Greetings and a deck for review

[OneEyedMan]

Hello to all!

Quick backstory on me: I played magic for a few years shortly after it was first out, around near Legends and Dark. Having no money while in college, I sold my cards, and never looked back. Until my wife asked me to tell her about this wacky Magic Game. Since then, about five years ago, we've built up some big and overwhelming colllctions, but rarely played. Now, all of a sudden, she, myself, and a couple we know are all itching to play. But it's been years and years since I built a deck, so my card-fu is awfully rusty.

We usually play very, very casually, no banned cards, no restrictions, if you've got one throw it in.

I've been trying to come up with a usable blue deck without needing a ton of purchases to round it out, and here's what I whipped together. It seems to work out alright, but I've yet to try it out against a live opponent. CHances are, it'll run headlong into a Goblin/sligh deck featuring fireballs. I know it's not a tight playing deck, but I can't seem to find specific screw-ups I've made, so any help would be much appreciated.


CREATURES: 13
2 Bottle Gnomes
3 Brass Man
2 Giant Tortoise
2 Silver Myr
3 Wall of Deceit
1 Darksteel Colossus

SPELLS: 33
4 Counterspell
2 High Tide
2 Portent
2 Propaganda
4 Spy Network
2 Telepathy
4 Tidal Surge
4 Unsummon
4 Vision Charm
2 Trickery Charm
2 Wash Out
1 Fireball

LANDS: 14
14 Island

Usually I seem to be okay getting blockers in place and removing targets as they appear or tapping them out until one of three things happen.

1) I get to a Wash Out and wipe all of the other creatures off the mat for at least the rest of the turn.
2) I hit a High Tide/Vision Charm/Fireball Combo and either wipe the ground or hit for some heavy damage
3) Darksteel gets in play and either Flies over twice or barrels through for a kill.

So. What am I missing here?

-J

 

[turgy22]

OneEyedMan,

I'm hardly a deckbuilding expert, but your land count is extremely low, especially for a blue deck. Most of your spells are low in cost, but I'm still amazed that you aren't having major mana problems. IMO, you should be running 20 lands at the very minimum.

I think I'd personally put in more ways to deal with threats and stall the game until working up the mana needed to win. For this reason, I'd take out cards like Portent, Spy Network and Telepathy for either more counterspells, more bounce spells or more blockers (I think Fog Bank would be a good choice.)

I'm not sure if this helps any, but I'm sure someone here can offer better advice.

 

[OneEyedMan]

You know, I thought the land count looked a bit low myself, but in the six trial runs I've made, I've yet to be hosed on mana. Now I may just be getting lucky, admittedly, but so far the dang thing seems not to stall. I'd probably feel more comfortable with about 18 Islands or so, but I can't figure out what to chuck to make room.

I would like some other counters and admittedly, Telepathy may be redundant if I leave the Spy Networks in, so they can probably be tossed. I do admit I'm not sure which would be more useful to me in a real game: removal, or deck-viewing/top-4 card arranging. It's been long enough that I have no idea whatsoever, and blue is hardly my staple color.

I'll run a few more trials to check for the mana level.

-J

 

[Jigglypuff]

I'd drop the High Tide/Vision Charm/Fireball combo and focus directly on the Colossus kill. I know they're going for a lot right now, but I'd try to get more of them for the deck. In fact, I might focus on artifact creatures and let your Wash Outs remove the opponent's defenses while your artifacts swoop in for the kill. You could try something like Sway of Illusion to turn all your opponent's creatures into one color so that Wash Out can get all of them at once.

As for spells, I'd definitely bump up to 4 Propagands. I agree with turgy; drop the Portents, Spy Networks, and Telepathys. Impulse is better at deck manipulation anyway. I like the rest of your spells, but I'd find room to bump up to 4 Wash Outs and 3-4 Sways if you want to go that route. And I'd definitely find room to get to at least 24 lands.

Hope this helps. Good luck with this.
(- Steve -)

 

[Oversoul]

Have you tried Thieving Magpie? It has an anoying mana cost, but the card-advantage can be worth it. I also get the impressions that a few Disks might pull their weight in this deck. Both are cheap cards as far as money goes--last I checked anyway (okay, so that was probably in 2004, but whatever).

 

[OneEyedMan]

Okay, here's the new list, taking into account the ideas you've been kind enough to give me...

CREATURES: 16
2 Bottle Gnomes
3 Brass Man
2 Giant Tortoise
3 Silver Myr
3 Wall of Deceit
3 Darksteel Colossus

SPELLS: 25
4 Counterspell
4 Propaganda
4 Tidal Surge
4 Unsummon
2 Trickery Charm
4 Wash Out
3 Sway of Illusion

LANDS: 19
19 Island

Does that look a bit better?

On a related topic, it was pretty much unanimous that Spy Network and Portent weren't good for the deck. Are they just cruddy cards and I don't know it? I always thought that peeking at your deck and your opponents was a good thing. Am I missing the point?

Thanks again to everyone!

-J

 

[Spiderman]

Peeking at your deck is good, but Impulse is better for that sort of thing.

Peeking at your opponent's deck is okay, but usually you should build a deck geared towards using that info, like Booby Trap. Otherwise, those slots can be filled with better cards like everyone else is suggesting.

 

[Jigglypuff]

Yeah, I think the new deck has improved a lot. I think that most of your non-Colossus creatures are too defensive in nature, though. You might want to bump up to 4 Silver Myrs and drop the Tortoise, Wall of Deceit, and the Brass Man for more offensive creatures. And I'd find a way to get up to at least 22 lands.

(- Steve -)