my build and try to compare them with your build (I know it is not that fair because I didn't test your deck enought yet, but we are just discussing in a forum )

- goblin , zoo, faeries, faerie stompy, dragon stompy, elves are match I would allways like to find in turnaments with my deck. Some of these are good for you too, but some I think you are weeker (goblin for example)
propaganda + impulse means being able to drop all the propagandas of the deck.

- thresh (canadian UGr, UGb, UGw) are perfect mu for my back to basics cause of their mana base (some run 1/2 non basic land, but's not enought)

- Bant. for my experience is a 50% game as for turnaments. It is better with yours thanks to the fact that you don't have that many hatable enchantments/artifacts as I do and counterbalance is a little problem for me (cause you have higher converted mana costs)... even if I've got surprises in my side If I expect a lot of bant. SEASINGER (+ hibernation). I don't have creatures they can kill (morphling + Efreet) so every player takes out swords to plowshares vs me to put some krosan grips in. That's a huge advantage. I think that's not a match build-dependent but skill-dependent.

- Mono-Black control: Yuor list is much much stronger against that deck than mine. yes, a ritual-duress-hymn start fucks everyone but you have ancestral to catch up.

- Pox is game for me if I see rainbow efreet. He cannot deal in anyway against him. otherwise it's hard.

- ANT: It is actually good for me, I just lost once in turnament, won 5 times (allways 2-1). All thanks to the gameplan. facing ant with counters is not usefull because they have orim & silence and duress..... permanents can make mathematic lock. If you drop an early chalice @ 0, you take out at least 11 of his spells. then he needs to tutor rituals & cabals (so, I side in tormods & relics too to take him out of threhold if necessary) or tutor bouncers = time enought to play a second chalice or a b2b. and here come the mathemathic lock. and Impulse is superior to any draw engine in that match up.

- new horizon is different than bant and thres because we cannot take his huge creatures. but B2B kills him (+ propaganda is game over). I found that deck only twice because it is a "new deck", but easy 2-0 makes me quite self confident. and here too: opponents takes out swords to plowshares for 4X krosan grips. I 3 take seasinger in... and I look for them thanks to impulse.

- reanimator is not good for me... even if a chalice of the void setted at 1 is GG... but I never suceeded in dropping it. bad luck??? I don't know.

- merfolk and enchantress are my enemies. but I think for you too.... even I can resist to splashed merfolk builds...
I'll star running Llawan,cephalid empress in the side to calm them down.
I don't know how to beat enchantress (Yes, even with chalice of the void + pithing needle + hibernation + tormod in the sideboard).

So, to conclude, your build is as good as mine (my builds makes 60/70+ people turnaments top 8 too...) but's the metagame that tells us how to play muc. As far as we are control decks, we need to be anti-metagame builders.
I never find mono-black controls decks, My metagame is full of combo & aggro & bant. 2 weeks ago I was playing faerie stompy for my first time (sea drakes arrived the day before) there were 7 goblins over 73 players. My pairings were 2 goblins, 1 elves, 1 survival, 1 bant, 1 merfolks Ug, 1 merfolk Uw, 1 Ant. It would have been perfect to play with permanent-muc too.

What you say for Jace is perfect. but my build has room just for 3 winning conditions. so I cannot lose one when it's on play.If I had jace instead of morphling I would need to protect her in any way. you have more.
super-Morphling (this guy is suspend 4 : win the game too) + Rainbow efreet is perfect for mine. There's nearly no Way to face rainbow efreet for an opponent. even they can kill Multiforma with edict or wrath of god.

I think you build is awesome. but not superior than mine, just as mine is not superior than your because I think they are perfect builds for each muc-phylosophies. what metagame we have to face makes mine or yours better choice. (even my build would have been scared theorically only of the mono-black match of your turnament pairings, give a look to survivalbant lands... even man that player made so many mistakes...)

Well done again. But I don't think you are wright talking about the permanent-muc build...
for sure your was good for your pairings.

Maffe loving muu & hoping not to be annoying.

Plm

05-19-2010, 01:46 PM

Hi folks,

I'm thinking about bringing my MUC to the next tournament in my area.
The meta is really undevelloped around here, as it is the second tournament we're organising;
I expect a dozen of player : a pair of gob, a zoo, two or three multicolor control ( landstill, countertop, rock) one dredge, and a few random ( non-combo ) deck.

my actual list is :

23 island

3 fact or fiction
4 impulse

4 force of will
4 counterspell

4 powder keg
3 vedalken shackles
4 propaganda
4 back to basics

2 sphinx of jwar isle
1 morphling

4 flex spot

for the flex spot I'm thinking something like 4 relic of the prog' ( scared of dredge:frown:, like to hate goyf and stalker ), 1 island 3 spell pierce ( or mana spike ) , or some bounce , the 4th FoF, the 4th shackles...

my sideboard isn't fixed yet, something like 4 BeB,more gravehate, dream tide ( secret tech against green and prog'), and powersink for the control mirror.

yeah powersink is just the nostalgia speaking.

I don't own cryptic command yet. Got some jace but he is weak because I rely on propaganda for the defense. maybe I could trade for some calcite snapper.

What are your advices, how do the perma-muc player handle the gob match up? should I go back to efreet?

Thanks a lot :smile:

Rancorous Fool

05-20-2010, 10:28 PM

@ plm netdeck, you want our advice go look at what we won with. Why would we want to start from what you have? There is no reason to reinvent the wheel.

@ serendib Please link to the top8s. I am curious.

I do not play the deck because it is strong in the metagame. Aethervial is everywhere (and frankly is the only thing that remotely makes merfolk a bad matchup). I play muc because it is easy to play and I can play it without making mistakes. In an 8 round tournament not failing is more important than making the right deck choice. Many many opponents will leave you opportunities to win where you should not. Play the deck you can play without making a mistake.

How to beat goblins: mulligan to powder keg or force of will. Use that card. Counterspell something. Play a draw spell. Play shackles.

Alternatively. Mulligan to powder keg or force of will. play that card. play vendillian clique and block. Cryptic for counter-bounce. Block with factory. Counterspell something. Play shackles. Win.

This is also true for merfolk. You have more time, their deck is slow and inefficient.

I boarded propaganda for them. I found it useful for goblins but totally unnecesary
at most it buys you a turn or two. Cryptic command and jace both do that too.

I have played seasinger. I have found it- well great. I prefer threads still but i can understand why you play them.

Can i say it again. Play V clique. Its the best blue creature ever printed. Quit worrying about protecting your win conditions. Inevitability already exists within your deck.

How to beat enchantress:
game 1 Spell snare, counterspell, force of will, powder keg, V clique their enchantress. Part 2. Counterspell relevant enchantments+ enchantresses: words of X, 3W bring things back, and 3Ww make 4/4 angels. They play 11 threats you play 20+ answers... make it work.
Part 3: turn things sideways for 7 turns

game 2. side in hibernation, pithing needle, and 4x spell pierce. rinse, repeat. its not that hard. they have maybe... 15 cards worth caring about now. you have 28 cards. I hope you can deal with having twice as many good things in your deck.

Jason

05-21-2010, 08:25 PM

@Rancorous Fool:

Just out of curiosity, in playing matches, are you usually Vendilion Clique'ing your opponent, yourself, or is it about even? I obviously know the situations when you would want to target yourself vs. your opponent (and vice versa); I'm just curious of approximate numbers overall.

Rancorous Fool

05-22-2010, 10:25 AM

@ Rex. Its a control deck. Everyone gets used to telling people "No." ;) Probably shows.

@ Jason. Nearly 100% My opponent, but i only take a card~ 70% of the time. I only hit myself if i am desperate or drew 3x something like shackles or keg. Usually the minor card selection of cycling one card in your hand is just a drop in the bucket to resolving fact or fiction or ancestral vision.

lord09

05-22-2010, 05:10 PM

Any recommendations for a replacement for Powder Keg? I only play on MTGO and unfortunately it's unavailable. Would EE work? I'd rather not play any fetches/duals, but the only thing I can think of would be EE and playing 2 duals so I can play EE at 2 and 3.

The Treefolk Master

05-22-2010, 11:15 PM

Play 3 polluted delta, 3 flooded strand,1 plains, 1 swamp and 3 explosives.

Plm

05-23-2010, 04:06 AM

@ rancorous : thanks for the reply. But if I did ask for advice instead of just netdecking is because I feel that I won't be confortable enough with a list I ain't familiar with.

The other reason is that I don't actually own cryptic, vision , spellsnare or clique. meaning it's difficult to switch to your list.

I understand that you play permission MUC and feel it is stronger than permanent MUC. I'm curently testing your list on mws ( and mws sucks so hard...player lost) I like the mishra's a lot and understand not playing back to basics maindeck, but in my small meta I think back to basics is strong enough to be main.

Its a control deck. Everyone gets used to telling people "No." ;) Probably shows.:laugh:

@ lord : I did play nevinyrral disk instead of keg, in the permission list, it worked.

I did some testing with my list, using the flex spot for 4th FoF, 4th shackles, 2 think twice, -1 inpulse +1 island

the owerkill draw was good against control deck , but I missed having non-FOW action during the first turns, maybe I should run seal of cleansing in the think twice spot or maybe relic of the prog'( I don't stand against recursion nor dredge. )

My list play only 8 counters , I feel it's too few, but what to suplement force and counterspell? spellsnare, spellpierce, forcespike?

Thanks for the reply, may the force (of will) be with you.

The Treefolk Master

05-23-2010, 09:19 AM

@ rancorous : thanks for the reply. But if I did ask for advice instead of just netdecking is because I feel that I won't be confortable enough with a list I ain't familiar with.

The other reason is that I don't actually own cryptic, vision , spellsnare or clique. meaning it's difficult to switch to your list.

I understand that you play permission MUC and feel it is stronger than permanent MUC. I'm curently testing your list on mws ( and mws sucks so hard...player lost) I like the mishra's a lot and understand not playing back to basics maindeck, but in my small meta I think back to basics is strong enough to be main.

:laugh:

@ lord : I did play nevinyrral disk instead of keg, in the permission list, it worked.

I did some testing with my list, using the flex spot for 4th FoF, 4th shackles, 2 think twice, -1 inpulse +1 island

the owerkill draw was good against control deck , but I missed having non-FOW action during the first turns, maybe I should run seal of cleansing in the think twice spot or maybe relic of the prog'( I don't stand against recursion nor dredge. )

My list play only 8 counters , I feel it's too few, but what to suplement force and counterspell? spellsnare, spellpierce, forcespike?

Thanks for the reply, may the force (of will) be with you.

The problem is that you can't play Nevynral's (or however you spell it) disk in permanent oriented muc, as it blows up you back to basics, propagandas and shackles (you rarely blow up a keg at 3 when you have shackles in play).

I run 4 Force of Will, 4 Counterspell, 4 Spell Snare. If you can't find the spell snares try Rune Snag, which is most of the time a hard counter.

Jon Stewart

05-25-2010, 12:41 PM

I don't get it, why doesn't this deck use the same excellent draw engine that Quinn uses? It could even abuse Counterbalance.

20 Snow-covered Island
4 Scyring Sheets
4 Sensei's Top
3 Counterbalance

What's wrong with running that configuration?

Over the course of a long game, Top and Counterbalance are absolutely fantastic as is Scyring Sheets

Is it that Ancestral Visions and Fact or Fiction are all the card advantage the deck needs. I have a tough time believing there is such a thing as too much card advantage.

The Treefolk Master

05-25-2010, 05:17 PM

Jon Stewart

05-25-2010, 05:22 PM

It seems like a most versions of the deck forego playing B2B atleast maindeck since it isn't as good as it used to be. Is that the only reason?

Rancorous Fool

05-25-2010, 05:40 PM

Marius Hausmann's day 1 Undefeated at grandprix madrid would tend to indicate that counterbalance top as well as stiflenought are playable in MUC.

However, the reason I do not play scrying sheets is to be able to hit 4 mana turn 4 through wastes as effectively as possible My lit relies on 4 drops to bring home the bacon. Also, scrying sheets is bad. If i wanted to play a land that did not tap for mana worth using I would play wasteland or mutavault or splash for another color.

3 mana to sometimes draw a card is extremely slow. This deck needs no other card advantage engine outside of ancestral vision and fact or fiction.

On card advantage: You do not need infinite card advantage. You need enough to beat your opponent. When your deck becomes so diluted with self propagation that it lacks interaction, it loses. So striking the right balance is necessary. This concept is called the minimum winning game, its a basic strategic theory.

The Treefolk Master

05-25-2010, 08:06 PM

"Marius Hausmann's day 1 Undefeated at grandprix madrid would tend to indicate that counterbalance top as well as stiflenought are playable in MUC. "

Isn't that Dreadstill?

Kagehisa

06-15-2010, 10:29 AM

Intuition/AK: Slow, ungainly, and not nearly good enough. Intuition for AK requires 5 mana to net 1 card. That’s not a particularly good deal with AV requires 1 mana to net 2 (with a delay), and FoF can net as many as 3 for 4 mana.
.

The opening post is wrong : Intuition for Accumulated Knowledge nets 2 cards for 5 manas. I have a card in my hand and cast this one Intuition for 3 AKs. I cast AK : I draw 3 cards. I have 3 cards in my hand. The operation nets +2 cards. Not +1.

Jace's Ingenuity ( 3UU Instant Draw three cards) makes the same. Just saying.

RexFTW

06-21-2010, 04:32 PM

I have been testing a build of this deck playing chalice of the void. Of course this means you cannot play brainstorm, ponder or top, but it is also much more mana efficient than CB/Top that require you to keep loads of mana open at all times to maintain your "lock".

RexFTW

06-21-2010, 04:54 PM

Lightning Bolt kills almost all the important threatening creatures that StP can hit too - Lord of Atlantis, Dark Confidant, Gaddock Teeg, Goblin Piledriver, Goblin Lackey, Disciple of the Vault, Qasali Pridemage, Steppe Lynx, Wild Nacatl.

So you dont mind if they play Iona, Tombstalker or Tarmogoyf?

nodahero

06-22-2010, 12:05 AM

Have you considered looking at Jacob VanLunens mono blue list? His list played fairly smooth in testing for me. You can google it and look up SCG deck tech.

Jason

06-23-2010, 03:08 PM

So you dont mind if they play Iona, Tombstalker or Tarmogoyf?

Hopefully I counter Iona (or a Reanimate), but nonetheless, I'm pretty sure Swords is equally as useless as Lightning Bolt. Turn 2 Tombstalker is much less likely than a creature that costs 2 or less mana, so I guess if they pull it off, congratulations to them. As for Tarmogoyf, that's my favorite win-condition

Jason

06-28-2010, 06:44 PM

I played my version of MUC in the StarCity Games St. Louis tournament on Sunday, June 27, 2010. Here is a small tournament match report:

Land (24)
1 Academy Ruins
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
12 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain

Artifact (6)
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg
3 Vedalken Shackles

Blue Creature (3)
2 Calcite Snapper
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

Blue Enchantment (3)
3 Back to Basics

Blue Instant (19)
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare

Red Instant (4)
4 Lightning Bolt

Blue Planeswalker (1)
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard (15)
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Spell Pierce
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Firespout

ROUND 1
Jonathan Medina playing ANT

Game 1, I'm pretty sure he's playing ANT because he accidentally flips up a Duress while shuffling. I open a hand of the following:
2 Island, 2 Counterspell, 1 Spell Snare, 1 Shackles, 1 Bolt
It seems good against decks packing Duress.
He leads off with Duress and pulls out a Counterspell. I play land-go. Next turn, he plays another Duress and pulls out the other Counterspell and then casts Mystical Tutor for Ad Nauseum. He casts Brainstorm, draws the Ad Nauseum. Uses Lotus Petal to go Ritual+Ritual Ad Nauseum. Nice deck.

Sideboard:
-2 Engineered Explosives
-1 Powder Keg
-3 Vedalken Shackles
-3 Back to Basics
-1 Lightning Bolt
+3 Chalice of the Void
+2 Sower of Temptation
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Game 2, I open a hand of the following:
1 Island, 2 fetchlands, 2 Chalice, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Brainstorm
Turns out, he's not running K.Grip or Wipe Away and that's all that really needs to be said.

Game 3 was a long one. He Duressed me a couple times, one of which was countered. Eventually, he landed a Bob. I had a Sower in hand but no real available mana to steal it and have counter magic mana to bluff. A few turns later, I get to 10 or so mana (I'm at 14 life) and just go to steal the Bob. I have something like 3 Spell Snare and Lightning Bolt in hand. He eot, Brainstorms and apparently finds an Ad Nauseum. He Duresses me and pulls out a Spell Snare. He goes Ritual+Ritual into Ad Nauseum. He flips a bunch of cards that would put him at 8 life, give him enough mana to find Tendrils and give him enough storm to get to 7. He continues flipping: Hurkyl's Recall (6 life). I'm thinking "holy shit, if he keeps going, I'm going to Lightning Bolt for the win!" Lotus Petal. Damn! Brainstorm. Ok... he's at 5. Mystical Tutor. He stops and goes to 4 life. Damn! He had a fetchland. I was hoping since he was such a bad player he'd crack it, but alas he did not. If only he would have flipped an Infernal Tutor or IGG or an Echoing Truth. Sad face :(

0-1-0

ROUND 2
John Haverkamp playing New Horizons

Game 1, I find out he is playing New Horizons very quickly, as Horizon Canopy was the first land he played and he went for turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary (with no lands in the graveyard). I allowed it to hit the battlefield because I shoot bolts of lightning. I then cast a Back to Basics. Funny how he is only running 1 basic land in his deck. Next turn, I cast shroud turtle and go the distance.

Sideboard:
-4 Lightning Bolt
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Sower of Temptation

Game 2, he goes for turn 2 Tarmogoyf which I Spell Snare. Turn 3, he goes for a 3/3 Terravore which I Counterspell. I go for Back to Basics and he casts Force of Will. Turn 4, he casts Knight of the Reliquary. I couldn't find a Sower or Shackles and he rides it to victory.

Game 3, nothing happens until my turn 3 when I cast Vedalken Shackles. He casts EE for 3 on his turn. I cast EE for 0 on mine and blow his up. He waits a while until he has something like 7 lands in the graveyard and Forces through a Knight of the Reliquary. I rip a 9th Island and Shackles his guy on my turn. On his turn, he casts EE for 3, blowing up my Shackles and his guy. I'm low on counter magic; we are both low on cards. I rip Jace, the Mind Sculptor on my turn and Fateseal his face off.

1-1-0

ROUND 3
Brett Jansen playing UW Landstill

Game 1, he hits a turn 2 Standstill and starts attacking me with Mishra's Factory on turn 3. Turn 4, he attacks again. I cast a turn 4 Vedalken Shackles. He draws 3 from the Standstill. He casts Force of Will. I'm thinking "good. He's trying to be aggressive with Factory and I'm going to blow him out of the game with B2B." He goes for turn 5 Standstill, which I Spell Snare. He attacks with Mishra's Factory. He ends his turn with 1 Tundra untapped, 2 Mishra's Factory and 2 Tundra tapped. Good. I cast turn 5 Back to Basics. He attempts to Force and I Force back. Jace + Turtle get there. He did try for a Cunning Wish and a couple Elspeth during the course of my turtle aggro to no avail.

Sideboard:
-4 Lightning Bolt
+2 Sower of Temptation
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Game 2, I play a turn 1 EE@0, which he Forces. I was ecstatic! I'm gonna blow him out with B2B again! He goes for turn 2 Standstill, which I Spell Snare. I cast EE@0 again which he seemed upset about. I cast a Fact or Fiction. I get a whole lot of nothing. He casts a Fact or Fiction. He gets a pair of Force of Will. We stare at each other for a long time. I go for Vedalken Shackles. He casts Counterspell. I Spell Snare it. It resolves. He casts a Shackles of his own. That's fine. He eot casts Cunning Wish which finds a Return to Dust. We stare at each other for a long time. He randomly uses the Return to Dust to hit my Shackles. Eventually, I cast another Fact or Fiction. He counters it. I didn't really care. My hand is nuts. He casts Nevinyrral's Disk. I try to Counterspell it. He hard casts Force of Will. He has Academy Ruins in play and all his lands are tapped except a few basics. I cast Back to Basics to stall his next turn. He untaps Disk and passes. I untap and pass. He eot, blows up Disk. During his upkeep, he puts Disk on the top of his library. He casts it. I cast Force of Will. He casts Counterspell. I Spell Snare it. He casts Force of Will (leaving him with no cards in hand). I Force back. I untap and cast Back to Basics and Jace for the win.

2-1-0

ROUND 4
John Donovan playing ANT

Game 1, he leads off with turn 1 Polluted Delta into Underground Sea into Duress. I jokingly tell him I have no idea what he's playing, but I told him I was going to write down what my top guess was. I wrote "ANT". We laughed. I showed my hand, which consisted of Counterspell, Fact or Fiction, Brainstorm, Spell Snare and Lightning Bolt. I try to get him to take the Lightning Bolt. He does not and takes the Fact or Fiction. I then begin joking that I really now have no idea what he is playing and I tell him I was going to write down the other option of what he is playing. I wrote "Reanimator". He laughed. I did nothing on my turn. He did nothing on his turn 2. I did nothing on turn 2. He eot, cast Brainstorm. I continued not knowing what he was playing for the next 8 or so turns. He kept Brainstorming and fetching and that was it. I was pretty sure he was on ANT, sculpting his hand. He casts Duress and rips out a Counterspell. The rest of my hand consisted of Spell Snare, Lightning Bolt and Calcite Snapper. Next turn, I cast a Calcite Snapper, tapping two Islands and my Mountain. He eot Mystical Tutors, which I don't counter. Before showing me the card, I'm saying "ooh. ooh. ooh. Now I get to know what you're playing!" He puts the card face down and shuffles his library. I'm saying all excited-like "come on. You have to show me." He replies with "you're just too giddy. I couldn't resist." He shows me Ad Nauseum and my fears were confirmed. At this time, I realized I fucked up by tapping the Mountain. Sure enough, he Ad Nauseumed to 2 life and won. I showed him the Lightning Bolt post-game, saying I punted. He replied by saying he almost punted because he didn't even think of the Lightning Bolt. I reminded him that I told him Lightning Bolt was the correct choice. We both laughed.

Sideboard:
-2 Engineered Explosives
-1 Powder Keg
-3 Vedalken Shackles
-3 Back to Basics
-1 Lightning Bolt
+3 Chalice of the Void
+2 Sower of Temptation
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Game 2, he mulligans to 4 and I keep a hand of 2 Island, 1 Brainstorm, 2 Fact or Fiction, 1 Chalice of the Void, and 1 Spell Pierce. I play Island-go. He draws his card and laughs and says, "well. Let's see if you have Force of Will." He fetches out an Underground Sea and starts off with Dark Ritual. I allow it. He casts a second Dark Ritual. I should have Spell Pierced this one, but I allowed it, thinking he would go for Ad Nauseum. He casts Lion's Eye Diamond. Instead of Ad Nauseum, he cast IGG. Fuck, I'm bad at Magic. I responded with Brainstorm, hiding my Chalice of the Void and Spell Pierce. I got back a fetchland I drew from the Brainstorm, an Island and a Brainstorm. Next turn, I put Chalice of the Void at 0. I was mana short from the IGG. He hit his first 6 land drops. I hit my first 4. Eventually, I got up to 7 lands to his 6 but we both had 7 cards in hand. I drew a card to give me 2 REB, Sower of Temptation, Lightning Bolt, Spell Pierce, Counterspell, and 2 Spell Snare in hand. I was about to discard Sower when the judge stopped the game for us missing a City of Traitors trigger on his previous turn. My opponent appealed the decision that he should sacrifice the City on my turn. The head judge upheld the decision. I was overly confused at the whole situation and I discarded Lightning Bolt instead. On his turn, he cast Duress and pulled out the Counterspell and declared he "got there". A couple seconds later, he changed his mind and said he didn't yet. I drew my card and passed the turn. On his next turn, he cast Dark Confidant. I realized I had Sower in hand and wondered where my Lightning Bolt was. Oh yeah. Punt #2 baby. I go to Sower the Bob on my next turn because I can't give him that much card advantage. I have only 3 lands untapped. He goes for eot Mystical Tutor, which I REB. On his turn, he ramps up to stupid amounts of mana and goes for Ad Nauseum, as I only had one unknown card in hand. The card I drew indeed was not a Counterspell that was relevant. He casts 2 separate Tendrils of Agony and I lose.

2-2-0

ROUND 5
Tony Payton playing Reanimator

Game 1, he cast turn 1 Mystical Tutor which was Forced. Turn 2, he Duressed me and cast another M.Tutor which found an Entomb. He cast the Entomb on his next turn, along with Reanimate. Iona named blue. Nice deck.

Sideboard:
-2 Engineered Explosives
-1 Powder Keg
-1 Vedalken Shackles
-3 Back to Basics
-4 Lightning Bolt
+3 Chalice of the Void
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Sower of Temptation
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Game 2, I cast a turn 1 Relic. He casts Pithing Needle. I land a turn 2 Chalice@1. He responds with Mystical Tutor, finding Echoing Truth. Nothing happens for a couple turns until I land Jace. He attempts to Echoing Truth the Chalice end of turn. I counter it and he scoops.

Game 3, He went for an end of turn 1 Mystical Tutor, which I REBed. His turn 3, he cast Entomb, which I Forced. He cast a second Entomb and found Iona. I cast a Relic on my turn, which he Forced. His turn 4, he cast Reanimate, which I Forced. He cast another Reanimate which I Spell Pierced. I had no cards left in hand. He had another Mystical Tutor, found a Reanimate for the next turn and got there with Iona. Wow. That's a super nice deck.

2-3-0

At this point, I lost much interest in the tournament and didn't write down nearly as much. I don't have last names anymore and my notes aren't entirely helpful.

ROUND 6
David playing Lands

Game 1, he mulliganed to 5 and led off with Tolaria West. Seems like a bad turn 1 against the majority of the field. He played a green source on turn 2 and dropped an Exploration. He threw down a Wasteland and a Maze of Ith. Turn 3, he played another Maze of Ith and another Wasteland. He cast Life from the Loam, leaving him with just blue source of mana available. I cast Back to Basics the next turn and Calcite Snapper the turn after. That was good enough.

Sideboard:
(I looked at my sideboard notes and noticed my plan was wrong)
-1 Engineered Explosives
-1 Powder Keg
-1 Vedalken Shackles
-1 Counterspell
-1 Spell Snare
-4 Lightning Bolt
+3 Chalice of the Void
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Sower of Temptation
+2 Spell Pierce

Game 2, he landed a turn 1 Exploration. For the first 5 turns, he had a couple Rishadan Ports tapping me down. I was just sitting there playing an Island every turn. On that fifth turn, I cast Back to Basics. He went for an eot Intuition, which I Forced. I cast Sphinx the next turn and Jace the turn after.

3-3-0

ROUND 7
Bobby playing Eva Green

Game 1, he cast turn 1 Thoughtseize and I cast Brainstorm as a response, hiding Spell Snare on top and a Vedalken Shackles below that. He took an Engineered Explosives. Turn 2, he went for Hymn and I Spell Snared it. Turn 3, I cast Vedalken Shackles. He Maelstrom Pulsed it on his next turn. I drew Jace off the top and rode it to victory.

Sideboard:
(Again, my sideboard notes were wrong for this match-up but I noticed it)
-1 Powder Keg
-3 Back to Basics
+2 Sower of Temptation
+2 Spell Pierce

Game 2, he passed his turn 1. His turn 2, he went for Dark Ritual, which I Spell Pierced. The turn after, he went for Dark Confidant, which I Spell Snared. His turn 4, he went for Tarmogoyf, which I also countered. I cast Jace on my turn 4 for the win.

