[Deck] Shard Control

[Vacrix]

Thats right folks. Trying to break Crystal Shard. The idea is to recycle your own creatures to take advantage of their effects, save your own creatures from removal, and/or use it offensively to bounce your opponent's creatures.

I'm sure the knee jerk response is to dismiss the deck because Krosan Grip exists. I'm optimistic. I run cantrips to find more Shards and I want to also run X Karkas (though at the moment I'm sure what the right number is).

The strategy of the deck is to stall the early game with some countermagic and removal, maybe play some cantrips. The plan is to try to get Shard online by the midgame. Once shard is online, you can go for a Mangara lock and seal the game, much like DnT. You can also steal your opponents creatures via Gilded Drake, and manipulate the board state so that you can bounce Drake back to your hand. This can be accomplished via mana denial whether it be activating shard at the end of turn, then accompany a second activation on your own turn with a wasteland. You can also STP your opponents 2nd creature and then play Curfew or something. This is at least the theory.

Why play this list? I'm trying to build a DnT variant. The current list has a lot of answers for Reanimator that Mono-W DnT does not. It also looks much better against Zoo (though I'm just speculating with theory). DnT is already mediocre against combo, though its game plan improves significantly upon moving to the postboard. I'm aiming for a similar SB plan postboard. The current list also maindecks Curfew, which allows the deck to combat Progenitus much more effectively. It doesn't run Mother of Runes like DnT, but it has other ways of protecting its creatures such as Crystal Shard, Curfew, countermagic, and Divert.

Problems with the list? Clearly the current list has problems winning quickly. I'm looking for a decent endgame strategy. DnT has some pretty fat creatures that can win the game pretty quickly. My original list ran Stoneforge Mystics and an equipment package. After all, bouncing SFM for a 2nd piece of equipment is pretty awesome. I dropped it for a more control oriented build. I'm not sure which approach is better; approach it as an aggro/control deck like UW Tempo and use Shard as a supplemental strategy or go for the control approach and try to focus more on abusing Shard.

I have no access to MWS at the moment so I cannot test the list; however, I'm down to discuss different ways in which I might abuse Shard. I'm certain that Shard is stronger in a mana denial shell because then the card can also be used offensively to bounce your opponents creatures. Just having it on the field makes Daze, Spell Pierce, and Divert even stronger. I don't run FoW, as you can probably see when you scope the list. I'm against the concept that every control deck playing blue ought to play FoW. I want to build something more like DnT and take advantage of some great blue cards. The deck might evolve and play FoW though so I won't rule it out. Now on to a list:

List

Shard Control
Artifacts 3
3 Crystal Shard

Creatures 11
4 Gilded Drake
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Mangara of Corondor
1 Vendilion Clique

Removal 8
4 Curfew
4 Swords to Plowshares

Countermagic 11
4 Daze
4 Spell Pierce
3 Divert

Cantrip 6
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

Land 21
1 Karakas
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland
2 Island
2 Plains

Card Choices

:Maindeck:
ARTIFACTS
- Crystal Shard -
Utility piece. It can be used offensively and/or defensively. Once its in play, it provides you with many tricks. You can bounce your opponents creatures or bounce your own to save your guys from removal. Crystal Shard also facilitates Mangara lock, and can bounce Vendillion Clique if you want to get something out of your opponent's hand. It can recycle Spellstutter Sprite and can bounce Gilded Drake to your hand after your opponent has tapped out.

CREATURES
- Gilded Drake -
Steals your opponents creatures. Why play it? You can bounce it back to your hand. Its also randomly good against Ichorid if you need to remove bridges. It can also steal Iona if they put Iona on white.

- Spellstutter Sprite -
Countermagic and creature in one. It can be recycled with Crystal Shard.

- Mangara of Corondor -
Allows you to remove a permanent every other turn via either Crystal Shard or Karakas.

- Vendilion Clique -
Can shuffle away important cards, while evasively beating for 3. It can be recycled, if desired, with Crystal Shard or Karakas.

SPELLS
- Curfew -
Curfew can save your creatures and/or stall the opponent. You can also use countermagic and removal to manipulate the board state so that you can Curfew your opponents Drake back to your hand while keeping the dude you stole, or at least this is the theory.

- Swords to Plowshares -
A great piece of removal.

- Daze -
Standard countermagic.

- Spell Pierce -
Standard countermagic.

- Divert -
Questionable slot. I like it personally. You can 2 for 1 your opponent's creatures with their own removal, redirect discard, and win counterwars. Crystal Shard and Wasteland make all of these countermagic slightly better.

