An odd approach at U/B Control. Advice?

[Purple_jester]

First off, why did I build this deck? I wanted a U/B control deck with a twist. An odd twist. Y'know, a little something you don't see in any of the other decks. I wasn't trying to be totally orginal, but I wanted to be different, at least. That done and said, here's the decklist. I'll explain the card choices below.

Lands (24):
4 Underground River
2 Salt Marsh
6 Swamps
12 Islands

Draw (6):
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Mystical Tutor

Control (22):
4 Counterspell
3 Power Sink
3 Thwart
2 Wash Out
2 Spite/Malice
2 Snuff Out
2 Perish
2 Massacre
2 Sway of Illusion

Creatures (8):
2 Air Elemental
2 Thrashing Wumpus
2 Abyssal Specter
2 Stalking Assassin

Some clarification on the card choices may be necessary.

Mystical Tutor: The star of my deck. For anyone that failed to notice, everything in the deck other than the 8 creatures is either a sorcery or instant. Thus, the Tutors can search for ANYTHING I need at the time, without the pain associated with playing Vampirics.

Perish/Massacre: Okay, the only problems the deck ever had prior to its current incarnation was against green creature swarms and white weenie. These two solve that problem nicely, especially the Perish. (Whimsical will hate me, I'm sure...) Plus, Perish can combo well with another card...

Sway of Illusion: It's cheap. Check. It replaces itself. Check. It combos with Perish, Snuff Out, Malice, Stalking Assassin and Wash Out. Check. Extreme surprise value. Check.

Stalking Assassin: Powerful control card against slower decks. Works against any color but red. And this deck has no problems with mainly red opponents, except maybe those packing lots of LD. My gaming area has no T2 LD players, so I'm safe.

Power Sink/Thwart: Okay. I'd LOVE to have Undermine. I would jump for joy if I could find 4. Seeing as to how that's difficult to the extreme to a casual player such as myself, I'm forced to play with the "lesser" counterspells.

That's it. The rest of the deck speaks for itself, I think. So, any comments out there? I was thinking that there's not enough draw, but I can't be sure. Perhaps there's something wrong with my creature mix?

[Edited by Purple_jester on 11-28-00 at 10:29 AM]

 

[Firestorm]

Power Sink is a wonderful card, last time, if I read it correctly:
"Counter Target Spell unless its controller pays X. If he or she does not, tap all lands that player controls and empty his or her mana pool."

Now, if I am not wrong, this should work.

4 Each Urza land
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Tolerian Acadamy
1 Serra's Sanctum
+ lots of stuff(anything really)=
Counter target spell, take a turn after this spell is cast.

Or something of the equivilant. I've always loved Mana Short. Good 'ol thing.

 

[Duel]

Yeah, but power sink just stops them for one turn. You'll need Rising Waters to make it painful.

If the spell is during their turn, you need your mana untapped to use power sink. If it's during yours, then you just wasted your turn tapping them out. It's good, but not broken.


The stalking assassin is actually a good choice. I'm surprised that I'm saying this, but against anything but r/g, it's a really good card. In fact, I like it in this deck, but you DEFINATELY need a sideboard card to replace it, because it reads
"When stalking assassin comes into play, place a red-and-white "target" counter on it."

 

[Whimsical]

Off the bat, I'm surprised no one noticed this little error in the decklist.

Underground ... Sea?! You do mean Underground River, don't you, Purple dahling? <laughs> You made the exact opposite of the error the guy who finished second in the GP Phoenix made. He listed Underground Rivers instead of Seas, thus making his Flood Plains a really lousy card in his CounterSliver deck.

Oddly enough, your deck reminds me strongly of the B/U deck mah good friend uses ... the one where he maindecked Perish in. Two matches and two third turn Perishes later, I managed to do two things:

I managed to expand mah vocabulary of cusswords.
Get really traumatized by Perish (NOW I remember why I never ran with Green before... ).

Perish is evil, Perish is evil, Perish is evil.

While maindecking Perish DOES seem a bit unfair, it's a darn good meta-game decision (just like running Humping Wumpi and Kavu Chameleon maindeck in G/W) considering the raw power (and sheer popularity) of G/W and R/G nowadays in Type Two. Now if you ran with 4 Perishes maindeck ... that's just plain color-hosing, Purple dahling.

Ponza would give this deck fits ... but then again, almost no one plays Ponza in Type Two. 'Geddon decks only have four cards that are classified as must-counter for this deck (can you guess what they are? ). Now that Perish is here maindeck, G/W and R/G become that much less of a threat. Massacre can massacre Rebels. Hmmm. Rising Waters is a possible threat to the deck. Sorta. But like Ponza, who runs Waters nowadays?

Excellent deck choice for the T-2 environment! <laughs> Mah G/W used to be a darned good choice ... and actually still is. It consistently beat the most popular T-2 decks around. Until Perish showed up maindeck, that is. If more and more people copy this deck archetype though ... then it's back to the drawing board for moi.

On a side-note ... how would this deck fare against Cheapguy? Hmmm. There's a nice matchup. Anyways ... I don't really see any problems.

Happy Magicking!

 

[Duel]

I still maintain that in any u/b deck, and thsi one specifically, sleeper's robe is some good.

Oh, and snuff out seems a little worse than recoil, no?

 

[Purple_jester]

Whimsy: Okay. I corrected it. I guess I still want to play with my duals. Sniff. I simulated it against Cheapguy Red. Here's the deal. If my deck didn't get out the Massacre by precisely turn 4, the deck was doomed. Makes me wonder if I should've played with Forced March... Nah. Damned all-red speed...

Against (insert big green meanie)-Geddon decks, the deck performs quite well. It eliminates creature mana quickly, and can handle the Geddons nicely. The only thing which gives my deck headaches is Kavu Chameleon... Hey. You use that card, don't you?

Duel: The Snuff works aganst anything but black, but I am thinking of squeezing in a couple of Recoils. As for the R/W target on the Assassin, I can handle any white enchantments, and the most commonly used in casual play (Pacifism) can be ignored. The only White spell that really fries the Assassin is Afterlife. It's the fast red cheese I'm worried about.

[Edited by Purple_jester on 11-28-00 at 10:58 AM]

 

[Duel]

Hmm, how do you beat red cheese?

Misdirection, anyone?
You must play the correct cards against the correct cards here.

Against a derm, you play: Perish.
Against a Burst, you play: Counterspell.
Against a creature-killer, what can you play?

Normally, I'd suggest chilling apparition. Nothing like a regerenating creature to deal with cheese. But in this deck, it strikes me as a problem, because big flyers are your stuff. and everything here has a minor dislike of death.

2 solutions suggest themselves for this deck:

1: Dark rituals. I know, it's temporary at best, but a third turn thrasher is nothing to laugh at. Neither is an air elemental. Out-speed them.

2: Counter them. This means sideboarding 4 disrupts, and possibly even maindecking them. This means that prohibit becomes good. This means that you NEED cheap, situational counterspells. And those two are the best for the job, no?