4-3-0

ROUND 8
Tim playing Zoo

Game 1, he's on the play and goes for turn 1 Steppe Lynx. I Force it. He goes for turn 2 Qasali Pridemage. I Spell Snare it. He goes for turn 3 Tarmogoyf. I Counterspell it. I cast Back to Basics on my turn 3, Shackles on turn 4, and Sphinx on turn 6. He scoops.

Sideboard:
-1 Powder Keg
-1 Back to Basics
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+3 Firespout

Game 2, he plays nothing turn 1. Turn 2, he plays a 0/1 Tarmogoyf. I think about it and decide to not use my 1 Spell Snare on it because I also have Shackles in hand. His turn 3, he fetches and casts Chain Lightning putting me to 17. He goes for Qasali Pridemage, which I Spell Snare. He attacks with the Goyf, putting me to 13. I cast a turn 3 Shackles. He goes for Qasali Pridemage #2. I Force it. He attacks for 4. I'm at 8. He casts Wild Nacatl in his second main phase. My turn, I fetch out a Volcanic Island. During his upkeep, I steal his Goyf. He casts a Steppe Lynx and passes the turn. I eot Brainstorm into Firespout. I cast Firespout on my turn, attacking for 4. He Lightning Bolts the Goyf and has no cards left in hand. I cast Calcite Snapper. I beat him for 4 the first turn. The second turn, I poke for 1 and cast a second turtle. I poke for 2 the next turn putting him at 10. He casts Grim Lavamancer and I eot Shackles it. I hit landfall the next turn, attacked for 8 and Lavamancered him out of the game.

5-3-0

I finished 40th out of nearly 200 people. Dewey finished 50th. That means the tournament was a success.

Props:
*Jace, the Mind Sculptor was stupid good.
*Back to Basics also makes New Horizons cry.
*Back to Basics is still a house against Landstill
*Back to Basics wrecks Lands.
*Have I mentioned that Back to Basics wins games?
*Turtle aggro is really good. It can out-aggro Zoo.
*In the last round after I destroyed Zoo, the player next to me was playing MUC with 4 Jace, 4 Sower and some number of Glen Elendra. The deck was tech.
*Really nice opponents.

Slops:
*Having to buy new sleeves because the old ones had bottoms ripped out of some of them.
*Losing to a bad ANT player.
*Getting double-Hymned and (essentially) double-Sinkholed by the good ANT player and not seeing it coming.
*Luck-sacking Reanimator players.
*Not testing enough against the two decks I expected to see: ANT and Reanimator
*Powder Keg was useless all day.
*Lightning Bolt was underwhelming but came really close to giving me the reach I needed.
*Not sleeping for 42 straight hours.
*StarCity Games buying Japanese Jace, the Mind Sculptor for the same price as English - $40. (needless to say, I didn't sell it)
*StarCity Games selling Jace, the Mind Sculptor for $80 causing me to not buy a second one.
*Wanting to play Thopter/Sword CBT but not being able to, only for that deck to get first.

I think the only change I would make to the main deck would be the following:
-1 Powder Keg
+1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Plague Sliver

06-29-2010, 01:44 AM

jazzykat

06-29-2010, 04:01 AM

Great report.

I think you fully grasped the power of BtB and JaceTM. It seems that BtB might be the new (old) bomb card. I was running blood moon in another deck but because of the full set of fetches it seems to have lost a ton of its luster. With a long running game, B2B just seems better.

Jace: Hmmm...I need to see how to get some.

I think your deck will dramatically improve in power level once the MT ban comes into effect. IMO you are weakest to AdNT and Reanimator. When those decks are less in favor I predict that some version of what you created will become near T1, since you have all the major metagame tools to survive.

Mayk0l

06-29-2010, 05:14 AM

I don't get why the Landstill player would Force of Will and EE at 0. As far as I know, the only thing it destroys are Elspeth and Decree Tokens? I guess it also blows up EE's, but seeing as MUC is a slow deck, he has the option of playing and sacrificing it in the same turn as he'll no doubt be dropping a lot of lands.

Poweder Keg is a lot stronger as it also destroys Mishra's Factory. EE doesn't.

Jason

06-30-2010, 03:56 PM

Jason, that was an excellent tournament report. You must have either had a photographic memory or kept extremely good notes.

It felt like the field was largely unprepared for Back to Basics - how many of your opponents never heard of the card until you cast it?

Round 1 - lol @ Jon Medina the bad player. How did you know he was bad? I couldn't tell from your description? I'm genuinely curious.

Did you feel comfortable with 1 Jace in the deck? I haven't played MUC in a while, but it seems good to have 2x or 3x Jace in the deck.

Again, great report.

I didn't put everything in the report; I ignored irrelevant pieces of information. I have a pretty good memory and I also took notes. I wanted to see how and when I messed up (which was a lot, actually)

Everyone knew what Back to Basics did; I did notice nearly all of the opponents had a look of pure devastation when I cast it.

The first ANT player was overly aggressive and even when he had the win - in game 1, he Ad Nauseumed to 6 life when he could have stopped much, much earlier (he flipped nearly all his LEDs, Lotus Petals and Chrome Moxen along with a Tendrils). Also in game 1, he was also doing a lot of Brainstorming to add the storm count unnecessarily and it looked like he was going to end up short on mana. Then there was the whole almost giving me game 3 for no reason also. Maybe he was doing some additional "goldfishing" at the tournament in order to get a better feel for the deck, but he just felt like he didn't know what he was doing. Definitely a nice guy though.

I actually want a second Jace. It is that good. Unfortunately, I didn't have a second one going into the tournament. I could have borrowed one before the tournament, but I had done all the testing with the list I played and was comfortable with it. I didn't want to cut the wrong card to insert the second Jace.

I don't get why the Landstill player would Force of Will and EE at 0. As far as I know, the only thing it destroys are Elspeth and Decree Tokens? I guess it also blows up EE's, but seeing as MUC is a slow deck, he has the option of playing and sacrificing it in the same turn as he'll no doubt be dropping a lot of lands.

Poweder Keg is a lot stronger as it also destroys Mishra's Factory. EE doesn't.

I also was confused about the Forcing of EE@0. I think he must have assumed it hit Factory. I wasn't going to tell him it didn't unless he asked. He never did, so I just played it hoping he'd think it did. I was also surprised by him wanting to keep Shackles off the table, too. It is not overly relevant most of the time in the match-up. He did have Exalted Angel in his list, though. I have done a lot of testing against Landstill. A lot. I know that helped me in winning the match fairly easily.

serendib

07-01-2010, 03:28 PM

jthanatos

07-01-2010, 08:18 PM

I guess landstill players do not like vedalken shackles because they cannot attack with mishra.
If you take a mishra with shakles, it stays in your side also when it's not a creature anymore, and you are also free to untap shakles... I think...

No, you still have to keep the shackles tapped.

Also, its not all that relevant in the matchup as keg and b2b ruin the manland plan before it usually does too much. The main way landstill goes for the win is to use our lack of clock against us, either by pumping out a crap ton of soldiers and keeping our answers off the board for the 2 turns it takes to win, or by aiming late game standstills at our heads.

DukeDemonKn1ght

07-01-2010, 09:30 PM

I was hoping to get some feedback on this list I've been tinkering with. Not that it's a huge departure or anything, but I think I have some tech in there. It's still pretty untested, but I think it looks strong:

4 Brainstorm
3 Fact or Fiction

3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Powder Keg

3 Back to Basics

4 Spell Snare
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Calcite Snapper
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

1 Academy Ruins
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Volcanic Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
12 Snow-Covered Island

...The main innovation here is the Oboro and Undiscovered Paradise to supplement Shroud Turtle (while still dodging your own B2B). Paradise also lets you use EE for 3, so maybe Oboro should get dropped for another Paradise. However, Paradise makes it hard to get a lot of land on the table, which is definitely something this deck craves, so a singleton might be safer. The Volcanic Islands would be for some number of Firespout out of the board, maybe also some REB. Any thoughts or ideas?

Pastorofmuppets

07-01-2010, 09:54 PM

Jason: If Mindsculptor is anywhere near as good in Legacy as it is in EDH, you may want 2 more.
Everyone else: is Evacuation any good in a Zooish meta?

jthanatos

07-01-2010, 10:04 PM

@duke, You run 24 lands and 7 draw effects, don't think you need to play crappy lands to hit landfall.

@pastor, fun facts, that card costs five, and either they replay all their threats as they are cheaper than your counter magic, or they thank you for tapping out and fireblast you to death.

In my testing snapper and targeted removal can get there game one on the backs of shackles and b2b. Post board, firespout can be a beating as they tend to overcommit not fearing mass removal.

whiteshepherdman

07-01-2010, 10:14 PM

jthanatos

07-01-2010, 10:20 PM

"I also was confused about the Forcing of EE@0. I think he must have assumed it hit Factory. I wasn't going to tell him it didn't unless he asked"

it does hit the factory when the factory becomes a creature

2, Sacrifice Engineered Explosives: Destroy each nonland permanent with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Engineered Explosives

1: Mishra's Factory becomes a 2/2 Assembly-Worker artifact creature until end of turn. It's still a land.

Rancorous Fool

07-01-2010, 11:21 PM

Jason

07-04-2010, 01:00 AM

Reading is pure technology.

Also, I disagree with your boarding vrs ANT. You are doing it wrong.
Keg @0 is relevant, it keeps them off of double LED and Keeps them off of that dumb Green flyer. Keg is at worst sinkhole on a chrome mox in resp to trigger. You also steal random games by having them play LED loosely.

Also, unless I am terribly mistaken, you want 1-2 shackles vrs landstill, not more. So lets try:
-1 shackles, -2 spell snare, -4 bolt +2 REB + 3 spell pierce +2 Relic

Try this vrs zoo: -3 b2b +3 firespout.

They fetch basics anyway.

I haven't found Keg or EE relevant vs. ANT. One LED is usually good enough for ANT and nearly all players I've played against aren't bad enough to play LEDs followed by Chrome Mox or Dark Ritual. The opponent will only play it either as their 8th card (as he is sculpting their hand) or after he Duressed me and right before casting Ad Nauseum/Infernal Tutor. In the 8th card situation, it is usually the least relevant of all the cards in his hand. As far as keeping them in for Xantid Swarm, I do have Lightning Bolt for that nuisance. I'm not saying EE or Keg are useless; I'm just saying I personally feel they are weaker than what I'm bringing in and keeping in. I know the match-up is terribly unfavorable and I'm definitely not skilled playing against the deck; I'm curious how you would board against ANT.

Against Landstill, I could probably definitely take out a Shackles. I don't know if I like Spell Pierce in this match-up. Unless I have B2B online, it is unlikely to counter anything. Relic is only necessary if the opponent has Crucible or Academy Ruins. I didn't know he had either until game 2. I bring in Sower of Temptation in case the opponent is playing something janky like Exalted Angel or brings in Meddling Mage (I have had this happen). Not to mention the fact it also gives me a clock.

Against zoo, I don't really like Jace. The card is too slow, fateseal doesn't necessarily get there with all the opposing burn and if I want to Brainstorm with it, then it is in Lightning Bolt range. That is why I take Jace out in this match-up. Powder Keg is similar. It doesn't always hit everything at once; the card is usually a 2-for-1 at best with the zoo player also having a 2 or 3 cmc card in play as well. Yes, the opponent can fetch out basics but sometimes keeping one or two of his four or five lands is good enough to create a tempo swing in my favor. I do realize it is slow and less than exciting in many situations but it has also won me several game 2s or 3s so I keep it in as a 2x.

For the reference, nearly 100% of my testing is against Landstill (usually UWB, sometimes with Wish, sometimes without) and Zoo. The other testing I've done semi-extensively is against a generic UWG CBT deck, Quinn the Eskimo (AKA The Mighty Quinn), and Ichorid. I have done very little ANT testing so I could definitely use some tips in that match-up.

Antonius

07-04-2010, 02:52 AM

have you tried running blood moon instead of back to basics? Seems like blood moon is better than b2b in certain situations and vice-versa.

Jason

07-04-2010, 03:08 AM

have you tried running blood moon instead of back to basics? Seems like blood moon is better than b2b in certain situations and vice-versa.

I have not tried Blood Moon, but I feel it would not be as good. For all intents and purposes, my fetchlands can be considered Islands. Under Blood Moon, this is clearly untrue. This weakens Vedalken Shackles significantly. Blood Moon also hurts my ability to semi-regularly hit Landfall with turtle. Also, Blood Moon still allows my opponent to tap all his lands. Back to Basics is a near-complete lockdown many times.

igri_is_a_bk

07-09-2010, 01:34 AM

Yeah, I'm not a fan of B2B or Prop anymore. Jace should be a 4-of in every MUC list, IMO.

1 Academy Ruins
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
13 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Volcanic
1 Trop

4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare

4 EE
4 Shackles
3 Relic (huge fan of this card main)
2 Repeal

4 Brainstorm
3 Fact or Fiction

4 Jace TMS
1 Sphinx
//60

3 Firespout
3 Spell Pierce
3 Crypt
4 BEB
2 Sower
//15

Rancorous Fool

07-09-2010, 05:40 PM

Igri, I assume you expect absolutely 0 combo? hence the over exaggerated focus on anti-aggro cards? How is repeal, I have been really tempted to play it more for its ability to help combat turn 1 nacatl/lackey/vial. However, it makes the deck MORE cold to teeg (if that was possible).

How I would SB vrs ANT with your deck. (this is moot now)

-3 shackles, -1 b2b -2 bolt. +3 chalice +3 spell pierce.

The reality is that if you had played clique instead of snapper, the matchup comes down to you getting to turn 3/4, if u do they lose.

However, this is how I SB my dck vrs ANT: -4 shackles + 4 spellpierce. possibly -2 fact +2 pithing needle If they seem to be playing DD ant

Tepesh

07-10-2010, 04:16 PM

...

Hi there,
I assume there are a lot of sea stompy and tempo faerie decks because your splashing green only for firepout. If you don't expect those 2 decks you should cut green for white which offers you StoP.

Beside that i agree about B2B and Propaganda. I dislike waiting for tapping out at the other side of the table and I don't like that my opponent can play lands for casting grip on B2B to come back into the game. We can't use the tempo advantage that good because we don't have a fast killoption in MUC. Therefore I learned playing Blood Moon is such a brutal assault at the board. Sure the can tap their lands for mana, but most of the time they won't find any basic so they are completly knocked out of the game. The disadvantage of killing your own fetchlands and the weakening of shackles isn't that hard because you won't play moon if your opponent has some creatures you can't handle.
If you decide not to play any non-basic hate you shouldn't play MUC because this is the only factor to play MUC instead of Landstill. (Yeah there is a "Petdeck factor" and an "oldschool factor").
My question to is: how good is spell pierce in the sideboard? i think it's pure combohate, but we still can't use them properly because the comboplayer has got a lot of time. And having counterspells that become useless later on is nothing I want to play in my Sideboard.

I do splash White and red. White for Swords, Canonist (SB), Ajani (SB) and Red for Firespout(SB) and Blood Moon(SB).

Another question @ Jason: How good is the zoo matchup with your list? I can't see how you can win without a speedy snapper and some bolts in his face. Getting Burned down in the Mid and Lategame is the problem I see when playing your list. Though I like your List - I played it for some games and kind of cool having a "fast" clock.

Jason

07-10-2010, 08:03 PM

My question to is: how good is spell pierce in the sideboard? i think it's pure combohate, but we still can't use them properly because the comboplayer has got a lot of time. And having counterspells that become useless later on is nothing I want to play in my Sideboard.

Spell Pierce is really good. Many times, Force of Will is not good enough under a single Duress or when an ANT player goes "all-in" early, both of which can happen quite often. It gives us more outs to stop the early explosiveness. That's why I also run Chalice in the board because, after turn 2, when Spell Pierce is weaker, Chalice of the Void (especially at 1) is very strong.

I do splash White and red. White for Swords, Canonist (SB), Ajani (SB) and Red for Firespout(SB) and Blood Moon(SB).

Another question @ Jason: How good is the zoo matchup with your list? I can't see how you can win without a speedy snapper and some bolts in his face. Getting Burned down in the Mid and Lategame is the problem I see when playing your list. Though I like your List - I played it for some games and kind of cool having a "fast" clock.

The bolts are aimed at the opponent's guys. In this match-up, it plays the same role as StP would if I were to splash white. It can't kill Goyf or Thoctar/KotR but it kills all the annoying 1-drops and Qasali Pridemage. Bolt alongside Spell Snare, Force of Will and sometimes Back to Basics or EE keep enough guys off the board so I can land some number of Shackles and/or turtle. I use those cards to try and keep from taking more than 7 damage before I have the board stabilized. I don't see how white is necessarily better than red in this match-up. You can only run 4x StP. That means you'll see it as often as I see my Lightning Bolt. I feel like you and I are equally likely to keep the creatures off the board and being burned out mid-late game.

Tepesh

07-11-2010, 06:39 PM

The bolts are aimed at the opponent's guys. In this match-up, it plays the same role as StP would if I were to splash white. It can't kill Goyf or Thoctar/KotR but it kills all the annoying 1-drops and Qasali Pridemage. Bolt alongside Spell Snare, Force of Will and sometimes Back to Basics or EE keep enough guys off the board so I can land some number of Shackles and/or turtle. I use those cards to try and keep from taking more than 7 damage before I have the board stabilized. I don't see how white is necessarily better than red in this match-up. You can only run 4x StP. That means you'll see it as often as I see my Lightning Bolt. I feel like you and I are equally likely to keep the creatures off the board and being burned out mid-late game.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that I board in Ajani Golmane in this Matchup. I do play 2 of those in my Sideboard for Zoo or Random Burndecks and I never had problem to summon this powerhouse. Once he lands on board, I easily win. My Manabase looks like this:
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
11-12 Island
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Tundra
1 Plateau
1 Mountain
0-1 Academy Ruins
Having 3 White Sources I never had Problems casting Ajani even when the Zoo Player got some Wastelands (fetching on the dual when you want to cast him).
I felt it always nevessary to have some Lifegain in the Sideboard because I pack it with hate for the popular and strongest decks in the format/metagame. And since I play this dude I never lost a game against Zoo players. I can only suggest playing him when you are already splashing White in this deck. Sometimes he is Win-more, but most of the time it's just great to put him into play and win "instantly".

Thanks for the answers, I will test those Pierces

igri_is_a_bk

07-14-2010, 12:25 AM

I actually think you're correct (Tepesh) in that I should run W over G. Swords is definitely a better splash than hitting flyers with my Firespouts. So I'm curious if I should put the StPs in the side or try to find room in the main? My list is on the previous page if anyone could help me out. All I know so far is -1 Trop, -1 Forest, -3 Misty Rainforest, -4 x in the side or main for +1 Plains, +1 Tundra, +3 Flooded Strand, +4 StP side or main.

And yeah, my meta is heavily aggro because we don't have a very strong prize payout, so people just play what is fun for them. So it's a lot of Zoo and Bant Aggro and such.

igri_is_a_bk

07-17-2010, 02:39 PM

Okay, well I made the executive decision to drop 2 Jace and 2 Repeal for those StP. So my new list looks like this:

4 Brainstorm
3 FoF

4 Counterspell
4 FoW
3 Snare

4 EE
4 StP
4 Shackles
3 Relic

1 Sphinx
2 Jace TMS

1 Academy Ruins
3 Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Tundra
1 Volc Island
13 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
//60

4 Spell Pierce
4 Firespout
3 Crypt
2 Prop
2 B2B
//15

I think I may end up regretting not having Repeal or Cryptic Command for the versatility they offer. I have A LOT of creature removal because that's what my meta consists of. I think one person plays Dredge or Reanimator and less than half the time because they think it's boring. Nobody plays ANT for the same reason and I'm not sure how that match up breaks down for us now that M.Tutor is banned anyways.

I can efficiently handle any aggro deck, but I feel I dont have enough bombs anymore that swing tempo my way. FoF is obviously a bomb, but it doesn't control the board like a Cryptic Command or Jace TMS (which I want 4, but > $200 for a playset, come on!). Whoever has been saying to not protect Jace is right. He is great, and he should be in every MUC list, but don't waste your counters keeping him alive. That's why I want more copies of him because he's a must answer, unlike Shackles. And at this point in the game most people have lost to Jace at least once, so they look at him as a huge threat.

And guys, stop recommending splash cards with double color requirements, like Elspeth or Moat. You're in the wrong forum for that.

Also, I have 6 anti-gy cards because I want to take this to a big tournament and I think they'll be more necessary there, even if they are just okay for my meta (which isn't great, but does have some Lands and stuff that they are worth bringing in)

klaus

07-17-2010, 05:19 PM

Okay, well I made the executive decision to drop 2 Jace and 2 Repeal for those StP.

I like your list - there are just a few changes that I'd employ here:
-2 Island
+1 Flooded Strand
+1 Arid Mesa

And I'd probably replace the Relics with:
3x Firespout
..given Aggro will flourish now that combo has gotten worse.
Playing 3 in the MD opens 4 SB slots, too - as for gy hate I'd go with 3x Relic 3x Faerie Macabre (way to go against Thopter-Foundry, explosive Dredge starts and still not dead against many other gy-based strategies)
So that leaves you with 1 addtional SB slot, which could easily be 1 Enlightened Tutor, grabbing the missing piece for the Propaganda/B2B lock or Relic.
For fast aggro metas Propaganda and that extra slot could be 3 Path to Exile

Also: I don't think Sphinx is needed - Jace wins games, too, only at a cheaper cost.
so -1/+1

Ozymandias

07-27-2010, 02:18 AM

So I tried to mash this deck's strengths (solid manabase with B2B, Vedalken Shackles) with the Counter-Top decks' ability to stop storm combo and , more quickly manipulate the library. Here is what I came up with:

1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
3 Vendilion Clique

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Daze

3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Back to Basics
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Powder Keg

2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm

9 Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Forest

SB: 4 Lightning Bolt
2 Firespout
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Spell Pierce

I played it at a tourney on Sunday, and went a disappointing 2-3, beating Merfolk and 43 lands, and losing to Reanimator, Hypergenesis (Counterbalance was not nearly as helpful as it could have been and NO Elves (my own damn fault, mis-countered a spell). Any thoughts as to how I could better the sideboard against really quick combo, etc? I'm limited to only being able to splash red by card availability, but I'm open to suggestions for acquisitions.

The Treefolk Master

07-27-2010, 01:27 PM

Tepesh

07-27-2010, 05:20 PM

So I tried to mash this deck's strengths (solid manabase with B2B, Vedalken Shackles) with the Counter-Top decks' ability to stop storm combo and , more quickly manipulate the library. Here is what I came up with:

[..LIST..]

I played it at a tourney on Sunday, and went a disappointing 2-3, beating Merfolk and 43 lands, and losing to Reanimator, Hypergenesis (Counterbalance was not nearly as helpful as it could have been and NO Elves (my own damn fault, mis-countered a spell). Any thoughts as to how I could better the sideboard against really quick combo, etc? I'm limited to only being able to splash red by card availability, but I'm open to suggestions for acquisitions.

The first thing you should do is cutting those Balances and Dazes for Jaces, Spell Snares and Lands. 21 can't be enough even with 4 BS and 3 Top.

Which decks are the mostplayed in your meta? Are there a lot of Reanimator and Dredgedecks? Because I think 5 Slots are too much. I would add 1 Firespout in the Sideboard.

Though I think you won't find any wothy red combohate cards. Spell Pierce should do this. Maybe in combination with Chalies like Jason does.

And it would be great how you managed to win agaainst the Merfolk guy, thanks.

Ozymandias

07-27-2010, 06:42 PM

Game 1 I forced his vial, stole Reejeries with Shackles, and managed to beat him down before he drew out. Game 2 I just got islandwalked over when I couldn't find red mana, and game 3 I stole LOA and Kegged/Bolted his dudes.

The Treefolk Master

07-28-2010, 10:47 AM

Though I think you won't find any wothy red combohate cards.s.

Pyrostatic Pillar could work, but Pierce is superior in my opinion.

igri_is_a_bk

08-01-2010, 03:48 PM

I played this list at the GP, going 2-3-0 before dropping. Honestly, I was in contention every single game, but luck was never on my side. No game was a blow out.

4 Strand
3 Tarn
1 Volc Island
1 Tundra
12 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins

4 Jace TMS
1 Sphinx

4 Brainstorm
2 FoF

4 EE
4 StP
3 Shackles
2 Firespout
1 B2B

4 FoW
4 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
//60

4 Hydroblast
4 Spell Pierce
2 Firespout
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Prog
2 Sower of Temptation

Round 1
was Goblins and despite having 4 Firespout, 4 StP, 4 Hydros, 3 Shackles for games 2 and 3, I somehow lost. This was the beginning of my bad luck. I won G1 by EE at 1 taking out Vial + Lackey and countering his relevant Goblins, namely Warchief and Ringleader. He got a Chieftain to resolve but I won with Sphinx beatdown. G2 and G3 were basically me mulling to 5 and 4, respectively without finding a single Hydro or Firespout. I hated my life when I lost this match.

0-1-0

Round 2
G1, I played some stupid homebrew with SHARED FATE! I didn't have a counter for it after all his Thoughtseize and garbage and it resolved. This was after I Jace ultimated him and so I was incapable of drawing cards the rest of the match. I wish I had Repeal or Cryptic Command so I could have bounced that shit and he would have lost the next turn. I mean this is GP FUCKING COLUMBUS AND YOU'RE USING SHARED FATE?! Jump off a bridge, tubby.
G2, He cast 2 Doomsday, the second one resolved with a Shelldock Isle in play, hiding Emrakul. That's all she wrote. I don't know what the deck was, but when I get matched up against trash like that, I just don't wanna play the game.

0-2-0

Round 3
This guy played a deck with 30 Counterspells and 4 trashy creatures, one of which was Visara (lol). Basically I blow this guy out despite the match almost going to time because we both played such slow decks.

1-2-0

Round 4

Some kid who decided to play the morning of the tournament. His deck was a joke. He had to read every card I played. Anyways, he was also playing mono blue, but I can't tell you how it won. He resolved an Eternity Vessel at 20 life game 1, so I had to Jace ultimate him, but no problem.

2-2-0

Round 5

I finally play an established deck for the first time since round 1. The guy was playing Thopter Foundry and I lost g1 quickly by not stopping a swarm of 1/1 flyers.
G2, I Jace ultimate him, but the turn before I do that, he draws the single Academy Ruins in his deck. LUCK SACK! He survives by using it every turn and getting to bring back his combo which was countered every time he tried it. If i drew my A. Ruins, Tormod's, or Relic, I would have won this game. But I didn't because I was having horrible luck this tournament. So he won with no cards in his library and I dropped after this match.

Overall, I'd say the weekend was terrible. I couldn't catch any breaks, and my deck would have been solid against most the established decks, but I got paired up against hardly any. All aggro should have been my bitch, but drawing 5-6 lands in a row vs. Goblins made me lose. Screw my luck, seriously.

I'm not playing this deck again because I have such a bitter taste in my mouth after the GP.

Fuck.

OuterCrow

08-01-2010, 11:07 PM

Round 2
G1, I played some stupid homebrew with SHARED FATE! I didn't have a counter for it after all his Thoughtseize and garbage and it resolved. This was after I Jace ultimated him and so I was incapable of drawing cards the rest of the match. I wish I had Repeal or Cryptic Command so I could have bounced that shit and he would have lost the next turn. I mean this is GP FUCKING COLUMBUS AND YOU'RE USING SHARED FATE?! Jump off a bridge, tubby.
G2, He cast 2 Doomsday, the second one resolved with a Shelldock Isle in play, hiding Emrakul. That's all she wrote. I don't know what the deck was, but when I get matched up againsttrash like that, I just don't wanna play the game.

0-2-0

Something resembling (sounds like the same/similar deck) this 'trash' ended up in the top 8 my friend! You need to just relax - innovation isn't a bad thing, surely...