- Brainstorm -
Cantrip.

- Ponder -
Cantrip.

LAND
- Karakas -
Bounces Mangara for the lock, and can also bounce Vendilion Clique.

- Wasteland -
Destroys non-basics. Makes all of your 'pay 1' or 'pay 2' effects much more attractive.

Questions
- Should I splash a color? Green provides access to Eternal Witness, which was how old-school Shard decks worked.
- Should I take a more aggro/control approach or stick with the control approach?
- Are there any other good creatures I can use with Shard?
- How many Karkas is the right number?
- Should I run FoW?
- Is there anything else I should run to improve the mana denial strategy? Stifle perhaps?

Discuss.

[slaughtercult]

i saw a list that uses the same idea...

8 Forest
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
2 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Tundra
1 Simic Growth Chamber

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Eternal Witness
1 Mystic Snake
1 Magus of the Future
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro

4 Oust
4 Temporal Spring
3 Primal Command
4 Memory Lapse
1 Plagiarize
1 Crystal Shard
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Opposition
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Garruk Wildspeaker

Sideboard:
1 Trygon Predator
1 Seedborn Muse
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Plagiarize

this list uses a more aggro control feel and, as you mentioned, it takes advantage of the Eternal Witness synergy. it top 8ed a small tournament as listed here: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35245

[ScatmanX]

- Is there anything else I should run to improve the mana denial strategy? Stifle perhaps?Discuss.

Actually, I don't think you shoul be using mana denial strategy whatsoever. You get 0 benefit from it (unlike decks like goblin/folk/new. h....) Because it seems like this deck NEEDS the opponent to do something. Like, Gilded Drake, Sprite and Magara are useless if your opponent does nothing. The same can be said about the rest of the deck. Mana denial is to buy time. Why do you want to buy time for? SS, Gilded drake, and your counters are 2cc or less. Only Shards is more expensive, but you can use the rest without him...
(without Wastelands, you could easily splash green)

My suggestion would be to find something that adds a clock, or a complet lock.
Maybe 2x Jace 2.0 or something like that.

And if you want to run FoW (wich I think you should), I'd go -1 Daze, Divert, Pierce, Curfew.
And I guess that you could use 2 Karakas, once you run 21 lands and 4 Brainstorms.

[Grumpollion]

I'm wondering if Waterfront Bouncer might be better than Crystal Shard. If you did use Bouncer, you might also include Circular Logic, Deep Analysis, Obsessive Search, and/or Accumulated Knowledge. Intuition would go well with Deep Anal and AK.

Temporal Adept and Vedalken Mastermind are other possible substitutes for Shard, although Adept requires more mana to use and Mastermind can't affect your opponent's permanents. Both also suffer from summoning sickness, unlike Shard, but both provide more guaranteed results (opponent can't pay mana to prevent the bounce) and can target non-creature permanents as well.

I also notice that all of your creatures except for Drake are wizards. Patron Wizard might fit in well, especially if you decided to use Adept and/or Mastermind (also wizards). Vedalken Aethermage (wizardcycling) could let you tutor whatever wizard you wanted, if that's beneficial. Aethermage could serve as a creature until you needed it as a tutor, at which point you could bounce it back to your hand and cycle it.

Riptide Laboratory is like a Karakas for all of your wizards.

Just throwing those out there in case they haven't been considered yet. Maybe they're better, maybe they're not.

[Vacrix]

i saw a list that uses the same idea...

this list uses a more aggro control feel and, as you mentioned, it takes advantage of the Eternal Witness synergy. it top 8ed a small tournament as listed here: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35245
I don't really understand a lot of the card choices. In general, though, the deck looks like it tries to lock the opponent out of the game by keeping stuff on top of the deck. Its a slightly different strategy. It does abuse some interesting Shard interactions though. Mystic Snake and Eternal Witness are clearly the best, though Clique also has its uses.


Actually, I don't think you shoul be using mana denial strategy whatsoever. You get 0 benefit from it (unlike decks like goblin/folk/new. h....) Because it seems like this deck NEEDS the opponent to do something. Like, Gilded Drake, Sprite and Magara are useless if your opponent does nothing. The same can be said about the rest of the deck. Mana denial is to buy time. Why do you want to buy time for? SS, Gilded drake, and your counters are 2cc or less. Only Shards is more expensive, but you can use the rest without him...
(without Wastelands, you could easily splash green)

My suggestion would be to find something that adds a clock, or a complet lock.
Maybe 2x Jace 2.0 or something like that.

And if you want to run FoW (wich I think you should), I'd go -1 Daze, Divert, Pierce, Curfew.
And I guess that you could use 2 Karakas, once you run 21 lands and 4 Brainstorms.
Well you are partially correct. Drake and Sprite are good if the opponent plays something. Mangara is always useful. It removes permanents. Lands are still permanents. Often when you get the Mangara soft-lock online, you can make it a hardlock if you can manage to remove all of your opponents lands, though they usually resign before this happens. Also, if your opponent doesn't do anything, you acquire more resources, via land to do take advantage of the cards in your hand when your opponent does something (because he will at some point).

I disagree with the concept that mana denial is only used to buy time. Decks in legacy often play off a very low number of lands. If you build your deck correctly, Daze can be useful even in the lategame. UW Tempo is a perfect example, using Wastelands and Wayfarer-->Wasteland to take advantage of Spell Pierce and Daze even after they might be considered dead cards. I hope to accomplish the same strategy. Consider the following situation:
An opponent playing Zoo has 4 lands (in the mid game). He tries to resolve a Knight of the Reliquary. I respond by tapping my Crystal Shard to bounce one of his other creatures. Now he has a tough choice. Does he just let the other creature gets bounced to his hand? Or does he try to play around my Daze? Conveniently, he has no idea what I have in my hand. Even then, what is the right choice? Maybe I bounced a Goyf. Now he has a choice between losing his Goyf in the short run or losing his KoTR in the long run. If he is smart then he will just let the Goyf get bounced. If I don't actually have Daze then the right play is to pay the 1. Then again, do I have Brainstorm? I could then Brainstorm after he pays the 1, looking for the Daze.

Take another situation.
The opponent has 5 lands, and its my turn. I draw and play my Wasteland, waste one of his lands. Repeat the situation above.

I don't know if these situations will pan out like I'm advertising. Its just theory right now, but thats the theory. Maybe I ought to play some Rishidan Ports as well to keep my opponent off mana. That would make all the mana denial much stronger. Keep in mind that when Shard actually gets to start bouncing things the opponent will probably try to replay his stuff. He has 2 choices. He can choose to replay his stuff quickly or slowly. Slowly avoids the Shard, but that opens up the possibility for me to use it with my own spells and interactions. If he choose to play it quickly, I can just start bouncing all of his stuff, and throw some countermagic in there as well.

I really like Jace. I will certainly cut something for him.

I'd agree about the 2nd Karakas given 21 land 4 Brainstorm. I'd really like to run Port though, so that changes things. Access to Islands is pretty important.


I'm wondering if Waterfront Bouncer might be better than Crystal Shard. If you did use Bouncer, you might also include Circular Logic, Deep Analysis, Obsessive Search, and/or Accumulated Knowledge. Intuition would go well with Deep Anal and AK.

Temporal Adept and Vedalken Mastermind are other possible substitutes for Shard, although Adept requires more mana to use and Mastermind can't affect your opponent's permanents. Both also suffer from summoning sickness, unlike Shard, but both provide more guaranteed results (opponent can't pay mana to prevent the bounce) and can target non-creature permanents as well.

I also notice that all of your creatures except for Drake are wizards. Patron Wizard might fit in well, especially if you decided to use Adept and/or Mastermind (also wizards). Vedalken Aethermage (wizardcycling) could let you tutor whatever wizard you wanted, if that's beneficial. Aethermage could serve as a creature until you needed it as a tutor, at which point you could bounce it back to your hand and cycle it.

Riptide Laboratory is like a Karakas for all of your wizards.

Just throwing those out there in case they haven't been considered yet. Maybe they're better, maybe they're not.
Bouncer would change the deck immensely. A madness version would certainly be interesting. I think Shard is much less vulnerable. Decks often pack significantly less artifact removal than they do creature removal.

I think Shard is significantly better than Adept and Mastermind. The reasons you highlighted are exactly what I would have said. I want to use it both on offense and defense.

Actually I noticed that most of the creatures are wizards. I think that Riptide Laboratory would be good if it didn't cost 1U to activate. Thats too much of a mana sink to be good IMO. I don't think I run enough creatures to take advantage of Patron Wizard, but maybe playing too few creatures is not a good idea in the first place.

[Pastorofmuppets]

... Are you running CB/Top in here or what?

[Vacrix]

I probably should. Given all the bounce, I could easily take advantage of it.
What would you suggest cutting for it?