Leyline of the Maze

[DragoFireheart]

This is a new sort of control deck that I have been tinkering with recently that just might be something new and cool. The deck list:

3 Painter's Servant
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
1 Capsize
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Counterbalance
4 Leyline of Anticipation
3 Mana Maze
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Vedalken Shackles

4 Flooded Strand
13 Island
4 Scalding Tarn



Basically, Mana Maze, Painter's Servant, and Leyline of Anticipation are gotten out to lock out the opponent. Here is how they work:

-Mana maze only allows spells of one color to be played each turn. By itself, blue spells can not be countered.
-The leyline allows you to cast non-lands on your opponents turn.
- The painter turns all cards into the color of your choice.

Since lands are also of the chosen color, once you get all the pieces out, your opponent can only cast instants during their upkeep by retaining priority.

Counterbalance is in this deck to help counter some of the removal they may throw at us and our combo pieces. Another solution to the removal problem is casting Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. With him and the other four pieces, you lock them out of doing anything since they can only cast spells anytime a sorcery would be cast. Since you just cast a spell during their upkeep, they have no chance to cast any spells.

The deck is currently in the testing stage: right now it's mono-blue, but it could easily splash a color. What I need is ideas and suggestions on this deck idea and how to improve it. The concept seems powerful. Hello, even the Mana maze with two other pieces causes a sort of soft lock on either blue decks (with the Leyline) or any deck when you cast instants (with the painter).

[kinda]

Playing 3 painter servants, blue, and no trinket mage+grindstone package seems wrong to me.

[DragoFireheart]

Playing 3 painter servants, blue, and no trinket mage+grindstone package seems wrong to me.

What do you suggest I take out?

[bruizar]

I like the concept, but I would throw out the leylines and counterbalances. I'd just play with a lot of instant speed cantrips like Impulse (dig for painter / grindstone and Orim's Chant opponent)

Needs more servants and more grindstones and trinket mages. I think this can actually become a good deck. Fun fact, your spells can´t get countered once you establish the mana maze/servant.

I would even go as far as to suggest AEther Vial, so that you can still cheat cards in play

[bruizar]

This is a new sort of control deck that I have been tinkering with recently that just might be something new and cool. The deck list:

3 Painter's Servant
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
1 Capsize
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Counterbalance
4 Leyline of Anticipation
3 Mana Maze
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Vedalken Shackles

4 Flooded Strand
13 Island
4 Scalding Tarn




Before taking a look at splash colors, I would do this.
-4 Leyline of Anticipation
-4 Counterbalance
-1 or 2 Sensei's Divining Top
-1 Capsize

+1/2 Vendillion Clique
+1 Painter's Servant
+3/4 Trinket Mage
+2 Grindstone
+Toolbox
+4 Impulse

Trinket Mage is good with Mana Maze and without Painter's Servant because it allows you to block Counterspells (because Trinket Mage is blue) for your Grindstone. Also, game 1 access to GY hate etc is good. This is probably insane, but perhaps Decree of Silence (I know its slow) could help you here. After you assemble, all your counterspells become worthless.

[DragoFireheart]

Leyline of Anticipation is there to allow you to play non-instants on your opponents turn. It's there to help further lock them out.

[bruizar]

Leyline of AnticipationIt's there to help further lock them out.

Just means win more :-) Use Vendillion Clique to Time Walk them (perhaps even with Karakas) and push damage. Also, I would replace Teferi with Venser. Cast Venser in their upkeep, bouncing Venser... Much better than chaff like Leyline of Anticipation or Capsize

http://www.black-lotus.nl/mtg/lg/Future_Sight/Venser__Shaper_Savant.jpg

[DragoFireheart]

Just means win more :-) Use Vendillion Clique to Time Walk them (perhaps even with Karakas) and push damage. Also, I would replace Teferi with Venser. Cast Venser in their upkeep, bouncing Venser... Much better than chaff like Leyline of Anticipation or Capsize

http://www.black-lotus.nl/mtg/lg/Future_Sight/Venser__Shaper_Savant.jpg


Aw, Venser is perfect. Good find. How about this list?


4 Painter's Servant
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Impulse
4 Mental Misstep
4 Mana Maze
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Grindstone
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Vedalken Shackles

4 Flooded Strand
13 Island
4 Scalding Tarn

========

A nice perk about Mana Maze is that it's a main-deck screw to Storm decks and mono-blue decks.

[Richard Cheese]

What happens if they cast an instant at the beginning of your turn?

[bruizar]

They timewalk you, this is why you need more instants then them (hence impulse). Also, I think a red splash for elemental blasts should be explored, because once you establish the lock, you can use them to vindicate whereas regular counters will just clutter up your hands. Pyroblast in particular is nice, because you can cast it without needing a target. But lets not splash colors too quickly.

The list you have looks better already I think. I think this deck will have the most problems dealing with fast aggro as long as it stays in 1 color. I would def. add 1 Meekstone to the trinket mage toolbox to fight of Tarmogoyf and Knight. Its not perfect, but its hard to find good blue answers against aggro. Its kind of hard to theory craft this deck, so I suggest testing it out to see if the combo is hard to set up or easy.

if you're staying mono blue, transmute artifacts can also help you set up servant or grindstone (depending on board state).