You did have some bad beats though, no doubt.

jthanatos

08-01-2010, 11:47 PM

axrxvx

08-02-2010, 02:36 PM

I played in the GP with a pretty standard list and went 4-3 I lost to blecher, UBG landstill and Burn. Luck was just not on my side for the day. I won against belcher, goblins, reanimator, and rw slide. Jace and Back to basics where the MVP of the deck. Sadly I couldn't draw a B2B to save my life against the Landstill player and the double Force he had for my Jace didn't help matters out. The Belcher player I lost to was able to get a turn 1 kill each game. The burn player sadly just burned me out the third game before I could get Jace online. My side was:
1 Relic
2 Crypt
4 Threads
2 Sowers
2 Blasts
3 Stifle
1 Back to Basics
Sadly I didn't see any zoo decks the whole day, since my side is more geared towards them. The side is the only thing I would have changed since it is so heavily against zoo. I do plan on taking my deck to gen con, but with a few sideboard changes that I am not 100% on.

Jason

08-04-2010, 04:03 AM

I really don't mean to flame, but your deck really looks like a confused mess and that is evidenced by it dropping games to decks MUC should prey upon, random jank.

Not exactly true... I sometimes have trouble against jank like Vial-less Wizards and that's about as random as a deck can get

Jason

09-21-2010, 12:23 AM

I played this weekend in the SCG Baltimore Open with B&BBS. I played my list:

Land (24)
1 Academy Ruins
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
12 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain

Artifact (5)
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Vedalken Shackles

Blue Creature (2)
2 Calcite Snapper

Blue Enchantment (3)
3 Back to Basics

Blue Instant (20)
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
1 Cryptic Command
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare

Red Instant (4)
4 Lightning Bolt

Blue Planeswalker (2)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard (15)
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Spell Pierce
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Firespout

Round 1 Craig Buwala - BELCHER
Game 1, he leads off with an exiled ESG. Yeah for Force of Will, baby! He goes Rite of Flame into Manamorphose into Seething Song. He has no mana floating so I Force it. He passes. A couple turns later, he casts Land Grant revealing Burning Wish x3, Belcher x2, SSG and LED. I take this opportunity to cast Jace on my next turn and keep him from drawing relevant cards.

SB:
-3 Back to Basics
-1 Cryptic Command
-1 Fact or Fiction
-3 Vedalken Shackles
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Firespout
+3 Chalice of the Void

Game 2, I keep a good hand if he doesn't go for turn 1 (as I have at least 3 lands, double Spell Pierce and a Counterspell) he plays a land and passes the turn. I rip a Chalice of the Void off the top, set it at zero and proceed to play draw-go until I find a second Chalice and set it at 1. He scoops.

1-0-0

Round 2 Kemper Pogue - MERFOLK
Game 1, He leads off with turn 1 Aether Vial. I respond with turn 1 EE which doesn't get countered. I blow it up on my turn 2. After that, I don't remember too much of what happened. I remember it involved me drawing both my Volcanic Islands and my Academy Ruins, all of which were Wastelanded and being stuck on 3 lands being poked out by Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept.

SB:
-3 Back to Basics
-2 Counterspell
-1 Cryptic Command
-1 Fact or Fiction
+2 Sower of Temptation
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+3 Firespout

Game 2, he leads off with turn 1 Vial for which I don't have the Force. Turn 2, he plays Silvergill Adept. Turn 3, he plays Lord of Atlantis; eot, I bolt it. On my turn 4, I go for Vedalken Shackles. He Forces; I Force back; he Forces again. A couple turns later, I draw Sower of Temptation and steal his guy. I beat him down to 12 or so but am at less than 10 myself. He draws back-to-back Corralhelm Commander and Lord of Atlantis and simply wins because of the Mutavaults in play. BOO!

1-1-0

Round 3 Matt Vennard - BRGU AGGRO LOAM
Game 1, he leads with turn 1 Volcanic Island. He plays turn 2 Taiga for the super confusing play of the day. I realize what he is doing when he plays turn 3 Crusher, which I eot Bolt. Turn 4, he plays Crusher. I eot Bolt. Turn 5, he plays another Crusher. My 3x Spell Snares in hand look sad and I lose to Crusher beats.

SB:
-2 Calcite Snapper
-1 Cryptic Command
-2 Spell Snare
-2 Engineered Explosives
+2 Sower of Temptation
+1 Spell Pierce
+2 Chalice of the Void
+2 Relic of Progenitus

Game 2, he leads with 2x Mox Diamond and a land into Life from the Loam. Nice deck. I play draw-go with him for a long, long time. Turn 6 or so, he Forces through a Crusher and double Spell Pierces my Shackles. Crusher smashes hard, but I rip Jace and bounce the Crusher. He recasts Crusher every turn until Jace is forced to -1 himself dead. On my next turn, I Brainstorm into Back to Basics+Jace+another card. I take the B2B, eat another 8-10 from Crusher putting me really low and draw and cast Jace. He, unfortunately has enough lands to cast the Crusher 4 turns in a row and I lose.

1-2-0

Now, I didn't write down the rest of my matches, so I can only give interesting pieces.

Round 4 Mark Spill - RWU LIGHTNING ANGEL
He was playing bad cards so I just win. Game 2, he did almost get there with Hammer of Bogardan by bolting me every other turn, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Calcite Snapper got there. He was a great guy; he traded me straight-up for an alternate 4th edition REB.

2-2-0

Round 5 Kevin Jones - SURVIVAL VENGEVINE
I won game 1 on the shoulders of Lightning Bolt and Spell Snare. He had the nuts game 2. Game 3, he had 3x Noble Hierarch and one land on his turn 3. I turn 4 Firespout and wipe his board. He proceeds to draw a land then another land. Then he casts Wild Mongrel and Basking Rootwalla and pokes me out of the game.

2-3-0

Round 6 Jeremy Haring - MONO-BLUE CONTROL
Game 1, I'm pretty dejected so I don't really care what is going on, so I keep a hand of 6 lands and Counterspell. Apparently, I chose wisely because that is the nuts for this match-up. I counter his Fact or Fictions and Morphlings and get there with Calcite Snapper and triple Lightning Bolt to the face.

SB:
-3 Back to Basics
-2 Engineered Explosives
-1 Vedalken Shackles
+2 Sower of Temptation
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Relic of Progenitus

Game 2, he misses his fourth land drop for many turns in a row. I have something like 9 lands in play. My hand is 2x Force of Will, Counterspell, Cryptic Command, 2x Spell Snare, Lightning Bolt when he plays his fourth land and says "Let's do this." I'm pumped and start saying "Let's fight over Jace!" He indeed casts TMS and I respond with Cryptic Command. He casts Force of Will. I cast Counterspell. He casts Force of Will. I cast Force of Will (pitching Spell Snare). He casts Mindbreak Trap. I cast Force of Will. GG.

3-3-0

Round 7 Jordan Foster - BGW ROCK W/ PROGENITUS
Game 1, I am turtle aggroing him when he figures out I don't have counter-magic and casts Natural Order and wins with Progenitus. Game 2, I bolt his guys and cast B2B to keep him on 3 lands. He sticks a Knight of the Reliquary, which gets stolen by Vedalken Shackles. I get there. Game 3 goes to time. He could have won because he had Noble Hierarch and a 5/6 Tarmogoyf in play during turn 3 of time and I was at 5 life with no counter-magic in hand. Had he cast NO on his Hierarch and found Progenitus, he would have won. Instead, Calcite Snapper blocks Goyf for the draw.

3-3-1

Round 8 Jonathan Shue - BW THE GATE
Game 1, he attacks me to -11 life. I verify with the judge I am not allowed to Force or fetch while at 0 or less life and eventually lose when he gets enough removal to overwhelm my counterspells. Game 2, Vedalken Shackles goes online. Then Jace goes online. He doesn't scoop and we play until there is like 2 minutes left on the clock before I win. We draw in game 3.

3-3-2

Instead of potentially going 3-3-3, I decide to drop and give my deck a rest.

Conclusions:
I need Sphinx or Morphling. Too many games would have been won by a turn 6 Sphinx.
Cryptic Command was garbage all day long. It only was Dismiss. If more CB decks would have been in my way, I guess it would have been better.
I want a 4th B2B in the main. I should NOT lose to Aggro Loam decks. I need to be able to find it more consistently.
I was less excited with Jace and may go back to running 4x FoF, 1x TMS.

paeng4983

11-08-2010, 12:00 AM

i've been playing this type of control deck
for about a couple of months now.
here's the list that i ran:

4 s.tarn
4 m.rainforest
12 island
1 academic ruin
1 forest
1 mountain

4 EE
3 vedalken shackles
4 relic of progenitus
1 repeal
3 firesprout

2 jace TMS

4 ancestral vision
4 Brainstorm
1 fact or fiction

1 sphinx of jwar isle

4 FOW
4 counterspell
2 spell pierce

SB
3 krosan grip
3 tormods
2 pithing needle
2 REB
2 BEB
1 spell pierce
1 sower
1 firesprout

here are my standings:
2-2
i won vs. sui and zoo
lost vs. merfolk, enchantress

3-1
won vs. sui, sui, dredge
lost to combo

3-0-1
won vs. vv sur, dredge, zoo
draw vs. encha

3-2-1
won vs. sui, sui, w.weenie
lost vs Can. thresh, dredge
draw vs. prog-bant

3-1
won vs. urg fae, aggro loam, burn
lost vs. W.stax

im really impressed the way this deck
controls dredge, zoo, and sui.
its like an autowin for me whenver im
against those decks.

W.stax so far was the most unfavorable match up that i faced.

The Treefolk Master

11-08-2010, 03:18 PM

Felidae

11-08-2010, 03:54 PM

I'd rather assume that sui stands for Suicide, as he mentioned V.V.Sur (Vengevine Survival).

I would agree that 3 Jaces seem to be the right number, however, as I just have a few experience with this deck, I don't really know what card should be cutted.

The Treefolk Master

11-08-2010, 04:01 PM

Alexeezay

11-08-2010, 05:52 PM

just getting into this type of deck and got a question:
Which route of MUC is better? a) the one with Spellstutter Sprite,Sower,Vendilion Clique,Stifle by the SCG Jacob Van Lunen guy or
b) the route with Vedalken Shackles,Sphinx of Jwar Isle,Calcite Snapper ? Thanks

The Treefolk Master

11-08-2010, 06:21 PM

Option b. The other one was built to beat a metagame full of lands, ANT and Reanimator (pre-mystical tutor ban), and has an atrocious match up against aggro, hence its not viable in todays meta.

paeng4983

11-08-2010, 06:58 PM

The Treefolk Master

No love for Back to Basics?
I don’t have B2B. im still in search for it.

I think only 2 Jace is too few, and Ancestral Vision is probably too slows, why not try:
-4 Ancestral Vision
+3 Fact or Fiction
+1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

we only have a couple of JTMS in our pool.
Ancestral vision works fine with me. I think
FoF is much slower than A.vision because I can
suspend A.vsion in my turn one with an island
unlike FoF, you’ll have to wait until you have enough mana
to pay for its casting cost.

And with so much Survival, -2 spell pierce +2 spell snare is probably the way to go.

Yup, that’s my next tweak. I cannot counter 2cc
creatures with s.pierce. But on a positive note,
spell pierce vs. duress, thoughsieze, kozilek and
other turn one moves by a sui (sui is a much
more popular name here in the philippines than
using the names like mono black discarder, or MBC or discarder
and the like names) spell pierce is a much better
card choice. :)

Isn't 4 EE too much?

No. if only WOTC will allow 5 copies of it I’d do so.
It wrecks whatever permanent you wish to be destroyed.
Hhhmmmm… im planning to give nevs disk a try for our next
Big legacy event here.

Seemed too good to be true
we have a lot of sanctioned legacy tournament
here weekly.
wed/ thrs eagle nest
friday at philcoa
sat las piñas
sat buting
sat TFF
sun titan
sun vito cruz

and im always present in philcoa, buting, las pinas, vito cruz and TFF legacy tournaments

@ Alexeezay
i'd say B. shroud abilities will help you big time during end games.

The Treefolk Master

11-08-2010, 07:10 PM

we only have a couple of JTMS in our pool.
Ancestral vision works fine with me. I think
FoF is much slower than A.vision because I can
suspend A.vsion in my turn one with an island
unlike FoF, you’ll have to wait until you have enough mana
to pay for its casting cost.

Yes, but FoF can instantly get you out of a tight situation, while A. Vision will require 4 turns to go off. Besides, FoF usually has a much higher impact and can be played EoT.

I don't think Disk is a good choice, it blows up your BtB (if you can find any), Shackles, etc. Besides, you shouldn't have trouble versus creature decks, save a merfolk nut draw with tons of disruptions, as 4 EE, 3 Firespout, 3 Shackles and 1 Repeal should be enough to shut them off.

Alexeezay

11-09-2010, 08:05 AM

Thanks guys, just ordered foil turtles and sphinx :D and shackles+jace coming soon :)

The Treefolk Master

11-11-2010, 08:09 PM

paeng4983

11-11-2010, 08:46 PM

If Survival fades away from the meta (due to a banning or anyother reason), wouldn't it be positive to replace 3 Relic of progenitus with 3 Back to Basics?

Have you tried Morphling instead of Sphinx? Nostalgia aside, it can race while blocking and can hold off 5/6 goyfs and Tombstalkers?

if for whatever reason, survival gets banned (which should be :) )
for me, i will not lessen the number of my
relic in my Main Deck because of the
following reasons:
= without V.v. sur in the game, other decks like dredge, tarmogoyf lovers
and other GY lovers deck might reign the battlefield again and having relic
ready in my MD, it effectively removes all GY every game one of your
round. and game one -for control users - is a very important win.
= aside from whatever drawers you guys are using, whether it be brainstorm,
ancestral vision, fact or fiction, ponder etc, relic is another source for cantripping
a card.

about the nev's disk, yeah you're right. its synergy doesnt fit those of
vedalkens and friends. if i will insist this prehistoric mass removal to be in
my MUC deck, i might revamp its peers.

The Treefolk Master

11-11-2010, 08:55 PM

Its true that Relic is useful in manuy match ups, but I think Back to Basics is useful in more match ups. Besides, Back to Basics is usually game wining, while Relic isn't (or at least always).

Dark Ritual

11-12-2010, 11:35 AM

Relic is, at bare minimum, a cantrip for 2 that neuters tarmogoyf, kills terravore, and neuters knight of the reliquary. And if tempo thresh is highly played in your meta (unlikely), then you have a very good chance against their 1/1 mongeese and tarmogoyf well goyf just isn't that big a threat anymore leaving them to burning you out.

Survival shouldn't get banned but it likely will because the DCI are a bunch of people who exist just to wreck legacy by keeping cards like land tax and earthcraft on the banned list while banning existing cards in the format that are fair like m. tutor and possibly SotF.

The Treefolk Master

11-12-2010, 02:24 PM

paeng4983:

Have you taken the deck to any new tournaments?

Soulles

11-13-2010, 09:08 AM

Hey,

So i quit Magic one and half years ago i think. I played MUC in every tournament since i started playing them.

I see allot of despair and shifting to 2 color MUC decks. So what happend? I quit around the time merfolk became a Deck to Beat.

I suppose the new sets made aggro decks even faster and stronger.

The Treefolk Master

11-13-2010, 09:50 AM

I suppose the new sets made aggro decks even faster and stronger.

You suppose correctly.

The Treefolk Master

11-14-2010, 06:20 PM

What do you think of this list:

1 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Academy Ruins
13 Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island

4 Engineered Explosives
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Relic of Progenitus

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare

2 Cryptic Command
2 Fact or Fiction

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Firespout

1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

SB: 3 Hydroblast
SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Firespout
SB: 2 Hibernation
SB: 3 Back to Basics
SB: 2 Pithing Needle

(Yes, the sideboard is a mess)

paeng4983

11-14-2010, 07:25 PM

paeng4983:

Have you taken the deck to any new tournaments?

i played yesterday (sunday 14th of nov)
at titan, BUT I BROUGHT the wrong box.
i picked up the box containing TES with it
instead of my MUC *sigh*

it was too late for me to go back home because
i was meters away from the shop when i checked
it out.
:(

moral lesson, always check the box before leaving.

anyways i ended 2-2 winning against v.v sur and zoo.
losing to v.v sur and merfolk.

btw, your list looks strong.
adding one of each trops and volcs makes your
deck more flexible in terms of fixing your color at
your will.

The Treefolk Master

12-08-2010, 09:31 PM

This version was posted a few pages before, but I have tested it again recently and it seems to be quite powerful. It made day 2 in GP Madrid (granted, it's a bit old).

1 Academy Ruins
20 Island
1 Riptide Laboratory
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Spire Golem
4 Counterspell
2 Cryptic Command
3 Energy Field
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Repeal
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Chalice of the Void

Thoughts:

More Jace?

Vendilion Clique instead of Sower?

Comments?

Jason

12-09-2010, 01:56 AM

I refuse to play any list with less than 23 lands. In fact, I always run 24.

The Treefolk Master

12-09-2010, 08:27 AM

I didn't have mana issues when testing the deck.

nodahero

12-10-2010, 12:00 AM

Needs more Spellstuter Sprite.

The Treefolk Master

12-10-2010, 09:15 AM

Needs more Spellstuter Sprite.

Now that was a worthless post. The deck is mono blue control, not Faeries. Consequently, the deck doesn't run Spellstutter Sprite, as it is quite worthless without a relatively high Faerie concentration.

nodahero

12-10-2010, 10:55 AM

You are a worthless post... Go take a look at Jacob VanLunen's mono blue list he took to an SCG open this season... I have been fiddling with it for a while and Spell Stutters are insane. They are a reusable counter with Jace... and not to mention Vendillion Clique has been suggested and is also very good in the deck.

The Treefolk Master

12-10-2010, 08:04 PM

Vendilion Clique is very good, but Spellstutters need varios faeries to become relevant. Van Lunen's list is designed to beat a metagame full of Lands, ANT and Reanimator, and therefore is not very viable is todays meta. Besides, during his deck tech, he said that he hadn't played legacy in years...
He also mentioned that he had a bad matchup vs. Merfolks, Goblins, and that Zoo was a coinflip; therefore meaning that his build isn't very well positioned now.

Besides, I said that you post was worthless because you just threw a suggestion out there, without backing it up with any reasoning...

EDIT: Forgot to add, if you like reusable counters, you should give riptide laboratory a try. It's almost unbeatable in the late game.

number88

12-21-2010, 10:57 AM

What do you guys think about the unbanning of time spiral affect this deck?

The Treefolk Master

12-21-2010, 11:46 AM

Doesn't affect it by any means. Time Spiral is for combo decks such as Solidarity or Spring Tide. It doesn't offer any benefits to us.

Zalren

12-25-2010, 11:33 AM

I have been playing Legacy back when it was Type 1.5 and I just recently came back. I always loved MUC. Here is my decklist

22 x Island

4 x Vendilion Clique
4 x Sower of Temptation

4 x Jace, the Mind Scupltor

4 x Brainstorm
4 x Force of Will
4 x Counterspell (used to be Spellstutter Sprite but too many times I did not have enough faeries in play)
4 x Spell Snare
4 x Stifle
4 x Repeal

3 x Back to Basics

I like it so far but I was wondering if there is something I am lacking. I was thinking another win condition but once Jace hits, I usually win.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Jay_Gatz

12-25-2010, 12:03 PM

4 Cliques is kind of greedy being legendary. You most certainly need fetchlands to abuse jace and brainstorm and Vedalken Shackles is a champ in straight permission.

The Treefolk Master

12-25-2010, 12:20 PM

You either play fetchlands or don't play Brainstorm. Jace does not need fetchlands to be incredible, but they make him even better.

Jay_Gatz is right, you want Vedalken Shackles in here, probably 3. Cut 3 Sowers for 3 Shackles. They're in the top 5 cards for this deck.

You also don't want Stifle, as you don't have any sort of clock to abuse it (i.e: stifle your land, beat you with Tarmogoyf).

I think 4 Cliques is fine, they get killed, a lot.

If you're going for the non-faerie approach, try to fit 1-2 fat finishers, probably Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

You should also find room for Ratchet Bomb, although if you fit in fetchlands you'll be able to add 2 basics (eg: 4 Scalding Tarn, 4 Misty Rainforest, 1 Tropical Island, 1 Volcanic Island, 1 Mountain, 1 Forest) and therefore play Engineered Explosives, which is vastly superior to Ratchet Bomb.

Zalren

12-25-2010, 09:07 PM

So something like this?

4 x Scalding Tarn
4 x Misty Rainforest
12 x Island
1 x Mountain
1 x Forest

4 x Vendilion Clique
4 x Sower of Temptation / 4 x Vedalken Shackles

4 x Jace, the Mind Scupltor

4 x Brainstorm
4 x Force of Will
4 x Counterspell
4 x Spell Snare
4 x Repeal

4 x Engineered Explosives

3 x Back to Basics

What is the verdict on Calcite Snapper? I see some lists with them and some without.

The Treefolk Master

12-26-2010, 12:10 PM

Yes, that list looks fine, although I'd do 3 Shackles and 1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Take a look at this build, which made top 8 at a 45 person tournament in Portugal:

Mauro Peleira - 2nd Place (MUC)

2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island´
12 Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
4 Jace the Mind Sculptor
4 Engineered Explosives
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Vedalken Shackles
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare
3 Repeal
4 Counterspell
3 Cryptic Command
4 Force of Will

Sideboard

1 Relic of Progenitus
4 Hydroblast
4 Spell Pierce
3 Firespout
3 Back to Basics

Never really tested Calcite Snapper myself, although Jason has (a few pages back) and says it's pretty good.

Jason

12-31-2010, 03:48 PM

What is the verdict on Calcite Snapper? I see some lists with them and some without.

I tried a list with 2x Calcite Snapper, 2x Jace TMS and 3x Shackles as my only win-conditions and I was needing a better finisher than the turtle. Snapper helps out a lot with aggressive decks and helps you stabilize but it wasn't a consistent enough finisher on its own. Oftentimes, the opponent had enough time to just draw out of my turtle aggro. If I would still be playing the deck regularly, I would run 2x Snapper, 3-4x Jace TMS, 3x Shackles and 1x Morphling/Sphinx of Jar Jar Binks... unfortunately that would mean I need 1-2 more Japanese Jace TMS

paeng4983

01-12-2011, 07:34 PM

ive been using
1 sphnx
1 sower
3 vedalken
2 Jace TMS

as my win-cons.
so far, they're delivering good results
in my last two tournaments (3-1; 3-2)

paeng4983

01-12-2011, 07:35 PM

ive been using
1 sphnx
1 sower
3 vedalken
2 Jace TMS

are my win-cons.
so far, they're delivering good results
in my last two tournaments (3-1; 3-2)

Kyle Hyde

01-23-2011, 06:27 PM

What are the good matchups for MUC?

The Treefolk Master

01-23-2011, 07:48 PM

What are the good matchups for MUC?

That is really a very open question. Are you talking about permanent oriented MUC, the Ur version Jason plays, the Urg version previously posted, or another version?

In general terms, the control mirror is positive. Lands is a bye if you run Back to Basics, if not it gets a little tougher. The more Propagandas you run, the better the Goblin MU gets, although Shackles and Firespout are also gamebreaking. Midrange decks such as bant aggrocontrol or the rock are also positive. Merfolk is a bad matchup preboard (unless you run spout maindeck, which makes it more manageable. Jason's version with Bolts should have a better MU), and gets better post board with access to Spout and Llawan. Zoo is positive for permanent oriented MUC, and I'm not sure how the MU is against other version. Vs. TES the MU is, I think, unfavoured preboard, and gets better thanks to CotV postboard. Back to Basics wrecks dark horizons, as well as landstill.

Post any doubts you have about any specific match ups.

Jason

01-24-2011, 01:10 AM

What are the good matchups for MUC?

MUC doesn't have too many "good matchups". What it has is winnable matchups. The only real good matchups I've found was against Landstill type control decks, especially with main deck Back to Basics, and Affinity (I'm 4-0 in sanctioned matches against Affinity, with each match lasting a total of maybe 10 minutes). The deck is good against Landstill because their removal is dead and we generally have better card advantage in Fact or Fiction. I single-handedly beat Affinity with a combination of Powder Keg, Vedalken Shackles and Back to Basics. Propaganda is good too. Midrange decks, like BGW rock decks, tend to be very easy to beat because they aren't aggro enough to win fast. Similarly, Tempo Thresh is favorable. You just have to find an answer to Nimble Mongoose. Tempo decks in general are fairly favored, mostly because Spell Snare is usually a blowout against them (and Stifle + Wasteland is practically irrelevant against MUC). Zoo is tough; however, if you have a way to stop their first creature, you will generally win. Zoo gets ahead when it drops multiple threats per turn, which is hard to do once MUC gets to 3 mana. Also, you cannot let Sylvan Library resolve because it will spell game over in the stupid cat deck's favor. Playing against Goblins is similar to playing against Zoo: you must stop their first play - be it Aether Vial or Goblin Lackey. Lackey is obviously the scarier of the two, due to traditional MUC decks running very little (if any) mass removal. I have found Merfolk to be almost unwinnable; however, they always seem to recover from a stale board faster than I do, which may just be unlucky on my part. MUC isn't terrible against combo. It is not favored against TES and probably not against High Tide decks (however I am undefeated with MUC against Solidarity). MUC eats up on Belcher because of Force of Will. Finally, BG Hymn decks are heavily favored against MUC.

tl;dr version:
Heavily favored:
Landstill
Affinity

Slightly favored:
combo decks that fold to Force of Will (read: Belcher)
midrange decks (read: BGW Rock)
tempo decks (read: Tempo/Canadian Threshold)

Neutral (more or less):
Bant CounterTop
Supreme Blue (the deck with more Jace 2.0 wins)
Zoo
Goblins

Unfavored:
Merfolk
TES
High Tide
BG Hymn decks
Dredge

serendib

01-24-2011, 05:23 AM

actually depends on how you set your MUC.
I personally allways run

4 Back to basics
4 propaganda
4 shackles
4 powder keg

+ 11/12 counters

this means I consider good match ups:
- goblins
- zoo
- all sort of control deck including countertops, landstill, rocks/jund, tempo decks

bad match ups:
- merfolk (but I beat them with my side : 4X energy field)

mid-mus:
- bant (55-45 for us)
- combo

vikram

01-24-2011, 08:29 PM

Consecrated Sphinx 4UU
Creature - Sphinx Mythic Rare
Flying
Whenever an opponent draws a card, you may draw two cards.
Blessed by the hands of Jin-Gitaxias.
Illus. Mark Zug #21/155 4/6

Seems like this card could be really strong here. Drawing two cards a turn minimum, and six cards whenever your opponent plays a Brainstorm is insane.

Kyle Hyde

01-24-2011, 08:31 PM

Consecrated Sphinx seems like a good card, but it's too expensive for not really being a finisher IMO.

@ serendib - Do you mind posting your usual sideboard. Energy field seems like a really good sideboard card. I hadn't thought about that one. Do you also run Llawan, Cephalid Empress?

The Treefolk Master

01-24-2011, 08:46 PM

Jason

01-24-2011, 11:31 PM

I'm not really playing the deck religiously anymore: I've switched to Landstill as my control deck; I'm also playing a lot of TES. If I were to build a list, I would have it look something like:

Land (24)
1 Academy Ruins
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
12 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain

Artifact (5)
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Vedalken Shackles

Blue Creature (3)
2 Calcite Snapper
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle (this could also be Call the Skybreaker)

Blue Enchantment (3)
3 Back to Basics

Blue Instant (18)
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare

Red Instant (4)
4 Lightning Bolt

Blue Planeswalker (3)
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard (15)
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Spell Pierce
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Firespout

I'd still play the red splash because of all the creature decks running around. I'd like to have 1x Cryptic Command in the deck, but I don't know what I'd want to cut. Obviously, if I wasn't going to play the red splash, the deck would look like:
-2 Flooded Strand
-2 Polluted Delta
-4 Scalding Tarn
-2 Volcanic Island
-1 Mountain
-2 Engineered Explosives
-4 Brainstorm
-4 Lightning Bolt
+11 Snow-Covered Island
+4 Powder Keg
+1 Vedalken Shackles
+4 Impulse/Think Twice
+1 Back to Basics/Calcite Snapper/Cryptic Command/Fact or Fiction/Jace, the Mind Sculptor/Repeal

serendib

01-25-2011, 05:33 AM

I used to run this list:

23 island

2 morphling
1 rainbow efreet

3 impulse
4 FoF

4 FoW
4 Counterspell
3 ssnare

4 powder keg
4 vedalken shackles
4 back to basics
4 propaganda

side:
4 energy field
3 hibernation
3 chalice of the void
3 pithing needle
2 jace TMS

I've alwayes like it, but I'm sometimes playing this one. I haven't tested a lot but for the first tests it is good.

