[Deck] Mono-Blue Control (MUC)

[Arsenal]

I run 24 Islands. I was resistant to AV at first, but since I'm playing permanent-based MUC, it's been great. Waiting 4 turns, with lots of pieces to slow down the opponent (B2B, Shackles, Propaganda, Keg), isn't as bad as I initially thought it would be. FoF is FoF, so I don't feel I need to ever justify it's slot. Jace, in my meta, has been pretty good. There have been times when I draw it and am , but overall, I like him. I think that's the most malleable slot in my deck right now. He could easily be anything else, but for now, Jace is okay.

[Soulles]

Has anyone ever considerd Flow of Ideas? One or 2 ?

I am really thinking of trying it out. Of cource it would be in addition of the 4 fact or fictions. And will have to play 24 islands minimum to ensure a turn 6/7Flow of Ideas.

I know it is a sorcery and it is six mana. But drawing six cards or more late game seems very yummy.

[mackaber]

Never ever ever honestly have I considered Flow of Ideas. I doubt that a card that wasn't even playable in different limited formats can make the cut in Legacy especially when drawing six means tapping out and discarding 3....

[Citrus-God]

Never ever ever honestly have I considered Flow of Ideas. I doubt that a card that wasn't even playable in different limited formats can make the cut in Legacy especially when drawing six means tapping out and discarding 3....

Opportunity is a much better card than Flow of Ideas. At least it's an instant, albeit, a clunky one.

[Illissius]

I've been thinking about Scrying Sheets -- specifically, trying to think of a deck where you can run Sheets, Top, and lots of shuffle effects -- and blue actually looks like a good bet. Though you don't have that many actual shuffle effects (Shoreline Ranger, Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll, Intuition, Trinket Mage, and Tezzeret are the realistic options, out of which Tez actually looks very interesting), you do have Impulse and Fact or Fiction, which are just as great: once you run out of Snow Lands in the top three to Sheets, you cast Impulse or Fact, which will both be gassier than usual thanks to your top three cards all being business spells, and also reset the top of your library. You could run Oona's Grace, Call the Skybreaker, and/or Forbid to take advantage of the extra lands, and Counterbalance to go with Top, if you like. If you want to model yourself after Quinn, you could use Severance-Belcher as the win condition.

[Jason]

I am currently using Think Twice and really enjoy the card. Turn two, if I don't counter anything, I can cycle it out of my hand and have the same option turn three. It has great synergy with Fact or Fiction. It has been really good to me, but Oona's Grace seems intriguing because it seems to be good in all the ways Think Twice is except that it doesn't cost 2. I am going to try the retraceable draw and see if I need my draw to come down EOT turn two or if the ability to continually draw one card for 3 mana + 1 land comes in handy.

FYI, I also tried Murmurs from Beyond and found that card ok. It wasn't great and I definitely found Think Twice to be better.

[Illissius]

Another card which should be compared with Think Twice is Flash of Insight. The mana costs for cycling it and flashing it back are the exact reverse of Think Twice, which is awkward, but on the plus side you get to look at a lot more cards in the late game.

[Shawon]

Earlier someone listed an index of card draw/parity. Perhaps we can continue the series with lands.

Here are lands which I think are playable/testable in MUC (in no part. order):

- Scrying Sheets (obv CA)
- Urza's Factory (bad with B2B, but still, recursion is powerful)
- Storage Lands (e.g. Calciform Pool...gives you enough mana to cast threats with counter backup)
- Wasteland (in sb...Randy Buehler used these in his Draw-Go to beat control in the mana race)
- Academy Ruins

That's all I can think of for now. Add on.

[mackaber]

- Wasteland (in sb...Randy Buehler used these in his Draw-Go to beat control in the mana race)

I don't think non basics have a place in this dec in general, not because of B2B but of opposing wastelands.
Also those wastelands in Randy Bueler's dec were actually less there for mana denial than a specific metagame consideration on his part. The older generation of Draw-Go or Cuneo-Blue as it was originally referred to was actually running stalking stones and quicksands and relied on stalking stones as it's primary kill condition. So since he had to deal with opposing Stalking Stones and with opposing wastelands which could quite effectively nail his only kill condition he ran wastelands himself. While this weakend his aggro game he compensated with Force Spikes.

Today we do need to deal with factories but these are handled quite well by shakels and B2B. So we shouldn't realy mess around with wasteland since usually we need more mana than our opponents.

[Captain Hammer]

I agree on the Wastelands, but I don't think the small chance of an opponent keeping in their wastelands is a good reason to play zero nonbbasics.

I think a very strong path to take for this deck is to fit in...

20 Snow-Covered Island
4 Scrying Sheets
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3-4 Counterbalance

Both Sheets and Counterbalance are great on their own but just plain ridiculous with Sensei's Divining Top. It seems wrong not to play.

Your curve fits Counterbalance well.

At 1cc, you have top, spell snare and some other stuff.

At 2cc, you have counterbalance, counterspell and lots of other nonsense.

At 3cc, you have B2B, TFK and Shackles.

[Shawon]

20 Snow-Covered Island
4 Scrying Sheets
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3-4 Counterbalance

At 1cc, you have top, spell snare and some other stuff.

At 2cc, you have counterbalance, counterspell and lots of other nonsense.

At 3cc, you have B2B, TFK and Shackles.

Sounds good at face value, but how do you fit all of those cards in one deck and still be effective? Do you have such a list?

[Soulles]

So i need some input. 18th January, there will be a Grand Prix Trial in Holland for Chicago. Being the only Legacy Trial with a very nice price support, i do hope to end up somewhere in the upper section of the standings.

Besides the Free ticket and hotel expenses, there are some cool prices like Ipods, duals and what not.

Now i expect an attendence of 100+ and i am really unsure on which sideboard to create.

So far my plan is
4x Annul
4x Chalice of the void
3x Tormo'ds crypt
1x Relic of Progentius
3x Propaganda.

Now, i can explain Annul first. I think it is a very underrated blue card atm. With the rise of Dreadstill, i think it is a fine weapon to use. It's also a nice card vs Stax, Enchantress, Deeds and so on

Chalice of the void, i think i need this card quite bad vs TES and ANT. I won to many matches vs combo just because of this card.

Graveyard hate, i still fear Ichorid, even though it is quite dead in Holland. Hardly played. But i also like these cards vs Loam, Breakfest and survival decks.

Propaganda, one of the cards i sometimes wish i had in the board and when i do have them, i hardly get to use.

Cards i do like to play also in my sideboard
2x Turnabout vs Landstill and It's the Fear.
3x Diverts vs Discard decks (Eva Green, Dead guy)
4x Hydroblast

And maybe stifles.


Am quite not sure what to make of it yet. Hope there is some input.

Decklist i'll be running would be,

2x Morphling
2x Kira
4x Sower

3x Spell Snare
4x Force Spike
4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
4x Fact or Fiction

4x Back to Basics
2x Powder Keg
3x Vedalken Shackles

24x Islands

[Shawon]

4x Annul
4x Chalice of the void
3x Tormo'ds crypt
1x Relic of Progentius
3x Propaganda

Nice call on Annul. I'd cut one, though, you don't want to risk having too many dead cards in your sideboard. Seems safer.

Why not run 4 Relics? Relic might as well read "Kill target Terravore." Also, Ichorid sometimes runs Chalice, too, so you can count on Relic to dodge Chalice. The only downside to running Relic over Tormod's Crypt is you're too slow against Ichorid, but I'd take those chances. Besides, you have Spike and FoW to buy you the first turn so you can cast Relic.

Propaganda is a good card, but it's only good as a 4-of. One Propaganda might be game over against Ichorid (unless they run Akroma, watch out), but against aggro it's sometime just a speed bump. However, double Propaganda more often than not is game over against aggro. You really want to max out at 4 Props.

So overall, I'd go -1 Annul, +1 Propaganda.

[TheJollyRaja]

Here's what I've been toying with for a sideboard:

1x Relic of Progenitus
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Pithing Needle
2x Threads of Disloyalty
4x Blue Elemental Blast

(I run 4x Propaganda and 3x Back to Basics in the main)

What do people think about BeB versus Chill? I like how BeB can be good against Aggro Red decks in both the early and late game and Chill is weak-ish after turn 6 (assuming you survive that long). BeB is also pretty decent against Ad Nauseum that runs Red. But Chill just seems absurd on turn two against Goblins, Dragon Stompy, Mono Red Burn.

Thoughts?

[mackaber]

I really think relic is strictly superior to Crypt. Also I'd feel kind of naked without Hydroblasts in the Board. While I agree that you need something against Combo, runinng Chalices with 7 MD 1 CC spells seems a bit unsynergistic. I'd recomend trying Vendillion Cliques somewhere between MD and Sideboard, they've been working great for me. Also I think Annul is just a piece of shit but I guess I'll have to expand a bit further on that. Dreadstill from my testing, allbeit with a different list, is really one of your best matchups, furthermore the only spell I'd want to annul is CB (since countering the naught is usually not the best play) and you have Spell Snares and whatnot for those already. From my testing disk was totally house vs dreadstill which btw also completly demolishes any sort of Stax dec altough it might not work with the high number of permanents in your dec.

[Arsenal]

Due to my meta (slow as balls, control-dominant), I've been getting away with 4 AV, 4 FoF, 2 Jace as my draw suite. I've been contemplating going -2 Jace and +2 Future Sight. Future Sight is more expensive to cast, but I rarely cast Jace on turn 3 anyway, so it isn't that much of a difference.

Future Sight is slightly more vulnerable to hate cards, but it also has the potential of getting really, really stupid (land on top, play land, AV now on top, play AV, etc). I feel it's one of those cards that if it resolves in the control mirror (something I see a lot of), it's GGPO.

Thoughts on Future Sight in a slow meta?

[mackaber]

I've only played future sight in limited and if memory serves corectly in block constructed at some point. Resolved it's totally nuts, I just don't think it belongs in MUC since your not gonna be casting stuff proactively, also everyone packs Krosan Grip nowadays. IMHO it seems like overkill. Your control MU should be awesome anyways.
I've been starting to test AV and must say I really like it.

[Arsenal]

Yeah, I always viewed Future Sight as "win-more", but I've also always been trying to find an excuse to play it. It's completely retarded if it resolves.

[Jason]

Future Sight is slightly more vulnerable to hate cards, but it also has the potential of getting really, really stupid (land on top, play land, AV now on top, play AV, etc). I feel it's one of those cards that if it resolves in the control mirror (something I see a lot of), it's GGPO.

Umm..can you play Ancestral Vision from Future Sight? It says play it as though it is in your hand and you can't play the card from your hand because it has no mana cost - you must suspend it. You cannot suspend from the top of your library with Future Sight, just like you can't cycle. I'm just saying I don't think what you are saying works.

The main problem with the card for me is it costs 5 mana. I know that's not "a lot" seeing as we should be playing a land a turn. But it is indeed going to be a card I won't want to see in my hand before turn 5 and sometimes before turn 7 or 8. The card is ridiculous when it is in play, but oftentimes it won't see play until the part of the game where you are in the position of probably winning the game or probably losing the game. In the probably winning scenario, it will certainly strengthen your situation; however, in the probably losing scenario, it just seems like it will not get there. In either case, the card seems unnecessary to me.

[elof]

Have anyone seen this new card from Conflux?

Traumatic Visions
Instant (C)
Counter target spell.
Basic landcycling

I wonder if it is possible to play it in some MUC-build. It does alow "fetching" basiclands in off-colors for EE. It provides mana in the early game. It counters in the late game.

I guess it's probebly to slow but it might be good in decks that want to use EE but not as much fetches.

What do you guys think?