Maralen's Agent

[FTW]

SPOILER: This is a deck built around Maralen of the Mornsong + Opposition Agent

You can play it out as an A+B combo (Agent first, then Maralen)

With Aether Vial, you can just flash in Maralen, use Maralen to find Agent, then flash in Agent before the opponent gets a draw step. The combo doesn't take much space and could fit into an Aether Vial hatebears deck.

Just tossing out ideas for discussion.

Maralen Esper Vial


//Lands: 20
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Plains

//Artifacts: 4
4 Aether Vial

//Spells: 15
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ponder

//Creatures: 21
4 Baleful Strix
4 Meddling Mage
2 Charming Prince
3 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Soulherder
3 Maralen of the Mornsong
2 Opposition Agent



Or DeadGuy Maralen


//Lands: 21
2 Karakas
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Marsh Flats
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Scrubland
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Plains

//Artifacts: 6
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

//Spells: 4
4 Swords to Plowshares

//Creatures: 29
4 Mother of Runes
2 Cabal Therapist
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Dark Confidant
4 Maralen of the Mornsong
3 Opposition Agent
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Skyclave Apparition



The Esper approach tries to be a Soulherder value deck outside of the Maralen combo. It has FoW and Judge counters for protection as well as Brainstorm and Recruiter to help find cards. For lifegain, if you can establish the Maralen + Agent draw lock, you can tutor up Charming Prince then Soulherder to gain 3 life per turn to negate any drawback from the life loss. Blue count requirements for FoW are a bit limiting.

The WB Deadguy approach has less card selection for the combo, but Bob still draws you extra cards through Maralen. Mom protects the combo pieces. Thalia disrupts opponents. Caverns is useful with such a high Human count. The deck can gain life through equipment or use Cabal Therapist to sacrifice Bob/Maralen to avoid death. Searching up Skyclaves can answer problems on the board, while Cabal Therapist can answer cards in hand.

[Dewm]

Wishclaw Talisman seems like it has good synergy here. And I wonder if there's a mono black version that plays Dark Ritual for the turn one, fetch land steal. Also, the agent allows you to look at your opponent’s hand afaik, so cabal therapy has a good chance of taking what you want from it.

Edit:
Scheming Symmetry is pretty mean with Agent as well

[FTW]

Yeah, instead of the disruptive Vial direction you could go harder on the combo and synergies with Opposition Agent.

With 4x Agent it's worth it to play Dark Ritual and Wishclaw Talisman, probably Cabal Therapy too (it lets you sacrifice Maralen if things go very wrong).

Scheming Symmetry is good with agent (steal their best card), but it's hard to fit otherwise because it's basically unplayable if you don't have Agent or they kill it in response. Might be too win-more when you could just play Maralen for the same effect.


Monoblack Agent


//Spells: 22
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Fatal Push
2 Bloodchief's Thirst
2 Eliminate
4 Wishclaw Talisman

//Creatures: 18
4 Dark Confidant
4 Gifted Aetherborn
4 Nighthawk Scavenger
4 Opposition Agent
2 Maralen of the Mornsong

//Lands: 20
4 Wasteland
16 Snow-Covered Swamp

[Pittplayer]

Agent is actually a good card on it's own, while Mornsong is usally pretty bad on her own. I question having more Mornsongs then Agents in your deck.

[FTW]

Agent is actually a good card on it's own, while Mornsong is usally pretty bad on her own. I question having more Mornsongs then Agents in your deck.

Oh did I not explain the combo with Vial?

Vial + Mornsong = win

Tick Aether Vial up to 3 counters.
EOT Vial in Mornsong
On your draw step she triggers, tutoring for Agent.
Then you Vial in Agent on your turn.

Mornsong is a 1-card combo. It finds Agent. You get both pieces and lock out the opponent before their next draw step.
Agent can't do that on its own. You'd need to draw both Agent + Maralen naturally.

Without Vial you can't do that trick (Mornsong without flash gives opponent the tutor first), so that only makes sense with Vial.
In the non-Vial deck I have more copies of Agent than Mornsong.

