Melman
05-20-2007, 12:52 PM
Ive been looking at the current meta, and desperately looking for a new deck with some potential (I have this strange obsession with looking for new ideas where there probably aren't any to be had). It seems that you either need to be an aggro deck that can race combo (extremely difficult), a control deck that deal with hordes while stopping combo, or do a little bit of both. This pretty much has always been the case, but with hulk flash it has been taken to the extreme.
So I decided to give a new look at MBC. It's plethora of discard spells, along with its solid board control, give it some advantages over some of the more popular decks in the field. It plays a slow, controlling game, then does ridiculous stuff with ridiculous amounts of mana to win. Im going to lay out a shell, and then give my impressions on what can be done with the shell to reach a finished deck.
Auto-Include cards for MBC (imo):
// Lands
16 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
5-6 [[????]]
// Creatures
4 Nantuko Shade
3 [[????]]
// Spells
4 Duress
3 Edicts (Chainer/Diabolic)
4 Mutilate
4 Hymn to Tourach
14-15 [[????]]
// Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Extirpate
4 Engineered Plague
3 [[????]]
Strategy
MBC wants to disrupt the board and the hand to make sure that it gets into late game, then play overpowered cards to win. This deck causes long games, so coffers are invaluable later on, especially with cards that want as much mana as you can give them (See Shade, Helldozer, promise of power, etc) Duress and Hymn are the best discard spells in the game, so they're in there automatically. Mutilate is the best black board-sweeper out there, so its in there too. Shade is playable early, is a huge clock, and can swing for ridiculous numbers late game. Edicts are another great board control card, and which one you play is something of a metagame choice, so I left that open; however, some of the builds laid out below play more so will end up having both.
For each build, Ill post the complete decklist, which is the cards mentioned above plus the unique cards for the list. Then I'll go down the list, pointing out the reasons for each new card.
Here's the first build potential (List #1). This one is based on card quality and advantage to power into big guys a little earlier than build 2. It cleans the board so that your beatsticks can swing in for the kill (which should only take a few turns at most)
// Lands
16 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
// Creatures
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Helldozer
// Spells
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
3 Chainer's Edict
4 Mutilate
4 Hymn to Tourach (2)
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Diabolic Edict
2 Powder Keg
3 Cabal Therapy
//Sideboard
Above, +3 infest
Fetches are because you have top. Nuff said. The life loss is generally irrelevant, as once you "Lock it down" your life total doesnt really matter except for burn topdecks; if they're playing burn you can go balls to the walls though and kill them before they can kill you.
Helldozer is a broken finisher that doubles as a board control card. You will often late-game have enough mana to clear out up to 3 or 4 nonbasics per turn, and its a LD spell per turn after that. It has a fat ass as well that will wrap up the game quickly and can survive a mid-game mutilate.
Top is for card quality. A big problem with discard is that once they dont have a hand, discard is irrelevant. With top, you can make sure you are drawing board control / finishers instead, with an occasional hymn or whatever to get rid of that card they are holding.
Arenas are because your 'lock' isnt permanent, as you need to play cards (edicts, hymns, mutilates, whatever) to keep it running; Arena allows you to get those cards. It also has synergy with top. The life loss can become a problem, however, because the game can drag on, so you need to be careful about when you play this card. If you know when to play it though, its golden.
Diabolic Edicts are here for more board control. Some of the open slots in the shell need to be dedicated to more control, so these provide that in Build #1. They get 'Geese, huge reanimated dudes, mess with early goblins, screw with many fish players (Killing in response to equip = t3h t3mpo), etc
Powder Keg is more board control. It can grab those creature hordes, but more importantly, it can take care of those resolved artifacts that you have no other way to take care of. Most artifacts dont worry you, so there's only 2 (and none in build #2), but stax stuff and vials and such can get worrisome.
Cabal Therapy is more hand disruption. Everyone knows this card is good. It's a little iffy, however, because you wont be flashing it back in this deck, but even without flashback its still decently solid.
Here's List #2. It skips some of the card quality and quantity cards, and goes straight for good board control and some more kill cards. That way, it doesnt need to search so much for kill, its not as screwed when stuff dies, and it can sweep more often. However, because of the lack of tops / arenas, it can draw useless stuff later on, so it cuts back a little on discard in favor of board control, which is dead less often.
// Lands
20 Swamp
3 Cabal Coffers
// Creatures
3 Helldozer
4 Nantuko Shade
// Spells
3 Powder Keg
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Infest
3 Funeral Charm
4 Mutilate
2 Promise of Power
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
//Sideboard
Above, +1 Keg, funeral charm, and infest
Swamps and an extra Coffer You dont play top, so there's no reason to hit yourself with fetches anymore. Also, you play more stuff that wants lots of mana (Extra chainers, promise), so there's an extra coffer. You dont want to go to 4, because multiples are bad synergy, and if you have enough swamps to support them both, you are often generating too much mana. And being stuck with one or two swamps and coffers can suck.
