[Deck] Forbid-Jace

[Chaz_the_hunter]

This is a deck that I have been working on for about 6 months. I don't even have all the cards yet (still looking for FOW) but I've played it against some of the better decks around (thresh, Dstompy, Gobz, Belcher) and have had enough success to warrant asking for help to make it better.

Creatures 4
4 Spire Golem

Instants 24
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Force Spike
4 Counterspell
3 Forbid
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Stifle

Artifacts 6
4 Veldalken Shackles
2 Mindslaver

Plainswalkers 3
3 Jace Beleren

Lands 23
4 Flooded Strand
13 Islands
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Academy Ruins

Sideboard 15
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Plumeveil
4 Brainstorm
2 Stifle
1 Giant Penguin of Doom

Win Conditions - 1 - Mindslaver Lock
2 - Attack with Goyf (or whatever else I can take)
3 - Milling With Jace's 3rd ability (Yeah, seriously)

Problems - I don't know if I have enough card power in the deck. I have yet to play someone who has a real way to deal with Jace, especially since I tend to use the +2 ability more than normal. This prevents most of the standard red guys and attackers from taking him out. the win condition takes SOOO long to set up though that If I lose game one I can't really get 2 wins in under 30 minutes. Any suggestions would be great, especially if there is another color to add that would help. I've been thinking about it but I don't have any old duals, just Ravnica ones, so I wasn't willing to take the 2 damage.

[Captain_Morgan]

Superman?

[Piceli89]

i dont' want to be banal, but i notice that you play mishra factories, so you could also put standstills ( especially if you'd decide also to add a couple of mutavaults)...
With the fetchlands, isn't brainstorm a good deal ? And Mindslaver isn't worth ( too much slow and situational, it would gain efficience if you'd play goblin welder or any artifact ,- recursion that would allow you to get it more fastly), maybe Oona would work great here.
I 'd almost recommend you to wath some MoneBlue Control lists , maybe u could find something interesting!

[Valtrix]

Simple fact is that you're not going to get that much mana for mindslaver lock, really. Maybe every other turn you can still screw them over, but it's going to take you a long time to get that much mana. That said, I'm a fan of new decks, so let's take a look at your list. I'm thinking a more landstill-type approach might be appropriate:

Mindslaver: This definitely should be a 1-of. THe simple reason is that you almost never want to draw this, since it will a dead card a lot of the time. Even when you get up to 6 mana, you're going to want to not play it in order to keep counterspell mana open.

Spire golem: Almost entirely not worth it in my opinion...I mean, you're never really going to win attacking with this guy, and I doubt he's going to help you stop much. I think some more manlands would work here instead, like faerie conclave =)

Stifle: 2 random stifles in the maindeck? I really don't see the point. If you're not running 4, you can't rely on it to stop fetchlands, and I think it won't perform well that often.

Forbid: Buyback is too costly, I think. You want everything in your deck, even lots of land. I'd run something like condescend over this in a heartbeat.

Okay, so now that we've checked out the cards, let's see what we have:

-4 spire golem
-1 mindslaver
-2 stifle
-3 forbid

That's a whole ten slots we have to work with! Now, we have gift's ungiven here, so I think it's a good place to focus on abusing it. I'm too lazy to do that right now, but I'll definitely reply later.

[Citrus-God]

Sounds like a crappier version of Forbidian... btw... dont play Jace in this kind of deck where you're trying to exhaust the opponent.

[Chaz_the_hunter]

The idea was to use Jace as a Ophidian that doesn't need anything to work. The Standstills seem like a good place to enhance that but then isn't this just a MUC deck?

The Mindslaver is a good point tho. I can cut down to 1x Ruins and 1x Slaver, and add that land that gets back Ruins. Then put the Gifts engine in the deck and run with it. I don't like BS cuz I only have 4x fetches, but I am willing to play Ponder.

The deck IS able to get to 13 usually since you are drawing two cards a turn. I need to pick up two more stifles as well.

Here's what I'm looking at now.

