So, given it fits the designation of "Mono-Blue Control", and I haven't tested it so it might suck so I don't want to start a new thread, it seems logical to post this here. I present you:
Accelerated Blue 2008
4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Razormane Masticore
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell / Foil
4 Propaganda
4 Powder Keg
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
16 Island
It might still be terrible, but for the first time I've managed to come up with a list which is at least internally coherent -- i.e. doesn't use Disk plus many permanents, nor Chalice plus cards with a converted mana cost of one, nor Shackles plus insufficient Islands, nor Chrome Mox plus many artifacts, nor etc.
My biggest point of worry is City of Traitors. A land which forces you to sacrifice it while you are trying to ramp up to a large amount of mana may not be productive. I shall unfortunately have to play some games of Magic to determine this. On paper, though, at least, if it works out, the deck looks fucking powerful. Thelands, in addition to being acceleration, are also card advantage in the same manner as the Karoo lands from Ravnica, by being effectively two lands in one, and the deck is completely full of powerful cards and bombs. It also doesn't include Chrome Mox, a card which I despise.
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
Ancient Tomb eats away your life total like crazy or becomes unusuable. It doesn't belong in a deck that plans to go into the late game.Originally Posted by Illissius
City can also be problematic but atleast it doesn't help your opponents beat you down with their creatures.
Razormane Masticore is just a pisspoor card. It's card disadvantage is horrendous and it's ability is useless against most of the decent creatures that people play these days (Goyf, Tombstalker, Mongoose etc)
Otherwise, it's fairly close to a standard MUC list with a different choice of win condition. Meloku is not a bad card, but it just doesn't work as a 4 of. Multiple Meloku's are useless.
Perhaps the blue producing land from the Depletion counters cycle would fit here? CiPT and the fact that it still leaves play both nerf it, but then again it couldn't hurt to test it.
Tangent: that list looks much like an old extended deck that ran Morphling and Grim Monolith. On that note, why not run Morphling in the Meloku slot? It has stronger synergy with the
Team Battletoadz: Fuck the Meta-police?
If it's all in our heads, it's best that we don't loose them.
Was there also an Extended deck in that mold? My inspiration was the Accelerated Blue decks of the Urza's Block era, like the one referenced by Kadaj in the opening post -- which, indeed, uses Grim Monolith to cast expensive and powerful things. (I wish Monolith were legal.)
Saprazzan Skerry was thought of, but it comes into play tapped, gets Wastelanded before you can use it even once, and doesn't count for Shackles, which is really the sticking point. Maybe you could use it instead of City of Traitors rather than in addition to it, but as it only taps for mana twice, it's no better and is (hopefully) in many cases worse than City in that respect. Coming into play tapped is something I'm actually not entirely opposed to, because it gives you something to "do" on the first turn if you don't draw either Ancestral Vision or Ancient Tomb plus something which costs
Meloku seems to me a more aggressive card than Morphling (and this is much more of a midrangeish than a pure control deck), and it's castable off two
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
Speaking as someone who plays two Ancient Tomb + City of Traitors decks, Dragon Stompy and Fairie Stompy, neither land but esp not Ancient Tomb belongs in a controllish deck, definately not as 4 ofs. Just two activations eats up a fifth of your life total and tempo loss from not being able to use it most turns because of the lifeloss more than exceeds the initial tempo boost in a controllish deck.
Keep in mind, you will be drawing multiple Ancient Tombs later on, which will also be unplayable/unusable and you will have to sac your early city fairly fast too. So card disadvantage is unaviodable when you're trying to accelerate. Just accept that. If you really want to accelerate, you really ought to be playing Chrome Mox instead. You can make up for the card disadvantage.
Meloku isn't even that strong until you have a lot of islands in play. And once again, it's redundant in multiples. So I really don't think you should run 4. I think a 2/2 split between Morphling and Meloku could work fairly well.
Last edited by Clark Kant; 07-08-2008 at 12:55 AM. Reason: multiple spelling mistakes
Yes, I suspect the
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
Having screwed around with lists of that ilk myself, and I have a list that's actually pretty similar to yours with some minor tweaks, I can basically say the major issues that arise are consistency ones. Ancient Tomb isn't that annoying, it's just frustrating when you do draw multiples and find yourself unable to play them because you can't afford to lose that much life. Then again, my build ran Crystal Vein in addition to less City of Traitors, and I think less Ancient Tomb as well, so I didn't have quite the same issues you do. The major issues I ran into were either lacking explosiveness and just becoming a bad MUC build, or having too much explosiveness and finding myself locked by my own Masticore. I also ran Chrome Mox, so that contributed, but meh.
I don't like Meloku at all in this format, and I'm almost positive Morphling is better for this style of deck considering you have much more mana to sink into it but not as many lands to be able to bounce. Morphling is also way more resilient, which is important when your threats are crucial to actually staying alive.
Here is my really old list (I haven't done anything with this in at least half a year):
X13 Island
X4 Ancient Tomb
X3 City of Traitors
X3 Crystal Vein
X4 Morphling
X3 Masticore
X4 Force of Will
X4 Chrome Mox
X4 Fact or Fiction
X4 Ancestral Vision
X4 Chalice of the Void
X4 Propaganda
X4 Powder Keg
X2 Open Slot
Chrome Mox is one of those love/hate cards. Some days I would love it because turn 1 Propaganda is monstrous, and other days I would hate it because drawing turn 5 Chrome Mox when you need gas is well... terrible. Crystal Vein was surprisingly good due mainly to the fact that you don't need to sacrifice it, which allows you to maintain some degree of lands on the board. One issue I would run into over and over again was having Masticore out but something like 2 cards in hand, so I was locked under my own card because I just wouldn't draw FoF or AV to pull out of it.
Other than that, I don't really know if there's too much incentive to play this sort of thing over say, Faerie Stompy. It's inconsistent, lacks thrust, and runs into all different kinds of identity crisis nonsense. Then again, my list isn't exactly refined, so maybe a well-tested list would do much better.
Whenever I play a deck where it is physically possible to draw multiple copies of Chrome Mox, I do it every single time. So I'm definitely on the "hate" side of that question. Whenever I draw it I feel like my hand just got ten times worse. It's a good fit for decks which are willing to sacrifice cards for large tempo boosts in the early game -- the Stompy decks, basically -- but I don't like playing with it, and I especially don't like putting it in a midrange or control deck.
Crystal Vein is an interesting possibility in case City of Traitors really does turn out to suck too much. Razormane Masticore was one of the last inclusions in my build, because I felt like I wanted more threats and some more oomph against creature decks, but the slot could just as easily be Morphling or anything else. I do think it has potential (more than its vanilla brethren) because it's just an absolutely monstrous creature, so I'm going to test it before dismissing it.
I dunno. If you don't draw anyThe major issues I ran into were either lacking explosiveness and just becoming a bad MUC build, or having too much explosiveness and finding myself locked by my own Masticore.
Anyways, I may or may not actually test the deck later today, so I'll report on my findings if and when I do.
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
If the main problem with that build is that you lose too much life casting your men, then what about Exalted Angel? The life gain is comparable to making blockers for most situations. It might force you into running more nonbasics, but you can always run Mystic Gate and just hold it in your hand until you need it.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Mystic Gate isn't fetchable. How many do you intend to run just so that you can draw them reliably? Seems worse than just running 2 Tundra or 3 to me...
I've been working on a new deck for a day or so designed specifically to test out the viability of Godhead of Awe in legacy.
Godhead of Awe
Flying
All other creatures are 1/1s
4/4
A humility with a 4/4 flying body that is unaffected by the humility ability is quite strong.
Yes it needs to be protected to be broken, but even if it isn't, it's a 1:1 trade with their countermagic or removal spell.
Humility was a pure control card. Godhead has the same effect on cards like Goyf, but is also a large beater, a five turn clock, and a deterrent for their 1/1s to attack. Plus Godhead is blue and also pitchable to Force, which is very relevent. Unlike humility it doesn't effect creature abilities, but nowadays, the major creatures that are played are...
Tarmogoyf
Nimble Mongoose
Tombstalker
Dreadnought
It doesn't matter that it doesn't effect their abilities, making them into 1/1s is plenty powerful.