[DragoFireheart]

What happens if they cast an instant at the beginning of your turn?

You get time walked. Which is why I was advocating for the Leyline so you can just ignore it and continue to play spells. Playing more instants is the other solution, be it spells or creatures with flash.

[Grollub]

I think the list looks exceptional soft against aggresive multi-colored decks (Maze offers some sort of delay outside of the lock I suppose); Shackles seem like it'll be too slow to save you against a quick onslaught decks like Zoo and Junk can put on you, maybe try some quicker board control like Ratchet Bomb?

Any deck that includes both Venser and Clique gets my sign of approval.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Vendilion Clique/Karakas and Venser seem like some of the better lockout options, though this means you're building the deck around a 3-4-card combo that doesn't actually win the game (meaning already deployed threats could still kill you).
In addition, once you have Painter/Maze online, you can't actually counter any removal they try to use to break up the combo any more, which seems counterproductive (as your countermagic is also of the same color) and they always get the option of trying to use it because they have priority during their turn (and you need to play a spell on each of your upkeeps to prevent them from stealing your turns instead, necessitating the Leyline which has its own problems).

I'm not sure where you were going with this

Since lands are also of the chosen color, once you get all the pieces out, your opponent can only cast instants during their upkeep by retaining priority.
but if it's in any way important, you should rethink the deck because that's doesn't work. Playing lands /= casting spells.

Not to be a spoilsport, but your combo seems worse than just running Scepter-Chant in every way other than the fact that the Chant copy can actually be countered. Scepter Chant doesn't lose to (instant speed) creature removal, doesn't randomly lock you out of the game because the opponent happens to have drawn more Instants than you and also keeps the opponent's creatures from beating down.
Over all I'd say interesting concept and cute idea but definitely not very likely to become a solid competitive choice.

[DragoFireheart]

Vendilion Clique/Karakas and Venser seem like some of the better lockout options, though this means you're building the deck around a 3-4-card combo that doesn't actually win the game (meaning already deployed threats could still kill you).
In addition, once you have Painter/Maze online, you can't actually counter any removal they try to use to break up the combo any more, which seems counterproductive (as your countermagic is also of the same color) and they always get the option of trying to use it because they have priority during their turn (and you need to play a spell on each of your upkeeps to prevent them from stealing your turns instead, necessitating the Leyline which has its own problems).

I'm not sure where you were going with this

but if it's in any way important, you should rethink the deck because that's doesn't work. Playing lands /= casting spells.

Not to be a spoilsport, but your combo seems worse than just running Scepter-Chant in every way other than the fact that the Chant copy can actually be countered. Scepter Chant doesn't lose to (instant speed) creature removal, doesn't randomly lock you out of the game because the opponent happens to have drawn more Instants than you and also keeps the opponent's creatures from beating down.
Over all I'd say interesting concept and cute idea but definitely not very likely to become a solid competitive choice.


That was one of the reasons I wanted a Counter-top shell in addition to the combo so you can counter spells they play to try and remove your combo pieces.

[klaus]

Lol. With a Servant and Maze in play, you can't use your counter magic to protect him...

[DragoFireheart]

Lol. With a Servant and Maze in play, you can't use your counter magic to protect him...

You can so long as your opponent does not cast a blue spell before using their removal. That is one of the drawbacks of the combo and why I was suggesting Counterbalance to help protect him.

[klaus]

You can so long as your opponent does not cast a blue spell before using their removal. That is one of the drawbacks of the combo and why I was suggesting Counterbalance to help protect him.

all spells will share the same color, which makes your statement somewhat confusing..

[DragoFireheart]

all spells will share the same color, which makes your statement somewhat confusing..

Err sorry, thought you were talking about Mana Maze alone. Regardless, that doesn't change my comment about having Counterbalance out.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

The problem with Counterbalance as your backup plan: If you already have them CB locked, wouldn't it be easier to do pretty much anything else than create an even harder lock? Such as playing a Grindstone to go with your Painter instead of Mana Maze to actually kill them, play some big creature and beat down with it (this also has the advantage of actually being able to defend you against creatures that are already in play) or drop a Planeswalker (Jace bounce, brainstorm and fateseal all have synergy with CB, Elspeth neutralizes a creature on the board, so does Ajani).
With the Maze-lock, you now have four cards that are really bad on their own in your deck only to create a hardlock once a softlock is already in place (and at least partially contingent on them not breaking out of said softlock). Sounds a lot like win more syndrome to me.

[bruizar]

I do think that this card is a great sideboard tool against combo though.

[kinda]

Isochron Scepter/Into the Roil look good in here. Back to basics in the board and possibly energy field.

[Tiago_B.]

Library of Leng + Energy Field work well, specially with Forbid. And Library of Leng is tutorable with Trinket Mage.

With a white splash, this deck could use StP, Orim's Chant, Leyline of Sanctity.....