Mono Blue Control

[evanmartyr]

So, this is kind of more a thought experiment than an actual deck, but with the advent of Mental Misstep, I find myself thinking back to Mono Blue control, and how awesome it is (was), and how Mental Misstep shores up a huge hole in the deck design: the ability to answer turn 1 threats without gutting your hand by relying on Force of Will.

I'm concerned about a few things, namely the draw engine.

1: Ancestral Visions seems slow, since it doesn't start digging until turn 5, so it doesn't do much to help you answer early-game threats that slip under your counters.
2: Standstill is somewhat of a liability, since in a deck without awesome manlands, you have to be actively winning to avoid giving your opponent cards.
3: Accumulated Knowledge builds up slowly, and your first cast of it every game is going to be just awful outside of using Intuition.
4: Brainstorm is a given if we use fetchlands, but it doesn't actually end up generating cards in hand.
5: Fact or Fiction costs 4(!) so that's out.
6: Gush sets you back two turns worth of mana development, but it's fairly solid in the sense that you can hardcast it late-game. Not sure if that'll be an option if you give up all your lands for cards early-game, though.

So, if our givens are:

A counterspell suite. (MMS, FoW, Counterspell, Daze/Disrupt/Spell Snare/Spell Pierce, etc)
Brainstorm.
Fetchlands.
Back to Basics.

Then that leaves us needing:

1: Answers to threats on the board (creatures, artifacts, etc).
2: Something to draw cards.
3: Some way other than Back to Basics of gumming up the works in the mid-game. Counterbalance seems the ideal candidate here.
4: A win condition.

Anyone have any insight on these problems or ones I've overlooked?

EDIT: Derf. Jace 2.0 is not budget. Fixed.

[Zlatzman]

I would recommend having a look at the list posted by 4eak in this thread: Budget Decks - My Attempts (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20587-%5BBudget-Decks%5D-My-Attempts)

For reference I will repost his list here:
MUC (Permanent-based)
// Islands - 24
24 Island

// Beef - 3
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Call the Skybreaker

// Board Control and Tempo - 13
1 Capsize
3 Propaganda
3 Powder Keg
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Back to Basics

// Permission - 12
4 Counterspell
4 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak

// Draw - 8
4 Impulse
4 Fact or Fiction

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Echoing Truth
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Pithing Needle



As you can see 4eak chose to use Propaganda, Vedalken Shackles and Powder Keg, along with Capsize, to answer troublesome permanents. I do believe you should play Shackles, and against tribal Propaganda can buy you a turn or two.

As for the draw engine, Fact or Fiction isn't too bad. You will probably need to tap out turns one, two and three anyway to deal with problems. The big question is if you can afford to spend four mana on draw before your hand is out of answers. I haven't played MUC, so I am not sure what the answer is.

For kill condition you could run Spellstutter Sprite and Vendilion Clique, but they may be too fragile and too slow.

Also I would like to note that Gush currently is banned in Legacy.

[evanmartyr]

I'm not quite going bare-bones budget here, I was mostly just trying to avoid the ridiculously expensive mana base of any deck that utilizes dual lands. So fetch lands, Force of Wills, etc are all easily procured. Jace 2.0 not so much (hence their exclusion), and I would be tempted to try out something like Karn if I could afford a few now, but I can't.

So anyway, that's why I'm assuming Brainstorm's inclusion over Impulse, and why I can think about running Intuition/AK over Fact or Fiction, although you have a very good point that I'm likely to be countering things turn 1-3, but I still dislike the inflexibility of a 4cc card drawer.

4eak's list is interesting, but I would be a little leery of running it into a field of combo and multi-colored control. The Propogandas are great in the maindeck against most everything creature-based, and they're this deck's real only hope against dredge in game 1, but you just fold to combo, and 12 counterspells and more mana-intensive card filtering seem to be outclassed by Landstills threats and card advantage.

I really like your idea of including some Faeries, but something like 4x Spellstutter Sprite and 3x Vendilion Clique is kind of wishy-washy. If I splashed black I'd be all for it, but there aren't many great Faeries to boost those numbers, and that creature package is basically 3x vulnerable fliers with game against control + 4 crappy counterspells. They do all have flash, which is pretty ballin, but I dunno. I kind of assume that since we're not fighting for tempo with the opposing deck, just garnering a large mid- to late-game advantage, something like Clique really isn't all that awesome. It's a great way to stall their combo, or force a removal spell, but I'd almost rather the removal spell was pointless because I run no creatures, or something.