18 ISLAND !!! I am not kidding

3 impulse
4 accumulated knowledge

1 morphling
3 vendilion clique

4 force fo will
4 counterspell
3 spell snare
4 daze

4 back to baiscs
4 propaganda
4 vedalken shaclkes
4 powder keg

I know it's a very strange list because of daze and the few land count. but I would advice to test it before judging it.
I have not lost yet vs any jund/rock or black based list jet. I think this list is even stronger vs other types of control decks like countertop. (even if I designed it to beat survival decks & zoo)
of course, what makes you loose a game is a too few land count to take an opponend reliquiary knight with shackles, but few times happens.
If you start with 2 lands in opening hand is nearly game vs a lot of decks.

@ jason : are you sure that splashing for red is good ... I mean, if you like splashing: white >> red becuse STP/path >> bolts... aren't they ?

I am the brainwasher

01-25-2011, 06:44 AM

I think if that if that list with rather classical cards work out for you its fine and you dont have explain yourself that much.
As I played last time MUC seriously in a tournament I made Top8 out of 78 players with the following list:

3 Quicksand
2 Polluted Delta
18 Island

3 Force Spike
3 Mana Leak
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Brainstorm
4 Fact or Fiction

2 Repeal

3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Powder Keg
3 Back to Basics

3 Ophidian
1 Morphling

Sb:
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Blue Elemental Blast/Hydroblast
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Propaganda
2 Masticore

I lost against Merfolk and Zoo. Won against Zoo, Team America, Dead-Guy Ale, UW(b)-Tempo (same as UW-Tempo just with splash for Vindicate and Confidant) and Slivers (which are not really worth mentioning because his list was complete rubbish, not that rather good Meathooks).

For the love of the deck itself I playtest against serious opponents (!!!) on MWS sometimes, even if I normally play other decks in rl/Test.
I changed my old list to the following and I am surprised again everytime I play this how good this deck still is.

3 Quicksand
1 Snow-Covered Island
1Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand

3 Force Spike
3 Mana Leak
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Brainstorm
3 Fact or Fiction

2 Repeal

3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Powder Keg
1 Ratchet Bomb
3 Back to Basics

3 Scroll Thief
1 Morphling
1 Jace, the Mindsculptor

Sb:
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Propaganda
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Masticore
1 Elixyr of Immortality

There are some MU that I really hate, and I think that these are worse MU in general for this deck:
NO Bant
Merfolk

Enchantress can be also annoying but it really depends on their list and I win as much as I loose against it.

I can really just recommend how good Chalice of the Void is in this deck. Postboard I take out 3 Force Spike for 3 Chalice against a lot of Deck and it works wonders.
Another thing is that loneley Elixyr in the sb. . This card was just amazing in all games I sided it in and is just one awesome card as a one of. This card randomly won me games and I dont wanna miss it. I would be pleased if all the people who are just thinking "OMG who plays this shitty card, NOOB!" rethink their position and test it out against decks where it makes sense to board it in.
I played 3 different Version of MUC in tourneys which had at least 60 players and I know what I am talking about and just can say that I made the best Experiences with this rather classical build. I would play the exact updated list of mine if I would go to a tourney with this deck again or the new Jaced-MUC without Duals but Basics for Firespout in the sb. and with Relics maindeck.
Feel free to discuss!

The Treefolk Master

01-25-2011, 08:33 AM

There is only 1 island in that deck.

I don't like force spike, I'd go -3 Force Spike, -3 Mana Leak, +4 Spell Snare, +4 Jace.

I am the brainwasher

01-25-2011, 08:59 AM

The rest of the deck are Islands, I forgot that one (there 15 Islands to be exact).
And as we are at beeing correct and formal, how can you cut 6 cards and add 8, and play additional 4 Jaces when there is already one:confused:? I'm just sayin... .
The Spell Snare isnt really better in this deck because when you have locked out the opponent a bit with B2B Force Spike and Mana Leak are significant upgraded. Besides that Force Spike hits more spells.
The existence for those Mana Leaks and Force Spikes is that they work so well together with B2B and are often used to force the opponent to tapp additional lands so you can blow them out, next turn or completely when B2B already is on the battlefield, regardless if their spell resolves.
Spell Snare doesnt belong in this build and I tested it in a different Version were it was surprisingly weak. I dont think that Spell Snare hits so many cards the deck cant deal with in a different way, even when B2B is a dead card against the opposing deck.

To me it seems, that you just flew over my list and decided to judge cards unworthy which are not typical Legacy-Staples and tried to replace them with stuff thats doing a great job in other lists. I would be more careful with that.

Different thing:

Meloku, the clouded mirror

I love the card and played in the past at least 2 copies of her and she was just amazing for so many different reasons.
I think just saying that she isnt removal-proof isnt enough to decide not to play her and I really want to use her, even if I am not seeing any card in my current maindeck that leaves space for her.
My first MUC version had 3 copies and Meloku worked out very well against many different kind of decks.

The Treefolk Master

01-25-2011, 09:01 AM

Sry, I meant 2 Jace.

EDIT: I base my thoughts on testing several versions of the deck, trying Mana Leak and Force Spike in the flex spots, and finding spell snare to be better most of the time. Spell Snare is never a dead card (except maybe against dredge), while force spike is in late turns.

serendib

01-25-2011, 09:33 AM

@ I am the brainwasher.

WoW. It's like 3 years I'm not playing Ophidian + quicksand. I used to love it.
I know ophidian build controls mostly the stack, and so it is not that dependant on the metagame as other controls muc are.
can you please explain me how you feel as for goblins' & zoo match up maindeck?
also You never feel the need of an additional morphling / rainbow efreet ? (I know killing via-ophidian is possible)

As for my games (with my classic list with 23 island + 11 counters) with NO Bant, natural order was always my major problem, especially on opponent's turn 3 with daze back up. When I win is most of times thanks to having drown the right counters and drop morphling fast. It sound absurd but my game plan vs bant is counter + morphling-race.

Mr. Safety

01-25-2011, 09:38 AM

Different thing:

Meloku, the clouded mirror

I love the card and played in the past at least 2 copies of her and she was just amazing for so many different reasons.
I think just saying that she isnt removal-proof isnt enough to decide not to play her and I really want to use her, even if I am not seeing any card in my current maindeck that leaves space for her.
My first MUC version had 3 copies and Meloku worked out very well against many different kind of decks.

Just attention to details...Meloku is a DUDE, not a she. Read the flavor text.

I am the brainwasher

01-25-2011, 11:57 AM

Mr. Safety:
"Just attention to details...Meloku is a DUDE, not a she. Read the flavor text. "

- :eek: You're right, thats just weird! I mean look at him/her/it. OMG... .

@Serendib:

- Zoo:
It really depends on their list. When you play against Big Zoo its not that hard, they are rather Slow and the spells are way more expensive and here I noramlly win because its easier to make good trades and you have much more time than against those evil lists with maybe 15 (!!!) 1-Drops.
Against Cat-Zoo/Straight forward versions its much harder and you really need an early Keg and Shackles to win here. Especially if the opponent starts I loose more often than I win, definetly. Postboard against those extremely Aggro-lists I take out Force of Will to not make carddisadvantage which can really cost you games. You really dont want to pitch any Blue card here, thats my oppinion. Trading a Force for a Nacatl/Ape doesnt seem too good to me.

Goblins:
Again its about their list. When they play Rishadan Port its not that easy. With Quicksand and Repeal (on the play) you have chances to handle 1st turn Lackey without FoW but with Wastelands/Port its hard. When they can resolve a Vial they will literally never cast a spell anymore (besides having you stalled out with ports) and you will find yourself with a a bunch of dead cards.
BUT If you look at it the other way around: When they only use the Vial means one Creep per turn and Shackles can handle that rather good (Siege Gang is just nuts against Shackles, avoid that guy). The huge problem is that so many spells from them produce heavy cardadvantage and might be a thread on the empty board that its hard to put yourself ahead. Not unwinable but a tough one.

NO Bant:
You are right, thats a plan and I won today a match by exact that way:laugh:. That sounds just wrong but is the way you win most of the times, IF you win against Bant:tongue:.

I really liked the Ophidians and the Scroll Thief even more and I prefer them over Jace Beleren and Accumulated knowledge because they can hit and more important block. I won a game in the metioned tourney with a single Ophidian because he managed it to kill my Morphling (:eyebrow:) and sworded two Ophids and was smart enough not to lay further creatures which couldnt attack at all with 2 Propaganda and just Duals. I hissed in his ear the last few times and won what I couldnt have won without another "critter".

serendib

01-25-2011, 01:51 PM

Some people use spash color in muc. I some times do, but what I get is a quite different deck from classic muc because it gets remouvals (6 STP)
I would like to post my UW MUC .

23 lands:

4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
2 marsh flates
1 academy ruins
1 tundra
1 underground sea
1 scrubland
2 plains
9 island

4 brainstorm
1 sensei's divining top
3 relic of progenitus
3 fact or fiction

4 force of will
4 counterspell
1 forbid

4 swords to plowshares
2 path to exile
3 vedalken shakles
4 engineered explosives

2 morphling
2 jace, the mind sculptor

side:
2 back to basics
1 rainbow efreet
2 perish
2 ethernal canonist
4 meddling mage
4 perimeter captain

-this deck is ment to destroy zoo, merfolk, goblins, bant & new horizon and aggro decks in general (considering the 75 cards)
-this deck looses to burn, high tide.
-vs control decks it's a fight. we have sure finishers (morph + efreet ) to drop on table who kills opponent finishers (planeswalkers) ... difficult for an opponent to kill us via creatures...

(I've never liked using specific counters and forbid has always been my pet card.. and this deck do not need that many counters)

the deck is stil in "work in progress". what do you think ?

I am the brainwasher

01-25-2011, 02:09 PM

I think you should think about what you want from the deck itself. If its ment to be a solid choice against all Aggro/Midrange/Creature-Based then I think its more than ok, besides that you will face serious problems, especially against all decks where your removal are dead cards. And I tell you this from the point of a Solidarity-player (which I am myself):wink:.

I am more a player who is not looking for the deck that has the best chances to win a tourney, I play what I like to play and this was everytime good for me.
What I mean by that is that I wouldnt stress your deck too much in one direction because you think that this will whoop Zoos ass because you saw much players of it at your local shop/tourney. I think its better to have nearly equal chances against each deck, but thats my oppinion.
All in all the deck looks fun to play (most of the time for you:tongue:) with it.
I was tinkering a long time for a very controllish UW deck with Baneslayer and I like the Idea of making such a deck, but i still have love for the very oldschool MUC lists. Winning with Morphling is just the bomb:cool:.
I played a MUC-version with a single swamp and plains after shadowmoor was released with engineered explosives. It was a good deck but couldnt touch my old list and I felt not so good with it.
To come back to the point, I am not sure if this list is superior to a Monoclored list in general, but I could see that it has better MU against decks that MUC really wants to avoid. I think its more like a metachoice, but I like the idea and its cool if this works out for you:wink:.

Jason

01-25-2011, 07:07 PM

The 1x Elixir of Immortality in the sideboard is interesting. Sometimes, Zoo has the reach necessary to just kill you with burn. This would help out a little bit.

As for Meloku the Clouded Mirror, ever since I had the damn thing stolen via Sower of Temptation, I refuse to run it based on principle.

The Treefolk Master

01-25-2011, 08:11 PM

Question: For what match ups is the sideboarded Masticore for?

Why 2 Powder Keg and 1 Ratchet Bomb, instead of 1 Keg and 2 Bombs? Is affinity a big player in your meta?

I am the brainwasher

01-25-2011, 09:17 PM

Powder Keg powns Mishra's Factory, Mutavault (Manlands in general), as you said Artifact lands and which is muc more important it doesnt blow away your own Back to Basics (Jace) and postboard Propaganda which would really hurt sometimes. I realized that I needed/wanted Keg more often than the Bomb and the arguments mentioned above think are a good explanation. Sometimes the Ratchet Bomb is better and not having so much porblems with Needle/Mage/Extirpate (whyever your opponent should do this...) is a good bonus to its random upgraded ability in some situations.

The Masticore comes in against deck where I had to fear that i loose somehow my single Morphling and thats what happened to me a few times and it was annyoing as hell. It really helps to have up to two Creatures that blow out every other creature, especially in the lategame. Masticore was and is just nuts when you have ridicolous ammounts of mana (where you most of the time are when you cast him) and will literally dominate the table most of the times he enters the battlefield (battlefield sounds so gay, doesnt it?).
I also board him most of the times against Merfolk and Goblins (each kind of tribal-deck and Decks with a lot of weak dorks also) and he surprisingly wins a lot of games when he sticks around.
I cutted one in my sideboard to have additional space for a 4th Vedalken Shackles which are doing the things you want as good as he does it and as an earlier impact on the game (against Zoo Masticore is obviously pretty shitty) and is a better choice in a lot of MU I think.
The single Masticore is normally enough to have at least one win-condition, especially since JTMS joined the Team and you really dont board him against all decks so I think one is fine.
Another thing is that you are sometimes able to "race" Combo with an early Masticore after you disrupted his combo for the first time time (or even before it) and being able to blow up his Confidants/Xantid Swarms isnt a bad thing either. I think I might miss here another copy but thats pretty ok and postboard the Combo-MU isnt as tight with Chalice and Blasts (Relics maybe against ill-gotten, but he normally avoids winning on that way against MUC or blue at all).

Hope I was able to point out my decisions so you could understand it properly, greetings!

serendib

01-26-2011, 03:47 AM

@ I am the brainwasher :
You comments are right. In fact I was playing baneslayer UWB control last 5 month (while I was always playing muc the previous years) but I was a little sick of killing with banslayer (needed to be protected, not difficult thing but annoying) and I want to give morphling a chance again. And I'm both playing monoU and UW in the same time. I see very difficult to set a control decks that can deal with most of the field. I think setting a control deck against an area could be better. So I usually decide to set my decks against creatures. For myself, as far as I have counterspell, FoF and morphling I'm happy.
So. Yes, my Uw control deck looses to any type of combo deck and greatly deal vs aggro and aggro control decks, with a 50% chance vs control decks (and I believe it is the player who wins mirror control matchs). It has landstill's avarage match ups but way better to my view.

To come back to the Ophidian muc.
I agree the decks runs better with f.spike and m.leak (while permanent based build run better ssnare to my view).
What do you think about mishra's factory instead of quicksand ?
I know mishra do not allow you to stop t1 lackey, but can deal with 3/3 too as well as ophidian+quicksand. A great aspect of mishra is that allows you to give combo decks a clock. When I play MUC (mono blue) I can allways deal with his first turns, but I cannot resist ANT / TES the sufficient time to kill him (with morphling is turn 9-10)

PS: Scroll Thief is a better ophidian no doubts. but he is bloody orrible compared to the old version no doubts.
Masticore is hot no doubts. I consider it a winning conditions also vs UGR decks like canadian of faeriestill UGR.

I am the brainwasher

01-26-2011, 05:15 AM

I was thinking about playing factories since I made this deck. I havent tested it enough to clearly point out how the impact on the game is in difference to the quicksand.
The thing is that you need to invest mana to activate the factory which you really dont want to spend because you need to invest it into other spells activation cost.w Also its not that reliable because it can be destroyed before blocking. Giving the opposing deck more targets for his more or less dead removal can hurt I think. Another argument for the Quicksand is that you can shrink creatures to the size where you are able to steal them with Vedalken Shackles (Vedalken Shackles only checks the power of the creature as you grab it, if it is EoT or whenever bigger Shackles doesnt care anymore and you will stay in control. Watch out for Giant Growth:laugh:)
I definetly see all the advantages of the factory and it is damn tempting. I might test it out some more and see where this gets me.

One question:

Serendib: "Scroll Thief is a better ophidian no doubts. but he is bloody orrible compared to the old version no doubts."

- What do you mean by that? Ophidians actual wording has the only advantage that it doesnt need to deal combat dmg to draw you a card; its enough to be an unblocked attacker. I often had the situation that I started beating my opponent with multiple Ophidian and disliked it that I had to decide.
Please tell me what you ment with that. Is there a trick with his old wording with that activation cost of :0: or what:confused:? I have no clue about that, seriously. I need to know!

serendib

01-26-2011, 05:37 AM

hhah no no,
Scroll Thief is better than ophidian in all ways.
It's just that Ophiadian has made the hystory of the deck and Scroll Thief seems ugly estetically speaking. no other reasons. :tongue:

Jolly_roger

01-26-2011, 10:16 AM

There is a similar dude coming in mirrodin besieged:

1UU
2/1
Shroud
When this deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.

So Thsi could be good because the deck would still be immune to to all spotremoval.

The Treefolk Master

01-26-2011, 11:29 AM

I am the brainwasher

01-26-2011, 12:12 PM

The Treefolk Master

01-26-2011, 01:02 PM

Jolly_roger

01-26-2011, 02:20 PM

Yep, thats exactly the reason not to play him. Scroll Thief doesnt die to Dark Confidant, small mongeese and all other small Banana-fighters of the Format which is indeed relevant. Besides that, nice card.

That is a downside. On the other hand, sitting and defending against a dark confidant is a sure way to lose the game since your opponent draws an extra card per turn. Regarding Nimble Moongoose, a deck like this has such a huge pain dealing with a resolved moongoose that i would not mind trading with it. A threshed moongoose laughs at both scroll thief and this dude btw.

There are upsides to this card, too, it dodges bolts, swords and incinerators.

Mr. Safety

01-26-2011, 04:56 PM

Mr. Safety:
"Just attention to details...Meloku is a DUDE, not a she. Read the flavor text. "

- :eek: You're right, thats just weird! I mean look at him/her/it. OMG... .

lolz...

paeng4983

01-26-2011, 07:26 PM

Question: Haven't you considered Wurmcoil Engine instead of Masticore? It can race all creatures (except Emrakul) in the format (take that, stupid hydra!), keep your life total "confy" and leaves some friends when he dies. Plus, he doesn't cost other cards to mantain. Just an idea.

-he's too slow
-he's prone to pte/stp and the like
-he's prone to "control target permanent" spells or abilities of your opponent

just my two cents for WCE

I am the brainwasher

01-26-2011, 07:48 PM

Agreed in all points. When you made it to turn 6 the way that you could tap yourself out safely for the WCE you should have won the game anyway:wink:.
The 4th Shackles and the Masticore are fine and most of the times enough to deal with a lot of Aggro-Decks, especially with 3 Propaganda in addition.

serendib

01-28-2011, 07:29 AM

I made some changes to my W-splashed MUC in order to rend it lighter and a little more " universal "
In the specific I add 3 trinket mage + 3 trinket targets (+ 3 E.E. also) to encrease also the card atvantage (14 cards say "draw")

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Morphling
3 Trinket Mage

4 Brainstorm
3 Fact or Fiction

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell

2 Path to Exile
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle (qasali and vial anyone?)
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Academy Ruins
4 Flooded Strand
9 Island
2 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea

SIDEBOARD
4 Meddling Mage
2 Peacekeeper (show and tell, merfolk, dredge)
1 Ray of Distortion (balance & humility)
2 Perish (zoo, bant, maverik, progenitus in general)
2 Back to Basics
3 Propaganda (goblins, dredge)
1 Chalice of the Void

Obviously is still a deck ment to defeat aggro and aggro control decks.
I think it has quite good chance against other control decks even with 8 counters only (side 4 meddling + 2 b2b +1 ray of distorsion for 7 anti-creatures cards)
It has quite bad combo match up. (side + 4 meddling + 2 b2b + 1 CotV - 2 path - 2 StP - 3 shackles)

I might try 3 jace 2 FoF split.

here you can have a visual view/statistics/sample hands (I hope the link will work)
http://magictutor.org/stat/3028

I appreciate any sort critics or ideas about it.

The Treefolk Master

01-28-2011, 09:13 AM

For the control match up/combo match up you could try extirpate.

Why a Scrubalnd in there? Woudln't another blue dual be better?

For other extirpate, you could try a Sphinx/Morphling split.

+1 to the 3 Jace/2 FoF split.

serendib

01-28-2011, 09:37 AM

extirpate vs combo is not that strong. some times you do not even have chance to play it vs ant because it is a istant, so in the area of duress & orim's chant. While meddling calling for example "infernal" or "tendrill" is better because he also makes damage. Extirpate does very little.

extirpate is good vs control of course. but very often opponents take out some creatures' remouvals because our morphling is not targettable. So meddling mage is much stronger here than in any other deck. He is also awesome vs enchantress.

I would espect advices about 4 spell pierce for 4 meddling instead.

I want 2 lands giving me black. If I put a further underground sea instead of scrubland I would have less access to white, which I need maximum on turn 3.

Iron Buddha

02-06-2011, 06:21 PM

Trinket Mage is underwhelming in my opinion. For card-advantage you are better off with straight 4 FoF or Jace TMS. Also, Decree of Justice is just stronger than Morphling in every way, isn't it?
I appreciate the good early-game package with 6 sword-effects, but I think you can push it even further by adding Spell Snare/Force Spike/Mana Leak.

The Big Ragu

02-12-2011, 11:16 AM

Word!

sedio

02-19-2011, 02:21 PM

Hi to all... My name is Claudio and I´from Uruguay..so English is not my native lenguage, so sorry about it.

well..Looking info abour MUC, I find this thread....bah..not this bur the earlier, I start to read it but it was too long .. (46 pages that thread and 82 this) and I really learn a lot..but in this time I want to be a little more expecific...
This is my deck (legacy Type)
4- Mutavault
2- Polluted Delta
2-Flooded Strand
14- Island

4-Force of Will
4-Counterspell
4-Rune Snag
4-Spell Snare or Force Spike
3-Propaganda
2-Capsize

3-Ratchet Bomb or Powder Keg
4-Ancestral Recall (I dont' like it too much)
4-Accumulated Knowledge

3-Vedalken Shackles
2-Morphling
1-Meloku the Clouded Mirror

I know that is a little out of time ..so I'm here to ask for your help..I want to update it!!
I want a REALLY control deck and of course MONO BLUE..no splashes
what is you opinion???
Thanx
Claudio

Arsenal

02-20-2011, 04:59 AM

Interesting to see people still opting to run Morphling when Sphinx of Jwar Isle is in the format. Personally, I feel that Jar Jar is better than Morphling in almost every way, especially since Morphling combat tricks were greatly neutered post-M10 rules. You'll rarely cast Morphling without having an open blue mana to Shroud him, so for all intents and purposes, he's a 6cc creature, just like Jar Jar. Morphling's maximum power output will always be 5, just like Jar Jar. But Morphling is a high maitenance girlfriend that no longer is as pretty as the lower maitenance newer upgrade. I'd suggest making the switch.

serendib

02-20-2011, 06:18 AM

Morphling and Jar Jar are the same creature but:

1) morphling needs lands
2) jar jar do not solve opponent creature problem if you need
3) morphling can be needled

personally I prefere morphling to be able to do both phases.
who does not feel the need of that option is better run sphynxs.

Piceli89

02-20-2011, 06:20 AM

4-Ancestral Recall (I dont' like it too much)

You know Vintage people would kill for that and you don't even "like it too much"? You capricious boy!

wolfstorm

02-20-2011, 08:57 AM

You know Vintage people would kill for that and you don't even "like it too much"? You capricious boy!

I laughed a little at that to.. I'm assuming he means ancestral visions

sedio

02-20-2011, 10:47 AM

You know Vintage people would kill for that and you don't even "like it too much"? You capricious boy!

jajjaj...no..my bad...the deck runs 1x Ancestral Recall and 3x Ancestral Vision, just like wolfstorm said.

I must say that my game is totally casual and I dont have any of that cards, so its to simple to me to run a Black Lotus in my decks.....the same for my Magic mates..it´s just for fun and we do.

I will consider the "Jar Jar" change for the Morphling, it looks like more agressive and let me have every mana online for cast any spell.

I need to read opinions about the deck and I really like to view one in action...there´s any video?? I want to know haw "pro's" use it..to know what to do with some spells and other stuff...
Thx
Claudio

I am the brainwasher

02-20-2011, 04:45 PM

Morphling can attack and untap and block which the Sphinx can't. Besides that he CAN come a turn faster which is also relevant against other decks. Thats enough to play him for me. If I would play other creatures as Winning-Options I would play Meloku but not that Sphinx, but thats my oppinion. My first MUC deck included 3 Melokus and 0 Morphlings and it worked out as well.
If I would find the space or find a reason for playing more than 4 win cons (Morphling, Scroll Thief/Ophidian/ Jace 2.0/Shackled creatures from opponent) I would play Meloku, as mentioned above. If anyone is siding in Pithing needle and lays it on Morphling thats totally fine for me to be honest. At the point where you drop Morphling, its over most of the times and that Needle doesnt change anything IMO. Repeal it, Keg' it, bomb' it, whatever you like, besides that things should gone wrong anyway if this is hindering your victory in that scenario.
It's tempting to play the deck again especially in the last time for me, because I havent played it for quite a time and if I do so I'll let you know, still in love with my "old" list.

Arsenal

02-20-2011, 05:01 PM

Meloku affords you a completely different avenue of attack than Morphling and Jar Jar though, so it's entirely fair to run Meloku as a supplemental win-con. Morphling and Jar Jar are competing for the same spot as they both are there to serve as the nearly-unkillable, flying, 4-turn-clock beater role.

Yes, Morphling can do things in combat that Sphinx cannot, but M10 combat rules greatly reduced his effectiveness, and are his now-meager combat tricks really worth the price of his maintenance? 1 blue for Flying, 2 mana for 5/1, 1 blue for untap, N mana for defense (that's 4 total mana even before you pump him on defense). That's a lot of mana that you're tapping during your turn and your opponent's turn, and that's not even counting an additional 1 blue you'll need to leave open for Shroud. Also, in what matchups will you be running out Morphling without an open blue mana to spare? And even if you do run him out without any blue mana to spare, what exactly does he do for you as a 3/3 blue Hill Giant?

And you're discounting the fact that Jar Jar lets you gain information a turn ahead by peeking at the top of your library. When you're deciding if you should Jace +0 or start +2 your opponent out of the game, or cracking a fetchland hoping to draw into business, peeking at that single card may aid you in your decision.

serendib

02-20-2011, 05:18 PM

@ Arsenal:
if opponent has 6/7 tarmo you can do banana split with Sphinx.
have you actually tested what you are talking about ?

Arsenal

02-20-2011, 05:26 PM

I have, extensively. In fact, if you read the earlier pages in this thread, you'll see where we've (Kadaj, myself, others when MUC was still a playable deck) already had this discussion and talked about our testing results.

Also, corner case examples don't mean much. You're telling me that your opponent resolved a 6/7 Tarmogoyf and you have absolutely nothing else on your board other than a Morphling? No Shackles, no Jace 2.0, no Meloku to create chumps? Okay buddy.

sedio

02-20-2011, 09:07 PM

Well...Morphling and "Jar Jar" is a discution and must be tested.....
What about the rest???? what do you think I mus change for more control in my MUC???

Claudio

Jason

02-21-2011, 12:53 AM

"Yousa (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Morphling) be tinking yousa betta dan de Gungan (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Sphinx%20of%20Jwar%20Isle)?"

