[Deck] MUD (Metalworker)

[L10]

You get to cast big spells, but you are also susceptible to early disruption. Proxy the decks. Most of the cards are MUD specific, unless you play Tron in Modern or Workshop in Vintage. Most of us who plays MUD are pretty invested in MUD in Legacy.

[Bobmans]

I am trying to build as many Legacy decks as I can without needing multiple playsets of staples. So far I have Elves, D&T, and OmniTell (Thinking of changing it to Merfolk because Tribal is awesome). I also am thinking of building burn, MUD. Burn interests me because it has one main goal, light your opponent on fire, and I love that. MUD however seems like an extremely fun deck, powering out massive high costed creatures and threats as well as the ability to use Ugin. So my question is, what are the benefits of playing this deck, and what are the downsides?

Not to long ago i owned a large amount of cards and was able to play about roughly 60-70% of this formats decks and played another one every tournament. Instead of proxying it i just bought what was missing. While that gave me a lot of knowledge of many archetypes i found myself having 2 problems:
1. Inconstant plays due to not focussing on one deck. When you play the same deck over and over for a long time you learn to manoeuvre yourself out of narrow situations and start to see details that will matter to win or lose a MU.
2. I was never able to choose what deck to play. So many cool decks and things that all have their strenghts and weaknesses.
Now i have sold a very large portion of my collection and force myself to play that one deck over and over. MUD not being it, but i did keep MUD. I spend about 3 years finding my deck. I also found that the issue did not lie with the decks i played, the issue was myself.

MUD is a beautiful deck. It tells a story of the history of MtG. It is more then one big machine.

[kingtk3]

I am trying to build as many Legacy decks as I can without needing multiple playsets of staples. So far I have Elves, D&T, and OmniTell (Thinking of changing it to Merfolk because Tribal is awesome). I also am thinking of building burn, MUD. Burn interests me because it has one main goal, light your opponent on fire, and I love that. MUD however seems like an extremely fun deck, powering out massive high costed creatures and threats as well as the ability to use Ugin. So my question is, what are the benefits of playing this deck, and what are the downsides?

Pros.

• In a format in which the mana curve leans on 1 and 2 mana spells you can play chalice of the void on turn, which effectively shuts down many of the most played and succesful decks of the format, or some key spells of the others.
• Moreover, Legacy is a format full of cantrips and that leads to many decks with 16~20 lands which against which trinisphere can prevent them from casting anything at all.
• For those very reasons many decks prefer efficent cards to strong ones (strictly considering the power and/or the effect, not considering the casting cost), so their threats will be outpowered by yours.
• It is FUN: what would you prefer, a tiny human that lets you draw cards or transforms into an insect or a big robots that crushes everything it comes accross? Come on, magic is a game so have some fun!

Cons:

• You cannot play some of the most efficent spells in magic hystory, most of all the all-mighty blu cantrips.
• You suffer more than the other decks from wasteland, since you play no basics (unless you are on godo/daretti) and you need your lands to support your game ending spells
• You have no manipulation and (almost) no card drawing, so you are very dependant from your starting seven and your draws: you need to learn how to mulligan well!!!
• There's a TON of hate against you, if someone wishes to beat you
• Sometimes you will just die from your deck (this is true for any deck, but the ones with cantrip minimaze this chance)
• Most of the times your opponents will concede when you lock the game or put into play a game ending bomb, so they neglect you the pleasure to actually see in action your best and most flashy cards

@Bobmans: very nice words, I second you: although I didn't sell my collection and play many decks at the end I always come back to MUD and it feels like coming back home.

[Bobmans]

I second you: although I didn't sell my collection and play many decks at the end I always come back to MUD and it feels like coming back home.

True, and i second you. The only reason i am not playing MUD as my main is for exactly the cons you just mentioned.

[kingtk3]

True, and i second you. The only reason i am not playing MUD as my main is for exactly the cons you just mentioned.

Makes sense: currently I have sleeved up MUD and Shardless Bug, and I choose what to play at each single tournament. But I'm forcing myself to only those decks for the reasons you posted before

[Jakobian]

I am trying to build as many Legacy decks as I can without needing multiple playsets of staples. So far I have Elves, D&T, and OmniTell (Thinking of changing it to Merfolk because Tribal is awesome). I also am thinking of building burn, MUD. Burn interests me because it has one main goal, light your opponent on fire, and I love that. MUD however seems like an extremely fun deck, powering out massive high costed creatures and threats as well as the ability to use Ugin. So my question is, what are the benefits of playing this deck, and what are the downsides?

Here's what I would list as Pros and Cons for MUD:

Pros:
Really good matchups against decks that usually suck to play against (miracles, storm, dredge, elves)

MUD is a ton of fun. You get to play ridiculous robots, do infinite combos sometimes, and bash with blightsteel colossus

Seeing the look on your opponents faces when you resolve chalice of the void at x=1 on turn 1. It really is something to cherish.

MUD is a pretty customizable deck, by which I mean you don't absolutely have to play a stock 75 cards, and have quite a bit of flexibility to fit your play style. There's a lot of colorless/artifact cards available to crush your enemies with.

In the grand scheme of things, the deck is really inexpensive compared to a lot of multi-colored legacy decks (BUG, RUG, Lands, etc.)

I don't feel like the deck will ever fall out of favor. Chalice of the void and trinisphere will always be relavent cards in legacy.

Cons:
You really need to learn to mulligan. I have won several games on mulligans to 5 cards, and at least 1 game on a mull to 4. It's very difficult to decide what a "good" hand is in this deck.

The cards in MUD don't really go in any other deck aside from the manabase. Wastelands go in tons of decks, and sol lands can be used in sneaky show at least

Occasionally you'll just lose to someone having wasteland + life from the loam.

The deck gets better the more you know about what your opponent is doing. By which I mean I would not recommend this deck to players who are new to legacy, as it is easy to mess up the order of spells or to incorrectly evaluate which spells are important in certain matchups.


Additional comment:
I love playing different decks on a regular basis, but overall MUD has won me the most prizes by far, so it is even a good economic decision.

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

I want to press the reset button on discussing this deck, fundamental problem with it is:

If you play no Cloudposts, you will lose to yourself without mana sources.

If you play Cloudposts, there is often no way to sacrifice enough artifacts for a Forgemaster activation. Even if you activate Forgemaster, and you need to wipe your board, you're often forced to waste your best cards like Chalice of the Void and Triniphere or Lightning Greaves, and this can be a huge pain against control or decks playing Swords to Plowshares. Lightning Greaves is sometimes all you have to win against Liliana of the Veil.

Cutting Forgemaster allows you to play Phyrexian Portal . Look at this! seriously nuts. Great art too...



This card fixes all of the problems that the deck has. You get insanely powerful top draws using this. The 3 mana to activate is worthwhile I think considering you are guaranteed a worthwhile drop.

Most opponents will split the pile 5 / 5 . If your opponent splits the pile 1 / 9 or 3 / 7 etc, searching the larger pile is surely going to get you a card to win the game with . You can activate the ability a second time that turn and get another card to play. This is far more efficient than dropping a spell that only draws 1 card at a time !

Has anyone tried a list playing no Forgemaster, no Blightsteel?

The way the card will work is :

Your opponent will put all the bombs in one 5 pile, all the weakest cards in the other, and hope that in the 50/50 toss that you pick the pile with the weaker cards.

but no matter what, you always have a 50/50 chance of the best pile.

If your opponent is not totally dumb, they will never split the smallest pile with the best cards, because you do have the option of picking the pile with the best cards.

Or, if you think your opponent is doing that.. and really it's still a 50/50 no matter what, if you pick the larger pile with the best cards, you exile less cards, so its always better to pick the larger pile, because you ahve wider card selection.

To play this card, you want your card selection to matter.

[hartigan]

In trying almost every legacy deck I can I've realized I have left out MUD and am super interested in giving it a go.

I've already decided that I don't want to play the Cloudpost version as I already played 12 Post for awhile.

As far as lists go the only one I've been able to come across that is not playing Cloudpost is Harold White's list from an SCG Open last year.

Does anyone have more up to date non-Cloudpost MUD list I could take a look at?

[Scott]

In trying almost every legacy deck I can I've realized I have left out MUD and am super interested in giving it a go.

I've already decided that I don't want to play the Cloudpost version as I already played 12 Post for awhile.

As far as lists go the only one I've been able to come across that is not playing Cloudpost is Harold White's list from an SCG Open last year.

Does anyone have more up to date non-Cloudpost MUD list I could take a look at?

This got 15th at SCG Houston in February.

[Mockingbird]

In trying almost every legacy deck I can I've realized I have left out MUD and am super interested in giving it a go.

I've already decided that I don't want to play the Cloudpost version as I already played 12 Post for awhile.

As far as lists go the only one I've been able to come across that is not playing Cloudpost is Harold White's list from an SCG Open last year.

Does anyone have more up to date non-Cloudpost MUD list I could take a look at?

One thing to note: MUD-Post is generally more consistent than regular MUD when it comes to playing against control decks. Miracles generally have difficult match-ups against decks that just out-mana them, which is why Cloudpost is one of their most hated cards. It gives us a long game without ever having to worry if one of the heavy machines will get stuck in our hand.

Also, if your concern with avoiding Cloudpost is that MUD-Post plays similar to 12-Post, it doesn't. I play both, and MUD-Post plays a much more aggressive game than 12-Post, which is a control deck. However, to each their own.

This got 15th at SCG Houston in February.

I think I remember that player posting in this forum after getting that result. I believe his comment was that he wished he'd put Karn Liberated in the main because he was constantly siding them game two's throughout that tournament.

[Jakobian]

Hello again MUDslingers.

I'm sure you're sick of hearing from me, but I got 2nd out of 26 players at a tournament today at Fire & Dice in Woodland Hills, CA. I took home an ok condition Volcanic Island for my troubles.

The list I played is pretty much the same list I have been playing, but I will re-post it so you don't have to dig for it.


4 wasteland
4 cloudpost
4 glimmerpost
4 vesuva
4 city of traitors
4 ancient tomb


4 metalworker
4 kuldotha forgemaster
4 Lodestone Golem
3 wurmcoil engine
1 sundering titan
1 platinum angel
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon


4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 grim monolith
2 Lightning greaves
1 spine of ish sah
2 staff of domination





Sideboard:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Batterskull
1 Ratchet bomb
1 UGin, The Spirit Dragon
1 Sundering Titan
2 Karn Liberated
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Tormod's Crypt



Rnd 1: Affinity (2-1)
Rnd 2: Sneaky show (1-2)
Rnd 3: Dredge (2-0)
Rnd 4: Dredge (2-1)
Rnd 5: Sneaky Show (2-0)
Top8: Omniscience/Show and tell (2-1)
Top4: Death and Taxes (2-0)
Top2: BUG Delver (1-2)

I don't have a lot of notes, but I really liked having 2 batterskulls in my sideboard this time around. I won a fair share of games off the back of BlightSteel Colossus, and a couple off of Staff + Metalworker as well. Against one of the Omnishow decks I resolved a chalice of the void at x=3 and my opponent scooped to it.

[(nameless one)]

How was Ugin? I think he should be a 3-4 off in the main.

He's just so good when he resolves.

[Jakobian]

How was Ugin? I think he should be a 3-4 off in the main.

He's just so good when he resolves.

The problem with making him more than a 1-of in the main is you have to cut some other relavent cards, and your early game might suffer from it. decks that have removal for metalworker + a wasteland can keep you from ever casting Ugin in the first place, so I don't feel like running 3-4 in the main is correct unless you're adding some thran dynamos or another additional mana source, which dilutes your strategy against decks in which Ugin is not good. I tried out 2 ugin in the main before deciding upon 1 sideboard 1 maindeck. I prefer to have more of a toolbox capability and be able to get the right card for the situation.

In short, try it out and see how it goes I guess. I would definitely want additional mana sources besides grim monolith and metalworker if I jammed 4 Ugin in the main though.

[Jakobian]

I want to press the reset button on discussing this deck, fundamental problem with it is:

If you play no Cloudposts, you will lose to yourself without mana sources.

If you play Cloudposts, there is often no way to sacrifice enough artifacts for a Forgemaster activation. Even if you activate Forgemaster, and you need to wipe your board, you're often forced to waste your best cards like Chalice of the Void and Triniphere or Lightning Greaves, and this can be a huge pain against control or decks playing Swords to Plowshares. Lightning Greaves is sometimes all you have to win against Liliana of the Veil.

Cutting Forgemaster allows you to play Phyrexian Portal . Look at this! seriously nuts. Great art too...



This card fixes all of the problems that the deck has. You get insanely powerful top draws using this. The 3 mana to activate is worthwhile I think considering you are guaranteed a worthwhile drop.

Most opponents will split the pile 5 / 5 . If your opponent splits the pile 1 / 9 or 3 / 7 etc, searching the larger pile is surely going to get you a card to win the game with . You can activate the ability a second time that turn and get another card to play. This is far more efficient than dropping a spell that only draws 1 card at a time !

Has anyone tried a list playing no Forgemaster, no Blightsteel?

The way the card will work is :

Your opponent will put all the bombs in one 5 pile, all the weakest cards in the other, and hope that in the 50/50 toss that you pick the pile with the weaker cards.

but no matter what, you always have a 50/50 chance of the best pile.

If your opponent is not totally dumb, they will never split the smallest pile with the best cards, because you do have the option of picking the pile with the best cards.

Or, if you think your opponent is doing that.. and really it's still a 50/50 no matter what, if you pick the larger pile with the best cards, you exile less cards, so its always better to pick the larger pile, because you ahve wider card selection.

To play this card, you want your card selection to matter.

Please try running the phyrexian portal and let us know what kind of results you get with it. Does it consistently do good stuff for you? Are there any matches in which you'd rather have whatever card you're cutting to make room for it? IMO playing with cloudposts doesn't change anything about whether or not forgemaster is sacrificing things that are relevant. 99% of the time when you activate forgemaster you are winning the game anyway, so it doesn't matter what you're sacrificing to it.

[hartigan]

This got 15th at SCG Houston in February.

Thanks for the link!

One thing to note: MUD-Post is generally more consistent than regular MUD when it comes to playing against control decks. Miracles generally have difficult match-ups against decks that just out-mana them, which is why Cloudpost is one of their most hated cards. It gives us a long game without ever having to worry if one of the heavy machines will get stuck in our hand.

Also, if your concern with avoiding Cloudpost is that MUD-Post plays similar to 12-Post, it doesn't. I play both, and MUD-Post plays a much more aggressive game than 12-Post, which is a control deck. However, to each their own.

I think I remember that player posting in this forum after getting that result. I believe his comment was that he wished he'd put Karn Liberated in the main because he was constantly siding them game two's throughout that tournament.

I definitely see how a post mana base destroys control, and it's something I've enjoyed in playing 12post. I also can see how mud post would be MUCH more aggressive in terms of it's gameplay, in reality I'm just looking to play a non post deck just to get some use out of my Cities and Tombs :P

In regards to playing the Karns in the main deck of that list, what would you take out for him? What would you put in the SB in his place?

[apple713]

Please try running the phyrexian portal and let us know what kind of results you get with it. Does it consistently do good stuff for you? Are there any matches in which you'd rather have whatever card you're cutting to make room for it? IMO playing with cloudposts doesn't change anything about whether or not forgemaster is sacrificing things that are relevant. 99% of the time when you activate forgemaster you are winning the game anyway, so it doesn't matter what you're sacrificing to it.

its likely that the opponent will put the best cards in the smaller pile and you'll never pick it because you want "more selection". however a bigger selection of crap is still crap, but you'll never know. the easiest way to test is you just take the top 10 cards off of a 60 card deck and make piles yourself and see what happens. you have better knowledge than your opponent so its unlikely that they will make better piles than you.

[Mockingbird]

Thanks for the link!



I definitely see how a post mana base destroys control, and it's something I've enjoyed in playing 12post. I also can see how mud post would be MUCH more aggressive in terms of it's gameplay, in reality I'm just looking to play a non post deck just to get some use out of my Cities and Tombs :P

In regards to playing the Karns in the main deck of that list, what would you take out for him? What would you put in the SB in his place?

I dunno. I'd probably switch out the Platinum Emperion and the keep the second one in the side. And meta-depending, I usually like to have a Sundering Titan floating somewhere in the 75.

[hartigan]

I dunno. I'd probably switch out the Platinum Emperion and the keep the second one in the side. And meta-depending, I usually like to have a Sundering Titan floating somewhere in the 75.

Sweet, thanks for the advice!

[Fry]

In trying almost every legacy deck I can I've realized I have left out MUD and am super interested in giving it a go.

I've already decided that I don't want to play the Cloudpost version as I already played 12 Post for awhile.

As far as lists go the only one I've been able to come across that is not playing Cloudpost is Harold White's list from an SCG Open last year.

Does anyone have more up to date non-Cloudpost MUD list I could take a look at?

Here's my red take on Postless MUD:
Main:
4x Daretti, Scrap Savant
1x Blightsteel Colossus
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Grim Monolith
4x Kuldotha Forgemaster
2x Lightning Greaves
4x Metalworker
1x Mindslaver
1x Myr Battlesphere
1x Platinum Angel
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Spine of Ish Sah
1x Staff of Domination
1x Sundering Titan
1x Thousand-Year Elixer
3x Trinisphere
2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3x Wurmcoil Engine

4x Ancient Tomb
4x Cavern of Souls
4x City of Traitors
3x Darksteel Citadel
4x Great Furnace
2x Mountain

Side:
3x Whipflare
1x Batterskull
2x Defense Grid
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Platinum Emperion
1x Silent Arbiter
2x Spellskite
1x Spine of Ish Sah
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Sundering Titan
1x Trinisphere


I made 2 changes into this list from the last time I played the deck in a tournament and it's proven to a change for the better in testing against various things.

The changes were I took out the 1 Trading Post from the main for a Solemn Simulacrum to help get the red mana, and it draws a card when sacrificed, which helps fuel Metalworker. The other change was in the board, I never put in all three Spellskite, so I took the third one out for the single Silent Arbiter. The Arbiter is at it's best against elves.

[Ganfar]

Please try running the phyrexian portal and let us know what kind of results you get with it. Does it consistently do good stuff for you? Are there any matches in which you'd rather have whatever card you're cutting to make room for it? IMO playing with cloudposts doesn't change anything about whether or not forgemaster is sacrificing things that are relevant. 99% of the time when you activate forgemaster you are winning the game anyway, so it doesn't matter what you're sacrificing to it.

Is Coercive Portal just batter? You only have to spend 4 mana once and give you cardadvantage without pay more mana. Also can't be decay.