It combos beautifully with Meloku, (Morphling, Shackles and Rainbow Efreet to some extent), Mishra's Factory and a crap load of other very solid cards (Bitterblossom, Pyroclasm etc) worth running by themselves.
As 1/1s your opponent can't attack into a 4/4 blocker or the factory. But if you're at the advantage, you can attack with your 4/4 to quickly finish them off.
It is actually very comparable to Exalted Angel, unblockable 4 damage with a very useful ability is better than a flying 4/5 with lifegain imo. The lack of an alternate casting cost sucks. But Angel ate up 7 mana using up all your mana for two full turns for the alternate casting cost, or 6 in one turn. Godhead only use 5 in one turn. Even if you used an Ancient Tomb to help cast the Angel, he ends up using the same number of lands to cast as Godhead.
The deck is still a bit rough around the edges. It definately works well so far but it's early and needs more tweaking, testing, and tuning before we can figure out if Godhead is worth it.
//Mana
23 Island
4 Chrome Mox
//Disruption
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Back to Basics
2 Veldalken Shackles
//Threats
3 Meloku
4 Godhead of Awe
//Draw
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Fact or Fiction
//Countermagic
4 FoW
4 Counterspell
1 Misdirection
Card Explanations:
Chrome Mox - solid acceleration, enables turn one Chalice.
Chalice of the Void - stops StP, buries thresh and combo
Back to Basics - Stops many decks including Landstill cold. But could be better off cutting this to support 2 Saprazzan Skerr/Mishra's Factory and a white splash to let me play Oblivion Ring and Engineered Explosives.
Meloku - great by itself and fantastic with Godhead
Godhead of Awe - godsend against aggro, one of MUC's worst matchups.
Godhead might be a decent card, but this isn't the shell for it. MUC is incapable of really making Godhead count, and I fail to see how a single Godhead is better than Propaganda. Yes, it's a 4/4 flier, but it doesn't actually stop Goblins from running you over, quite the opposite, and it's a five drop so it's not helping you in the early game when you actually struggle against aggro.
The other issue I have with Godhead is that aggro isn't actually that bad of a matchup, and even if it was, Godhead wouldn't help. Goblins is, but Goblins isn't really comparable to other aggro. It has an infinitely stronger mid-game than most aggro and you can't one for one Goblins and hope to have any chance of winning. On top of that, Godhead really doesn't help in aggro matchups anyway. Goyf-Sligh? By the time you drop Godhead they'll either just burn you to death because you tapped out, or they'll just kill it and swing in. Eva Green? Snuff-Out isn't exactly fun to run into, and Shade can still pump itself past your Godhead anyway.
You listed a bunch of cards that are solid on their own and get better with Godhead, and you'll notice none of them are really present here. Could you build 4 Color Control and utilize Godhead? Potentially, but it doesn't belong here. Especially since the major incentive to play MUC in the first place is Back to Basics and the huge advantage that gives you over aggro-control and control. Godhead doesn't help against either of the aformentioned archtypes, as it's too expensive to be worth it against Thresh and Control won't care about it, and it's not fast enough or strong enough to help against aggro.
So, in short, Godhead might be decent somewhere, but that place isn't here.
You make some good points. I agree with you that Godhead is only really shines against nongoblins aggro and aggro control. It does slow down goblins too, and can easily win combined with Shackles to steal their utility critters to use as additional blockers.
And this may not be the ideal deck for Godhead.
My only disagreements are...
Goyf Sligh can't kill you nearly as fast as you say it can.
Chalice at 1 stops much of Goyf Sligh spells cold as well as StP and plenty of other cards without effecting your own deck.
You have FoW, MisD and counterspell to stop their more devastating spells and can outright ignore stuff like Price of Prgoress.
Propaganda is only so so useful against nongolbins aggro.
They can still attack with their 5/6 goyf just by paying two mana. Mid-late game, your opponent has no problem paying 4 mana to swing with their guys. Most aggro decks have plenty of spare mana in mid-late game.
And most importantly, Propaganda is not a clock/finisher. Godhead wins in 5 turns all while making your opponents clock very small.
Cliffnotes: Propaganda is barely useful against Tombstalker, Goyf and Dreadnought, and they're the meanest and most popular creatures in the format by far. Godhead however works well against all three.