[Cire]

Reposting from Spoiler Thread - IMO, the ideal play seems to be:

1 Land + Discard or Mana Dork/Accel
2 Land + Hold mana open for Opposition Agent in response to a search (Dark Ritual in hand if Mana Dork wasn't cast earlier).
3 Land + Discard/Creature Kill and if Opposition Agent in play then Scheming Symmetry for Maralen to get the lock and win.

So something like:

18 Land
6 Discard
6 Creature Kill
4 Mana Dork/ Accel
4 Dark Ritual
4 Opposition Agent
4 Scheming Symmetry
1 Maralen

That's 13 cards open, but I think the intuition is to add blue just because blue is blue and the best, so we want to have at least 18-19 blue cards, so we need to make room for an additional 6-7 blue cards in the above. Drown in the Loch can take the place of 1-2 Creature kill, so that leaves about 4-5 more cards we need to cut for blue. Any suggestions?

The blue shell being

7-10 Cantrips
7-10 Counters
2-4 Threats

IMO - vial is too slow. I think we keep this as simple as possible and just play good cards with the maximum of 9 "combo" cards i.e. Agent, Symmetry and Maralen

[FTW]

That strategy's a faster goldfish but you don't get the same disruption. Should this be an all-in combo race or a disruptive combo finish to a controlling deck?

For an all-in combo, there are already A+B pieces that win faster without costing as much mana, so I think Agent would shine more playing the dual role of combo/control.

Even for an all-in deck, Wishclaw is much better than Scheming Symmetry. Symmetry's a dead draw without Agent.

The Vial version takes up very few "combo" slots - a couple Maralens and Agents. Vial aggro is good on its own, and Vial on 3 in a deck with Agent is very threatening for the opponent even if you're bluffing (without needing Dark Ritual or unused lands held up).

[Pittplayer]

Oh did I not explain the combo with Vial?

Vial + Mornsong = win

Tick Aether Vial up to 3 counters.
EOT Vial in Mornsong
On your draw step she triggers, tutoring for Agent.
Then you Vial in Agent on your turn.

Mornsong finds Agent. You have both pieces and lock out the opponent before their next draw step.
Agent can't do that on its own. You'd need to draw both pieces naturally.

Without Vial you can't do that trick (Mornsong without flash gives opponent the tutor first), so that only makes sense with Vial.
In the non-Vial deck I have more copies of Agent than Mornsong. Maybe 1-2 is better than 3, since Wishclaw can find either.

Yes I understand Magical Chistmas land when you have all the pieces in place and your opp has no answers. What I'm saying is, when that's not the case, I would rather draw Agent then Mornsong 10 out of 10 times. And because that's true, I would have more Agents in my deck.

[Barook]

You definitely need ways to protect your Malaren. But do you go counters? Moms? Or maybe something more exotic like Sylvan Safekeeper and going green?

I do like Vial - was one of my first thoughts after seeing the combo, too. For what it's worth, you can bounce her with Karakas before your opponent's draw step to deny the search part, then vial it back in to set up the combo next turn. Might be a fringe case, but who knows. Question is, if you go W/B, do you also run Aven Mindcensor in tandem with Agent while using lots of search spells (Wishclaw + Symmetry)?

[Cire]

That strategy's a faster goldfish but you don't get the same disruption

Huh? the straight Dimir plan is trying to fit 6 Discard, 6 Creature Kill and 7 counters in the 60. Granted, I haven't found room for everything yet, but that seems like pretty good interactivity.

[FTW]

Yes I understand Magical Chistmas land when you have all the pieces in place and your opp has no answers. What I'm saying is, when that's not the case, I would rather draw Agent then Mornsong 10 out of 10 times. And because that's true, I would have more Agents in my deck.

It's not that Magical. It's a 2-card combo (Vial + Maralen, or Maralen + Agent). Magic is full of viable 2-card combos.

Painter's Servant+Grindstone is magical Christmasland? Grindstone is bad on its own so play only 1 Grindstone?