Helldozer is here again. Why then, you ask, isn't it in the core card list at the top of this post? Because Im not sure if its the best card in this slot. As explained above, it's amazing at finishing the game, while serving as control in the meantime, but its slow and easily taken out with a topdeck swords or whatever. Tombstalker is a potential card for this slot, as is promise of power, or unearths to get shades back, or whatever.
3 Kegs Because you want more board sweepers, since you dont have the draw.
Therapy: Like Helldozer, this guy is in both lists, but Im not sure he should be. You can't flash it back, and it can miss. Once you peek with duress or whatever its good though. Maybe Ostracize or something stupid? There are very few decks around now without creatures (TES, landstill are the only ones popping to mind)
Funeral Charm is discard and board control in one. However, it's a little weak at both. Maybe top gets this spot? Dunno
Promise of Power You don't play arenas or fetches in this list, so you can afford the life hit. Its a kill condition and draw in one as well, which this deck needs as it can't manipulate its hand as well as some others. It is somewhat mana intensive, but with 3 coffers thats rarely a problem. It does suck to see really early though, so it may be jank, I dunno.
Chainers are here instead of diabolic because being able to flash back is super, and the instant speed of diabolic is more situational then 2for1's most of the time.
I'm not going to go too in-depth for matchup analysis, because the one's Ive had a chance to test (Not enough) are fairly obvious:
Landstill or MUC or whatever is rough because they can just slowplay you and their card advantage is generally better than yours, and your sweepers dont do much to them.
Goblins is favorable in the second build, which is the only one I had a chance to test, because hand disruption makes them trip, and so many sweepers and removal makes them fall on their face.
Flash Ive won every flash round (not game) so far, but those were all MWS games so the people Ive played may have sucked; its tough for them to play through duress/hymn/therapy, and then SB extirpate / leylines seal the deal.
So basically. Im looking for feedback as to how the idea can be improved, whether the idea is viable at all, or if a shift in focus is necessary, or whatever. "This deck sucks" comments are perfectly welcome (and probably inevitable) as long as they're backed up =P.
Oh, and I decided to make a new thread instead of necro'ing the old one / Posting in the 'discard' topic because I feel this deck has a sufficiently different focus and problems/benefits from either the old MBC or the Discard deck. However, if a mod disagrees, go ahead and merge.
So I decided to give a new look at MBC. It's plethora of discard spells, along with its solid board control, give it some advantages over some of the more popular decks in the field. It plays a slow, controlling game, then does ridiculous stuff with ridiculous amounts of mana to win. Im going to lay out a shell, and then give my impressions on what can be done with the shell to reach a finished deck.
Auto-Include cards for MBC (imo):
// Lands
16 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
5-6 [[????]]
// Creatures
4 Nantuko Shade
3 [[????]]
// Spells
4 Duress
3 Edicts (Chainer/Diabolic)
4 Mutilate
4 Hymn to Tourach
14-15 [[????]]
// Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Extirpate
4 Engineered Plague
3 [[????]]
Strategy
MBC wants to disrupt the board and the hand to make sure that it gets into late game, then play overpowered cards to win. This deck causes long games, so coffers are invaluable later on, especially with cards that want as much mana as you can give them (See Shade, Helldozer, promise of power, etc) Duress and Hymn are the best discard spells in the game, so they're in there automatically. Mutilate is the best black board-sweeper out there, so its in there too. Shade is playable early, is a huge clock, and can swing for ridiculous numbers late game. Edicts are another great board control card, and which one you play is something of a metagame choice, so I left that open; however, some of the builds laid out below play more so will end up having both.
For each build, Ill post the complete decklist, which is the cards mentioned above plus the unique cards for the list. Then I'll go down the list, pointing out the reasons for each new card.
Here's the first build potential (List #1). This one is based on card quality and advantage to power into big guys a little earlier than build 2. It cleans the board so that your beatsticks can swing in for the kill (which should only take a few turns at most)
// Lands
16 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
// Creatures
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Helldozer
// Spells
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
3 Chainer's Edict
4 Mutilate
4 Hymn to Tourach (2)
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Diabolic Edict
2 Powder Keg
3 Cabal Therapy
//Sideboard
Above, +3 infest
Fetches are because you have top. Nuff said. The life loss is generally irrelevant, as once you "Lock it down" your life total doesnt really matter except for burn topdecks; if they're playing burn you can go balls to the walls though and kill them before they can kill you.
