Mana Leak

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays {3}.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

legendofa on How to Capture and Consume a Soul

4 weeks ago

kamarupa Short version is, what I have now is pretty much what I considered, minus a few redundant keyword creatures.

Self-mill is an interesting option, but in my very personal experience, I seem to be better at self-milling the cards I want to keep and drawing the cards I want to toss. I learned Dredge to try to weaponize that. So it's definitely on the table for someone with better luck, but I'm not sure I trust myself with it.

Skipping ahead to Pull from Eternity, I did look at it a little bit. Urborg Scavengers wants its cards to stay exiled while Soulflayer doesn't care, but if either one gets removed somehow, it's the best option to recycle the exiled card.

Counterspells are perfect sideboard material. Probably focus on the single-{U} ones like your Mana Leak thought so the land budget doesn't explode.

Vampire of the Dire Moon got in specifically because it was castable as a 1-drop in this deck. Right now, there's no sac outlets, but I'm pretending it's a viable blocker or worth using removal on. I'll have to check out cheap self-saccers more carefully, but what I remember is that a lot of them have Selfless Spirit-style keyword granting.

More Collective Brutality. Noted and agreed. Sideboard artifact and enchantment removal. Noted and agreed.

Sword-Point Diplomacy can feed Ketramose, the New Dawn, but can also conflict with Flayer and Scavengers. I'll probably start with the 2-for-2 cards, maybe a Diplomacy in the sideboard.

I'm still working on the balance of keyword creatures to body creatures to support, so I'm not sure where this is gonna end up. Thanks for the suggestions!

kamarupa on How to Capture and Consume a Soul

4 weeks ago

I gotta be honest, I feel like they've printed quite a few of such cards ('has X ability of X graveyard targets') and as decent as they seem in theory, I've always felt the payoff was never good enough to warrant the effort. But you sir, have proven me wrong because this deck is nice.

I'm curious - did you consider self-mill cards like Stitcher's Supplier? and perhaps in combination with spells like Brainstone or Mystic Speculation?

Conversely, did you consider trying to overdraw to discard? It seems like a pretty unlikely strategy, but there is Inspired Idea... Maybe a fork brew might explore that more...I do think some broad spectrum counterspell might be useful, if only in the sideboard - your creatures have a goal of entering with some kind of built-in protection, so only a counterspell could offer anything extra. Rebuff the Wicked seems like a rough fit with your color scheme as is, but it doesn't really do anything Hexproof doesn't do. Whereas a general counterspell like Mana Leak could stop a Priest of Forgotten Gods from entering play or a Diabolic Edict from resolving.

I wonder if you plan on occasionally casting discard targets like Vampire of the Dire Moon - that strategy seems dynamic (good) but also less focused/committed (bad?). To that end, did you look into spells that might both sacrifice themselves and also provide abilities once in the graveyard? I didn't do any searches to see if those even exist, but imagine at least one or two does.

Collective Brutality seems way too good to only include 2x copies.

As good as Collective Brutality is, I still want to see at least 2 more slots devoted to removal. I see you have two in your sideboard, but I have a sideboard rule that violates: You have to have mainboard spells to remove to have a functioning sideboard. Extrapolate from that: mainboard removal sideboards out for sideboard removal.

I wonder if something like Pull from Eternity might be useful in the sideboard. I'm thinking that since both your beatsticks need to exile creatures themselves, being able to reuse the same creature could be useful?

So long as there's a splash of white, I'd like to see some Enchantment/Artifact removal in the sideboard. Those spells can sometimes wreck mono-black and white is the best at that. To that end, I'd probably try to run more dual lands. There are just so many useful white spells!

I'd love to see some more draw card here. I like Sword-Point Diplomacy because it has a chance of drawing 3 cards for 3 mana, which is pretty much as good as it gets for card draw. Otherside, Night's Whisper or Sign in Blood are among your best options, which are both decent.

doc_frank_18 on A mill-ion

6 months ago

Maybe take out Mana Leak because it's conditional and maybe not as good in late game and put in Fireshrieker

wallisface on uuu

8 months ago

Some thoughts:

• as a monocolored deck, there’s no point in running Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse, in fact as they make lands enter tapped, they actively hurt you by slowing you down.

• cards like Lofty Denial and Lookout's Dispersal are incredibly weak and unreliable - you’re better off running Mana Leak.

• your creature count is very high for a control deck, which will often mean you run out of ways to disrupt your opponent and get overwhelmed. Mist of your creatures are all incredibly underwhelming also, all being very small, easy to kill, and do-nothing. You would be far better-off running much less creatures, but then having those creatures that you do run be threatening, like Tolarian Terror.

• cards like Stern Dismissal, Unsummon, and Divide by Zero are all really, really bad in a control deck, as the archetype only really wins by attrition and card advantage, and these bounce spells are giving you card disadvantage - meaning you’ll run out of resources first and lose the game. If you’re having problems answering stuff on-board, you’re better-off with something like Witness Protection

wallisface on I need help creating a …

8 months ago

It looks a lot more viable! I’m not sure you’d want to run more than a single copy of Inexorable Tide, I still think Infectious Inquiry is going to hurt you more than help you, and I still think Corrupted Resolve is a worse Counterspell… to the point that if you're not sure your manabase can handle double-blue, i’d still be picking Mana Leak before it (i’m just not seeing how you’ll reliably be able to get a poison on the opponent by turn 2, which is when you’ll start needing countermagic).

Everything else looks decent though

RiotRunner789 on

1 year ago

Since Mana Leak is your jam:

Wizard Replica, Spiketail Hatchling, and Cursecatcher work well-ish on offense with your commander.

Power Sink is fun when you don't want them casting anything else.

RiotRunner789 on

1 year ago

I'd swap Graceful Adept for Library of Leng. Cheaper, harder to remove, and added bonus against discard.

Cancel for any other counterspell. There are plenty of 1UU with upside such as personal favorite of mine, Admiral's Order. Rewind, Dissipate, Unwind and Negate are also solid budget options. Personally not a fan of Mana Leak-esk counters since if an opponent has a ton of Mana, they become useless. Also, Defense Grid is an odd choice for a blue deck since it hurts your own counters on your opponents turn.

I'd consider trying to find room for a card or cards like Coastal Piracy, Bident of Thassa, and The Indomitable.

Single protection to consider, Mithril Coat is amazing, Commander's Plate always pulls a ton of weight in mon color (may hurt commander's unblockable agaimst another monoblue but otherwise really helps), Dive Down not amazing, just a pet card when it was in standard.

9-lives on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

1 year ago

The thing about Oppressive Rays is that I will also be casting Mana Leak and No More Lies. If they pay the mana, fine, that's good because I am tying up their mana usage. If they don't pay the mana, that's good too, because it will remove it. The fact that it works out for them later in the game isn't a probem; i'll still tie up the mana in usage if they ever want to use it.

Assemble the Players is useful because no matter what I'm going to keep it on the field for one turn. Any further turns and it's doing its job just fine. You think I'll only draw one creature card in 5 turns, even with Defiant Strike and Mishra's Bauble and Peek?

I could add like 2 more counterspells. Consider that I have enough that if I individually drew each counterspell, it would last around turn #6 for mana cost 2 spells to only cast each turn with the max mana spent, which would be around 7 or 8 spells, guesstimating. The probability of what I'm doing is 13/70, which is 19% chance of drawing one. Around 20% is just fine for my purposes.