With Vial it plays around answers pretty well:
- Vial dodges counters on both creatures
- If they remove Mornsong before the tutor goes off, you just trade 1-for-1 and don't lose life, no big deal
- If they remove Mornsong after the tutor goes off, you trade 1-for-1 and still have Agent to disrupt them
- If they remove Agent, Mornsong lets them tutor and that can bite you... but that risk is there without Vial too
- Lands are freed up to cast other cards to interact with opponents' answers (counters, discard, Meddling Mage, Thalia, Mom, etc)
- EOT flash with Vial is a surprise. You can catch them tapped out

Vial basically generates 6 mana and frees up your lands to interact with the opponent, sculpt, disrupt, or play other threats. EOT flash is also a big surprise. You establish a 2-piece 6-mana lock between their End Step and your Main Phase, a lot like Splinter Twin. It gives the opponent a small window to interact.

You can do the same thing by hardcasting Agent at EOT, untapping and casting Mornsong (also a 2-card combo). The difference is that takes more mana and means holding up lands, not doing other things, or using card disadvantage to accelerate mana (reducing resources to interact with opponent), so it could be harder to protect the combo like that.

Keeping Vial @ 3 has other advantages too. Even if you don't have Mornsong or Agent, you can bluff Agent (without holding up lands) and they'll be forced to avoid cracking fetches or casting tutors.

It might be correct to cut down to 2-3 Mornsongs anyway, but the combo and synergy with Vial deserves looking at. It's basically like hitting someone with Twin out of nowhere. It's an A+B combo starting EOT, and it's weak to creature removal but you have the entire rest of the deck to protect it.

Karakas protecting Mornsong is a nice trick and also easier to do when you're using Vial @ 3 vs tapping lands for mana.

[FTW]

Huh? the straight Dimir plan is trying to fit 6 Discard, 6 Creature Kill and 7 counters in the 60. Granted, I haven't found room for everything yet, but that seems like pretty good interactivity.

Ok, I was just looking at the cards you listed for the black version. It had creature kill and discard but no counters, then a lot of card disadvantage conditional slots like mana dorks, Rituals and 4 Symmetry. I think Symmetry is just too big a liability to play, a dead card that isn't one of the combo pieces. Wishclaw Talisman seems better. If you slow the deck down a bit there's more room for interaction like counters and cantrips.

[Reeplcheep]

Show & Tell is the default for 2 card comboes, but other 2 card combo's are totally viable if at least 1 half is useful in fair matchups or difficult to interact with. Recruiter + aluren, dark depths + thespian stage etc...

This is very similar to cephalid breakfast in that both pieces are creatures so you can use vial & cavern to beat countermagic. It is a less powerful and more expensive combo, however it has several advantages.

Both pieces are significantly better fair cards. One of your combo pieces tutors the other. It is mono-color.

[FTW]

This is very similar to cephalid breakfast in that both pieces are creatures so you can use vial & cavern to beat countermagic. It is a less powerful and more expensive combo, however it has several advantages.
Both pieces are significantly better fair cards. One of your combo pieces tutors the other. It is mono-color.

Yeah that was my thinking. Like Cephalid Breakfast it's a 2-card creature combo, so a Vial+Cavern shell protects it. It won't be tier 1 but it could be viable.
With most A+B combos you don't need both pieces to be good on their own. Maralen at least tutors Agent, which is big.

Finding a tutor for both is awkward. Recruiter of the Guard gets Agent but not Maralen. Imperial Recruiter gets Maralen but not Agent. Maybe you could go GB and then 4xLiving Wish for a 1-of Maralen out of the SB to reduce dead draws.

[Pittplayer]

It's not that Magical. It's a 2-card combo (Vial + Maralen, or Maralen + Agent). Magic is full of viable 2-card combos.

Painter's Servant+Grindstone is magical Christmasland? Grindstone is bad on its own so play only 1 Grindstone?

With Vial it plays around answers pretty well:
- Vial dodges counters on both creatures
- If they remove Mornsong before the tutor goes off, you just trade 1-for-1 and don't lose life, no big deal
- If they remove Mornsong after the tutor goes off, you trade 1-for-1 and still have Agent to disrupt them
- If they remove Agent, Mornsong lets them tutor and that can bite you... but that risk is there without Vial too
- Lands are freed up to cast other cards to interact with opponents' answers (counters, discard, Meddling Mage, Thalia, Mom, etc)
- EOT flash with Vial is a surprise. You can catch them tapped out

Vial basically generates 6 mana and frees up your lands to interact with the opponent, sculpt, disrupt, or play other threats. EOT flash is also a big surprise. You establish a 2-piece 6-mana lock between their End Step and your Main Phase, a lot like Splinter Twin. It gives the opponent a small window to interact.

You can do the same thing by hardcasting Agent at EOT, untapping and casting Mornsong (also a 2-card combo). The difference is that takes more mana and means holding up lands, not doing other things, or using card disadvantage to accelerate mana (reducing resources to interact with opponent), so it could be harder to protect the combo like that.

Keeping Vial @ 3 has other advantages too. Even if you don't have Mornsong or Agent, you can bluff Agent (without holding up lands) and they'll be forced to avoid cracking fetches or casting tutors.

It might be correct to cut down to 2-3 Mornsongs anyway, but the combo and synergy with Vial deserves looking at. It's basically like hitting someone with Twin out of nowhere. It's an A+B combo starting EOT, and it's weak to creature removal but you have the entire rest of the deck to protect it.

Karakas protecting Mornsong is a nice trick and also easier to do when you're using Vial @ 3 vs tapping lands for mana.

A Mornsong WILL LITERALLY LOSE YOU THE GAME if played by itself. You can in no way play it just randomly if you do not have it set up. You can cast a Grindstone just to play it with no downside. Mornsong just sits in your hand doing nothing. There is a HUGE difference.

[FTW]

A Mornsong WILL LITERALLY LOSE YOU THE GAME if played by itself. You can in no way play it just randomly if you do not have it set up. You can cast a Grindstone just to play it with no downside. Mornsong just sits in your hand doing nothing. There is a HUGE difference.

Grindstone in play is about as useful as a Grindstone stuck in hand doing nothing. You're down a card either way.

Paradigm Shift is a dead card in hand (that will lose you the game if cast) until you've found Thassa's Oracle. So what?

Splinter Twin is a dead card in hand in a deck that runs 7 or fewer creatures. So what? You just hold it until you draw Exarch. Like Twin, you can just hold Maralen in hand until you draw the other piece and then go off starting on the End Step. Combo-Control.

Edit: I should explain something else too.
If you were talking about the OP decklists, if you include Recruiter of the Guard (which can find Agent but not Maralen) there are more copies of Agent. But the only way to get Maralen is to draw into it so it needed multiples. The monoblack list without Recruiter and Vial has more Agents.
There are also have tricks to avoid Maralen's failcase (Karakas bounce, StP, Cabal sacrifice, Charming Prince flicker off Vial/Herder).

[Reeplcheep]

A Mornsong WILL LITERALLY LOSE YOU THE GAME if played by itself. You can in no way play it just randomly if you do not have it set up. You can cast a Grindstone just to play it with no downside. Mornsong just sits in your hand doing nothing. There is a HUGE difference.

What do you mean? In the scenario mentioned above it wins the game, through counter magic, for free, in less than 1 turn.


With Aether Vial, you can just flash in Maralen, use Maralen to find Agent, then flash in Agent before the opponent gets a draw step. The combo doesn't take much space and could fit into an Aether Vial hatebears deck.

Having a vial on three is not really much of a setup cost.

Additionally if you have cavern of souls & a mother of runes in play there is probably not of ton of cards your opponent can have that deal with mornsong before you win. And just being a spirit of the labyrinth (currently a 2 of in d&t) that lava spikes the opponent can win games.


Finding a tutor for both is awkward. Recruiter of the Guard gets Agent but not Maralen. Imperial Recruiter gets Maralen but not Agent. Maybe you could go GB and then 4xLiving Wish for a 1-of Maralen out of the SB to reduce dead draws.

Cephalid breakfast uses Once Upon A Time, which seems even better in a hate bears deck anyways than their deck with fows/brainstorms/sfm targets.

[Cire]

Having a vial on three is not really much of a setup cost

This is my sticking point when considering the vial option. I think getting vial to 3 is a huge cost, especially in an Oko heavy environment. At best relying on Vial on 3 to fuel out the combo means you are going for a turn 4 Maralen on opponent's turn, turn 5 win, with having the Vial just out there for three turns to be interacted with. That seems extremely vulnerable. If you're aiming for a turn 4/5 win, you might as well just play a shit ton of cantrips and then craft your hand to just have the two cards in them and then hard cast them (opposition agent in response to a search or end of opponent's turn and then untap Maralen).

[FTW]

That's a reasonable concern. Vial is a good card in general for a hatebears deck, but it may be weaker in this meta with rampant Oko and artifact answers. The advantage is it gives the deck 2 overlapping A+B combos to play (Maralen + Vial @ 3, or Maralen + Agent) where both Vial and Agent are good on their own and Maralen combos with either. It also protects the combo pieces and disruption from counters.

Without Vial the deck is less constrained towards a hatebears shell. What would you support it with? Xerox cantrips, discard, rituals?
Green mana dorks and Living Wish/OUAT?

[Borg]

To make Scheming Symmetry more reliable to use without an Agent in play :
Ruin Crab which in turn fuels Nighthawk Scavenger and
Nightveil Specter which also functions as a card draw engine.
Thought Scour

Assassin's Trophy 's drawback is likely negated with an Agent in play.

Where my deck currently stands :
https://deckstats.net/decks/51702/1818704-maralen

[FTW]

I like that version better than the version with Archive Trap (what happened to that decklist?)

Ruin Crab seems pretty bad though. Without the Archive Traps you cannot hope to win by mill, so Crab is just a 0/3 wall that potentially grows the 2-of Nighthawk. If you're casting Symmetry without Agent and using Ruin Crab to negate the drawback, this is what it amounts to:
-3-for-1 to tutor 1 card to hand (Ruin Crab & Symmetry & next draw step)
-requires a landfall, ideally a fetchland so you can stack a trigger and then fetch in response if they Brainstorm

Is it just better to run Thought Scour? That also lets you respond at instant speed and is card neutral. It also makes both ends of Symmetry favorable: you mill their card, and you cycle to get your card in hand. Thought Scour can also do the incidental things that Ruin Crab does, like grow Nighthawk and disrupt their cantrips, without costing you a card.

I also don't think Daze works well as a 2-of or in a deck with Snapcaster. Daze is a tempo card that wants to be online turn 1 and wants a cheap proactive threat on the board first.

What about something like this?


//Spells: 29
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
3 Scheming Symmetry
2 Thought Scour
2 Spell Pierce
2 Bloodchief's Thirst
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Drown in the Loch

//Creatures: 12
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Opposition Agent
3 Nighthawk Scavenger
1 Murderous Rider
1 Maralen of the Mornsong

//Lands: 19
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Veil of Summer
2 Plague Engineer
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Force of Negation
1 Fatal Push
1 Abrupt Decay


I went up to 4 Ponder because Ponder is good and probably better than running redundant copies of other cards.

I think Bloodchief's Thirst is better than Fatal Push right now, because it can be kicked to kill Oko and Karn.

Drown in the Loch is a strong card, especially when you have some milling of the opponent.

18 lands felt a bit light for a deck with a lot of 3cc action. I went up to 19, but maybe 20 is better. You can hedge by using the draw lands.

Snapcaster is a good card. I don't see a reason not to run more copies, with so many cheap spells to flashback. Liliana is also a great dark ritual target in the 75 and works well with Snapcaster. Once I had Snapcaster and Dark Ritual and Liliana in the 75, Hymn really wants to be there somewhere.

Maybe this should go +1 Thought Scour -1 Symmetry to have fewer conditional cards and more mill.

[Borg]

The reason I include Daze is it allows the deck to start T1 Underground Sea - Ritual - Agent/Specter/Scavenger with Daze backup.
The Spell Pierces are there so you can do the same on T2 without having to take a land back to hand.

I agree on the Crabs not being stellar. I had them removed already as well.
Played two Thought Scour but felt like they don't do enough as well.