Sphinx is totally better than Morphling; Call the Skybreaker is even better than Morphling.

Let's look at a few notable pros and cons:

+ of Morphling
it CAN come down with 5 mana
it can fly
it can have shroud
it can untap
plays great defense
- of Morphling
if it does come down with 5 mana, it dies
you have to pay mana to make it not a Hill Giant
you have to pay a mana to make it fly
you have to pay a mana to give it shroud
you have to pay a mana to untap it

+ of Sphinx
it comes down with 6 mana and you don't have to worry about it anymore
it always flies
it always has shroud
it's always a 5/5
- of Sphinx
it can't attack and block (but is good at doing either)
it trades with Tombstalker (and sometimes loses to Tarmogoyf)

Essentially Morphling is a defensive card. Sphinx is an offensive card. I've had Morphling killed the turn I cast it because I could only activate its shroud ability twice. 3x StP effects got there. With Sphinx, that would never happen. The corner cases where your opponent snuck in a 6/7 Tarmogoyf through your plethora of big-C Counterspell, Spell Snare, and Vedalken Shackles don't come up as frequent as you think. Instead, the more frequent situations feature Morphling eating all your mana so you don't have mana open to counter important things like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Humility, Wrath of God (or Pernicious Deed killing your Morphling), Natural Order, Goblin Ringleader, Sneak Attack, Show and Tell or just straight-up storm comboing you out of the game.

@sedio:
You should play more Jace TMS. The card is nuts.
If you have Affinity in your area, play Powder Keg over Ratchet Bomb. In either case, if you're playing mono-blue with no splash, I would play 4.
I don't like Ancestral Vision. It's too slow. I prefer the draw engine of 4x Brainstorm (if you play fetchlands), 3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor, 2-3x Fact or Fiction. If you aren't playing fetchlands, I've had success with 4x Impulse, 3x Jace TMS, 2-3x Fact or Fiction. My friend still stands by Think Twice but I usually end up needing the Impulse to find a land because I never hit my fourth land (even with 24).
I would also run at least 23 lands, if not 24 or 25. MUC is mana hungry and needs to hit its first four, if not six, land drops.
I've never tested Capsize. For some reason, I feel Repeal would be better. Repeal helps with the early game, where this deck is weakest. Capsize plays really strong late game, where this deck is the most powerful.
Force Spike is situationally amazing. However, I've had entire tournaments where I just wanted to tear the card in half. I wouldn't recommend running it. Spell Snare is better in nearly all situations.
If aggro decks are popular in your area, I can see Propaganda being main deck; if they're not prevalent, I'd just put it in the sideboard. It's dead (or close to it) in too many match-ups for me. I think I cut it from my 75 altogether.
Those are my suggestions.

serendib

02-21-2011, 05:00 AM

morphling can both attack and defend
sphinxs can do only one of them but cheeper
is that difficult ? use whatever you like.

let's please talk about decks.
I'm both testing these two builds:

A) permanet based for aggro metagame
22 islands
3 ponder
3 impulse
3 FoF
3 ssnare
4 counterspell
4 FoW
4 Propaganda
4 Back to basics
4 powder keg
3 shackles
2 morphling
1 rainbow efreet
side:
3 vendilion clique
3 spell pierce
2 energy field
2 relic
2 pithing needle
2 seasinger
1 capsize

B) cunning splashed build for control and counterbalance metagame:

22 lands (12 island 1 scrubland 1 plains 1 swamp 4 flooded 2 polluted 1 marsh flats)

1 morphilng
1 sfinge dell'isola jwar
3 vendilion clique

4 brainstorm
2 cunning wish
4 fact or fiction

4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 spell snare

3 swords to plowshares

3 engineered explosives
3 vedalken shakles
3 back to basics

sideboard:
1 dismantling blow
1 swords to plowshares
1 diabolic edict
1 extirpate
3 jace, the mind sculptor
3 peacekeeper
3 propaganda
2 relic

as for this build, I realized I don't actually feel jace need maindeck. mostly because my metagame is quite full of control decks and planeswalker, and jace looses to any other planeswalker, while morphling/sphinxs eat every one of them.
(and I don't play muc without at least 3X fact or fiction)
But of course I use 3X jace, the mind sculptor in my 75 cards, especially for peacekeeper gameplan and black based decks.
I'm playing cunning wish to face progenitus and emrakul maindeck, and to increase my chance vs other control decks (extirpate is often interesting target and dismantling blow is a real bomb)

talking about jace. I think (because I test) jace is not that strong in monoblue builds, but is awesome if we splash a bit.
I'm not running it maindeck because morphling/sphinx is better maindeck in my metagame (this was last turnament... there were 12 decks running counterspell and jace maindeck ... http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=5612 )

sedio

02-21-2011, 07:58 AM

@sedio:
You should play more Jace TMS. The card is nuts.
If you have Affinity in your area, play Powder Keg over Ratchet Bomb. In either case, if you're playing mono-blue with no splash, I would play 4.
I don't like Ancestral Vision. It's too slow. I prefer the draw engine of 4x Brainstorm (if you play fetchlands), 3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor, 2-3x Fact or Fiction. If you aren't playing fetchlands, I've had success with 4x Impulse, 3x Jace TMS, 2-3x Fact or Fiction. My friend still stands by Think Twice but I usually end up needing the Impulse to find a land because I never hit my fourth land (even with 24).
I would also run at least 23 lands, if not 24 or 25. MUC is mana hungry and needs to hit its first four, if not six, land drops.
I've never tested Capsize. For some reason, I feel Repeal would be better. Repeal helps with the early game, where this deck is weakest. Capsize plays really strong late game, where this deck is the most powerful.
Force Spike is situationally amazing. However, I've had entire tournaments where I just wanted to tear the card in half. I wouldn't recommend running it. Spell Snare is better in nearly all situations.
If aggro decks are popular in your area, I can see Propaganda being main deck; if they're not prevalent, I'd just put it in the sideboard. It's dead (or close to it) in too many match-ups for me. I think I cut it from my 75 altogether.
Those are my suggestions.

[detract ON]
first of all I must ask you something I'm ashamed, because I play in a very closed grup, there are some things that we don't know, and of course makes us out of update in some cases, the thing is that we do not have very clear of the deck "names" that you use
For example...whats an Aggro and whats a ZOOand an Affinity??? we made decks to play but we name it.... WG...RED Control.. MUC Control, Merfolks, Slivers....an that.......could someone explain this in a few words and I will let you wich is my metagame????THX
[/detract OFF]

returning to MUC

Jace TMS never used a Planeswalker so I don not have much expirience in managing something like that...but I'm curious I will add it
I used to use Powder Keg, but searching for some news on cards I found the Rachet Bomb and I planed to test it....but I coudn't
I play Ancestral Vision because I think it could be almast free.....it works wel.....sometimes I think that is a little slow...so..I must change it for FoF...wich I havn't tested so much to really say that is slow too and not too much relieble..I will test it again
In the case of the bouncer....most of you say Repeal...why not Boomerang?? only for the draw engine???
The same thing occurs to me with Force Spike and Spell Snare...but inverse...I think that Spell Snare is better but sometimes I just put that card (Spell Snare) in my mouth and eat it because never could play it....

Sims

02-21-2011, 09:00 AM

[detract ON]
first of all I must ask you something I'm ashamed, because I play in a very closed grup, there are some things that we don't know, and of course makes us out of update in some cases, the thing is that we do not have very clear of the deck "names" that you use
For example...whats an Aggro and whats a ZOOand an Affinity??? we made decks to play but we name it.... WG...RED Control.. MUC Control, Merfolks, Slivers....an that.......could someone explain this in a few words and I will let you wich is my metagame????THX
[/detract OFF]

Aggro is any aggressive deck. Usually depicted as playing cheap creatures and swinging to try and kill you as fast as possible through combat damage and/or a mix of creatures and burn. Zoo is a good example of this, it's 3 color aggro (RGW) that plays cards like Wild Nacatl, Tarmogoyf, knight of the reliquary, and backs them up with Lightning Bolts, Chain Lightnings, Lightning Helix, and sometimes Fireblasts. Affinity is an artifact based aggro deck that used to abuse the Affinity for Artifacts mechanic to cheat 2/2's and 4/4's onto the table for little to no mana, but lately has been playing less Affinity cards and more things like Master of Etherium, Steel Overseer, etc.... This could just be classified as Artifact Aggro. The reason, for instance, that Powder Keg is so good in this matchup is because it destroys artifacts but does not have the non-land clause of Ratchet Bomb. therefore, Powder Keg detonating with 0 counters will destroy the Affinity decks artifact lands as well as any Mox Opals, Ornithopters, or memnites they've played.

If you want to PM any deck descriptions to me I can try to attach the popular moniker's to them for you so you have a better idea of what people on the forums are describing. Best of luck in your meta.

C Rayz Walz

02-21-2011, 06:44 PM

On the topic of your Kill condition, I think that Morphling is still the top dog for our deck. There have been many times where I have to block an exalted gofy where if I had sphinx I could not do it. I really think the ability to play both offense and defense is what sets him a part. Sure he is more mana intensive, but he is still much more versatile and although the M10 rules did change him, he is still a pretty insane creature. Both offense and defense in one creature that can still protect himself. With all that he can do, imo he is much better than sphinx. My real concern is that I can't find a good draw suit for this deck. Visions is really SLOW and although jace is pretty insane, I personally don't think he fits our deck. Not running fetchlands makes him harder to use as a draw engine and he is pretty hard to protect. I have seen people run impulse, but it doesn't seem that strong to me and think twice just seems bad. What are your guys thoughts about running spell pierce in the main deck? I think it has a lot of potential to help us out.

sedio

02-21-2011, 07:16 PM

first of all...my old deck:

4-Mutavault
2-Polluted Delta
2-Flooded Strand
14-Island

4-Force of Will
4-Counterspell
4-Rune Snag
4-Spell Snare
3-Propaganda
2-Capsize

3-Powder Keg
4-Ancestral vision
4-Accumulated Knowledge

3-Vedalken Shackles
2-Morphling
1-Meloku the Clouded Mirror

and this is senerdib's MUC deck:

23 island

2 morphling
1 rainbow efreet

3 impulse
4 Fact or Fiction

4 Force of will
4 Counterspell
3 spell snare

4 powder keg
4 vedalken shackles
4 back to basics
4 propaganda

side:
4 energy field
3 hibernation
3 chalice of the void
3 pithing needle
2 jace, the mind sculptor

based on senerdib's deck...wich could be the notorious changes for an AGGRO metagame???
a lot of you talk about quicksand, fechlands, wasteland, mutavault and maybe ports....what you think???

talking about counters..only 11??? what about Force Spike, Rune Snag (I really like this card), spell pierce, etc.??

...and drowing engine??? Jace TMS, brainstorm ..............................????

let's tweack senerdib's deck!!! :P (I hope he/she don't get mad)

Arsenal

02-21-2011, 07:20 PM

sedio

02-21-2011, 07:25 PM

C Rayz Walz

02-21-2011, 07:45 PM

You can't honestly say that you will always have those cards at the right time. I mean really, you act like you always have those cards to help fight against gofy, knight, and even tombstalker. Those cards can be killed and will be killed. I am just saying that sphinx from my testing isn't as good as morphling imo. I would never play a creature in this deck that doesn't protect itself so Meloku just doesn't fit my play style. It also is not a hypothetical situation, it happens a lot that morphling will atleast give me enough time to find my answer or kill them while protecting my life total. But it doesn't really matter since you don't feel that this deck is good enough in the current meta, and that is fine where I think it has the tools to win.

Arsenal

02-21-2011, 08:17 PM

I'm not suggesting you'll have every single one of those cards, but to act like you'll have NONE of them is just silly... which is what two people have suggested.

C Rayz Walz

02-21-2011, 08:37 PM

of course you will have one of those cards, but it is silly to simply think that they won't have a response or a counter to your shackles or keg effect. Like I said before, at least for me, the ability to play offense and defense is amazing and he allows me to stall enough to find another card to deal with a gofy or big monster. There are times where sphinx might be better but overall for me at least I find morphling to be better.

serendib

02-22-2011, 04:37 AM

First, I think MUC is positioned terribly in the current meta. There are far too many basics and swarming creature strategies running around for Back to Basics and one-for-one countermagic to handle. Second, Jace 2.0 is insane and I would never run less than 2-of in anything remotely resembling a blue-based control deck. Third, Morphling has been obsoleted by Sphinx of Jwar Isle. I was one of the biggest proponents of MUC back in 2007/08/09, and back when Doks, Kadaj, Jason, and I were actively playing this deck, we had a pretty indepth discussion re: win conditions; Morphling, Call the Skybreaker, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, Meloku, Teferi, Rainbow Efreet. You name, we tested it. The general consensus was that Meloku afforded you a flying, swarming avenue to victory whereas Sphinx was just the best flying, shroud, big beater we could run (with Call the Skybreaker actually being a close 2nd). I'd suggest all of you reading this thread from Oct. 2009 posts onward to get the gist of it.

And I honestly don't get why you're running ANY win condition out on a board where you're at a disadvantage at worst or locked in a stalemate at best. This is now the 2nd time I've seen a hypothetical situation where you allowed your opponent to resolve a gigantic monster and the only hope for survival is a Morphling. Ummm.... where are the rest of your cards? No Ratchet Bomb? No Jace 2.0 unsummon? No Vedalken Shackles? No Repeal? No Capsize? No Spell Snare for the Goyf? Nothing but a single card in your hand (Morphling) and a bunch of Islands in play? Really?

You probabely think to be the only one who tested different build of muc or creatures. But you are not.
I allways talk about what I test.
and for example, as for sphinxs/morphling: I remember taking muc the following day they printed sphyinxt to a 150 people turnament (running 1 morphling and 2 sphinxs + 4 StP and 3 vedalken shakles) and I remember that I never lost a game when morphling was online, while I lost a game because sphinxs couldn't block an opponent creature (because morphling give me more Options). I know it's a quiete stupid example. but I would have entered top8 without that stupid sphinxs vs that stupid opponent stalker...
I've never sad one is better than the other. I've sad it depends on the game situation.
I stop playing muc in turnaments about one year ago because the metagame was bad. and I'm not testing it back. guess what ? I think it could be extrememly good in the metagame. guess why ? because I test. (you probabely talk)
Muc has always been the control decks which beats other blue control decks. Don't you see heaps of jace / elspeth / counterbalance around ? 4 colours deck ?
as for jace: I own a playset but I personally don't see how to fit it in my deck. In fact I'm running 3 of them in my side so that keepeng testing (with sideboard tests too) I hope to find the slot for them maindeck. (I don't like the too random configuration 2BtB 2FoF 2Jace2.0)
Last turnament (with my previous page build with 3 ponder 3 impulse 3 FoF) I made 4-2-1 drawing vs enchantress and loosing 2-0 vs Ur merfolks and loosing 2-1 vs pro-bant (I realy missplayed) and winning vs ichoride, 1 vial deck (maverick ?) 2 control decks. I didn't espect to have good results but I wanted to test the deck in a competitive turnament. to prepare myself for the next turnaments (one 80 perople and one about 300pl). I believe muc is competitive now. It is strong vs tier1 decks. much better if you run peacekeeper sideboard and splash for engineered explosives which are much better than powder keg/r.bomb (STP is an option).
is somebody testing vs competitive decks or just making literature ?

sedio

02-22-2011, 08:34 AM

could you continue the thread please??? dont´fight for something that you know that is dificult to prove...

I want to lear as much as posible about MUC...not to know who both of you have tested much more and have the reason...
Thanks...
Claudio

Arsenal

02-22-2011, 10:44 AM

First, I have said numerous times that myself + others (Kadaj, Jason, Doks, Tao, IBA, etc) in this thread were testing various win conditions; I don't understand where you got that I think I'm the only one.

Second, your scenario doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why couldn't your Sphinx block your opponent's attacking Tombstalker? Also, why was your opponent not blocking your attacking Morphling with his Tombstalker? Due to M10 combat rules, it isn't like your Morphling would be able to kill Tombstalker with stacked combat damage, then be able to pump his toughness to safe levels.

Third, anytime that Goblins (and by extension, any dedicated Aether Vial deck) is a major player in the meta, MUC will struggle. Currently, Goblins and Merfolk are placing well in large fields and newer Vial strategies are cropping up as well (Junk & Taxes, etc). This does not bode well for MUC when commonly played decks can invalidate MUC's countermagic with Aether Vial, run a lot of basic lands to avoid Back to Basics, and play creatures at varied mana costs, reducing the effectiveness of MUC's main "sweeper" Ratchet Bomb/Powder Keg.

Personally, I don't think any traditional control deck is positioned very well right now. MUC has changed very, very little in the last 3 years, while the metagame has seen major shifts and entirely new decktypes becoming competitive. If your meta is nothing but slow strategies with greedy manabases, then more power to you, but in a developed meta, MUC is not a factor.

C Rayz Walz

02-22-2011, 01:53 PM

Unless goblins has REB in the board I don't think it is very hard. Actually I think the match up is pretty easy since propaganda is very good vs them. What I think he means with the tombstalker is that morphling can block him and survive and try to stall him out where sphinx could not. If you don't think this deck is viable I don't see why you care to post in this thread. Sedio is right in the fact that we are arguing way to much and this is not helping the thread.

serendib

02-23-2011, 04:34 AM

ok. Let's talk about muc and how to build a muc:
first of all, a control deckbuild starts analyzing the metagame. what's around:
a) vial decks + aggro (merfolk, goblins, GW aggro, zoo, ichoride)
b) control decks (example 4colour counterbalance)
c) casual combo evading counterbalance lock (show & tell + order/sneek attack)
d) aggro control wihout balance (e.g. aggro bant)

how can I control:
a) vial and aggro decks ? NOT controlling the stack (my dear arsenal) BUT controlling the board: propaganda + shakles (+ b2b) stp and peacekeeper (merfolks & ichoride). is goblin a poor match up ? I don't think so. running peacekeeper merfolk is even easier.
b) control decks (mostly the so-called "supreme blue" http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/tipo.php?archetype=Supreme%20Blue&format=Legacy UWGR counterbalance )is probabely the deck I would allways like to face. They have mostly notting against a back to basics when they are tapped out. yes they run 1/2 basic islands... but they do not have basic forest. and most important: they do not have anything to face a morphling/sphinx which eat theys planeswalker.
almost every control opponent is a good mu. the reason is that our opponent has much more dead cards than we do (STP and firespout for example), we have got more counters and we draw much more. also jace landeed or UWx landstill are good match up.
c) 11 counters + hard drawing + 3 vendilion + 3 jace + 3 back to basics + 3 peacekeeper is good fun for us.
d) aggro control deck without balance are the most difficult to face . As for bant, I usually try to "race" them. I know it sounds strange, but I counter, sword, e.e., shakles a creature... and try to find a 4 turn clock creature to finish him off. I think aggro control is like a 50% match up.

I'm not saying muc can be a tier deck. I'm saying that muc can study all tiers decks and beat them.
Playing muc is quite hard in a turnament because you can't misplay.
BUT we know opponents' decks. opponents's don't know what we are playing. And we chose how to build the deck according to the metagame. that's why muc is never a bad choice... muc has not a "fix" list, all muc decks are different from each other. the skill of the builder and player (if it's good) allows you to make it competitive in turnament.

as for myself, I'm testing this build and a variant B:

22 lands (12 island 1 scrubland 1 plains 1 swamp 4 flooded 2 polluted 1 marsh flats)

1 morphilng
1 sfinge dell'isola jwar
3 vendilion clique

4 brainstorm
2 cunning wish
4 fact or fiction (FoF)

4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 spell snare

3 swords to plowshares (StP)
3 engineered explosives
3 vedalken shakles
3 back to basics (BtB)

sideboard:
1 dismantling blow
1 swords to plowshares
1 diabolic edict / hibernation
1 extirpate
3 jace, the mind sculptor
3 peacekeeper (THE solution vs merfolks and show and tell)
3 propaganda
2 relic

and variant B:
+ 3 jace TMS maindeck
+ 1StP maindeck
- 1 FoF
- 2 wish
- 1 BtB/shakles
but so far my tests make me like the wish list better.

@ Arsenal: I'm very sorry. I can repeat to you. morphling can block stalker, swing and stap. sphinx block and both die (also with morphling you can do this). (remember WE are the control player, not the tombstalker controler)
So: Morphling gives you more OpTiOnS. his only problem is the amount of mana you have. I run both because if I have mana I prefere morphling, If I don't I prefere sphinxs. Afraid of mana? play sphinxs. not afraid of mana? play morphling. not afraid of StP ? play Oona or Guile. want to play a huge one? Isleback Spawn/Call the Skybreaker.
I agree: powder keg and rachet bomb are really slow cards. I would play engineered explosives.
Peace and love.

stop talking about cards: talk about lists ! (possibily with some tests)

sedio

02-23-2011, 07:43 AM

so...taking a look at what you are testing I assume that you meta is Vial and Aggro...¿?
and about the MUC...I assume that there is no variant in blue to make it MONO blue......¿?
I will test it really hard...because I want to play one that runs well....I thint like to much the splashes....but....I must learn to live with..jaj

C Rayz Walz

02-23-2011, 03:39 PM

I am pretty sure in your list shackles really is not that great. with only 12 island, if you open with one of your white sources or black source it can cost you the game. That marsh flat seems pretty bad as well. opening with it in your hand and not being able to get a blue source seems terrible. The big problem I have with splashing another color in to this, is that if you open with one of your basics or the marsh flat, then there is a chance that you will not have double blue for your counterspell and making your shackles weaker. I am pretty sure in your list you want jace main deck since you run some shuffle effects. I know you said that you are testing this list as I am just giving you my view on your list. of course there are a lot of things I do like, like having brainstorm and e.e. I would also run 4 stp as I feel that this is way to good not to run. Let me know how your testing goes.

Arsenal

02-23-2011, 04:54 PM

@ Serendib

I'd suggest running 24-26 lands. You really, really want to hit your first 4-6 land drops without fail, and running 22 (15 of which produce actual mana) can be sketchy. Yes, you're also running Brainstorm + fetchland, but one of the nicer things MUC had going for it was that it was 100% safe from Wasteland/Stifle packages. Also, casting Brainstorm to try to dig for that 4th/5th land seems suboptimal.

Other decks can get away with running 20-22 land because (a.) their deck's curve is generally lower than MUC and (b.) they rely on tempo whereas MUC does not.

If you're willing to run StP, EE, Peacekeeper, etc, why are you just not running UWx Landstill? White offers far superior board control permanents in Humility and Moat, offers an actual sweeper in Wrath of God/Day of Judgment, and offers Elspeth and Decree of Justice as win conditions. Keep in mind, that virtually everything blue MUC runs, Landstill is able to run as well if it wants (Sower, Shackles, Jace 2.0, Fact or Fiction, etc).

To me, MUC is just that, Mono Blue Control. MUC can tout Back to Basics and 100% safety from Wasteland/Stifle packages as the main selling points, which Landstill generally cannot (although UW Landstill is able to run Back to Basics out of the SB if necessary and operate just fine most games). The moment you start messing with those advantages, you start losing deck identity.

C Rayz Walz

02-23-2011, 07:38 PM

I have to agree with Arsenal here. I think you are actually hurting this deck by not going either MUC or just landstill. As I stated before I think your mana base is pretty bad, and that is one of the strongest things about MUC. By going the route that you have right now, you are losing such powerful cards in humility and elspeth.

C Rayz Walz

02-24-2011, 04:12 AM

lately I been finding that having 4 fof is to many. It doesn't help our curve and if you open with 2 in your hand it is pretty bad. I think I am going to go back to AV since it is not mana intensive and can be played early( but the card is very slow) and can be protected pretty easily. I Think I am going to try repeal since it can be played early and allows us to get to the late game so we can control the game. What do you guys think about repeal and going down to only 2 fof? I think the repeal can really help us out in the early game.

serendib

02-24-2011, 05:47 AM

Yes, the main problem is the few land count. When I open a 4 land hand the deck goes extremely good. when I open just 2 I start having troubles if I don't see other 2 in ther next 2 turns.

I think I'll go back to 23 lands as I used to play some time ago and I was allways happy about the manabase. (Even If I have no more the third colour for e.e.)

13 islands
2 plains
1 tundra
4 flooded
3 polluted

maximum 24 (+1 island ) but defenetly not 25 because I would risk to loose to 3 lands drawed in a row

As for the choice of playing muc with splash. Well, Landstill is a completely different deck to my view. I like having wasteland-proof manabase (and landstill does not, because every wastaland he does or opponent does, it slows down). Secondly, I don't like standstill because there are some match up where you side you draw engine out (e.g. some vial decks). third reason: I like playing control decks who beats every other control decks.
last reason: I love back to basics and fof.
(I play UWb landstill too)

personally, I have troblue playing without at least 3 FoF. digging for 5 cards is the best control engine.
I allways run 4 for a reason: When I don't see/resolve fof, I loose. I prefere having one in opening hand to pitch to FoW.
(If you notice, daze are every day less popular)

the problem is to set a correct cc curve to fit them in. I usually use 7/60 heavy drops (cc4+)

a 8 cc4+ drops is really extreme but it's the only way to have both fof and jace. I don't know if it would be better but I'll try it in the next days.

2 sphynx/morphling
3 jace
3 FoF
4 brainstorm

4 swords to plowshares
3 e.e.
3 vedalken shakles
3 back to basics
4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 spell snare

with 24 lands ( 2 plains 1 tundra 4 flooded 3 polluted 14 island )
(if it's ok 23, the 60th card would be sensei's divining top)

in the side:
3/4 propaganda
3 peacekeeper
x vendilion clique
x spell pierce
x relic
x meddling mage

I've always been a lover of Mono blue without splash. But I'm quite annoyed to loose to merfolks, and to bad topdecks (powder keg is some times terrible). I think that even if we add e.e. and peacekeeper + XStP we are still playing muc.
other cards I think are too late nowadays are AVision. terrible topdeck.
while repeal is allyays a good card... but few time you are gonna pay less then 2U. so maybe criptic command is just better and more powerfull.

I'm playing several decks (and considered much more competitive than muc). But I believe this deck can come to something really good.
I would apreciate is somebody wants to test the deck too so to "cross" tests and practical opinions.

Arsenal

02-24-2011, 10:19 AM

As for the choice of playing muc with splash. Well, Landstill is a completely different deck to my view. I like having wasteland-proof manabase (and landstill does not, because every wastaland he does or opponent does, it slows down). Secondly, I don't like standstill because there are some match up where you side you draw engine out (e.g. some vial decks). third reason: I like playing control decks who beats every other control decks.
last reason: I love back to basics and fof.
(I play UWb landstill too)

Opening yourself up to Wasteland is a risk associated with being able to play stuff like Jace 2.0 and Moat in the same deck. Generally, UW Landstill should be fetching basics early, then duals only when necessary; you can definitely play around and mitigate the effects of Wasteland while not hampering your own gameplan too much.

Standstill, even if you side it out, is still better than pretty everything MUC is running for a draw engine... because MUC doesn't have a draw engine. MUC relies on some combination of Brainstorm, FoF, Jace (which Landstill also can run) in addition to janky stuff like Think Twice, Ancestral Visions, etc. If you dislike Standstill, you must really dislike MUC's draw options.

Where did you get that MUC beats other traditional control decks? Maybe in 2008, but modern Landstill lists no longer roll over to a resolved Back to Basics and some Landstill lists even run Back to Basics in their own sideboards. The old BHWW Landstill lists that MUC used to prey on no longer exist. I'd suggest looking at modern lists like Wapo-Tafa's UWg list (Krosan Grip anyone?) and straight UW lists that pretty much laugh at your win conditions (Sphinx, Morphling) and your board control permanents (Back to Basics, Vedalken Shackles).

C Rayz Walz

02-24-2011, 12:37 PM

at serendib- The problem that I have with cryptic command is that it will always cost 4 mana. I would never want to open with it in my opening hand because it has the same problem that I have with to many fof. With repeal, I like the fact that I can play it early because that is where I feel we need to work on.

