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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering
Deck Garage
Christof's blue mana denial
November 5, 2009
Last
time, on BMoor's Deck Garage, I fixed a Standard-legal
Soldier deck to get it tweaked enough for competitive play.
Well, from the ridiculous to the sublime-- today I'm fixing
a casual deck based on mono-blue land disruption!
Hello,
I've been playing Magic ever since The Dark. I have always
enjoyed the articles concerning deck construction as this is
what drew me into Magic in those long-gone days before the
internet provided common decklists.
Although I have always detested landdestruction in the pure
sense of the word. With blue landdestruction I can live as
your opponent gets an opportunity to fight back. I have for
you here a blue "landdestruction" deck.
It's tactics are actually very simple: you attack your
opponent's mana base.
-
In the early game the opponent's game is interrupted by
using bounce spells on his mana sources.
-
Mid game: some lands are allowed, but most get enchanted
to either further restrict the opponents mana sources or
making him bleed for using mana. Any bounce spells are
used to restrict the use of mana sources.
-
Late game: Once an active time elemental or a capsize
with sufficient mana sources is available, the end game
begins, with the deck keeping to stall the opposition
until I either draw an Iron Maiden, an energy vortex or
kill the opponent under a stomping slab.
Here's the decklist (61 cards):
Creatures
2 Glowing Anemone
2 Time Elemental
Other spells
3 Brainstorm
3 Ankh of Mishra
4 Hoodwink
3 Psychic Venom
4 Boomerang
3 Erosion
2 Windfall
3 Slow Motion
2 Iron Maiden
3 Capsize
4 Stomping Slabs
2 Energy Vortex
Lands
3 mountains
14 Islands
4 Volcanic Islands
Although I initially started this deck as an Ankh of Mishra
Deck, I am just not convinced these deserve a place anymore
in this deck, mainly because it interferes with either the
time elemental, the capsize and the energy vortexes.
The stomping slabs are in there, just because I'm that kind
of nutter. I find it hugely amusing to see my opponents
squirming to get something going against this deck to see
their surprise at me chucking a huge stomping slab at them.
It makes for some really exciting card turning when a slab
gets played. If possible I'd like to keep the slabs in. I
realise you might need to take them out though. If you want
to keep them in I think some kind of stacking mechanism
should be put into the deck (Now the only possibilities are
a brainstorm if you have 2 slabs in hand).
Another card I really like is the energy vortex. This wasn't
originally in the deck. When I realised what an advantage
manawise you had after playing the first few games, I put 2
of these in as they change your mana advantage into
lightning bolts.
The deck performs pretty solid, but sometimes just doesn't
make it because it doesn't draw the oh so necessary bounce.
I initially feared it might get swamped by weenies, but
it surprisingly seems to be able to deal with those deck in
50% of the cases (or maybe my opponents are bad weenie
players).
I currently have no sideboard, but am actually considering
taking this (or my pox deck) to a local Legacy tournament (I
have no idea about the legality, especially with the
windfalls, I thought at one point these were restricted).
The majority of uses it will get will be casual games
however. I just feel the deck needs some extra "bite" if
I'll go into a tourney with it.
With kind regards,
Christof
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love this concept, Christof. Lots of players have scoffed
at cards like Psychic Venom, claiming they don't do enough.
Well, when your whole deck revolves around denying your
opponent mana, well, he'll have to tap those enchanted lands
or nothing at all!
That said, I think there are indeed some better card choices
you can make.
The first replacement I have in mind: Temporal Adept is
widely recognized as the "fixed" Time Elemental. And by
"fixed", I mean "had all those useless restrictions relieved
and made into a good card". The only advantage Time
Elemental has over the Adept is +1 toughness, but with only
2 toughness, they still both die to pretty much anything
short of a single pinger. And that's well worth the
sacrifice when the Adept costs one less to activate, can
target enchanted permanents, and doesn't cost you 5 life to
chump block with. You should also bring the numbers up to a
full playset for the Adept-- she's your best bet for
controlling not only your opponent's land count, but also
the board. Chances are the occasional small creature will
squeak through, and you don't want to keep your opponent
locked down to two lands all game just to lose to a
two-drop.
Next, Energy Vortex is just far too slow and mana-intensive
for a win condition. I'm going to leave Stomping Slabs in
just because I can respect wanting to use a bad but quirky
card for the laughs. Energy Vortex, however, isn't even bad
in a funny way-- it's just bad. Out it comes. You could use
those slots for more copies of Iron Maiden... though I'd
rather you play Black Vise instead. The Vise costs less
mana, and the only difference is that the Maiden hits more
than one opponent.
And there's an unfortunate truth I have to tell you,
Christof. This deck will not work in multiplayer. And not
just because you haven't built it right-- on the contrary,
this deck STRATEGY is not viable when you have multiple
opponents. You can't guarantee yourself the ability to
supress more than one land each turn, so if you have two or
more opponents each playing a land each turn, you will
either end up focusing on one opponent while the other gets
free reign to develop their land base and crush you at
leisure, or you'll have to split your focus and end up not
disrupting either opponent enough to keep them from beating
you. Do not take this deck into any multiplayer game; it
will lose, and I can't do anything to solve that.
Fortunately, you never said anything about multiplayer. You
did say something about Legacy tournaments, though, and I
don't play Legacy, so I don't know what the metagame looks
like. You will, however have to drop the Stomping Slabs if
you do go to a Legacy tournament-- they're just not good
enough I'm afraid. Just take out the Slabs, Mountains, and
dual lands before the tournament, and replace them with
Islands and... probably counterspells. I think Force of Will
is the good one, if it's not restricted. If not, just go
with Counterspell.
Windfall can probably get replaced too. It's at its best in
Ichorid or Dredge decks, I think. If they don't play it
themselves, they'll benefit from you playing as much if not
more than you benefit from it. In their place, the best draw
spells I can think of are either Ponder or Foresee. Ponder
is the most generally useful. Foresee would work well with
Stomping Slabs. Speaking of the Slabs, you could get a lot
of extra mileage out of them with Sensei's Divining Top, and
while you're running that, you may as well run
Counterbalance to further keep your opponent locked out. In
fact, you could run the Tops maindeck, and for situations
where you don't want the Slabs, swap them out for
Counterbalance.
Finally, in addition to Capsize, I think you could get some
decent usage out of Mind Games. If you're going to put
Psychic Venom on a land, what good is it if they never tap
it? In this way, you can buy it back and effectively turn it
into a monoblue Glacial Ray. More so, if you can put
multiple enchantments on one land (or enchant their City of
Brass).
Good luck!
~BMoor
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