Helldozer is a broken finisher that doubles as a board control card. You will often late-game have enough mana to clear out up to 3 or 4 nonbasics per turn, and its a LD spell per turn after that. It has a fat ass as well that will wrap up the game quickly and can survive a mid-game mutilate.
Top is for card quality. A big problem with discard is that once they dont have a hand, discard is irrelevant. With top, you can make sure you are drawing board control / finishers instead, with an occasional hymn or whatever to get rid of that card they are holding.
Arenas are because your 'lock' isnt permanent, as you need to play cards (edicts, hymns, mutilates, whatever) to keep it running; Arena allows you to get those cards. It also has synergy with top. The life loss can become a problem, however, because the game can drag on, so you need to be careful about when you play this card. If you know when to play it though, its golden.
Diabolic Edicts are here for more board control. Some of the open slots in the shell need to be dedicated to more control, so these provide that in Build #1. They get 'Geese, huge reanimated dudes, mess with early goblins, screw with many fish players (Killing in response to equip = t3h t3mpo), etc
Powder Keg is more board control. It can grab those creature hordes, but more importantly, it can take care of those resolved artifacts that you have no other way to take care of. Most artifacts dont worry you, so there's only 2 (and none in build #2), but stax stuff and vials and such can get worrisome.
Cabal Therapy is more hand disruption. Everyone knows this card is good. It's a little iffy, however, because you wont be flashing it back in this deck, but even without flashback its still decently solid.
Here's List #2. It skips some of the card quality and quantity cards, and goes straight for good board control and some more kill cards. That way, it doesnt need to search so much for kill, its not as screwed when stuff dies, and it can sweep more often. However, because of the lack of tops / arenas, it can draw useless stuff later on, so it cuts back a little on discard in favor of board control, which is dead less often.
// Lands
20 Swamp
3 Cabal Coffers
// Creatures
3 Helldozer
4 Nantuko Shade
// Spells
3 Powder Keg
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Infest
3 Funeral Charm
4 Mutilate
2 Promise of Power
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
//Sideboard
Above, +1 Keg, funeral charm, and infest
Swamps and an extra Coffer You dont play top, so there's no reason to hit yourself with fetches anymore. Also, you play more stuff that wants lots of mana (Extra chainers, promise), so there's an extra coffer. You dont want to go to 4, because multiples are bad synergy, and if you have enough swamps to support them both, you are often generating too much mana. And being stuck with one or two swamps and coffers can suck.
Helldozer is here again. Why then, you ask, isn't it in the core card list at the top of this post? Because Im not sure if its the best card in this slot. As explained above, it's amazing at finishing the game, while serving as control in the meantime, but its slow and easily taken out with a topdeck swords or whatever. Tombstalker is a potential card for this slot, as is promise of power, or unearths to get shades back, or whatever.
3 Kegs Because you want more board sweepers, since you dont have the draw.
Therapy: Like Helldozer, this guy is in both lists, but Im not sure he should be. You can't flash it back, and it can miss. Once you peek with duress or whatever its good though. Maybe Ostracize or something stupid? There are very few decks around now without creatures (TES, landstill are the only ones popping to mind)
Funeral Charm is discard and board control in one. However, it's a little weak at both. Maybe top gets this spot? Dunno
Promise of Power You don't play arenas or fetches in this list, so you can afford the life hit. Its a kill condition and draw in one as well, which this deck needs as it can't manipulate its hand as well as some others. It is somewhat mana intensive, but with 3 coffers thats rarely a problem. It does suck to see really early though, so it may be jank, I dunno.
Chainers are here instead of diabolic because being able to flash back is super, and the instant speed of diabolic is more situational then 2for1's most of the time.
I'm not going to go too in-depth for matchup analysis, because the one's Ive had a chance to test (Not enough) are fairly obvious:
Landstill or MUC or whatever is rough because they can just slowplay you and their card advantage is generally better than yours, and your sweepers dont do much to them.
Goblins is favorable in the second build, which is the only one I had a chance to test, because hand disruption makes them trip, and so many sweepers and removal makes them fall on their face.
Flash Ive won every flash round (not game) so far, but those were all MWS games so the people Ive played may have sucked; its tough for them to play through duress/hymn/therapy, and then SB extirpate / leylines seal the deal.
So basically. Im looking for feedback as to how the idea can be improved, whether the idea is viable at all, or if a shift in focus is necessary, or whatever. "This deck sucks" comments are perfectly welcome (and probably inevitable) as long as they're backed up =P.
Oh, and I decided to make a new thread instead of necro'ing the old one / Posting in the 'discard' topic because I feel this deck has a sufficiently different focus and problems/benefits from either the old MBC or the Discard deck. However, if a mod disagrees, go ahead and merge.