There are a number of previously bad matchups that I found Godhead to be invaluable in. Eva Green used to completely wreck my MUC builds. Now all I have to do is stall them till turn 4 and cast Godhead to stabilize instantly. The only removal they play is Snuff Out and without supplemental card draw, it is fairly easy to protect against.
Propaganda is much stronger against non-Goblins aggro than Godhead is. Propaganda+B2B is very nearly a lock against most decks, whereas Godhead can be very nearly ignored. Multiple Propgandas are also brutal against aggro of all kinds, whereas multiple Godheads are either redundant or terrible, depending on whether they turn each other into 1/1s which I'm not sure about.
The fact that Godhead is a clock is irrelevant because we have neither need nor want of a clock out of that slot. If you're struggling to finish your matches on time then you need more practice with the deck, not a crutch to lean on.
I have enough trouble beating landstill with mono blue control; now you want me to turn my creatures that can beat it down into 1/1's to get eaten by Factories? The reason I maindeck two Cryptic Commands is in case landstill sticks a Humility and I can have an out against it. Turning my creatures into 1/1's and further delaying the game seems like a bad idea.
Think about playing landstill:
You play Godhead on turn 5. Landstill counters it or swords it at end of turn. Sad Panda.
Or...
You play Godhead in the late game. Landstill says ok. End of turn, cycle decree for lots of guys. Smash face with lots of guys and factories. Sadder Panda.
I would rather have a Morphling that can't get swords or Meloku who can throw 1/1 's back in response to decree. Not to mention, both hit harder than Godhead when you are on the offensive.
I think spending 5 mana on a creature better get you a huge swing and Morphling and Meloku both do that. Godhead...not so much. But that's just me, I guess.
End of turn...Morphling
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE
Actually a lot of our worst matchups Eva Green and other Sui variants are barely effected by Back to Basics and only minimally slowed by a turn three Propaganda.
Don't forget how strong Godhead is with the Meloku either. Since when can Factory fly? I count 7 threats in the deck, all of which can fly, 3 of which create flying tokens to chump block factories if needed, and 4 of which can block factories all day long if needed.
Of course Godhead isn't great against landstill. Never claimed it was. You have back to basics against landstill.
Also, the timing with Ancestral Visions or Fact or Fiction couldn't be more perfect either. You draw a bunch of cards just at the right time that if one of them is Godhead, you can cast it, or if you already have Godhead, have a good shot at drawing a counterspell to protect it.
All in all, you guys may be right and Godhead maybe better suited for a white control deck ala parfait or something. I just wanted to share that it's been good against some of our worse mathcups and may be worth further testing.
Wrong. Highly wrong, actually. Propaganda often makes it impossible for Eva Green to continue throwing threats at you and maintaining their disruption. It's actually quite similar to what it does to Threshold. Against Thresh it makes them choose between cantripping and attacking. Against Eva Green it makes them choose between attacking and disrupting. And I don't know about you, but by turn 5, you better be able to deal with a Goyf, or a Negator, or whathaveyou.
Back to Basics is also quite strong against Eva Green usually for a similar reason. They can't maintain their disruption and continue attacking, which makes it infinitely easier to land a Shackles, for example, which will often end the game right there. Seriously, go read up the matchup between Goblins and Eva Green in the Two Man Tournament for some insight into how mana disruption throws Eva Green off. Is our disruption the same as Goblins? No, it doesn't carry the same aggressive weight behind it, but it actually hits a much broader and more powerful spectrum.
Seriously, B2B is really hard for just about anything with non-basics to play around or through, and Eva Green is no different. Is Eva Green is a positive matchup? No, but adding Godhead and Chalice won't help that. If anything, adding Chalice and Chrome Mox would hurt it because they open you up to being hit harder by Eva Green's disruption. Mox is also awful in MUC. Seriously. And by extension, because Chalice relies on Mox to be good, Chalice is also weak in MUC. Is it a bomb in the right decks? Obviously. But this isn't one of them.
Of course situations vary.
But generally speaking, Eva Green throws out their barrage of disruption at you early on, thanks to Ritual. Then casts an overpowered undercosted threat or two and beat face with them till you die. You can counter one of them, but they still have one large resolved threat thats quite a clock. They have no means to draw cards, it's the initial barrage of Ritual, Thoughtseize, Hymn etc that depletes their disruption. But afterwards they can usually afford to pay the 2 mana for propaganda to keep beating face with their threat.
I'm not saying Propaganda doesn't effect them at all. It hurts them a bit. But it was rarely enough to turn the game around. How often do you face Sui Variants, or Eva Green in particular. I play them quite a bit.
B2B isn't great against them. Green is a very light splash for them. So the best you can hope for is that they fetch one Bayou and everything as Swamps, if that, they could get away with fetching only basic swamps if they have no Goyfs in hand. So B2B maybe hits a Bayou after they got one use of it (the critical use to play the one green card in their hand). Thus B2B becomes the equivalent of a 3cc Blight in terms of how devastating it is. Sometimes you get lucky and they also draw a wasteland and you don't have any factories for them to target, but it can't be counted on.
I think you missed the point. Yes you have 7 "threats" in the deck that can all fly but once one Godhead is in play, 6 of your "threats" aren't really very threatening. In fact, you should be saying you only have 3 threats left, if by threats you mean 1/1 fliers for 5 mana that can make more 1/1 fliers for an additional one mana. That last statement alone leads me to believe that you are confused when you say Godhead is strong with Meloku. Part of Meloku's strength is that it has a fat ass and can get there if needed.
Also, you don't really have 4 Godhead of Awes which can block factories all day long. You have one Godhead because multiple Godhead in play = poop and makes Factory a tad bigger. So if you leave your one Godhead sitting there and not attacking - guess what? - Landstill is not going to attack either and the game will go on. And the longer the game goes, the less likely you will win because Decree cycles for many uncounterable guys and Godhead can't block more than one at a time. The other option is to attack and hope you win the damage race. I wouldn't count on it all the time because of landstill's many outs in Swords to Plowshares or Humility or Wrath of God or even Cunning Wish into Pulse of the Fields or simply outbeating you with factories and Decree tokens. It seems like the Godhead slot would be better suited for more Shackles because instead of waiting to turn their Tarmogoyf into a 1/1 for 5 mana, I would just rather steal it and beat face. Also, this way you can have Powder Keg for the Decree tokens and hope the landstill opponent doesn't do crazy shenanigans with Crucible of Worlds before Morphling and/or Meloku get there.
End of turn...Morphling
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE
So I got in all of one (pretty damn long) game against UGW Threshold with my Accelerated Blue list above. Props to Anusien for helping me test.
Findings:
- I'm still a bad player
- It was a hell of a lot closer than it should've been, given Threshold should be among the deck's best matchups
- But my endless stream of bombs did pull me through in the end
- Countertop can still be incredibly annoying, countering Ancestral, your two mana stuff, and especially when they flip Force for your creatures
- Morphling is better than Meloku against decks with Swords when I don't have Chalice at one, which is actually most of the time. If I had Morphling in there instead I would've won the game much earlier. So Kadaj, you might be right about this. (Then again, he had EE for the tokens, so that complicates the picture.)
- (And on the other hand, Melolku is likely better against Goblins, both for normal reasons and Warren Weirding.)
- I drew only one
- I never actually resolved a Razormane, so I can't say with certainty how good it would've been, but they did always get countered. Could however be awkward against red Threshold when they have Mongeese and Bolts.
- Powder Keg was pretty good
- Propaganda was mediocre, given how long the game went
- Fact was good, Ancestral was good except when it got countered by fucking Counterbalance
- Shackles can't target a Mongoose, but I did have more than enough Islands to steal anything up to and including Tarmogoyfs had targets presented themselves
Conclusions:
I'm going to try putting some Morphlings into the fat creature slots -- whether in place of Melokus or Razormanes and how many, I'm not yet sure. Thoughts?
And what do people think about Counterspell vs. Foil?
This is not a bad idea; you'd have to cut Shackles, but you can also cut Propaganda and play Moat. It's a shame these are all, but that's life. What else do you use for creature control though? Swords is (unfortunately) out because of Chalice, Propaganda and Prison are redundant with Moat, so... Keg? Halo? Wrath? Control Magic? Having all your critter control cost 4 is probably not great.
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
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