Instants 21
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Counterspell
4 Stifle
3 Forbid
3 Gifts Ungiven

Sorcery 4
4 Propaganda (instead of Boomerang)

Enchantments 4
4 Standstill

Artifacts 5
4 Veldalken Shackles
1 Mindslaver

Plainswalkers 3
3 Jace Beleren

Lands 23
4 Flooded Strand
13 Islands
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Petrified Field

Sideboard 15
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Echoing Truth
4 Disrupt
3 Stasis

[kilukru]

This have a real MUC base so you should consider some MUC weapon of choice.

Propaganda
back to basic (more as a sideboard option since you run factory's)

Also stifle seem pretty so-so, yeah it can hit featch but no wasteland to back it up on the mana disruption, and you should be able to contain combo without it. Maybee Spell Snare or more board control (Propaganda, Powder Keg, Disk)

Boomrang is a no-no, Echoing Truth is simply better since it work as removal against token's (im looking at you Ichorid and ETW) even then, running them main is questionable, but ET won me some games singlehandly, so I cant rule them out.

I would also suggest another win-con, Meleku is always nice, Guile can also do the job.

On a personal taste note : Fact or Fiction over Gifts Ungiven

[Chaz_the_hunter]

I like Propaganda. the 'rangs were just cuz I didn't have an idea of what else to drop in.

[Seriously]

so whats the kill condition, shackles and factories ?

[Chaz_the_hunter]

right now, its one of 3 things
1 - shackles/factories
2 - Gifts into Mindslaver/Ruins/Petrified Field/X... should I put something else in that will get me there faster?
3 - get a soft lock into play and let Jace get to 11

[Chaz_the_hunter]

This have a real MUC base so you should consider some MUC weapon of choice.

Propaganda
back to basic (more as a sideboard option since you run factory's)

Also stifle seem pretty so-so, yeah it can hit featch but no wasteland to back it up on the mana disruption, and you should be able to contain combo without it. Maybee Spell Snare or more board control (Propaganda, Powder Keg, Disk)

Boomrang is a no-no, Echoing Truth is simply better since it work as removal against token's (im looking at you Ichorid and ETW) even then, running them main is questionable, but ET won me some games singlehandly, so I cant rule them out.

I would also suggest another win-con, Meleku is always nice, Guile can also do the job.

On a personal taste note : Fact or Fiction over Gifts Ungiven


Stifle? really? .... I guess, since I don't have much of a metagame here. the only decks I saw last week were landstill, B/G/x Rock, Thresh, and Gobz. Is Stifle a main deck card against those decks or a sideboard card?

Guile isn't much of a win con right now (dont own FOW's IRL yet) but is it really good enough? Meloku tho... that's an option

I have been holding on to the slaver lock for a while now, but it seems that it just shouldn't be here. that means I can go for FoF over Gifts... unless there is something else I should pack instead for a Gifts package

Also, should I play something like Remand? Maybe over the Stifles?

[Chaz_the_hunter]

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Counterspell
4 Remand?
2 Forbid
3 Fact or Fiction

Sorcery 4
4 Propaganda (instead of Boomerang)

Enchantments 4
4 Standstill

Creatures 2
2 Teferi Mage of Zharfir

Artifacts 4
4 Veldalken Shackles

Plainswalkers 3
3 Jace Beleren

Lands 23
4 Flooded Strand
15 Islands
4 Mishra's Factory

Sideboard 15
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Echoing Truth
4 Stifle
3 Back to Basics

This is where the deck is right now. I had Teferi and not Meloku (I didn't play in that block) so I'm going to try him out. I put Remand into the main deck as another controlling piece and to keep my hand full.

[Tacosnape]

Why on earth would you play Jace Beleren in a deck with virtually no creature removal whatsoever?

[Fuzzy]

What you think about Intuition and the green splash for Loam?

Loam + Academy + Slaver
Loam + Cephalid Coliseum + Cycling Land/Wasteland/Dust Bowl/Mishra/Tabernacle
Loam + Forbid =)

EDIT: And, of course, Tarmogoyf.

[Chaz_the_hunter]

Why on earth would you play Jace Beleren in a deck with virtually no creature removal whatsoever?

C'mon, this isn't standard here, we don't need to have removal to deal with creatures. This deck is designed to slow down the game until you can resolve some key spells and then win with either a Shackled creature, or a Teferi/Meloku when they don't provide you with a win condition. Propaganda and Shackles stop the guys that you don't mind hitting the board, the counters stop the rest.


.... As for the Green splash... Goyf would fit into the slot that Teferi/Meloku is in right now (4x obv) and would stop thresh and standstill's best guy until he can be recruited to the good side. Loam would work, and it recurs Factories as well.

-2 Teferi
-4 Remand
-4 Island
+4 Tropical Island
+4 Tarmogoyf
+1 Life from the Loam
+1 Lonely Sandbar

I'd have to try this with some proxies first since I can't afford to drop 200 on Trops and 120 on goyfs right now, esp. since I just popped 80 for FOW. Is there any other obvious things that I could add if I have Loam?

[Chaz_the_hunter]

which is better if I'm using loam and Forbid? Intuition or Gifts?

also, is there a better artifact win condition than Mindslaver for this deck? the 13 needed to lock with it seems like a lot for a non tron deck

[Citrus-God]

which is better if I'm using loam and Forbid? Intuition or Gifts?

also, is there a better artifact win condition than Mindslaver for this deck? the 13 needed to lock with it seems like a lot for a non tron deck

Intuition for sure. Gifts is good if you run a huge and diverse counter base with things like Merchant Scroll and Brainstorm. But my experience with Gifts and Forbid were with my experiences with Dredge-a-Tog though.

[georgjorge]

C'mon, this isn't standard here, we don't need to have removal to deal with creatures. This deck is designed to slow down the game until you can resolve some key spells and then win with either a Shackled creature, or a Teferi/Meloku when they don't provide you with a win condition. Propaganda and Shackles stop the guys that you don't mind hitting the board, the counters stop the rest.

It's a risky supposition that you'll be able to stop every creature just with counters and Shackles, ESPECIALLY if you're on the draw. Being able to remove a creature in play is far easier than always having the mana open to counter it, especially if you run Standstill as well - dropping a second or third turn Standstill leaves Force as the only option to prevent a creature from entering play that turn.

You have Propaganda and Shackles, but with most decks running a few big creatures instead of many smaller ones, you can't be sure for them to protect you. Neither Shackles nor Propaganda aren't much good vs Mongoose, Tombstalker, Dreadnought, 'Vore, Crusher, or a big Goyf. Getting reliable removal is the reason so many almost-monoblue-control decks run white as their secondary color for Swords. I think that alone would make that deck a lot better against Aggro decks. Plus, it allows for Engineered Explosives as a second Ruins target. That's slow as hell, but still faster than Mindslaver when you're facing an Aggro deck.

I think your deck as it is should have an amazing game against control and slower decks in general, but most of your countermagic costing two, and the lack of removal, WILL make it hard to beat Aggro-Control and Aggro. So I'd sacrifice some of the power of the deck for speed, like cutting Remand for Snares, and maybe the Forbid engine as well.

[Chaz_the_hunter]

So shouldn't I just put some form of kill in the sideboard? not every deck uses guys, only gobz, thresh and Rock.

If I add kill, what do I use? I can add white, but I was about to splash for green to get Loam in the deck, which would feed the Forbid engine as well. G/B is about the least efficient way to deal with guys, but I could get EE in there which would work with the Intuition and the Ruins

[Hummingbird TG]

So shouldn't I just put some form of kill in the sideboard? not every deck uses guys, only gobz, thresh and Rock

AND Dreadstill, and Team America, and Aggro-Loam -- and that's just to refer to the DtB forum. I'm pretty sure you can't Shackles a Dreadnought.

As for Removal, as you mentioned, EE is good; otherwise you could splash white for StP.

[Chaz_the_hunter]

so EE needs to get in the deck, and if possible something else, but I was <3 on the green splash for Loam, and I don't think I can stretch both ways to get StP in there (both deck wise and $$) Which should I go with?

[Chaz_the_hunter]

Is it right to be splashing a color for ANY reason right now if it is not necessary? Every list I look at nowadays is either 4x Stifle 4x Wasteland or 4x Moon 2x Moonman. sticking to one color means that you can throw them completely off their game by giving them dead cards in hand, as well as develop your board faster?

I think I need to get a different win condition that is blue only