Yeah, it's not like 4 Keg / Bomb don't easily blow up 1cc creatures like Nimble Mongoose, right?Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
And in the sideboard, there is 3 Dream Tides. Check it out. It's absolutely a house against green creatures.
And again, Misdirection and Divert make this single-handedly worthwhile playing in a meta-game with Abrupt Decay. Didn't I go over this already?
Also, the OP is ages old and references an inferior decklist that is not nearly as strong vs. combo as mine is.
We are skeptical about your list and the reasoning for not including Brainstorm. Your anecdotal evidence is not sufficient to turn our thoughts about the list you posted. Can you demonstrate better performance with your deck? If not, then be prepared for heavy criticism of your list compared to something more familiar.
For reference, this was the last well placing mono-blue list:
Mono Blue Control - Joan Castaño - 09/23/12
Creatures [5]
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Trinket Mage
Instants [13]
1 Counterspell
2 Echoing Truth
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
Sorceries [2]
2 Devastation Tide
Enchantments [10]
2 Back to Basics
4 Counterbalance
4 Energy Field
Planeswalkers [2]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Artifacts [6]
2 Vedalken Shackles
4 Sensei's Divining Top
Lands [22]
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
18 Island
Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Meekstone
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Dispel
1 Flusterstorm
1 Reins of Power
2 Spell Pierce
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Vendilion Clique
West side
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In Scenario #1, even though you shuffled away your 3 "dead" cards, you still are not guaranteed that the new cards on top of your deck are ANY better than the cards you shuffled away! you are still exposing yourself to the randomness on the top of your library. That is why the #1 reason to play Brainstorm is not this, but to trade away "dead" cards in your hand for the lotto ticket of the top 3 cards on your library, and that is nothing more than a lotto ticket as I described before.
And even the fact that the top three cards of your deck are all "dead" draws is unlikely anyway, given that MUC needs to be answering threats all the time in the early game and at least one answer will probably be sufficient in those three cards (counterspells are generic and answer nearly every deck's threats. the only really deck-specific answers are anti-creature stuff or misdirection against decks without targeted spells).
There are very few truly dead draws in a deck full of answers or card draw that needs to respond right away to what the opponent is doing. More Islands is rarely a dead draw because the deck wants to build up to at least 5+ mana as soon as possible to cast bombs later on which help it stabilize in the mid/late-game. Even in the rare corner case of 3 Islands in a row, this is not necessarily bad if I kept a hand with 1-2 bombs and a bunch of answers.
Au contraire - 3 Dream Tides in sideboard that come in vs. green-creature decks. Also, I can counter the Green Suns Zenith that probably would bring him into play in the first place, because rarely do decks play him as more of a 1-of in the maindeck, if even that at all. I haven't seen that guy played in decks in a while. Most of the BG and GW decklists have moved him out of the maindeck.FWIW - your deck has zero chance against Thrun, the Last Troll. At least UW Control has blockers or Batterskull that can delay or neuter the card. In your deck, you're just dead to it.
This just shows how little you understand the concept of this deck. Generating Card Advantage enables you to PLAY cards like Misdirection and Force of Will. The entire reason to build Card Advantage in the first place is to give you MORE answers for opposing threats and to simultaenously allow you to trade early card disadvantage for tempo gains (free counterspells) and then replenish that card disadvantage later on. Card Advantage supports Force of Will and Misdirection whereas in other control decks that don't play draw spells, they are often too resource-intensive in terms of card advantage that never gets replenished.This hasn't been true for a number of years. Card Advantage is sweet, but Card Quality and Card Selection offer much better odds of winning games in Legacy. Playing cards like Misdirection and Force of Will actively hinder your goal of Card Advantage.
1. Not against RuG. Between Stifle and their counter suite, good luck.Yeah, it's not like 4 Keg / Bomb don't easily blow up 1cc creatures like Nimble Mongoose, right?
And in the sideboard, there is 3 Dream Tides. Check it out. It's absolutely a house against green creatures.
And again, Misdirection and Divert make this single-handedly worthwhile playing in a meta-game with Abrupt Decay. Didn't I go over this already?
2. You won't always have those cards in hand. When you don't, you'll just lose.
3. Dream Tides? Seriously? a CMC 4 spell that doesn't win you the game?
I give up. You think Brainstorm is an inferior choice to Visions while you think Shackles is spot removal.
1. The RuG countersuite is heavily predicated upon a.) using mana denial in the form of land destruction on the opponent, which MUC is immune to and b.) using taxing countermagic like Daze and Spell Pierce that is easily played around especially when you can count on all of your lands being in play in every game. After a few turns, the only countermagic that MUC cares about that RUG plays is Force of Will. That is often enough for MUC to force bombs through in the mid-game, especially with its own countermagic backing it up. And postboard, he better have an answer to Chalice of the Void which shuts off like 60% of the deck. And more answers to everything else I still manage to play as well.
2. Six ways to redirect stuff maindeck. And again, if he destroys one Back to Basics with a Decay, guess what? Three more of those, AND he has to deal with a resolved Shackles and/or Keg eventually as well. And by that time, I've probably drawn one of my six redirection spells. Oh, and he better save those Maelstrom Pulses for Jace, because Decay can't target my win condition.
If that is actually true, the deck would never win any games ever, since it can't win against Tendrils decks or High Tide (barring the unfortunate time spiral into only mana and counters (and even then, the total lack of a clock would give the high tide player plenty of time to build up again)).Combo is this deck's BEST matchup.
There's no way you've tested this against high tide if you think it has a chance of winning.
22 Island
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
3 Misdirection
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Powder Keg
4 Vendilion Clique
4 Back to Basics
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
I've played the High Tide matchup many times online and offline. Preboard, in G1, it has more of a chance to win than any other combo deck because 4 Shackles and 4 B2B are mostly dead cards, but post-board it dies a flaming wreck to the unstoppable duo of Chalice of the Void and Vendilion Clique on top of all the countermagic and draw spells.
How daft do you have to be to see 4 Vendiion Clique, 4 Counterspell, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void, 4 Jace, 3 Misdirection, 4 draw spells, and think that that is not the worst possible decklist a Storm (Belcher, Ad Naus, TES, or High Tide) combo deck could face?
The only thing that comes even close is a Countertop list that boards into Clique.
Again, please do not post groundless accusations before actually looking at decklists and maybe even testing matchups yourself. You're posting like someone who has never played with Countermagic before, let alone Chalice of the Void and Vendilion Clique.
You mean the same thing everyone has been saying to you?
Have people lost the ability to understand how matchups work?
I mean, an all-blue deck loaded with counterspells (and misdirection which acts like extra Force of Will), that boards into Chalice of the Void and Vendilion Clique, and we are questioning its ability to win vs. combo decks?
You have to be completely naive about the format if you think a deck with that kind of potential would lose regularly to combo. I mean, I have to seriously question if you've even played a single game of Legacy of any kind.
Storm/Combo decks can easily beat decks with FoW and counters.
Why? Because without a clock, they can just sit back, sculpt their hand, cast discard/Silence/have more counters than you and just go off. I've personally had this happen when I've tested Countertop against Storm decks.
I tried to stay away, but couldn't resist...
This deck is just stone cold dead to Sneak & Show; between Leyline of Sanctity (uncounterable, turns off Clique trigger and Jace fateseal), Boseiju (turns off your countermagic completely), Wipe Away to deal with anything that matters (uncounterable/unredirectable), accel to go off turn 1 with counter backup, it's just dead. Granted, many decks fall under this category against Sneak & Show, but those pilots probably aren't saying stuff like "I beat combo all the time, it's my best matchup" either.
Also, there is nothing new or innovative with MGB's build; it's basically the same build people were playing in 2009, just with Misdirection and Divert maindecked. Misdirection and Divert have been around for years and years, all while MUC became a relic of days past. It's counter-intuitive to say "the printing of Abrupt Decay has made MUC viable again thanks to MUC having Misdirection and Divert" when all data says otherwise.
And the fact that this build does well in your local playgroup means nothing. My Junk build has been terrorizing my meta, but I'm not sitting here thinking "oh yeah, my Junk is gonna dominate everything out there".
The concepts of board control, countermagic, and card draw are not new. They have been around since Magic's inception. The cards may have changed, but the concepts are the same as they were back in 1993, so don't be so quick to dismiss people just because they haven't played with the format defining combo of Back to Basics + Powder Keg.
Essentially, this deck cannot go 65% against the field as you claim. All of your theorycrafting and local playtesting doesn't mean that your pet deck is going to be 65% across the board. If your deck was truly 65%, then it would be the most dominant deck in Magic right now and every Pro player would be playing it to win hundreds/thousands of dollars every week.
This is literally the only time I've ever heard someone argue that Abrupt Decay has actually made blue-based Control better than before Abrupt Decay was printed. I'm almost at a loss of words.
SEe, you have preconceived notions about decks that you've seen with Force of Will that do not play card draw.
This deck is replenishing its answers with Ancestral Vision and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. If we're both playing Draw-Go, I'm actually drawing extra cards while the Combo opponent is not. Card Advantage 101.
And if I play one of my four Jaces, guess what that +2 ablity lets me do? Yes, that's right, it lets me control my opponent's topdeck and stop him from drawing relevant stuff. And then after five turns, I win the game. You don't need creatures to create a clock.
And then of course, post-board, my Chalice of the Void enables me to preemptively counter nearly 30-40% of my opponent's deck, leaving my other counterspells for the rest of his deck. Sure, he can find a bounce spell, but a.) he NEEDS to find it just to stay competitive and b.) I can just counter the bounce with one of my other counters.
And post-board Clique gives me yet another clock too, obviously.
Because I live in reality? High tide doesn't care about Jace's Fateseal. The deck gets stronger as the game goes on (and it will drag on and on). High Tide will have plenty of time to deal with Chalice@1 and then win through counters. High tide can meditate and skip a turn without fear. If the MUC player counters the meditate, that's one less counter High Tide will need to go through when it goes off. A deck like RUG runs less counters, but is an actual challenge to high tide because it has a clock. Against RUG, High Tide only has like 5 turns to sculpt a winning hand that can fight through disruption.How daft do you have to be to see 4 Vendiion Clique, 4 Counterspell, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void, 4 Jace, 3 Misdirection, 4 draw spells, and think that that is not the worst possible decklist a Storm combo deck could face?
You'll be dead before Visions goes off. Even with the CounterTop lock, Storm players can still sometimes win through it and this is before Decay was printed.
Let's see Sneak and Show win the counterwar with MUC when it packs Spell Pierce, Counterspell, Force of Will, and Misdirection/Divert as extra counters.
You're giving an awful lot of 1-of conditional stuff that alot of Sneak'n'Show decks don't even play - I haven't seen Boseiju in ages. Leyline theoretically, but all that does is take away Clique ability (she can still attack for 3 damage each turn) and Jace fateseal (he can still do the ultimate) for the cost of aggressive mulliganing on his part AND 4 dead cards otherwise in maindeck. In fact, I'd welcome my opponent boarding into Leyline of Sanctity! More card advantage for me!
Also, unless he plays Sneak Attack, I can always bounce his guy with Jace.
So say he casts Show and Tell on turn 3, and I counter with Counterspell. He pitches something to Force, I Force back. I say "OK resolves." Oh no! Emrakul in play! Guess what? My turn, with both of our hands depleted of counters, I play Jace, bounce Emrakul, and then proceed to win the game.
People have constantly tried playing MUC in the past with inferior card choices. Like playing Propaganda at all is a big mistake. Not playing FOUR Jace the Mind Sculptor. Not playing Ancestral Vision. Any MUC decks that do not play at least 4 Vision, 4 Jace, or play inferior cards like Propaganda will undoubtedly fail. The margin is razor-thin with pure control decks.Also, there is nothing new or innovative with MGB's build; it's basically the same build people were playing in 2009, just with Misdirection and Divert maindecked. Misdirection and Divert have been around for years and years, all while MUC became a relic of days past. It's counter-intuitive to say "the printing of Abrupt Decay has made MUC viable again thanks to MUC having Misdirection and Divert" when all data says otherwise.
The data is also not complete in this instance. Nobody has tried playing this particular build at a major tournament.
It's not about that, I play against tournament-level palyers online and offline. I am an expert in the theory of the game. I know a good deck when I see one or build one or play one. I'm not a casual player. My friends are not casual players.And the fact that this build does well in your local playgroup means nothing. My Junk build has been terrorizing my meta, but I'm not sitting here thinking "oh yeah, my Junk is gonna dominate everything out there".
In this particular metagame the deck is well positioned. Metagames shift. Are you familiar at all with the concept of a shifting metagame? A year or two ago, when I saw tons of Goblins and Merfolks, I wouldn't recommend palying MUC to anyone. I stopped playing the deck myself. But recently, I've noticed the precipitous drop in Goblins./Merfolks decks, AND the heavy resurgence of Combo decks AND the subsequent over-reliance on retargetable removal spells like Abrupt Decay, and concluded that this particular build is an elite contender in this particular metagame. That doesn't mean that it will be good forever, when things shift again.The concepts of board control, countermagic, and card draw are not new. They have been around since Magic's inception. The cards may have changed, but the concepts are the same as they were back in 1993, so don't be so quick to dismiss people just because they haven't played with the format defining combo of Back to Basics + Powder Keg.
Essentially, this deck cannot go 65% against the field as you claim. All of your theorycrafting and local playtesting doesn't mean that your pet deck is going to be 65% across the board. If your deck was truly 65%, then it would be the most dominant deck in Magic right now and every Pro player would be playing it to win hundreds/thousands of dollars every week.
Certain decks can go 60%+ in CERTAIN METAGAMES if their bad matchups are heavily mitigated.
This is the exact thing that someone who has never played with Ancestral Vision always says.
Your lack of experience playing the card shows through like a beacon of light in a dark tunnel.
You have no clue what you are talking about.
High Tide is not some "magical" deck that has infinite counters and infinite threats and infinite ways around opposing counters. The basic theory of magic holds true here. High Tide is not drawing cards, and I am. I am drawing more answers than he has threats in most situations.
And if I land a Chalice, I counter 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 High Tide, 4 Preordain at the very least. That means more dead draws for him and more card advantage for me AND he can't go off until he bounces the Chalice. Then I just have to counter other things he draws, or play my Clique to send them to the bottom of his library or use Jace fateseal. All the while I am drawing more cards with both Vision and/or Jace while he has to be content with 1 card per turn.
Please test the matchup before talking, please.
You can't continue to say "you lack experience" as an excuse (well, you could, but you continue to lose credibility) because it isn't a valid excuse since any John Doe can claim someone lacks experience. You lack any data showing that your claims are valid. Provide proof that your deck performs as you claim or drop it.
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