I'd like to hear why you didn't include Nightveil Specter in your build.
Of all the Scheme enabling cards so far I like this one the most.
He can take the top off opponent's deck every turn and it's basically a draw for you as well.
I'm doing some goldfishing with 4 copies atm. Improving the odds of having/finding one T1/T2.
Excess copies can be exiled for FoW.

Bloodchief over Fatal Push ?

Murderous Rider is a great addition.

I had 1 Brazen Borrower in there mostly to remove something problematic that I might not get to with Decay/Trophy like Blood Moon or Lage but guess that should be better in SB.

Considered going up to 19 lands as well but left it at 18 so far since we're supposed to get lands from the Specters as well.

The Archive Trap version contained too many unnecessary cards and got discarded. :)
Basically, it's another deck with a different focus.

[Hanni]

What's the point of Thoughtscour? Is Nighthawk actually worth it?

Predict seems like it has strong potential with Scheming Symmetry, albeit slow.

[FTW]

Thought Scour is to mill their top card from Scheming Symmetry when you don't have Opposition Agent. Its fail case is powering up Nighthawk and cantripping, which is still not terrible, while Ruin Crab's fail case is worse.


The reason I include Daze is it allows the deck to start T1 Underground Sea - Ritual - Agent/Specter/Scavenger with Daze backup.

That's a very strong line when you have all 3 cards, but what about the rest of the time? Your threats all cost 3 mana (even Snapcaster is really a 3-drop). When you don't have a turn 1 creature to ritual out, going down a land drop is a steep price to pay. And when you're not using Daze to protect that turn 1 threat, the opponent can just play around Daze because you don't have a fast clock. Is protecting that explosive T1 line worth how bad Daze is the rest of the time? I'm torn on that one.



I agree on the Crabs not being stellar. I had them removed already as well.
Played two Thought Scour but felt like they don't do enough as well.

Yeah they're not amazing but at least they don't set you behind when you don't have Symmetry. I couldn't think of something better. Postboard Surgical Extraction will force an instant-speed shuffle for free and get rid of their card.


I'd like to hear why you didn't include Nightveil Specter in your build.
Of all the Scheme enabling cards so far I like this one the most.

Oh, I didn't think of the interaction of Specter with Scheming Symmetry. That is very tempting. I just saw it as a bit slow and not aggressive enough for the format the rest of the time. Very strong if you can Ritual him out early though. Pitching to Force is relevant too.


Bloodchief over Fatal Push ?

Both are 1-mana effects to kill early drops. I think Bloodchief is better in the meta because it can be kicked to kill stuff like Oko and Karn, so it has utility against midrange/control and not just aggro decks. The instant speed of Push might be better sometimes though. Needs testing.

The version I posted runs a lot of modal cards. 7 maindeck creature removal (+ 3 Snapcaster flashbacks), but 0 of them are dead cards if the opponent has no creatures. Only the Bloodchiefs are dead if they have no creatures or walkers.


Murderous Rider is a great addition.

I think it's better than Borrower for that slot. You're playing a grindy control/prison deck, so permanent removal is better than bounce. For noncreature nonplaneswalker cards that Borrower answers (e.g. Chalice), you already have Decay and Trophy. Rider can also be ritualed out and has lifelink for the Maralen lock. It just seems like a smoother fit.

[Borg]

That's a very strong line when you have all 3 cards, but what about the rest of the time? Your threats all cost 3 mana (even Snapcaster is really a 3-drop). When you don't have a turn 1 creature to ritual out, going down a land drop is a steep price to pay. And when you're not using Daze to protect that turn 1 threat, the opponent can just play around Daze because you don't have a fast clock. Is protecting that explosive T1 line worth how bad Daze is the rest of the time? I'm torn on that one.

Good arguments but Daze was included for another reason as well.
Suppose we get the Maralen/Agent Lock down rather fast, that means our opponent is not going to draw any more cards, so he's essentially down to his cards/lands in hand and in play. With these limited resources and with no more land entering play for him playing around Daze may be somewhat harder.
Obviously, this is also just theory at this point and it remains to be seen how many times this situation occurs. That will likely decide the inclusion/exclusion of Daze.