I am pretty lucky because in my meta there are a lot of 4 color decks where back to basic does just ruin them. Right now I don't think control decks have a great draw engine. I think stanstill is HORRIBLE in landstill variants and fof is to much mana to play as a 4 of. Brainstorm to me is card manipulation since it doesn't really give you card advantage. There are a lot of things that I do like about AV but it is so bad when you don't play it on your 1st couple of turns since it is so slow. I would love to play TFK but I don't support enough artifacts to really run it, and 3 mana is still a lot imo.

On a side note what do you guys think about MD spell pierce? I would love to have another one casting counterspell, but unsure if it is good enough to main deck.

serendib

03-15-2011, 07:01 AM

After my last turnaments (not with muc) I come to the following "conclusions" about Muc:

#1) I think one of the problem with MUC is the draw engine.

I express the concept better: If I run 4 brainstorm/impulse + 4fact or fiction which is good, I am playing 4 cantrips and 4 card advantage spell. BUT If in a turnament I don't find my FoF or the first one I find gets countered, I'm out of the game. (and playing FoF at turn 4/5 usually means not doing anything alse in that turn if we don't have a FoW)
As for now, I believe MUC needs to be set with less "bombs" (like FoF) and A LOT of spell with written on "DO SOMETHING AND DRAW".
to give an example: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=94&iddeck=885
I personally don't like this list too much and I believe is not really in meta. But it has 17 cards with written the word "draw" on them. which is good.

#2) I need less hate-able spells. the most important one is powder keg/rachet bomb. Engineered explosives are much better topdecks and very important : they are not destroyable with krosan grip or other spells if you play them like that (enters? ok! I sacrifice!.. never pass and give the change to your opponent to krip)

#3) lower casting cost, more draw spell, not too many lands is the key (don't want to lose a game because I draw 3 land in a row). AND very very Few dead cards in my hand. for example I'm not a fan of spell snare. And at least 1/4 of the deck needs to solve me the problem of an opponent thread already on board. Controling the stack is a poor strategic plan to my view.

#4) because of all these aspects muc needs splash Uxy. White for sure. as for the second colour I'm between red and black. black provides perish, but IF we for example play relic maindeck, red could be better (vs green creatures sacrifice relic and do firespout = wrath of god + draw a card -> huge card advantage ) because provides good options vs aggro that black do not give us.

Something like this list is what I mean (I have not tested it, It's just to give an idea of the type of deck I mean)

4 flooded strand
3 scalding tarn
1 arid mesa
1 tundra
1 volcanic island
1 mountain
1 plains
10 island [tot#22]

1 sphinxs (too many fetch to run morphling)
3 vendilion clique
3 jace
3 trinket mage

4 engineered explosives
3 relic of progenitus

4 swords to plowshares
3 fire//ice
3 vedalken shackles

4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 counterspell (tot#61... need to cut to 60 obv.)

[about 18/19 cards can make us draw an other card if we want or need]

sideboard:
2 back to basics
1 blood moon (or B2B #3)
3 spell pierce
3 peacekeeper (GOD vs merfolks, show and tell and dredge)
2 red elemental blast
1 pithing needle
3 firespout / lighnting bolt

I've being playing monoUcontrol decks since urza (since when morphling & masticore were printed). I love monoU and it allways fashinate me. but I believe it's time to splash if we want to be competitive (3 years ago we were competitive not splashing)... othervise we are just playing a pet deck.
We cannot control the stack anymore like when we were playing with Ophidian, we have no more the best legacy creatures and a draw spell nowadays needs to DO SOMETHING + DRAW A CARD (not just draw...) and we need to minimize dead cards in the deck.

what you think ? Could this be the way to work on MUC ?

(Yeah, It's still muc to my view, even if it runs remouval spells. landstill is a completely different deck )

kramer733

03-16-2011, 03:57 PM

serendib, don't you feel like you need jace the mind sculptor though?

serendib

03-18-2011, 06:29 AM

Yes, I do. I play 3. but with remouval spells.

sillyandrew

03-18-2011, 12:58 PM

The idea of running jace (big or little) in a list like this kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. why would you want a win condition that aggro decks can attack directly? rather than a win condition that can block and kill of enemy threats? It seems a little counter int uitive to me, and if your arg ument is that creatures attacking jace instead of attacking you buys you the time you need to win, than the rest of your deck isn't working t he way it should be. It may just be a personal preference of mine, but I've never been a fan of either jace in a deck list like this.

The morphling vs. Sphinx of jwar isle issue has weighed fairly heavy on my mind. The sphinx is certainly bigger and requires less free mana to operate, but doesn't provide the options that morphling has. I'm stating the obvious here, but I'm not really convinced in either direction. This, again, mit come down to a matter of preference.

Brainstorming (pun intended) about the sphinx has lead to a few interesting ideas though. Has anyone considered running predict as a draw option? Alongside brainstorm, the sphinx, and maybe (gasp) the inclusion of a few memory lapse, might prove to be the card advantage we need. Maybe something like 4x brainstorm, 4x predict, 4x FoF, alongside fetches, sphinx and 2 memory lapse? It might be kind of gimmicky, but i feel like it has potential.

And that brings me to memory lapse, it might be stupid, but i love the idea of countering a spell and keeping an opponent a turn away from threshold, or keeping a key recursion card out of the graveyard for a turn. And locking them out of a draw? And comboing with predict? I haven't play tested it, but I'm going to start.

And with that, I'll keep the rest of my unorthodox choices to myself for now..

I am the brainwasher

03-18-2011, 02:54 PM

I think Remand outclassed Memory Lapse. Sure, often its not that useful in the sense you want it to be as Memory Lapse but its great because you are able to Remand own spells and if you want to delay the opponent it replaces itself, not that shitty but it might also be that I just played too much Solidarity:laugh:.
Still like the idea of delaying but I think that it isnt that effective in the form of such a card. Propaganda and Keg/Bomb should do a good job, especially when you can combine it with Repeal in your list. That works out for me quite well.

Jason

03-18-2011, 03:02 PM

Predict is really good against players who like to flip Sensei's Divining Top, one of the most annoying cards for control decks to battle against. Because of that, Predict is not a bad idea at all. If you are running mono-blue with 22-25 Islands, Predicting yourself, naming Island, isn't a bad play, either. If you aren't running mono-blue, Brainstorm + Predict is a powerful play, also. I wouldn't run Memory Lapse just to "combo" with it though. That seems pretty awful.

sillyandrew

04-07-2011, 12:22 AM

so here's the decklist i've compiled after quite a bit of debate, research, and slight playtesting. i'm fairly dead-set on it's composition, but of course, i'm open to suggestions.

--------

23 islands

2 morphling
1 rainbow efreet

3 back to basics
3 propaganda
4 powder keg

4 force spike
4 counterspell
4 force of will

4 brainstorm
4 accumulated knowledge
4 fact or fiction

sideboard:
2 pithing need
3 relic of progenitus
1 propaganda
1 back to basics
4 mindbreak trap
4 hydroblast

--------

right off the bat, i have three changes that i'm torn on making:

1: brainstorm vs. preordain. brainstorm is an amazing card, and has been a personal favorite of mine ever since it saw print, but i really don't know if it's pulling it's weight without shuffle effects. i will say though, that being able to hide cards from duress is pretty nifty, though unreliable. preordain's speed is the liability that keeps it off my list, honestly, but i'm wondering if it's utility might be worth it anyway. i've also considered running peek in this cardslot, but honestly haven't give it much thought.

2: accumulated knowledge. in the limited playtesting that i've done, this card slot has been impulse, predict, and counterspells 13-16. my conclusion is that it needs to be draw, rather than counter. impulse digs like a champ, but doesn't provide the steam that i need, though i can bury cards that i've returned with brainstorm. obvious statements. i know. a lot of people have said that AK is too slow, but the deck is super slow itself, so it's never seemed to bother me. i'm also unafraid of dropping one in the graveyard from a well split fact or fiction. overall though, i'm unconvinced, and might try running impulse as a three-of, and add a second rainbow efreet.

3: the sideboard. hydroblast vs. chill? as of right now, i'm leaning towards hydroblast, because it's a faster/after the fact answer to turn one lackey. opinions? relic counts? pithing needle?

--------

conclusions that i've drawn/stubborn changes i refuse to make:

1. i'll probably never run a mono-blue control deck without force spike. mostly, it's a personal preference, but on the play with a brainstorm and a force spike in hand makes me smile every turn. turn 1-2, force spike plays like force of will, and that's all i'll ever need to convince myself it's a solid card. late game, it pitches, helps tap lands for back to basics, and can get lucky against players who tap out.

2. i refuse to splash. i'm a purist, and probably always will be. my mono-blue decks will always be just that.

3. big jace is out of my price range at the moment, and i'm fundamentally opposed to running him (see above posts). it's something i've considered, but not very in depth.

4. powder keg > ratchet bomb. powder keg can blow for three safely. ratchet bomb blows for three and takes propaganda and back to basics with it. also, powder keg is usually a turn faster.

5. i won't run fetch lands. albeit minutely, fetches thin the deck, and muc absolutely needs to nail it's land drops. it's really, extremely counter-intuitive to run fetches (in my opinion). also, the last thing the deck needs is to get hit with an early game stifle and crumble.

6. morphling is still the best. in just about every game i played with a different creature, i found myself wishing it could "U: untap." my hero, hands down.

-------

currently i'm not running vedalken shackles, which is probably an oversight on my part. that is all.

Jason

04-07-2011, 01:59 PM

I'd run Top before Brainstorm in a mono blue list without fetchlands. I'd run Impulse before Top. So instead of Brainstorm, I'd say play Impulse. You aren't ever going to get late-game value out of it without fetches. Impulse late-game is still solid because it digs so deep. That's why I don't like Ponder and Preordain in this deck.. they don't dig as deep as Impulse.

I am still sold that Think Twice is better than Accumulated Knowledge.
AK #1 draws 1 card.
AK #2 draws 2 cards (3 cards total).
AK #3 draws 3 cards (6 cards total).
AK #4 draws 4 cards (10 cards total).
TT #1 draws 2 cards.
TT #2 draws 2 cards (4 cards total).
TT #3 draws 2 cards (6 cards total).
TT #4 draws 2 cards (8 cards total).

So Think Twice draws more total cards than Accumulated Knowledge until the third one cast.. and even then, they are tied. It's not until you cast the fourth one where AK becomes better. How often do you honestly cast all four AK? Yes, Fact or Fictioning away AK is probably better than FoFing away TT but you still gain value off the card so it's not a completely lost scenario. Plus, it is always awkward when you come to someone still trying to play Intuition into AK. The AK/AK mirror match is almost as annoying as the Cloudpost/Cloudpost mirror match.

I think you need to be running Shackles; it is a pivotal card in the deck. Maybe shave 1/1/1 on your draws/filtering? So:
-1 Brainstorm (Impulse if you take my suggestion)
-1 Accumulated Knowledge (Think Twice would be almost necessary if you are cutting an AK)
-1 Fact or Fiction
+3 Vedalken Shackles

How has Propaganda in the main deck been? I was never a fan of it, but I was always trying to fit some number in, especially when I was running Mana Leak. Speaking of which, I like it moreso than Force Spike. After turn 3, Force Spike was always dead in my hand. Mana Leak almost never was.

Blackmagic

04-09-2011, 06:46 AM

Has anyone tried Consecrated Sphinx out?
It could get out of hand, even if you're opponent kills it after drawing one card you didn't lose out on card advantage... It also works well with Jace V1 +2 ability...

I've been testing out a deck running 2 Consecrated Sphinx, 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 3 Vedalken Shackles and 2 Umezawe's Jitte to see how it goes and it hasn't been doing too bad, anyone else willing to try it out and say what they think about it?
Having removal in the form of jitte is rather refreshing and the revoker can slow down someone playing aether vial. It's also the reason why I've been testing Consecrated Sphinx as I can't use Jitte on shroud creatures. I should probably try out Morphling as well...

Any other Ideas or input into this thought, as I'm trying something new don't be too harsh before trying it yourself...

Oh and can anyone think of examples were the revokers ability to stop mana abilities would be relevant in MUC's bad matchups? I put it in the deck mainly against vials but it can also stop lotus petals and LED's is it releavant though? Maybe it's ability to stop Noble Hierarchs could sometimes be useful.... thoughts?

GGoober

04-09-2011, 11:34 AM

4eak

04-09-2011, 11:53 AM

Edit: Metalwalker pointed it out while I was thinking about and writing this.

I am still sold that Think Twice is better than Accumulated Knowledge.
AK #1 draws 1 card.
AK #2 draws 2 cards (3 cards total).
AK #3 draws 3 cards (6 cards total).
AK #4 draws 4 cards (10 cards total).
TT #1 draws 2 cards.
TT #2 draws 2 cards (4 cards total).
TT #3 draws 2 cards (6 cards total).
TT #4 draws 2 cards (8 cards total).

I totally recognize that TT draws more cards per game than AK does -- you might only seen 35/60 cards in an average game. But, I'm not sure if that is really the only consideration that matters here.

Mana efficiency matters, even in a dedicated control deck. AK is both mana efficient and playable at almost all stages of the game (some mana efficient draw spells just cost too much, so this is worth pointing out).

Mana spent per card:
AK #1 -- 2.0 mana
AK #2 -- 1.0 mana (1.3 average mana per card)
AK #3 -- 0.7 mana (1.0 average mana per card)
AK #4 -- 0.5 mana (0.8 average mana per card)
TT #1 -- 2.5 mana
TT #2 -- 2.5 mana (2.5 average mana per card)
TT #3 -- 2.5 mana (2.5 average mana per card)
TT #4 -- 2.5 mana (2.5 average mana per card)

(Obviously, we can average 2.0 mana per card if we don't flashback, but that isn't the point of the exercise -- AK is still more efficient on the 2nd or after)

I'm inclined to agree that TT is better than AK, but not by the same margin you imply. Overall, I prefer Impulse to both of them.

peace,
4eak

Jason

04-09-2011, 02:47 PM

That's fair. I forgot about mana efficiency. However, if you have the ability to eot AK/TT then you probably have a good board position. That would mean it's unlikely you were doing anything with the mana anyway. I would rather do something with my mana every turn so it isn't a lost resource. I've been in many situations where it was a mid-game stall and Think Twice pulled me out of it because I was using my mana to draw cards. It's similar to why Whispers of the Muse wasn't awful.

I'm not saying Think Twice is worth a slot in the deck. I don't think it is. I just feel it's better than AK.

Clark Kant

04-09-2011, 03:22 PM

AK is only worthwhile in combination with Intution, even in a control deck. I usually find 4 Fact of Fiction more than sufficient for card draw.

Also not a big fan of morphling ever since the rules change that made it much worse during combat. Vastly prefer something like Call the Skybreaker or hell, even the shroud turtle.

C Rayz Walz

04-09-2011, 08:39 PM

I to have a list with jitte in the deck and it has been amazing for me. it helps wins attrition wars and it really powerful even if we don't run that many creatures. a lot of you may think it isn't that good but I have had very good results with it. I think for me at least it is a keeper in the deck and no one expects it. I Jitte a lot in the deck!

GGoober

04-10-2011, 05:28 PM

Personally I'll play Impulse over AK over TT. TT is really good on paper, and in practice is good when you can afford 3mana EOT. At least, I seldom see that happening when playing control in Legacy these days. Turns 1-3 are the most crucial turns, and affording the initial 3 mana to draw 1 is quite bad. The thing I like about AK over TT is that it's only bad on the first AK, the 2nd AK is quite significantly good (consider the next best spell after Standstill is Predict which situationally draws 2). Regardless, in a deck like MUC, I would play Impulse over AK/TT, but just Impulse won't cut it itself since it's never really generating card advantage, that's why Shackles/FoF are so good in this deck because they generate either pseudo or hard card advantage when the deck is gaining control.

Do most lists now tend to be a Ux splash these days? I find it hard not to play with a Splash and going mono-blue.

Clark Kant

04-11-2011, 12:00 AM

Yes, Impulse is amazing. Way better than Accumilated Knowledge unless you are pairing it with Intuition.

Iron Buddha

04-11-2011, 07:28 AM

Don't forget Thirst for Knowledge. If you pack artefact lands / artefact accelerators it's almost on the same powerlevel as Fact or Fiction.

GGoober

04-11-2011, 11:09 AM

Yes, Impulse is amazing. Way better than Accumilated Knowledge unless you are pairing it with Intuition.

That's the fallacy though. AK with Intuition is obviously good, but is Intuition good in MUC? Unlikely. Is AK still good without Intuition? My point was to say yes, that you break even on the 2nd AK (i.e. there's no other spell that draws 2 for 2 mana at instant speed without drawbacks in the format, i.e. the comparison against Predict).

Iron Buddha, I used to play TfK, it was awesome in a build with 3 Tops, 4 Shackles, 2 EE, 1 Disk, but that was like 4 years ago when I played the deck :P I'm interested in taking on MUC again someday though since it's probably one of the most nostalgic deck that works great in right metagames (i.e. Wasteland heavy, non-basic heavy metagames).

serendib

04-11-2011, 11:25 AM

I love Ak so much that I have my foil signed nemesis playset.
But I wouldn't play it.
MUC needs to play relic of progenitus 3X maindeck.
It Auto-cicles and makes tarmo and knight much smaller for 2 turns. So It's like being killed 1/2 turn later, thus allowing me to draw 1/2 more cards and 1/2 more land drops.
and relic allows to take every green creature with shakles much faster.

to make card advantage I would use thirst for knowldge or FoF.

sillyandrew

04-18-2011, 06:38 PM

i played muc at this weekend's providencee gpt. the write up is here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20606-Mono-Blue-Control-GPT-Providence-RI-4-16-11

I am the brainwasher

04-18-2011, 07:07 PM

Winning against Solidarity is nearly impossible with MUC if you are facing a skilled player of the deck (which you normally should, otherwise he wouldnt even consider touching the deck). I played both MUC and Solidarity for enough time to make competent statements and its truly the nightmare of MUC getting paired to it. I never played against a deck (in both perspectives) where the chance of winning was so marginal, so dont have too much hope on winning here (dont want to crush any estimations, just my experience). I won against hands full of different Counterspells and took it down with only a single Remand, and this is no rare case, even if you have Chalice (which I totally prefer in MUC's board for reasons I mentioned before in the Thread) its damn tough and constant wins are miles away.
Even if I cant say congrats on your finish (6th out of 10 players isnt giving a real statement, I am sure youll admit that) I apprecieate the work you did on recreating the tournament and like that players in general pick up the deck, kepp it up.

sillyandrew

04-18-2011, 08:05 PM

like I said in the write up, it was my first time ever playing against solidarity, and for the time being, I'm chalking my loss up to that reason alone. While I'm in no way suggesting that the match up is in any way favorable, even slightly, I don't think it's all that impossible. Iretrospect there were times when I made fairly obvious mistakes, even if they are only obvious now, after the fact.

In regards to my finish, yeah, i got pretty wrecked, haha.

As far as the experience goes though, it raised and answered a few questions about the deck for me:

1. AK does work. There were only a few games where i drew less than three cards off of them, and the card advantage really helped. also, I situations where I need to draw a land, impulse just seems tp dig past them, as it's extremely painful needing to bottom deck a fow or a beater.

2. Brainstorms synergy with fct or fiction seems to be enough to justify it's place in a deck without fetch lands. Yay? Or nay?

3. I feel like my list needs more creatures, a little more cost effective, at that. There has to be some options under the radar out there.

C Rayz Walz

04-19-2011, 01:32 AM

I love MUC so much but do you think that it is better then uwx control? Having stp and path is really huge, and elspeth is very good as well. I want a reason to play this over UWX but I don't really see it being better in any way personally which kind of sucks since this is my favorite deck of all time. So lets talk about your list

In your list you really need to get shackles since I think that card is by far the best card in this deck. I personally would never play a control deck with out. I don't really like brainstorm in this deck at all with out fetch lands. interesting to hear that AK actually work for you. I know that a lot of people say it is pretty bad since on the 1st one it is just horrible. How were the propagands, back to basic, and powder keg for you. I HATE powder keg with a passion as I feel it is way to slow for me. Glad yo hear from you that morphling seem to be pretty powerful for you. I know a lot of people running sphinx of jwar isle might be better since he is less mana intensive. I personally think that morphling is better, but I love to hear other peoples thoughts about the 2 creatures. If you are looking for another creature to add in I highly recommend vendilion clique for you. This guy is awesome for us in this deck. He does a lot since he allows us to peek at the other playes hand and give you info. You also don't need to tap out for him on your turn which I personally think is pretty huege. How good was rainbow efreet for you. He seems pretty lack luster and what was your reason to run him? Why force spike over spell snare or spell pierce?

Lets get more talking done and more testing so we can find the best possible list for MUC Looking forward to your response.

Kich867

04-19-2011, 05:14 AM

I'm honestly pretty surprised more people aren't favorable of AK. I playtest with sillyandrew frequently and notice a pretty dramatic increase of pressure when he runs AK's over something like Impulse. I've read comparisons to Think Twice earlier in the thread, and while on paper it sounds good to get 2 for 1 for the first 2 and break even on the third, AK is just outrageously efficient in both mana cost and time (which is huge). You won't always have (rarely if ever actually until it's late game) 5 mana open EOT to TT and flash it back. But you pretty frequently have 2 mana open. In the event you have 4+ mana open, you'd rather FoF anyways, no?

AK draws more cards in less time for less mana than the alternatives, impulse in the off-chance can actually kind of screw you over and will only ever cantrip, and think twice costs a ton and takes forever to get any real use out of it.

TheKingslayer

04-19-2011, 01:05 PM

I must say that Vedalken Shackles is an absolute must in MUC. Not only does it allow you to steal your opponents creatures like a thieving bastard, it often fulfills its greatest role in completely stalling your opponent out. I used to run two, but upped the count to four upon witnessing the raw, god-like power the resonates around the card in a divine aura when you drop it onto the field. I would maindeck it over propaganda. Here I have a list I have been using lately that is geared towards holding its own in a sometimes creature infested meta.

Creatures
2 Morphling
1 Meloku

Spells
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Rune Snag
2 Cryptic Command
3 Echoing Truth

Artifacts
4 Vedalken Shackles
3 Powder Keg

Land
4 Polluted delta
19 Island

My sideboard usually consists of the following cards:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Evacuation
1 Echoing Truth
4 Back to Basics

And sometimes it contains
4 Propaganda
3-4 Chill
4 Arcane Laboratory- Great against combo if you can stick it in time
4 Pithing needle
This is all dependent upon what I anticipate running into.

Overall, I'm surprised more people do not run Echoing truth, as it is an extremely powerful card- particularly against ichorid.

As well, it seems illogical, to me, to run repeal over Cryptic Command, as usually any permanent targeted with Repeal will atleast cost 3. Cryptic command can practically serve as a time walk, while still serving the same function of repeal.

If you do not enjoy powder keg, I suggest ratchet bomb (it can blow up planeswalkers, is a bit faster than keg, but can not destroy artifact lands) or engineered explosives.

As Kich said, AK is simply extremely efficient. I can not ever see myself running think twice of AK. Look at it in terms of an investment that will grow as your opponent runs out of steam.

serendib

04-19-2011, 01:46 PM

accumulated knowldge is of course superior to think twice
think twince costs too much mana

C Rayz Walz

04-19-2011, 02:30 PM

Bomb is no way any faster then keg. You put a counter on your upkeep with keg, and you tap to put a counter on bomb. It has the same speed but different uses. Still do not like those kinds of cards but they might be needed which blows. I am however going to retry Ak {love that card as well) as the more I think about it the better I like it. The thing about repeal over command is that you can pay 2 mana for repeal to bounce a 1 drop. The fact that it doesn't always cost 4 mana like command is what appeals to me since I hate opening a hand with command and fof in it. Just feels very clunky to me wit all of those 4 drops ( I also run jace)

TheKingslayer

04-19-2011, 04:45 PM

I've tried subbing out AK's for a large number of cards, but I always come right back to it. It's so satisfying late game. I agree on the matter of think twice. Why, in god's name, would one run think twice over AK?

I don't run Jace, because I feel I have too little creatures on board to ensure my walker's survival. However, I'm sure he essentially serves a purpose in that respect as well.

Let me revoke the statement about ratchet bomb as well.

If I run any bounce, I run echoing truth, simply to protect myself against tokens and scary multiples, and it costs two. I only allow Cryptic command to assume two slots for the very reason you choose not to run it. It is just a very, very powerful spell. Though, I can see the advantages of a cantriping bounce spell for use in the early game. Just personal preferences, I suppose.

TheKingslayer

04-19-2011, 04:48 PM

Also, Brainstorm has proven invaluable in digging up land drops, force of wills, counter spells, and providing a means for general pacing for me to drop it. Of course it only nets you one card, but it sets you at pace and digs deep for answers. Invaluable. A few fetches for dissatisfied digs helps greatly.

C Rayz Walz

04-19-2011, 06:51 PM

I don't like brainstorm in this deck at all. If I would try to add something that finds me land or counters I would rather run ponder or impulse over brainstorm.

Kich867

04-19-2011, 07:59 PM

I don't like brainstorm in this deck at all. If I would try to add something that finds me land or counters I would rather run ponder or impulse over brainstorm.

That's a pretty interesting point of view, perhaps try running AK / FOF / Impulse? On the flip side, Brainstorm digs down 3, lets you rearrange/hide cards, and doesn't force you to lose those 2 cards you put back. If you did, you can fetch shuffle them away. Impulse digs a little deeper and a lot faster, and there's definitely something to be said about that.

Jason

04-19-2011, 07:59 PM

@sillyandrew: High Tide decks are really tough to beat with MUC. You're basically correct in the fact you have to drop Morphling/Efreet/some win condition as fast as possible and then hope they don't go off that turn you tapped out for the creature. I'm lucky to have only played against Solidarity with MUC once in actual tournaments; shockingly turn 7 Call the Skybreaker got there for me both games. I usually let High Tides resolve if I'm completely untapped. Meditates, Time Spirals, Cunning Wish (most of the time) are the cards that are absolute must-counter.

Against Countertop Thopters, I'd say MUC is usually favored; however, turn 1 Sensei's Divining Top is the most annoying card (outside of Goblin Lackey) any opponent can play against you. If I have the opportunity to do so, I Force of Will the top every time. It's too difficult to overcome the opponent having a much higher probability of drawing a threat. It's hard to keep a board under control when your opponent is continually drawing something relevant.

I'm interested to know why you ran Propaganda in the main deck. Seeing as you played against High Tide and Countertop Thopters, Propaganda is really not very good (it's so-so at best against Team America, also). If you were expecting to be paired against Affinity, Goblins and other tribal shenanigans then I could understand. Did you just miss those match-ups or did you misread the meta? Also, I think all MUC decks should be packing some number of Vedalken Shackles. If you expect to see those tribal decks, then run Propaganda alongside Vedalken Shackles. But I would never run Propaganda over Shackles.

I don't think your list needs more creatures; I do think it needs more win conditions, though. Jace 2.0 is a really powerful win-condition on an empty board (by blanking the topdeck of your opponent) and, if need be, is board stall (with its bounce) or card advantage (in Brainstorm). Jace, TMS is the Swiss Army Knife of win conditions.

I'm not going to bring up again my issues with running Force Spike, Accumulated Knowledge, (and less so) Morphling and Rainbow Efreet - you can look back in the thread to see what choices I make over them if you want; however, I would at least shave off one Force Spike and one Back to Basics (it just doesn't always get the job done) to add two Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Also, I'd change the 3x Propaganda for 3x Vedalken Shackles. I'd also try and find a way to fit a 24th land in the deck (I personally run Academy Ruins for 2 reasons: opposing Academy Ruins and recurring Shackles/Kegs is sometimes very handy).

Instead of Mindbreak Trap in the sideboard, why not try Chalice of the Void? I've always been a fan of Chalice against combo decks. It oftentimes buys you the time necessary to find your win-conditions. Mindbreak Trap is basically another Force of Will. That's not overly necessary, seeing as most of the time, you will have enough lands to cast your Counterspells anyway. If they have the ability to fight through your untapped Islands, they are going to have the wherewithal to power through a Mindbreak Trap.

Hope you keep playing this deck; it's always a favorite of mine!

C Rayz Walz

04-19-2011, 09:05 PM

What do you guys think of Mental Misstep for this deck. Personally I find this card to be pretty broken, but now this deck might have 8 counterspells to deal with lackey and vial and even top when on the draw. Seems like a pretty insane card. This card might make control come back and maybe even make this deck viable again ( hope so since it is my favorite).

Yea AK is pretty rough. I have played some games with it today and I always hate wasting 2 mana to draw one card. That makes this card not as good imo and not sure if it should be here. I guess drawing 2 cards for 2 mana is okay and beyond that is obviously really good, but just that 1st AK always makes me cry.

I agree the more I play with jace in this deck the more I like him. I would suggest trying him out as I feel he is pretty powerful.

sillyandrew

04-20-2011, 12:13 AM

@jason: my meta was blind. it was the first time i had ever played legacy at my local card shop, and the propaganda seemed like a pretty good call. there was an affinity, a zoo, and a R/w goblins that i missed the match ups on. propaganda was a pretty dead card all night, but it served me well enough in playtesting to keep on my final list. as soon as i can get my hands on some shackles, i'm going to play around with that card slot. i'm a little scared to drop propagandas completely, so i'm probably going to try and find some balance there.

on paper, i think i'm leaning towards -1 back to basics, -4 force spike, +1 fact or fiction, +3/4 shackles, +0/1 rainbow efreet, +0/1 island. i'm a little worried about my mana curve if i do decide to cut force spikes, however.

in regards to jace the mindsculptor, i get a little hung up on a point you yourself raised, "agianst an empty board." i just don't see how i can keep him alive long enough to really make a difference if an enemy creature sneaks through counters. also, he's hella expensive at the moment, and i'd rather invest money in other components of the deck, honestly. i don't doubt his power, he's really broken, i just don't think he works up to his potential in a deck like this. either way, MUC has always been a pet deck of mine (mostly in casual), and jace or not, i'll be repping it to the end.

chalice of the voild over mindbreak trap is something i never considered. i hate the idea of chalice hurting myself as well, but i suppose that's something i could play around with. all of the forums i read seemed pretty adamant about staying away from chalice, and for good reason, but i guess it would dodge a lot of bullets in the sideboard, rather than main deck.

--------

@c rayz walz: i too, am pretty stoked for mental misstep. i don't know if it'll get MUC back into any kind of limelight, but it's certainly an interesting addition.

--------

in regards to the draw spell debate, all i can really say for sure is that impulse always makes me kind of nervous. there have been numerous situations where i've needed a land or a counter pretty badly, and impulse turns up the cards i need alongside a morphling. in a situation where a win condition is on the stack, and i cast impulse to dig for a force of will, the last thing i want to do is bottom deck a win condition of my own. even if AK or brainstorm can't dig as deep as impulse can, i'd rather not have to bottom deck cards i'd really love to see in a few turns. that's my biggest complaint. i've yet to try the fof/ak/impulse set up that's been suggested, but i feel like if brainstorm is going to be replaced, i'd be more likely to replace it with a one drop.

on the play, a hand with island, braintstorm, force spike, and any other four cards feels fantastic, and i'd really hate to bastardize my deck by taking that opportunity away from it.

Jason

04-20-2011, 12:39 AM

in regards to jace the mindsculptor, i get a little hung up on a point you yourself raised, "agianst an empty board." i just don't see how i can keep him alive long enough to really make a difference if an enemy creature sneaks through counters. also, he's hella expensive at the moment, and i'd rather invest money in other components of the deck, honestly. i don't doubt his power, he's really broken, i just don't think he works up to his potential in a deck like this. either way, MUC has always been a pet deck of mine (mostly in casual), and jace or not, i'll be repping it to the end.

Jace is insane. Rarely, when I have an opportunity to cast him is there more than one creature in play. Use his -1 and bounce the creature. Then counter it. Or if the power of the creature is less than 5, you can even fateseal the opponent to make him draw a blank, giving your self one more turn before choosing to bounce/steal the creature with Shackles/brainstorm. In my opinion Jace is an auto-include in any blue (pure) control deck. The price is an issue, though, so I can totally understand not wanting to play him because of the price tag. Hopefully he gets banned in standard and drops a little bit. I need a fourth but I can't justify dishing out the money for one when I know it will drop in price... eventually.

About Mental Misstep: This card is nuts. It should see play in every deck not running Chalice of the Void and Sol lands. Basically, it reads:
0
Instant
Counter target format. (This card can be pitched to Force of Will.)

serendib

04-20-2011, 04:20 AM

mental misstep (If it's not a fake card)
-is a dangerous card for control decks running swords to plowshares
-but is great for muc as far as it runs very few cc1 spells (opponents will play it too for sure)

for example, it could be very interesting in a build like this one:

20 island
1 misty rainforest
1 flooded strand
1 polluted delta

4 Sower of Temptation
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Morphling

4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 spell snare
3 mental misstep

4 vedalken shackles

4 fact or fiction
4 impulse

sideboard:
3 energy field
3 back to basics
2 rachet bomb
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
3 relic of progenitus
3 spell pierce

what you think ?
( in muc without remouval spells I still prefere morphling instead of jace as far as morphling kills any kind of opponent's planeswalker.)

C Rayz Walz

04-20-2011, 09:01 AM

I actually like this list a lot. Kira plus sower seems pretty strong, but I think I will change some things. 1st I think jace is a must and in this deck it would seem that he would even be better since you can protect him with all your creature(and your opponents). I would cut 2 fof for 2 jace, and I would want to add in another mental misstep. Not sure if this would be wise but I would also want to cut back on the one drops for this deck meaning spell snare, but that might be really bad. I am going to fool around with this list because I really think it is pretty good.

I have mix feelings about this card. As I think the card will help this deck it also makes tempo base decks a lot better imo. I don't think decks like zoo/gobs can really run this because their list are pretty tight, but if they do I think this deck (the above one) can actually benefit this if we build this deck right.

Kich867

04-20-2011, 04:30 PM

I like the creature heavy base a lot. You also have cheap/free counters for more of the common answers. I mean, that counter-base just looks so mean. With a nice blend of creatures/counters/draw like that, I can see Impulse being used over AK only because ditching a beater or something seems less impacting when you know you can get another one soon.

C Rayz Walz

04-20-2011, 05:17 PM

I have been playing around with that list with a few changes. Taking out 2 fof for jace and I have to say that this is what I wanted from this deck. Sower is pretty strong and once you have kira online it is just a beating vs most decks. I have had some good results beating merfolk pretty easily as well as team america and bant base decks.With all the creature control in the form of shackles and sower they help protect your jace making it so powerful. I actually do think that this deck can be viable. I also like that counterbalance is much of an issue for this deck either is MM since we do not run that many 1 cc spells.

Still do not really like the 3 fetch lands and I am still on the fence with impulse but I think it is a really great start and is very viable.

Caspid

04-20-2011, 08:29 PM

Kich867

04-20-2011, 10:06 PM

From a strictly "cards VS how much you draw" point of view, TT is better for the first 2. But that also costs 10 mana compared to 4. TT costs 5 mana for 2 cards, 20 mana for 8 cards, compared to 8 mana for 10.

And even in the point of view of TT cantripping and then creating card advantage, AK cantrips, and then creates massive card advantage as the game goes on, not just a little bit for a ton of mana.

In a situation where your opponent does absolutely nothing, sure, TT sounds fantastic, but realistically, how often are you completely untapped at the end of an opponent's turn? It certainly can't be always or even near "most of the time", if it were you'd be either losing horribly or playing a horrible person, there's things you need to react to and things you need to be doing.

TT either costs 2-3 mana per cast, taking 8 casts, which in a realistic environment, could take 8-12 turns to actually get through them all. AK will always take 4 turns throughout the entire game to accomplish their goal. They do it for less mana, and for better card advantage later. I don't even see how "Well the first cast hurts really bad.." the first cast should be happening early in the game when your hand is stacked anyways, so...why is the first cast cantripping an issue?

Looking at your chart, you point out that TT doesn't even out-card advantage AK until the second flashback, and from the third one on AK is pretty much dominant. I can't possibly see how you could justify having to spend 10 mana over potentially 4 turns to eek out minor card advantage briefly.

I mean, the argument is that "Well you may not even see the third AK", implying that there may not be enough time in the game, but then if time is an issue why would anyone bother with Think Twice?

In terms of mana investment, time investment, tempo, card advantage, and efficiency, AK is a superior card and your chart actually supports that. When you actually need more cards in your hand, it's there for you, it won't ask you "Hey pump 5 mana into me for 2 cards." it tells you, "Hit me with 2 mana and I'll drop you 3-4 cards." Furthermore, even if you have 5 mana available EOT to drop a TT and flash it back, wouldn't you prefer to FoF?

Clark Kant

04-20-2011, 10:50 PM

Meh, both cards suck (unless you're playing intuition).

If you want card draw and Fact or Fiction isn't enough, play Gitaxian Probe. Atleast that shows you everything in your opponents hand so you know when to counter something and when not to, when to play your win condition and when not to, etc. That's an insanely useful ability on a cantrip.

Playing probe in response to a card to figure out whether that card is worth countering or not is exceedingly useful.

Caspid

04-20-2011, 11:14 PM

I suppose TT vs AK depends on a couple factors.

1. How many copies you see each game. This looks only at the CA generation.

TT out-CAs AK on the first flashback; TT creates immediate CA, AK requires you to draw another and when you only get 1, AK is a wasted slot.

If you go through half your deck (I think typically it's less, as 7 cards + 20 draw phases is only 27), you'll see 2 copies on average. With TT, this is an average of +2 CA; AK, +1 CA.

AK isn't "massive" CA (relative to TT) until the 4th copy, but evaluating it at the complete usage (4 cards) isn't realistic.

2. How much mana you have open each EoT. This affects how easily you're able to reach the card's CA potential, and is where the card's practical utility deviates from its utility in a vacuum.

Here's where I may have spoken too soon. Due to the speed of Legacy, the mana investment (ie, the # of casts) may be more important than the actual CA generated. Also, there are fewer critical spells to counter and fewer viable draw spells available in Pauper, whereas Legacy MUC has access to FoF, sees more cards with FoF/Impulse, and has ways to get extra copies of AK into the graveyard. I'll concede that maybe this all makes AK better in this format...

Gitaxian Probe doesn't sound too great. It's not even card draw. It does practically nothing at Sorcery speed (so you can't even play it in response to something). Telepathy and Peek aren't playable as it is; I don't think Probe will be either. Granted, Probe doesn't require you to tap mana, but 2 life can be quite a bit against aggro, and it's "dead" late-game (does nothing and requires you to tap mana on your turn).

Kich867

04-21-2011, 12:47 AM

I can see peek being run as some kind of 2-of or something. There were posts earlier in the thread that perhaps a trend towards cards that "Do something + Cantrip" could be a meaningful venue to pursue, but I never really saw a list formed.

serendib

04-21-2011, 06:13 AM

A couple thoughts:

Think Twice is better than Accumulated Knowledge.

Here's a chart/graph I made: http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1156/ttvsak.png

TT alternates between cantripping and providing +1 CA, whereas AK provides increasingly greater amounts of CA.
First time you TT or AK, it's just a cantrip. Second use of TT is +1 CA though, whereas with AK you don't get +1 CA until you draw/play the second copy.
They're even at the third copy you use (completely); before that, TT has the advantage. It's hard to imagine drawing 3+ copies consistently enough to make AK worth it. It's less mana-intensive, but TT's mana investment is spread out in tiny "payments" over time that are quite manageable, esp considering you're doing it with spare mana EoT.
These advantages make TT far superior, something pauper MUC players all know and practice.

Mental Misstep is insane.

Hits Vial, Lackey, StP/Path/Bolt/Chain Lightning, Lynx/Lion/Nacatl/Ape/Lavamancer and co, Hierarch, BoP, Mom, Dreadnought, Stifle, elves, Signal Pest, Thoughtseize/Duress/Inquisition, Silence/Chant, Spell Pierce/Snare, SDT, Ponder/Brainstorm, Ritual, High Tide, itself...

It takes away your opponent's T1 play (and later gamebreaking spells) for free and pitches to Force later. It's practically "Pay 2 life: opponent skips his first turn and discards the card he would have played OR negate a discard/removal spell later."

@ Caspid.
Maybe think twice compared to AK can make you draw more cards, especially if you see 2 of them (conpared to the hypotesis you see 2 AK). But that's not the point myself I would never run think twice.
If you want to draw 2 cards you need to spend 5 mana !!! absurd. even if you can pay 5 in more turns, it is absurd anyway. Even brainstorm would be better. I would never like to spend that much mana just to draw 2 cards. 5 mana makes you do much better things in the economy of for example 2 turns.
Personally I wouldn't even run AK as far as cc2 draw spell impulse is just way better.
If you see 2 impulse in one game, I know you get just 2 cards and that's not card advantege. but I dig for 8 !!! I chose 2 cards upon 8. that's really good.
As to do card advantage, to my view, there are just 2 cards that allow you to this: fact or fiction or thirst for knowledge (but this one is powerfull only in specific builds)

@ ALL
think about this and I suggest you to try: 4 impulse + 4 fact or fiction.
you would have 8 spells that dig for 4/5 cards and 4 that usually make you draw 2-3 cards !!!
-> really good card quality + card advantage (fof actually also makes card quality as far as choose cards upon 5 is better than just draw the first 2/3 cards on top deck)

most people usually forget to think about the fact that more than 50% of one's turnament games are played with sideboard. Having draw spell that "DIG" your deck is really good also to see sideboard cards...

Yeah, I need to add 2/3 jace TMS maindeck, I'm not sure on what to take out by now and I've not that much time to test.

Mental misstep is insane in a deck which is not vulnerable to opponents' mental missteps.
in this deck is awesome !

C Rayz Walz

04-21-2011, 09:30 AM

Yea I agree with what you said. I really like the way this is turning out for this deck and I expect tempo base decks to go on the rise so stifle being pretty bad vs us and not being hit hard by mental misstep seems to make this deck be viable imo. Yes this deck needs jace as I feel he is way to powerful not to add. I am thinking the deck does not need 3 clique so I might drop one of those and maybe 1 fof for 2 jace. What do you think?

Kich867

04-21-2011, 12:47 PM

In a more balanced decklist of creatures / draw / counters, impulse is probably more comfortable, since bottom decking a beater is kind of whatever--you'll get another one. But in a list where there only few win conditions, impulse digs 8 cards and bottom deck's 6 of them. If you need something and bottom deck a win condition, you may exhaust yourself before finding another one, is I think the only real argument against Impulse.

C Rayz Walz

04-22-2011, 04:43 AM

So I played some more games with this deck testing it and I really like it the more I play with it. I have been beating merfolk pretty easily which to me is a very good thing. I also been playing vs team america which imo is a bye for this deck. The combo match up is still pretty bad, but it improve the goblin match up for game one (still a hard game though) and made tempo base deck and aggro decks a lot easier for me. Now I have a couple of questions

1st is do you guys think that we could run 3 kira or is that being to greedy? for the aggro match up I feel when I have that Kira, it makes it so hard for the opponent to win because I combine it with sower which is just a beating.

2nd the more I play with impulse the more I don't like it. I always feel that it is a waste and I want something different but not sure what it should be.

Right now I am running 2 fof and 2 jace. Do you guys think this deck should run more jace or fof? both very powerful cards and a lot better then impulse but not sure if I like having that many 4 drops.

Do you guys think we should run spell snare? my Idea is try to run not that many one drops so MM is pretty bad vs us since I expect that card to be heavily played.

What do you guys think should be in the sb for this build?

In my last build I ran jitte and although I know a lot of people thought that idea was terrible since we do not run that many creatures, but in this build we run a good amount and that card is just a beating. i love going eot clique and then play jitte. It was so strong and now I think this version can even run it better. That card won me so many games in my last build and I see it only getting better.

Just some thoughts and looking for different views and suggestions. Thanks

C Rayz Walz

04-26-2011, 10:24 AM

So my buddy were play testing a version with spellsutter sprite since I think that can be pretty good. Here is the list and I will talk about it a little more
lands
23 island

creatures-
4 sprite
3 ven clique
2 morphling
2 sower

artifacts-
4 shackles
2 jitte

Instants
4 fof
4 counterspell
4 mental misstep
4 spellsnare
2 repeal
Walkers
2 jace (could go up to 3)

I like the idea of having creatures like sprite with flash that come into play at the end of turn and help jitte but at the same time actually doing something. this list also helps protect jace easily which is a big plus. the problem that I have with kira that alone it does nothing which is pretty bad imo and until you get sower does it become a bomb. now one card that I would like to add in is terferi but I am unsure what people think of him. I could always splash white for stp but I personally hate how that makes my mana base look and I HATe fetching a plains for some reason. Probably cause it makes my shackles and counter spell harder to play but I understand why people think I should run it. Just trying different Ideas. I really like jitte with the flash creatures and when I get it on morphling it is game over since i can block and attack and gather more counters and just Kill you. I have played a deck like this a 3 tournaments winning one {splitting in the finals} doing pretty well with a 4-2 losing my last round to the top 8 and getting very unlikely in the other one. the sb changes very weak so i am not posting one but if me your thoughts and views and let me know what you guys think. ps another reason why I don't like adding fetch lands or another color is because I think tempo will be on the rise and that scares me if i am playing fetch lands and dual lands. Thanks

losada

04-26-2011, 10:57 AM

C Rayz Walz how is you version pre mental misstep? what sideboard are you using?

Have you tried ancestral vision?

C Rayz Walz

04-26-2011, 01:14 PM

Pre mental misstep the deck was okay. Not bad by any mean. The problem MUC without misstep is that you have to run cards like powder keg or bomb to handle their turn one play which blow imo, but now with this new card you can keep up with the tempo. your mana base allows you to not run into stifle or wasteland which is huge IMO since mana base is so important to me.

AV- I have always like that card and it has done well for me. Sometimes it can be really bad like late in the game, but in the early game I do think it is just a bomb. What would you cut for the vision from my list. Always open to suggestions

last night I tested vs merfolk, bant, and that dreanought deck that top 8. I went 2-1 vs all of them and all of them. I will say the repeal can be lack laster but at times in the game when you need a counterspell you can bounce your sprite and replay it which is pretty nice. also works great with jace as well. Jace is also really good with sower and clique which I like a lot as well.

losada

04-26-2011, 02:04 PM

Maybe you could cut the 2 repeals and the 2 morphlings. With all the cheap counterpells you have Av looks pretty good. Stifle shouldn't be a probleme because you have a lot of protection to resolve it( fof, counterpell, vendilion, sprite, mental).

I would like to have 4 vendilion( at least post side), the only way u can beat combo i think.
3 jace and 3 sower would be nice, but i don't know what to cut.

Regarding the sideboard, what do you think about sword of feast and famine vs combo, control, team america etc.?
How does you sideboard looks?

C Rayz Walz

04-26-2011, 05:56 PM

AV is pretty good but a horrible top deck which is a big reason why I do not have it in the original list. I don't expect me to have jitte all the games so I don't want to rely on sprite clique and sower and jace as my win cons since they are easy to handle. Plus in the late game morphling plus jitte is almost impossible to race and also allows me to win every attrition war. He is just a good finisher other than jace for this deck imo that works well with jace {protecting him} and awesome with Jitte. It has won me many games that I could not have won. Some people don't like it or think it is not needed I personally love it and think it is needed but that is me. One thing about sower is that I only want it really vs folk cause vs most decks it just dies which blows so adding 3 might not be good. I might take it out altogether from main and find something else. Also after more testing the sprite is becoming awesome on the draw but so freaking bad on the draw which is annoying me.

my sb changes for every torney. For my last torney I had 3 llawan, 2 sower, 3 pithing needle, 1 jace, 3 prop, 3 relic but right now I would change the board since I did run AV in my last run with this deck. Not sure what my current board should be since mental misstep is about to come out. any advice?

losada

04-26-2011, 06:33 PM

i don't think that killing with vendilion, sprite, shakless, jace and some equipment is too hard.
Maybe i overestimate sower in this deck because is use to play it in my merfolk deck with kira and it's really good( but there you can tap out without probleme).
If i play Av, i am going to try with 4 vendilion and 3 jace( so i can make some use of Av late game or pitching it with FOF)
i would play teferi over morphling.
If sower is only good vs merfolk, i wouldn't put in my board. 3 llawan and an extra jitte should be good enough.
Against what do you bring pithing needle? Maybe revoker is just better, it's better vs combo and you can ekip it vs merfolk( you can't name mutavault) and goblin( naming gempalm).

C Rayz Walz

04-26-2011, 07:03 PM

I cosider terferi but he alone can't someone like morphling can. I like what morphling brings to the table since he kill the other player and blocks other creatures why still attacking and once again when I get jitte on him it ends the game in a turn or 2 which I love. I just like this play style a lot. I like needle over revoker because it comes down a turn quicker and is mainly for vial. Rovker does deserve a shot though so thanks for the advice. Let me know any other ideas you got

serendib

04-27-2011, 06:48 AM

@ C Rayz Walz : I would advice you to substitute 4 spellstutter with 4 phyrexian revoker. I'm using them in my faerie stompy (which I think will be great in the metagame as far as it has great match ups vs tempo, combo and aggro decks), I tested them a lot, they are great.

revoker on your side can call opponent remouvals (so that your sowers gets less remouvals) or deal with annoying opponent cards: naming top, elspeth, pernicious, grim lavamancer, qasali, jace if opponent has one online, LED, VIAL and so on ...

now that we have 3X mental misstep and kira exists I wouldn't fell need of spellstutter...

22 snow covered island
1 scrying sheets

4 sower of temptation
4 phyrexian revoker
3 vendilion clique
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 jace, the mind sculptor

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

4 vedalken shackles
3 fact or fiction

4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 spell snare
3 mental misstep

SIDEBOARD:

2 sword of fire and ice
1 morphling
3 back to basics
3 relic of progenitus
3 cryptic command
2 envelop
1 vendilion clique

EXPLANATION MAIN:

- Sword of Feast and Famine because it is the best equipment for control decks and can make revoker a good beater (give his evasivity most times)

- 3 snare + 3 mental misstep because having more than 6 situational counters is bad. 6 is ok. 8 is really too much to my view.

- I never know if I want 22 or 23 lands. So I use 22 ice age lands (instead of my beta sigh ... ) and a special land

EXPLANATION SIDE:

- 3 bounce spells are good to have, cryptic is probabely the best as far as it can be a counter too and makes you draw

- 2 SoF&I are good vs aggro decks (merfolk and goblins) and can be good also vs UGR decks

- envelope is great:
vs natural order / zenith / show and tell decks
vs rock/jusk as far as it counters every ennoying spell and muc doen't like tousize, tourach and vindicate
vs combo as far as it stops nearly every key card/tutor: infernal, burning wish, merchan scroll, spiral...

I wouldn't use powder keg / rachet bomb any more because they are terribly slow nowadays (even if I love my kegs).

POSSIBLE CARDS good with the list I posted (probabely sideboard):

3 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: spiral tide try to kill us via brainfreeze instead of blue zenith most times as far as he is a little scared of our counterspells.
1 Llawan, cephalid empress
1 envelop (a third one)
1 jace, the mind sculptor (a third one)

what you think ?

losada

04-27-2011, 09:22 AM

4 revoker maindeck looks too much. I would play the third kira to protect all you guys.
SOFi isn't very good i think, jitte, should just be better, it's too slow and if merfolk has 2 lords you won't kill anything.
i would play 4 misstep before playing 4 counterspells, 4 counterspells seems too much with so many tap outs cards.
you don't have problemes with so many cc4?

serendib

04-27-2011, 09:42 AM

actually 2 equipments in the side are ment to be vs gobs and merfolk . do you think jitte is better vs gobs and merfolk ? I think SoF&I is the best against them. can make you revoker who name vial strong beaters that can kill in 3 attacks and draw 3 cards. jitte is inferior againsto those decks. especially gobs.

well, 9 cc4 spells are a lot but not a problem. for the first 3 turns I counter things. and that's why I want 4 counterspells. tap out cards star on turn 3.

C Rayz Walz

04-28-2011, 12:54 AM

I think both are good: meaning both jitte and sofi and I think it comes down to which one you like better. I personally think jitte is better so I would play than sofi.

I kind of like revoker and my buddy and I were talking about it earlier today actually even before I read your post so I find it funny that you just mention him. He seems really good and I am going to try him out.

Kira- it is a bomb with sower but by itself I just do not like it. It also makes your equipment not as good imo. I understand why you have it there but I feel you must have sower to make it good. It may be my play style but I hate paying 3 mana for it when I don't have sower. or it gets stifle or counter.

Spellsutter- I like the fact that 7 of my creatures of flash which can have surprise factor when I have jitte on the board. I think jitte is still by far the best equipment. It does everything that I want it to be. gain life, kill creatures, and pump making it awesome for us. I also like the fact in the late game I can bounce spellsutter with jace and use him a again. i like having that option.

Sword of feast and famine- Never thought of it using it. seems pretty decent

Morphling- yes he cost 5 mana or more to protect him but let me say this. HE IS A BOMB WHEN HE HAS JITTE ON HIM. i played a lot of games today and I would say about 65 percent of the time If I was in a losing side he made me win just because the power of jitte. the ability to untap, protect himself(if you make him so he can't be target of spells or abilites you can still pump him with jitte since it doesn't target) and still pump himself with jitte is bonkers good. It ends the game so quickly and you will win every attrition war. Today I face down 3 gofy and I had morphling with jitte and beat 3 gofys just to show you the sheer power of what it can do. For me I love it and I think it is a bomb and is my trump card. Some people don't like it but I am just explaining why I think so highly of it.

Right now I am using 3 jace since I run spellsutter..clique..and sower since I like bouncing them and the fact that he is a win con. I can see playing 2 though, but for me I think 3 is a good number

Counterspell- this is def a 4 of in this deck. Nothing else said about it.

The only reason why I might run keg is if I see a lot of affinity. I actually hate that card though lol

what do you guys think of terferi I personally do not think he makes the cut but I could be wrong about him.

I think vs merfolk I would rather have llawan and prop vs goblins over sofi personally but that could just be me. I have been very happy with this main deck so far for this deck. I just need a good board, but I will say that there are so many times where I wish i had back to basic main has it would have won me so many games today, but right now I do not want dead cards and vs some decks that card does nothing so it goes to the board. Keep coming up with more ideas guys since I think MUC can now compete and do well again.

losada

04-28-2011, 12:24 PM

Are you still running the 2 random sowers?
Did you put in AV, if yes what did you cut?

C Rayz Walz

04-29-2011, 12:00 AM

I am running 2 sower and no AV. they are just bad top decks and not sure what to take out. Played a lot of games today beating dreadstill, fish, and junk. seems to be working pretty well. Some times sprite is bad but most of the time he is pretty good. A buddy of mine told me to run a couple of mutavault..don't think I will. What do you guys think?

serendib

04-29-2011, 02:38 AM

@ C Rayz Walz. nice to see you are enjoying your deck and build.
I feel using creatures in muc is a good way to develope the build
I personally still don't think spellstutter is that good, but I'll give her a try soon

in the meantime I was thinking if it could be interesting to use a little black splash without modifying the gameplan and still being quite immune to opponent denial, adding bitterblossom maindeck and perish sideboard:

4 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
2 underground sea
2 swamp
11 island

4 brainstorm
2 ponder

4 Bitterblossom
3 Sower of Temptation
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Umezawa's Jitte

2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 vedalken shackles
2 Go for the Throat

4 force of will
4 countespell
3 mental misstep
2 spell snare

sideboard:
3 relic of progenitus
3 perish
3 envelope
...

Bitterblossom is a good card in this deck, it creates chumpblockers each turn, it makes the 2 equipments much stronger and jace much easier to protect. Now I would consider spellstutter sprite even I'm not sure what to cut.
I cut to 5 the number of situational counters because I hate drawing them in the wrong order and they are the worst cards to topdeck of the list.
6 cantrip because we want to find bitter as soon as possible and we have some starters (4 brainstorm 2 ponder + 9 turn1 counters )
Perish in legacy is just huge.

Iron Buddha

04-29-2011, 03:56 AM

That is U/B faeries...but not MUC.

Has Curfew been considered? It's a one mana bounce for creatures. The deal is that it bounces two creatures (for one mana!) with Shackles. That's a fine tempo-play.
Besides what do you think of Cryptic Command. In a sense CC serves the same function as FoF; the difference is that FoF finds the Shackles, whereas CC is rather good if you have that Shackles already in play. CC enables Shackles: for instance your opponent has three creatures, you have Shackles controlling a creature, you attack, he doesn't block thinking he can kill you next turn, you cast CC tapping his creatures, and attack again next turn + M. Factory and he is dead. CC = FoF + bounce - just better.

Erdvermampfa

04-29-2011, 06:00 AM

Have been playing around with a similar pile for a few days now, MUC has always been one of my favorite decks in legacy and with the print of Mental Misstep I think that the deck is going to see more play in near future. It provides 4 additional options to cope with with problematic cards like Aether Vial, Sensei's Divining Top, Lackey, nacatl, Mongoose yet in turn 0. Im not sure if you still need to run 4 counterspells with this new card as counterspell's targets are mainly the mentioned cards and I've always felt it being too slow on the draw anyway..
// Lands
11 [ON] Island (1)
2 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [B] Tundra
1 [ON] Plains (4)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
1 [ZEN] Sphinx of Jwar Isle

// Spells
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [FNM] Counterspell
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [FNM] Swords to Plowshares
2 [LRW] Cryptic Command
2 [TSP] Think Twice

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 4 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 4 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 3 [CFX] Path to Exile

C Rayz Walz

04-29-2011, 11:18 AM

@ serendib- spellsutter sprite has been more on the good side then bad for me. I like the fact that it does something when it comes into play and I can play it on your turn so on my turn I can attach jitte to it. I like the whole flash idea with equipment and I feel that he is the best slot for what I want to do. I tested sword of feast and famine and it was okay. Not sure if I am going to run it, but I can see why you like it. I might sb but unsure if I should run it.

@ erdvermamfa- although I personally am not a fan of the splash why not run Tarn over delta and run a mountain? I don't like cryptic command and think twice. I think they cost to much for what they actually do. I would DEFINITELY play a couple of fof, and I would even run up the counter of e.e.

Iron Buddha

04-29-2011, 03:51 PM

Let me preface that this deck is a blast.

// 24
6 Fetchland
14 Island
4 Mishra's Factory

// 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Fact or Fiction

// 16
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Mental Misstep
4 Spell Snare

// 6
4 Vedalken Shackles
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

// 6
3 Cryptic Command
3 Ratchet Bomb

// SB: 15
4 Submerge
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Vendilion Clique
3 Stifle

Cryptic Command is the blue Wrath of God (of course as a weapon against creature decks Vedalken Shackles is the blue Wrath of God), Mental Misstep is the blue Swords to Plowshares, and Ratchet Bomb is what you take if can't take Engineered Explosives.

Ratchet Bomb: It doesn't have speed that EE has (but it's cheaper and mana is very valuable in this deck). Cryptic Command can stall for a turn giving you the time needed to put a counter on Ratchet bomb. With Vedalken Shackles more often than not Ratchet Bomb kills two creatures, as Vedalken Shackles forces your opponent to overextend (he needs three creatures to overcome Shackles).

Mental Misstep: Against creature decks its worse than StP, but as a counter it's the contrary of dead against combo and control. Secondly, as a counter (hard counter) it makes Meloku a real blast.

Cryptic Command: Again, as a counterspell, it's the contrary of dead against combo and control. Wrath of God generates CA against creature decks, CC not (except you're ahead). However, the duty of CA against creature decks is shifted to another card: Vedalken Shackles.
Also, CC and Shackles is great in conjunction (see my post above).

4 Vedalken Shackles, 2 Meloku: This is my bomb squad. I don't have Jace TMS; but if I were to run him I would cut: -1 Meloku,-1 Cryptic Command for + 2 Jace TMS.

Mishra's Factory: Cryptic Command improves if your deck is able to change roles effectively. Also, I need more than two non Shackles win-cons. And, of course, Mishra's Factory gives me clock against combo (I know it's not a fast clock).

What I don't run:

Think Twice, Akkumulated Knowledge, Impulse, Thirst for Knowledge, Ancestral Vision, etc. - in short: something that generates CA or digs for something that generats CA.
There is also the possibility of upping the „bomb“ count. This is what I have done: 4 Vedalken Shackles + 2 Meloku (or Jace TMS). And to beat control you don't need additional sources of CA, if you run a total amount of 19!!! counters. Counters beats control hands down.

Nevinyrral's Disk (or Oblivion Stone): Much more powerful than Ratchet Bomb. However, three reasons why I decided on Ratchet Bomb: 1. Cryptic Command: CC is excatly what Ratchet bomb is not and vice versa. Ratchet bomb is cheap but clunky and CC is expensive but handy.
CC and Ratchet Bomb complement each other.
2. Once more Ratchet bomb is clunky. But Mental Misstep and Force of Will costing zero mana make up for Ratchet bomb's unhandiness thus improving Ratchet bomb in the early game.
3. Vedalken Shackles forces my opponent to overextend, so that Ratchet bomb kills two creatures more often than not.

I hope you like it!

bowvamp

04-29-2011, 05:56 PM

The Treefolk Master

04-29-2011, 06:53 PM

You steal a dude with Shackles, you're opponent has 3 possible courses of action if he want's to get more damage in:

1. Kill the stolen dude.
2. Kill shackles.
3. Play more creatures to overrun shackles, aka overextend.

If they kill their own dude, shackles just got you card advantage. If they kill shackles, well, it's bad, but pre board the only widely played artifact hate is Qasali Pridemage, which means you just "killed" one of their guys (sac effect). If they do neither of these things (and lets assume, for the sake of argument, that your opponent isn't braindead and won't allow you to sit there, gaining card advantage, while he gives you "the stare"), they can only overextend in an effort to bring the game to a closing, which is when, ideally, you'll get them.

I really hate powde keg, I run MUC with 3 colours, 2 non-U basics, maybe 2 duals, and 3 EE. Nevertheless, all the lists found in the last pages look interesting and I shall give them a try if I can find the time.

bowvamp

04-29-2011, 07:49 PM

I know that you might think, "oh overextending is a course of action that's better than letting them have your creature". The only cases in which this is true are in zoo (you'll find pridemage/finish the game soon anyways), or tribal. Even burn is fine letting you have their creature. Control will be forced to kill their own creature or kill shackles as it would be dumb to play a creature that could compete with the one you've got shackled since shackles always takes the best creature. Combo doesn't give a damn about shackles anyway.
Of course, you've also got decks that play big creatures that are hard to shackle. Guess what? Chances are if you've gotten one of their creatures, you're gonna win anyway.
When I used to run MUC, I did play shackles, but ended up dropping my kegs. The reason being that nuking the board with keg < nuking the board with Plague Boiler or Disk. Then again, I also made some weird decisions (for back then that is) like md'ing predict, and using scrying sheets.

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 02:08 AM

@ iron Buddha- Right now I play the same counter package as you and I am loving it. I don't really like your factories in this deck at all. It hurts shackles and a lot of times you want double blue on turn 2 for counterspell. I personally do not like melkou as I hate returning lands to my hand. Just doesn't fit my play style I guess. I also do not like command at all. I would cut those for jace since I feel that command doesn't do enough. Tapping down a team or countering a spell and drawing a card for 4 mana isn't that great imo. If you get lucky and counter and bounce something that can be huge but I feel that doesn't happen enough or sometimes isn't even good enough to warrant it. You need to get jace in the deck as he really is that good. Also, right now I love clique in the main deck as I feel that card does a lot for us.

Bowvamp- both snare and MM are vital for this deck. Even in the control mirror countering someones CB with snare late game is very good. I feel they will always have good targets and never really be that situational in the long run. Also, bomb/keg work well with shackles, but I actually hate both keg and bomb and feel that they are not needed. I just hate the speed of of keg effects as they are to slow, but some people feel that you need them and they do clean up somethings. These are just my opinions though and might not be right just stating how I see things

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 03:36 AM

Wait, what? Blue Wrath = Cryptic Command & Shackles? Cryptic Command is much more similar to say the ice side of Fire/Ice if you're using it that way and Shackles is more similar to saying Shackles is blue's Custody Battle.
and MM is most similar to Mana Tithe if you're looking at white.

But not in terms of powerlevel and importance for the deck.

Before Mental Misstep I've played Force Spike. But the fact the MM counters on the draw and the fact that it counters Vial (Vial = no counters) is extraordinarily important (MM protects Meloku, too btw). MM is a huge gain for MUC.

I know that you might think, "oh overextending is a course of action that's better than letting them have your creature". The only cases in which this is true are in zoo (you'll find pridemage/finish the game soon anyways), or tribal. Even burn is fine letting you have their creature. Control will be forced to kill their own creature or kill shackles as it would be dumb to play a creature that could compete with the one you've got shackled since shackles always takes the best creature. Combo doesn't give a damn about shackles anyway.
Of course, you've also got decks that play big creatures that are hard to shackle. Guess what? Chances are if you've gotten one of their creatures, you're gonna win anyway.

For starters, I'd say that Bomb doesn't really go well with shackles.

Ratchet Bomb (Powder Keg): I know that it is slow, but....
1. this is why Crpytic Command is so important: CC gives you an immediate answer (against everything, even a swarm), if you don't have the time to set up Ratchet bomb.
2. The fact that it's slow (for you have to set it up) doesn't change the fact that it only cost two mana. It's slow, but mana-efficient. And it's a threat for control decks, for it kills Jace TMS.

Ratchet bomb, Cryptic Command and Vedalken Shackles is a nice trio, for they complement each other every well.

The reason being that nuking the board with keg < nuking the board with Plague Boiler or Disk.

My reasoning is that Cryptic Command and Vedalken Shackles make up for that, so you can afford to run a cheaper and faster solution.

Counters don't "beats control hands down" because your counters are too situational

Actually, this is not true...

I don't really like your factories in this deck at all. It hurts shackles and a lot of times you want double blue on turn 2 for counterspell.

Mishra's Factory: double blue for counterspell on turn two is not a problem with 20 blue sources.
M. Factory being wasteland fodder I understand, and it's not an Island. Nevertheless it merits testing I think. While it's not an island, it's quite good with Shackles, because you can change roles more effectively.

I personally do not like meloku as I hate returning lands to my hand. Just doesn't fit my play style I guess.

Meloku: I don't think that returning lands to your hand is much of an issue: If you stick Meloku (let's say with 7-8 lands in play) you are likely to win anyway. Also MM (and Spell Snare and your other counters, too) protects Meloku.

Also, right now I love clique in the main deck as I feel that card does a lot for us.

I decided to run Meloku over Vendilion Clique MB, because Meloku is better against aggro (my biggest concern) and Meloku is better as a one of or two of than Vendilion Clique. Vendilion Clique is not so good against aggro.

I also do not like command at all. I would cut those for jace since I feel that command doesn't do enough. Tapping down a team or countering a spell and drawing a card for 4 mana isn't that great imo. If you get lucky and counter and bounce something that can be huge but I feel that doesn't happen enough or sometimes isn't even good enough to warrant it.

I think you undervalue Cryptic Command. It's good, because it fits well into the deck, that is, it can do things other cards can't do:
1. it's an immediate answer against threats (unlike Ratchet bomb)
2. under pressure (swarm or they destroy your shackles and you have no defense up) it gives Shackles and Ratchet bomb time to consolidate (unlike Jace TMS)
3. it's a counterspell (= good against combo) (unlike Jace TMS)

Again, Ratchet bomb, Cryptic Command and Vedalken Shackles is a nice trio, for they complement each other every well.

You need to get jace in the deck as he really is that good.

I would cut one Meloku and one Cryptic Command for two Jace: -1 Meloku, -1 CC, + 2 Jace TMS.
(I want at least one win-con that is not a Jace and not Vedalken Shackles)

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 04:45 AM

The problem that I have with CC is that it is 4 mana. I hate walking into a daze or a pierce when I feel that card doesn't change the board that match. I understand what you are saying by tapping their creatures and having your keg do a lot of work while combing shackles in the mixture, but I feel that it is only good when you have those 2 already out which doesn't seem like that will always happen. I have played with the card in MUC and I was never thrilled to have it. Most of the time it was a dismiss and it was never want I needed it to be. Why do you run bomb over keg? because of counter balance? I know a lot of people who still think keg is better because it kills man lands. just curious to why you play bomb over keg. Melkou definitely is not bad by any means, I personally just do not like returning lands to my hand with control decks and I like my creature to be able to protect himself. I think it just comes down to play style when it comes down to creatures, and I wasn't suggesting running clique as one of your win cons since I don't really consider it a win con. I just saying how great of a card I think it is and you should revisit and try to get it into the main since I feel it is so strong for our style of deck. To me my mana base is very important and I hate walking in to wasteland or stifle when I want to play cards like jace and fof. I want to hit every land drop and not have anything go wrong so that is why I do not like factory in this deck. To me it is not worth the extra body of offense or defense if it cost me a turn and hinders me from playing bombs like jace and fof. Your sb interest me as well. How do you fight merfolk or goblins? why stifle? is submerge really that good for us? I feel with out propaganda or llawan we have no way of beating folk or gobs. Right now my sb has a lot of hate cards for those decks since they are played a lot in my meta.

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 05:33 AM

I think you suggest running Vendilion Clique in place of Cryptic Command.
Without giving much argument, I would say that CC > V. Clique against creature decks, whereas V. Clique > CC against combo. Against control it doesn't matter.

I feel that it [Cryptic Command] is only good when you have those 2 [Shackles, Bomb] already out which doesn't seem like that will always happen
Well, the deck is a Vedalken Shackles deck. 4x Vedalken Shackles + 4x FoF + 4x BS ensure that I have Vedalken Shackles online at every stage of the game (except the early-game, obviously)
This is why 4x FoF is so important – it does what Cryptic Command doesn't do: finding the Shackles.

it was never want I needed it to be

Hm, but CC is good in every stage of game, except the early-game (but the mana-curve couldn't be much lower), and if you don't have a Shackles online (but see my point above...the deck is desgined to have shackles online)

Why do you run bomb over keg?
Regarding Keg vs Bomb it comes down to Manlands vs Counterbalance + PW. With 4x Shackles and running Manlands myself Ratchet bomb is - no surprise - better. Without Mishra's Factory, I don't know.

Melkou definitely is not bad by any means, I personally just do not like returning lands to my hand with control decks and I like my creature to be able to protect himself. I think it just comes down to play style when it comes down to creatures
Sphinx of Jwar Isle is much worse than Meloku IMO, for Sphinx of Jwar Isle only trades one for one against Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker, etc. with the difference that it costs 6!! mana and tarmogoyf costs two mana. As for self-protection, a single Call the Skybreaker is what I would choose. But I think that my counters (Mental Misstep) offer enough protection + Jace TMS as an alternative win-con, so I rather take the creature that is individually better.
However, with 3x Vendilion a finisher outside of Shackles and Jace TMS might be unnecessary?

Against Goblins I have 4x Blue Elemental Blast.

I've added 4x Submerge because I feel that Tarmogoyf and Qasali Pridemage will be huge threats with Mental Misstep protection. Submerge gets around everyhing: MM, Spell Snare, Daze, Spell Pierce. And it's not CDA.

Against Merfolk, my plan is to overpower them. Merfolk is not the deck that has Qasali Pridemage and Krosan Grip, so 4x Vedalken Shackles (+ the rest of the deck: 4 FoF, Jace,...) just overwhelms them.

Stfile is supposed to deal with Qasali Pridemage.

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 08:09 AM

CC is terrible in the early stage of the game. I would never want to open up with that card in my opening hand. I would even say that it is bad mid game. when I get to 4 mana I don't want to tap their creatures and draw a card for 4 mana. It never works out. Also, I wouldn't even say CC is better vs creature decks. Clique can at least trade with things and it comes down earlier.

I get what you mean about sphinx trading with gofy and tombstalker but using your own logic you should have shackles on the board thus stealing their gofy or stalker making your sphinx able to attack and having them not being able to kill it. Also, jace bouncing them also works. I personally still like Morphling the best because I like the fact that he can be offense and defense at the same time. Able to block gofy and stalker, while still protecting itself. Sure it is more mana intensive then sphinx but I personally like the way it plays better. I don't think the creature matters which one you use though. I think it comes down to what you like best. I also have a silly little combo with jitte and morphling making me win pretty much every attrition war and making my clock a lot faster. ( More importantly I find it extremely fun to pull that off which is important to me since I like to play to have fun as well and it does win games when it happens. It is also awesome to see the people's faces when it happens to them too lol)

My deck is also a lot different then yours. I am using a more creature base running a fae build using clique, spellsutter, sower, and morphling as my creature base and using jitte has more board control in conjunction with 4 shackles. I like the creatures with flash so I can end of step them and attach jitte on my turn. It has been working out very well for me since I been finding the keg, b2b version being less good although I still think b2b has a place in the deck some where.

I really don't think 4 beb is good enough to beat goblins. They are way to fast and their card engine is insane. I can't see any MUC list holding them down with out propaganda. With those cards I think the match up is very easy if you are running beb and prop other wise I think it is very very hard.

Same thing with merfolk. their creature base is very soild and combing with free counters I don't think shackles and bomb are enough to hold them at bay, and now even most of them are running Kira which makes shackles less good. I feel that I need llawan in the board to help fight them. if you are using llawan and needle I think after board the match up is fine, but with out some help from the board I think it is very tough.

Now my game one vs fish for my deck I actually think is pretty good. I have 2 sower, 4 shackles and 2 jitte to help combat, and I can try to race them even though most of the time I will need jitte to make that happen. Goblins game one is almost an auto lost since I do not run prop main anymore, but that is what sbs are for.

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 09:05 AM

Cryptic Command once was priced 25$. It is considered the best card in the Extended faeris deck.
That's not a real argument, but at least that makes me thinking...the thing is that it's not just a dismiss that can bounce a Planeswalker.

Looking over your list (and assuming that „fof“ is FoW and not FoF) you don't run FoF. That changes a lot. Hell, you don't even run any card-draw aside from Jace TMS..., not even Brainstorm or Impulse. In fact, your deck is a lot more similar to Merfolk than to my list, but with a faerie creature shell + Vedalken Shackles and mb Jitte and a counter-package that acts defensively and not offensively.

Actually I don't quite understand Morphling in that list. As I see it, Morphling's greatest advantage is that he is immune to creature removal. However, by running other creatures that are not immune to creature removal you undermine that strategy.

My game against goblins is actually very solid if I can counter Lackey and Aether Vial.

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 11:31 AM

I actually meant to change that. Thanks for reminding me. The repeal replace for fof and the Fof were suppose to be fow. That is my bad. so it should look like - 2 repeal for plus 2 fact or fiction and the4 FOF are 4 Fow.

I don't really get your comment about CC being 25 dollars and being the best card in ext fae. That has nothing to do with anything. If you like play it as you should play cards that you like and think are good. I personally do not like that card for this deck. Plain and simple.

I don't really see what is so hard to understand about morphling being in the deck. I use him as a win con. I don't care if they kill my other creatures as they do things. Either countering something, or allowing me to see their hand, or stealing a creature. they gain me value and I find those effects to be better then impulse. I like the idea of having flash creatures so I don't need to tap out as often as other decks do.

I know you dont have a good game vs goblins. This style just struggles with that kind of deck, and 4 bebs are not good enough to swing it in your favor. they have crazy card advantage and unless you can stop a lot of goblins from attacking you over and over again, I can't see you having a good game vs it( as I don't unless I have the right board cards for the match up)

Yea our decks are different, but I do feel that we are both MUC just trying to do different things, but at the same time still doing the same thing, which is controlling the game. This deck is nothing like merfolk at all.

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 12:27 PM

So Propaganda is the answer to goblins?
I think that stopping Vial and Lackey is much more important. If you stop the enablers they aren't explosive.

4 BS, 4 FoF compared to 2 FoF; I'd say that makes our decks act completely differently.

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 01:07 PM

yea, stopping their turn one play helps a lot but with out some way to hinder them from attacking you with a lot of creatures you can't win. I don't think you understand how hard that match up is. You need a good bit of hate to beat that deck on a regular basis. I am done talking about this because we both of different opinions and I think it is pointless going back and forth since we aren't doing anything constructive.

In the end we still have the same goal and that is to have control of the game and win. If you think our decks act differently..okay that is fine. There is no point going on with this. Good luck with your deck ( no sarcasm) and hope you enjoy playing your deck as I really enjoy my deck.

Anyone else think Spellsutter is good? I am still unsure about him since sometimes he is insane and other times he is just okay. Not sure what I would replace him with since he wears jitte pretty well and does something when he enters. It also is pretty good with jace allowing me to bounce him and have a counterspell again. Thoughts on SSS?

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 01:22 PM

It was not my intention to sound so harsh; I also see why you don't want to run Cryptic Command.
But my point is that I think that a draw-engine is a very important part of the deck considering that this is a blue control deck.

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 02:05 PM

I didn't take it as harsh, I just took it as we have different opinions and we stated the same thing over and over again so I felt it wasn't going any where.

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 02:29 PM

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 02:53 PM

I personally like 3 jace, but I can see why people only want 2. 2-3 fof, and maybe impulse or ponder to smooth out draws..if you run fetch lands I guess you can run brainstorm, but i don't really like that personally. for sweepers, keg is prolly the best even though I don't really like them. If you feel that they are needed that much I would run 3-4 keg. Maybe 1-3 ostone. Not really sure about those cards since I find them pretty bad. I know a lot of people who say the splash version is better for e.e.

Iron Buddha

04-30-2011, 03:20 PM

What I don't like about Disk / Oblivion Stone is that I kind of put all my eggs into one basket, because they cost a whole lot of 4 mana: Krosan grip / Qasali Pridemage and I have a big problem.
Ratchet Bomb / Powder Keg, on the other hand, is always a solid play, not amazing but it gets the job done thanks to other cards that give MUC a strong lategame despite not running a full-sweeper.

C Rayz Walz

04-30-2011, 04:14 PM

Yea, but keg and bomb have that problem as well. I think they are all very slow and don't really like any of them. Keg might be the best one even though I hate it. Not sure how to solve that problem.

sillyandrew

05-01-2011, 12:47 AM

To bring the discussion forth a bit I have several questions:

How many Jaces?

How about sweepers? Ratchet Bomb/Powder Keg or Disk/Oblivion Stone or splashing for EE?
(But with EE this deck is not 100% MUC, although it's just a tiny splash)
How many sweepers? 3? 2? more than 3? or no sweepers at all?

What is the best draw-engine? How many slots should we dedicate to the draw-engine (excluding Jace TMS)?

1. certainly, it depends on your list, but i'm of the school of thought that says no jaces. unless your list has a significant amount of creatures to protect jace, i think he's too hard to protect, as we'd burn through a lot of our hand trying to keep him alive. as i said in an earlier post (but don't feel like quoting) i'd rather have a morphling that can wall attackers than a jace that eats them to the face. short answer, zero jace.

2. originally, my list ran four powder kegs, but i recently dropped it to three. as for which to run, i think it also, depends on the list. keg is usually a turn faster than bomb, so i give it the edge on that alone, but it doesn't take enchantments/plainswalkers with it when it pops. i think it's is really a plus for the MUC player though, because depending on what your board looks like, keg leaves behind your back to basics, propagandas and jaces, while wiping the enemy board. if you're running less of these cards, you might want to run bombs, as they'll hit the opponent a lot hard. as far as disk is concerned, i think it's too slow to really be considered at all. the stone is even slower, and really pretty bad at that. also, i think EE is a separate beast in itself, as it comes down to a matter of whether you're willing to splash or not. if you are, it's probably the better choice, but still a little risky. if you're not splashing, it's garbage. regardless of what you're choice is, i say three/four is the right amount, probably leaning towards four. short answer, three or four powder kegs.

3. the draw engine question is still one i'm working on. i'm not sure what the correct number of card slots is, but i'm generally of the opinion that there's no such thing as too much draw, and i think a lot of the more recent decklist that have been popping up have far, far too little. as a point of reference, my current list runs three fact or fictions, three impulses, and four brainstorms. at various points in my lists lifetime there have been anywhere from eight to twelve card slots dedicated to strictly draw spells and i really think that anything less than eight is a huge mistake.

as far as which cards formulate the best engine, that's another can of worms completely. i think it's pretty much universally accepted that fact or fiction is pretty solid, and almost mandatory in a mono blue decklist, and for hella good reason. i think decks that run two are mistaken, and three or four is the number you should always be running. the two casting cost draw spell is the one that always throws me for a loop. i tend to lean towards impulse/accumulated knowledge, but if you want more opinions on that debate, just scroll up. most of the last two pages of this thread have been dedicated to those choices. also, i'm of the mindset that brainstorm is extremely powerful, even in a list without fetch lands, thanks to it's interactions with fact or fiction, impulse, predict, and other cards in that vein. short answer, three or four fact or fiction, and six to eight anything else.

EDIT: sensei's divining top probably isn't a very bad choice either, especially if you don't want to run brainstorm but are still looking for a one drop draw spell. sure, it doesn't work quite the same, but there are probably some arguments to be made here. my only argument against it, is that it opens you up to more hate, giving the opponent more targets for their krosan grips and all else, but i suppose if you spin the top even twice, it's already done more than a single brainstorm has (sort of). ultimately, i don't think i'd ever run them myself, but i feel like they'd mesh with a lot of play styles rather nicely. (i'd also hate to see the counter-top engine worked into our MUC lists, as i think it's becomes a very different deck if that's the case)

also, to predict and answer your next question:

4. i think three beaters is probably the right number, regardless of which ones you're running. most games, you're not going to want an expensive creature in your opening hand, so four seems like it might be a little too much, and two seems far too few. you also don't want to end up in a situation, if you're running impulse, where your forced to bottom deck a beater because you really need to dig for a force of will. i think three is the best number, and further, i think morphling's still/always has been the best choice. (on a side note, when i lay my deck out on a table, i always group my shackles with my creatures, rather than my other permanents.) short answer, three beaters.

--------

i guess this is also a pretty good spot to post my updated decklist as well...

maindeck:
24 islands

2 morphling
1 rainbow efreet
3 vedalkan shackles

4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 force spike (will almost definitely become mental misstep.)

3 back to basics
3 propaganda
3 powder keg

3 fact or fiction
3 impulse
4 brainstorm

sideboard:
2 pithing needle
1 back to basics
4 relic of progenitus
4 mindbreak trap (i've been toying with the idea of chalice of the void)
4 hydroblast

--------

also, i remember someone hating on rainbow efreet many posts ago, but i couldn't find the exact reply. the more i play with her, the more i want to try and up her numbers from one to two in my maindeck. block-phasing stops just about everything cold in it's path, and she's almost strictly harder to get rid of than morphling, since she can phase to safety from powder keg/ratchet bomb/innocent blood/diabolic edict/gatekeeper and all the rest of the indirect removal that's running around. that alone, warrants her a spot as far as i'm concerned, even if she only beats for three damage a turn. if you're in the position you want to be, that's still a pretty decent clock for your opponent. lastly, in any decklist that runs that few creatures, they should almost all have some sort of built in evasion, both offensively, and defensively.