What about original Jace? Pretty mana efficient, and you don't HAVE to give your opponents cards until you've got the game more locked up. Still kind of pales in comparison to the original, though =/ I just feel like we're missing something, which may just be a consequence of trying to jam all the things a control deck has to care about these days into a mono-colored deck.

[Iron Buddha]

I'm in the same situation as you. I've chosen MUC because of my limited budget. So no Jace TMS and Duallands. But I have Force of Will and Fetchlands.

The draw-engine: If you look at the MUC thread, you see that 4x FoF is widely accepted as the draw-engine of choice and no other draw engine comes even close. It seems that people started cutting FoF with the printing of Jace TMS. (But I personally think that this is actually an awful idea.)
Just run 4x FoF I'd say. FoF is really good in this deck! Why do you want something else?

I agree that Brainstorm + Fetchland is much better than Impulse. Shuffling back expensive cards is a huge play, as that increases the odds of drawing them later on when you need them.

On point 3: This I don't understand. Your mid and lategame plan is Vedalken Shackles + your draw-engine. Control is a favourable matchup anyway.

On point 4: That is the main problem. No doubt, there are a bunch of several good win-cons like CtS, Meloku, Sphinx, but none of them is predestinated to fight combo.

This is my list, but I change my list almost every day trying out new cards. Tell me what you think.


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

// 6
3 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Echoing Truth
1 Brittle Effigy

// 15
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Mental Misstep
3 Mana Leak

// 9
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm
1 Impulse

// 6
4 Vedalken Shackles
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

[entity]

Since FoW and fetchlands aren't a problem, a pair of shocklands can let you splash a color without too much harm to your wallet (or buying just one dual wouldn't hurt?). This is the list I had some success in playtesting (and my friend in participating in tournaments):

24 lands - 4 UR fetches, ~2 other fetches, 1 ur shockland, 1 ug shockland, 1 (maybe 2) basic mountain, 1 Academy Ruins

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
4 Fact or Fiction

1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Meloku
2 Calcite Snapper

4 FoW
4 Counterspell
4 Spell Snare (substitute with MM?)

3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Back to Basics

SB - red and blue blasts, firespout if necessary in metagame, etc.

Bolts give you an easy solution for early creatures, snappers add to that and function as a finishers on clean board. Only targetable finisher was Meloku and it can easily be substituted for Morphling or another Jar-Jar or smth. Deck runs quite nice, I suggest you to proxy and try it out with some updates (MM comes to mind). :)

[evanmartyr]

I'm thinking that if you're not running the Counterbalance engine, then MMS isn't a very good replacement for Spell Snare. Spell Snare lets us jump ahead, using turn 1 mana development to answer turn 2 threats against conventional aggro and aggro-control decks. MMS might deserve slots in the maindeck, but probably not in place of Spell Snare. I've been drawing sample hands off this list:

4x Brainstorm
4x Fact or Fiction

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
3x Spell Snare
4x Mental Misstep
1x Spell Pierce

2x Echoing Truth
4x Ratchet Bomb

2x Meloku
1x Sphinx of Jwar Isle

4x Quicksand
12x Island
8x Fetchlands

I've been using the last three slots as just kind of random stuff, blank cards that I note down what I'd like them to be when I draw them, and it's almost always a 1-2cc instant card drawing/filtering spell (Impulse? AK?), random 1cc counters like Spell Pierce/Snare, or Divert (which, to be frank, is goddamn ridiculous). Stifle would occasionally be backbreaking, but much of the time against Zoo they just go first turn Fetch -> dude, and you're stuck with a Stifle that doesn't actually do that much that you didn't have the mana to play. This was ameliorated quite a bit with the addition of Mental Misstep.

I like leaving the Back to Basics in the sideboard, as even with them in you don't have a great game against the decks that get hit hard by them, and since you're not playing anything other than Ratchet Bombs that can be disenchanted it's likely that they won't side in extra hate against you, so they'll go unmolested.

If you can afford, in your metagame, to play a slower game, a Trinket Mage package might be worthwhile in place of the Sphinx and some countermagic, as SDT is really quite amazing even with only Fetchlands to shuffle; Engineered Explosives is occasionally very useful, and Meekstone is pretty nice.

If I had to throw one together right now, the SB would look something like:

4x Divert
3x Mindbreak Trap
4x Back to Basics
4x something random, probably dredge hate