Both are 1-mana effects to kill early drops. I think Bloodchief is better in the meta because it can be kicked to kill stuff like Oko and Karn, so it has utility against midrange/control and not just aggro decks. The instant speed of Push might be better sometimes though. Needs testing.

Since we have access to green, I prefer Assassin's Trophy (2cc) over a Kicked Bloodchief (4cc).
Without access to green, Bloodchief looks like it can have a role.


I think it's better than Borrower for that slot. You're playing a grindy control/prison deck, so permanent removal is better than bounce. For noncreature nonplaneswalker cards that Borrower answers (e.g. Chalice), you already have Decay and Trophy. Rider can also be ritualed out and has lifelink for the Maralen lock. It just seems like a smoother fit.

QFT.

[Borg]

As tempting as it may be to cast a T1 Agent - especially if you see FoW backup - the better play may be to do it on T2 for several reasons.

1. Even if you have Agent down on T1 it may not do anything if your opponent does not search his deck.
2. A simple removal spell by opponent gives you card disadvantage, countering it with fow makes it even worse.
3. It preserves T1 for cards that shine at that point : Ponder, Thoughtseize, Brainstorm ( 10 copies total should give you one in opening hand consistently )
4. Besides Thoughtseize on T1 to check opponent's hand first, you also have Spell Pierce active on T2 to protect a ritualed out Agent.
5. Ideally you want to cast Maralen the turn after Agent but Maralen will normally not see play before T3 so it makes sense to plan Agent for T2 rather than T1.

@Hanni
On the merit of Nightveil Specter:
Since the Specter can exile the top card off opponent's deck every turn after a one time mana investment, he's a great enabler of Scheming Symmetry whenever it comes up and you need only one mana to do the trick.
Thought Scour requires UB to use in combination with Scheme.

Specter is also a possibly devastating drawing engine.
If he exiles a land he can stunt opponent's development while growing your own mana base.
If he exiles a spell you can deny opponent key cards.
Imagine playing against another Ux deck and you exile his Brainstorm, fow, Ponder or OKO for that matter to use for yourself 😉


CC1
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Scheming Symmetry
2 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Pierce
2 Fatal Push
2 Thought Scour

CC2
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Snapcaster Mage

CC3
4 Opposition Agent
2 Nightveil Specter
2 Nighthawk Scavenger
1 Maralen of the Mornsong
1 Murderous Rider // Swift End

CC5
4 Force of Will

Land
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou


ADDED
Had some coronarelated solo practice in today and Thought Scour performed remarkably better.
Stole a land from an opposing fetchland with a flashed in Agent ( that mana swing is not to be underestimated ), then with 5 mana on the board could one-turn Scheme for Maralen, Scour AND play Maralen for the lock. Obviously, this works with Brainstorm and Ponder instead of Thought Scour as well but overall TS does nice things for this deck. Upgraded for me.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Or you could play M.O.S.T with one copy of Maralen and one copy of Agent (since that already has 4 Vial, 4 Fauna Shaman) :D

I mean why would you not unnecessarily play 4--5 colors when both your combo pieces are monoblack? When you don't play three extra colors it's as if you don't even like Magic.

(*goes back to putting the URWG Omnath in his Land Tax deck*)

[Borg]

The deck ( two posts above ) is too vulnerable to aggression and has too many resources invested in getting the lock in play.
If the opponent has enough threats in play before we can lock him down, the lock simply comes too late and maynot work fast enough to solve the problems.

I've replaced the Ponders with Strixes.
This keeps card draw in place but slows down any agression and puts less pressure on our removal spells.

A third Scavenger provides a more solid second strategy.



CC1
4 Brainstorm
4 Thought Scour
4 Dark Ritual
4 Scheming Symmetry
2 Spell Pierce
2 Fatal Push

CC2
4 Baleful Strix
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Snapcaster Mage

CC3
4 Opposition Agent
3 Nightveil Specter
1 Nighthawk Scavenger
1 Maralen of the Mornsong

CC5
4 Force of Will

Land
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou