storage lands is unviable since you play Ancestral Vision, then you' ll not use them until turn 5-6 because this deck go most of the time tapped out in the early turns to handle on opponent threats or to did some Vedalken-Propaganda-B2B-Powder Keg. Moreover, what this deck doesn' t nedd is to run any lands that goes under Wasteland because it can' t afford well some missed land drop, and obv saw his land wasted...
So you're telling me storage lands are not viable because of Visions? Really, how? The only situation where I think that's really true is you keep a hand with only storage lands. I'm pretty sure that if you have 2 land in your opener, one of them is going to be an Island.Originally Posted by idraleo
Really? That doesn't sound like MUC to me. From my experience, in the early game I'm often keeping mana to counter spells. Anyway, answer me this: even if I won't use them until turns 5-6, how do storage lands prevent me from casting any of those cards you mentioned? Furthermore, the deck doesn't win by turns 5-6, so having a great amount of mana in the long game is greatly beneficial. With storage lands, I can't really see how you'll lose the late game once you get there.then you' ll not use them until turn 5-6 because this deck go most of the time tapped out in the early turns to handle on opponent threats or to did some Vedalken-Propaganda-B2B-Powder Keg.
All I can say here is that I'm not scared of Wasteland, but I may be biased here, because I run 25 lands.Moreover, what this deck doesn' t nedd is to run any lands that goes under Wasteland because it can' t afford well some missed land drop, and obv saw his land wasted...
There is no reason to run storage lands in this deck. Your own Back to basics will ruin them, they can be killed with wasteland (which might not seem like a big deal to you but believe me you will not get much use out of them). I don't see why you would even want them to be honest, at the end of pretty much every turn MUC will either impulse or fact or fiction or will be tapped out from countering/shackling.
Just my thoughts.
EDIT: Playing storage lands in a bad meta game would be good, like when I play with my friends, but playing it against tier 1 decks isn't the best idea.
Back to Basics in play does weaken the storage lands if they're not in play, but they won't always 'ruin' them if you have say one in play, with 2 or more storage counters, before B2B comes down. Besides, if B2B consistently clashes with the storage lands, you always run 1 or 2 storage lands.
There's no reason to run a card that does not mesh well with your deck. If I was playing any tier 1 deck and I drew: 2 island, 1 storage land, 3 misc counterspells, and 1 btb then I would have to consider a mullagin. I would need to get back to basics out but I would have a total of 2 usable lands afterwards if I didn't draw into any in 3 turns.
What do you guys think about the Mono-Blue Control deck posted on this article by Machinus on SCG?
Seems good, of course expecially against aggro decks; i'll test this kind of version for sure.”Mono-Blue Control,” Fahed Saleh
1st at Mol (58 players)
2 Morphling
3 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Sower of Temptation
4 Counterspell
2 Echoing Truth
4 Fact or Fiction
2 Forbid
4 Force Spike
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
3 Back to Basics
2 Powder Keg
2 Vedalken Shackles
22 Island
Sideboard
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
3 Declaration of Naught
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
Way way way too few land. How does he even support half the spells in his deck? Vedalken Shackles in a deck with 22 Islands? Forbid in a deck with only 4 draw spells? Oh, only 4 draw spells? Ancestral Visions may not be everyone's cake, but the guy could've at least also run TfK.
Yeah that's a very weird deck. I like Sower of Temptations for the sideboard though.
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
You criticize, but he won a tournament of 58 people... or do you think was only luck?; i saw results, are you speaking about what results for so few islands, or "a very weird deck"?
Winning a tournament is not an automatic justification for one's choices. It does lend weight to one's ideas, but it doesn't mean they are infallible. At any rate, the major issues with that deck have already been pointed out. It runs way too few land, cards like Echoing Truth that are more or less awful in almost any application when compared to the alternatives, and has an identity crisis in attempting to run Kira and Sower in a deck that is supposed to be a control deck, not an aggro-control build.
Could it work? Potentially, but it would need much tweaking, and I suspect said tweaking would lead it largely towards what we've already arrived at in this thread except maybe with the Sowers in the main.
Is there an updated list of MUC any different from the one on the opening post?
Side note: Just curious, are there any viable (close-to-viable) MUC lists that use Nevinyraal's Disk? I understand that such a list would probably be less optimal than the B2Bs version, but I was just curious, since I always find The Disk interesting (mainly because of its history).
EDIT: After some playing with the deck, I've really become comfortable with 25 lands, especially with 2 storage lands. Even with just 25 Islands, you hardly ever find yourself short on mana so your tempo remains consistent. From my experience playing this deck, you don't really ever achieve a threshold of mana, because even in the late game, you could still use all that extra mana to comfortably hardcast FoW/Foil when you really could use those cards you'd otherwise be pitching to FoW/Foil.
Here's my list for reference, MD at least:
// Lands
23 [CS] Snow-Covered Island
1 [TSP] Dreadship Reef
1 [TSP] Calciform Pools
// Creatures
2 [US] Morphling
1 [CHK] Meloku the Clouded Mirror
// Spells
4 [UD] Powder Keg
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
4 [MM] Counterspell
4 [US] Back to Basics
4 [TE] Propaganda
4 [IN] Fact or Fiction
2 [PY] Foil
4 [AL] Force of Will
Last edited by Shawon; 08-07-2008 at 12:33 AM. Reason: 25 lands rock!
So, having played my build on the front page card for card in the Milford tournament yesterday here's what I learned:
1. The deck is very good. Seriously, whenever I played against anyone in testing I won comfortably. This was against Rg Sligh, GWB Survival, UGb Threshold (with Stifle+Waste), Affinity, Aggro Loam, and Ichorid. I also got into some pretty interesting long games with Landstill that I came out on top of largely because of Back to Basics.
2. I, on the other hand, am not very good. Well that's not really true, but I'm sure there were minor play-mistakes that cost me the match in the actual tournament against GWB Survival (he later made Top 4 at least, I'm not sure how he did once he got there) and one idiotic mulligan decision against Ichorid definitely cost me the match there too.
3. Metagaming is very important with this deck, in particular with the SB. If I had used common sense before building my SB I would've been infinitely better off. But, I didn't. As such, I didn't include Crypts and Phyrexian Furnaces, even though I knew there were 3 to 5 Ichorid players in the room and an equal number of Survival players (whom Furnace is the nuts against). I also included Chills, even though I was well aware there was only one person playing Goblins in the entire room. ^5s to me.
4. This deck is actually one of the few that has a solid chance game 1 against Ichorid. Propaganda is a beating because they largely have no way through it, and Back to Basics makes it so they literally can't win if you have Propaganda. With any sort of graveyard hate in games 2 and 3 you have what rather surprisingly amounts to a positive matchup.
5. Back to Basics is fucking nuts. Seriously, I know we were pretty much aware of this already, but the card is a nightmare for 90+% of Legacy decks to deal with. Run 4, you want them as often as possible, and you will want multiples too so that when they remove one it still isn't enough.
6. At least in this tournament, fetchlands would've sucked terribly. There were Stifles flying out of people's asses here. People went to the bathroom and instead of shitting out feces Stifles came sliding out. The middle tables in particular were loaded with people playing Stifle, which was amusing to watch, and probably slightly irregular in the grand scheme of things, but I saw multiple games won and lost on the back of Stifled fetchlands.
So yeah, I will be doing more testing and experimentation with this deck in the future, and hopefully will be attending many more tournaments with more success than I achieved in this one.
I'm not entirely sold on attempting it myself, but has anybody thought about using Keiga in the deck if we see little to no spot removal in the metagame? It is 6 mana, which is more expensive than Pling or Meloku, but is already a 4 turn clock, and if not StP'd will take a creature from your opponent. Seems very handy vs things like Goyf, Dreadnought, Crusher, Terravore, and the like. Alongside another creature or Shackles/Propaganda, I think it might be worth looking into as a 1-2 of.
To give an idea of the metagame I am predicting to run into, I will assume:
1-2 Affinity/Goyfinity
1-2 Aggro Loam
1-2 Black Stax/MBC variants
1-2 StifleNought
2-3 Ichorid
2-6 Thresh (probably black or red variants, little to no white)
1-3 Landstill (UBGw and possibly UW or UR)
x mono-colored (elves, burn, etc)
1-2 TES (maybe?)
Various other stuff (Survival, Painter, other Established or DTB stuff)
Jank (Enchantress, bad Doran rock decks, etc)
What a beauty !!!
It just should be called back to basics!
No brainstorm - totally overused imho
No fetch - the biggest hype too. losing life for nothing in control, stifle target, play 26 lands i.o. 22, therefore needing thinning to attain same number of threats
Not a single cantrip ! - drawing a .. drawing a .. You don't need cantrip if all your cards are threats (counter here ;)
Making Waste, blood moon (is is played?) useless
No drawing (hrr... FoF really?) but stealing critters and auto-countering targeted removal under Kira (StP, smother anyone) this is the ultimate Card Advantage
Costing close to 0 (except fow and some sb)
Being a MUC admirer, this is the most innovative meta-gamed version for years.
I wonder what it does against Ichorid tho
Glad to see someone liking my deck :)
Good see that you understand the purpose of this version of MUC. Most people fail or failed to see that. It's the creature control that is fortified through Kira that makes this deck very strong. Both sower and Kira are a clock on their own. Which forces people to play creatures. Even if shackles resolves people could choose not to play a creature and wait to to draw answers for both morphiling and shackles.
I played a touarnment 2 weeks ago. 30 people , i ended up fourth. Lost to goblins. I had to mul to 4 at a score of 1-1 ;/ . It happens but oh well.
As for your Ichorid question. I play 4 cards mainboard to deal with tokens and 3 cards sideboard to deal with graveyard. All in all it's a very bad matchup for me. But you can always choose to play propaganda in the sideboard if your meta is infested with ichorid.
I know the list looks funny. But i am not a new tournament player. I played Mono blue in every tournament for the last 2 years. I never switched decks. I tested many cards. From legacy's allure to curse of chains. I never test in MWS, always on tournaments. Because there people decide how to make their plays, their you can bluff, their you can test the true strengh of your cards you add and so on.
This list comes after 2 years of work and tournament play and i am very happy with it now. It doesn't beat everything but it sure brings a good fight!
Hey Fahed,
I really like your deck. Ever since I saw it on benelegacy, I was hooked.
Last sunday, I played at a local tournament with only 9 players and with a pretty conservative list. I went 3-2 and lost to a stiflenought/servant deck and to a UWBG Doran Folk deck.
I lost against that Doran deck because of his discard spells and to stiflenought because he had so much threats. Both decks contained Dark Confidant (a card you have to counter)
Now, I can see you win against stiflenought.. But what is your experience with decks that play a lot of discard. Decks like pox and the like. I have divert in my sideboard but it really didn't help me.
Anyone?
According to ancient Norwegian myths, Team Moosebite did your sister!
Sure I do !
Thanks for the appreciation. I've been myself a fond MUC players for years now, although I would play any style but pure aggro (gob, elfes etc..).Good see that you understand the purpose of this version of MUC. Most people fail or failed to see that. It's the creature control that is fortified through Kira that makes this deck very strong. Both sower and Kira are a clock on their own. Which forces people to play creatures. Even if shackles resolves people could choose not to play a creature and wait to to draw answers for both morphiling and shackles.
So here we here all about Tarmo, which for a MUC player don't change much of the problem since a 2/2 can easily kill you, although tarmo clock make you dearly miss the 2 turns needed to control the whole board and spells.
So what's better than stealing that monster. And what's better than protect that robbery with a Kira shroud?
Now I can imagine 2 Tarmo and a geese in front of you. you have kira on your side and play Sower. You steal 1, you keep it on the defence, protect your Sower, and beat with your 2 flying without any problem.
That's pure class man ! The class of real blue mages, use other guys deck's power to your own advantage.
Ho yeah, the famous gob match-up, the real test for MUC. I've been testing against vial gob white splash before GP Lille. And the deck is a pest, since nearly all cards is a must counter, especially vial and lackey obviously. I've noticed though that in the end it was better to never mull against it. and pray for the best. I wouldn't even force lackey, although I had Quicksand in sb. It's all about bluff indeed, and i was waiting for my first disk to clear the board. The game was all down to get to the first disk, then it was won or lost at that point.I played a touarnment 2 weeks ago. 30 people , i ended up fourth. Lost to goblins. I had to mul to 4 at a score of 1-1 ;/ . It happens but oh well.
MUC is not meant to win against gob anyway. But since it's not too much around, it's time for MUC to come back !
Good one, I forgot that echoing truth is the single best card against a token army. how sweet! and sure keg is good two for that. with 3 tormods and 3 needle, I assume that MU isn't that bad after all ;)As for your Ichorid question. I play 4 cards mainboard to deal with tokens and 3 cards sideboard to deal with graveyard. All in all it's a very bad matchup for me. But you can always choose to play propaganda in the sideboard if your meta is infested with ichorid.
Same here, I much prefer real play. Not only it's better for the bluff, much like poker (always keep your mana flooded islands in hand!) but a real meta is much much less full of goodies (how much for a thresh black splash?).I know the list looks funny. But i am not a new tournament player. I played Mono blue in every tournament for the last 2 years. I never switched decks. I tested many cards. From legacy's allure to curse of chains. I never test in MWS, always on tournaments. Because there people decide how to make their plays, their you can bluff, their you can test the true strengh of your cards you add and so on.
I played a MUC, Which was closer to the 98 world champion version with mishra (26 lands - 22 islands) and only 1 kill (rainbow efreet), all counter and disk. As such, fetch always looked ludicrous since I love my mana and i have losing stupid life. Same for brainstorm, i was palying impulse instead to get my disks quicker.
But now with your version, your clock is faster (more elegant) and the meta being really aggro (tarmo?) there's always something to steal around.
Last tournament i played (ok ok, years ago now beforew GP Lille), i got 2nd out of 15. Losing to affinity - erayo in the 3rd too. I had cleared the board and controlling it all, but he had his Blinkmoth which I could block/kill against my mishras. He got me when he was 2. great game !This list comes after 2 years of work and tournament play and i am very happy with it now. It doesn't beat everything but it sure brings a good fight!
Well, anyway, I never was a really competitive player, but i know how to pilot a mono blue, to my opponent's despair. And your version is really well-thought and balanced. There's a lot of testing in there (Not like all those guys who can only tell you if your don't play 4-of, you must be a moron! Morons !!)
Once again, WELL DONE !!!
it's so hard to be excited about anything in Magic nowadays ;-)
Holy crap, so you guys are sayin' that a 22 land version with no draw effects except for FoF and with the medium cmc of 3 is good to won something? kira+sower+shackles are redundant and useless at the same time, because the if someone had an answer to Shackles probably it will be an answer on Kira. Kira works well ONLY if you get a Sower on board, but it means to did 4 land drops with a decklist that doesn' t plays Brainstorms or Sensei's or any sort of deck thinning, you can' t did card advantage until turn 4 WITHOUT losing a land drop with 22 lands!! It is simply crazy!! Kira and Sower will probably be useful as a perfect pitch on FoW or buyback cards to Forbid. Also Forbid is insane because you did no card advantage, you can't buyback it if you got some useful card in hand so you are playng a bad cc3 counterspell that will do something interesting only on late game and only if you draw some useless late game card, such as Kira or Force Spike.
This decklist play bad cards to support some other bad cards, you kick off spells that gives you card advantage and card quality to put in some funny trick that became useles only if you play against some bad builded rg goyf deck. That's not "good against aggro decks", it is good ONLY against some aggro builds...
Ok so let's assume you are a MUC player, so you know a bit about math
22 lands >>> 26 lands including fetch and and dual lands.
So here is you're ideal play.
Turn 1: polluted delta turned into a much invested underground sea, preparing ground for your special mega tech called EE..
in front, he plays a stupid wasteland which send your 50$ combo down to make sure you will reach thresh very soon...
How many land drops do you think you need to reach 4 and even reach 6 one day if you play morphling??
Here what matters is you play 22 lands which are basic, all produce blue un-wastable, un-stpable (mishra), un-blood moonable simply called: island
Each of your land drops are here to stay.
Sure you need to thin your deck when you play only 34 threats. Sure you need brainstorm and sensei to get what you need. So 26 lands + 4 brainstorm + 4 sensei = 26 threats ! 60 - (26 + 4 + 4)
So great !!!
This deck plays 38 threats
Sure you need some card advantage badly
And I see that great other special tech, hiding my fow turn 2 from a hymn, still losing 2 cards.
Me I play force spike
kira+sower is mega combo, avoiding 90% of creature removal in the format, making your 3 crea virtually unchecked (possibly the winning point, beating with your 2 x 2/2 flyer and defending with your stole critter Tarmo is Sooo good)kira+sower+shackles are redundant
try to kill sower or kira with EE btw
Usually MUC has a mad fear of full-tap, always keeping 2 lands for counter.
But this version is more subtle. You play kira full-tap, opponent too happy to play his threat (critter?) which in turn you will steal with shackles or sower.
Making btw tarmo by far your best friend
B2B + force spike = it's your opponent who should be worried about his land drops !
???because the if someone had an answer to Shackles probably it will be an answer on Kira
you must mean sower no?
6 stealing effect is better than 4 I guess
Well, I would advice your opponent to deal with kira (2 removal spells) as quick as possible before sower shows up.Kira works well ONLY if you get a Sower on board
If you think it's perfect to pitch your best threats to fow, then stop playing MUCKira and Sower will probably be useful as a perfect pitch on FoW
I personally prefer dissipate in that slot. Forbid is the kind of card that make you recycle your extra islands in late game and see your opponent scoop in disgustyou are playng a bad cc3 counterspell that will do something interesting only on late game and only if you draw some useless late game card, such as Kira or Force Spike.
I would only question morphling here which looks like over-kill. May Soulles can explain the MU where it is a match breaker (against control?)
hmm....That's not "good against aggro decks", it is good ONLY against some aggro builds
That Declaration of Naught in the board is so sweet! That's at last an answer to flashback, LftL, Storm
I don't see any combo win against this deck on full control mode
What I can see in that deck, is balance
It is a well thought and balanced build with numbers in cards (2 - 3 - 4 ofs) looking very good.
Obviously you need a good pilot behind it, it's not like burn
Depends on the build. The permanent-based build of MUC doesn't run fetches nor duals, but running it with only 22 lands would be completely wrong.
Hm, no. A non-land card isn't a threat. A threat is something that will directly win the game.
So Kira + Sower is a combo, fine. There are several problems with it though.
- first, by itself, Kira is just complete junk.
- second, I still don't really see how this combo is actually better than simply Shackles. You're commiting one card (Sower) to steal a creature, and one second card (Kira) to protect the whole thing. With Shackles, you would commit one card to steal the creature. Then you're free to use any counterspell you want to protect the whole thing, which would be the second card. Except this second card (a counterspell) is much more versatile and could also be used to counter anything else if the opponent doesn't try to get his creature back.
To sum it up, you're using Kira as a counterspell to protect the steal. Then why the hell would you not simply have an actual counterspell that still could protect the steal, but also answer anything else ?
- third, i don't see how the deck could ever need more than 4 steal effects total.
Hence, the deck doesn't need this "combo" (and doesn't want it).
Edit : actually, after thinking things through, it's even worse than that. Each of the two "steals" result from potential answers is :
Shackles steal :
- no removal in hand : you are 2-for-1'ing your opponent, spending one card to remove one of his (1), and using it for yourself (2). Great.
- targeted artifact removal on Shackles (ie Krosan Grip). Result : your opponent spent one card to deal with one of your cards. Pretty fair.
- mass removal like Deed. Result : you just 2-for-1'ed your opponent. Great.
- every targeted creature removal (on the stolen creature). Result : you just 2-for-1'ed your opponent, and you are ready to do it again.
Kira + Sower steal :
- no removal in hand : you are 2-for-2'ing your opponent, having spent two cards to remove one of his (1), and using it for yourself (2). Pretty fair. ADVANTAGE : SHACKLES.
- targeted artifact removal. No effect. ADVANTAGE : K+S.
- mass removal like Deed. Result : 2 for 2. Pretty fair. ADVANTAGE : SHACKLES.
- every targeted creature removal. Result : ineffective. You're somewhat 3-for-2'ing him, except he didn't have to pay the cost for his second card. Good, but not "straight 2-for-1" quality. ADVANTAGE : SHACKLES.
So, except against Krosan Grip, how is the "combo" better ? You've invested more cards, more mana, you can't exchange the stolen creature if a better one comes out, and all of this for no benefit, except you now have two additional 2/2 that you can't use to attack or block (unless you want to destroy the combo yourself).
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote