Memory Deluge

Instant

Look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast this spell. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Flashback {5}{U}{U} (You may cast this from your graveyard for this card's flashback cost, then exile this.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (23)

wallisface on UW Control-Fly

2 months ago

Some thoughts:

• i don’t think you want Supreme Verdict when your path to victory appears to be go-wide creatures.

• you have very few ways to deal with a threat once an opponent plays it (and any savvy opponent will always find ways to get some stuff onto the board). I think you need more ways to remove those threats that inevitably resolve.

• control decks normally rely on being able to maintain a card-advantage engine over the opponent (if a game ever comes down to topdecking, they’ll always lose). Without any ways to refill your hand or draw additional cards, I’m not convinced you’ll be able to control the game for as long as you’ll need to. Something like Archmage's Charm and/or Memory Deluge would help you a lot here.

itsbuzzi on

8 months ago

1) You totally need some type of draw engine. Most of the time you'll want to go land pass and have instant speed interaction. It hurts from the aggro side if you don't need to cast any interaction and instead draw some more cards. Memory Deluge is kind of the best one at the moment at instant speed because you can cast it twice. 4 may be too many, I'd try 3.

2) The Wanderer is also a great interaction piece. It's removal at instant speed and leaves behind a body. If they attack with something small enough you can flash it in and make a blocker thus holding off against aggro. The removal set also can gain life which can be important. I'd put in maybe 3 of these as well. The instant speed is the key with her.

3) 3 board wipes sound good as well. You don't have a sideboard so you can move a few things there. Some Silence and Syncopate can move there as they seem not as strong as other pieces you can play.

4) For lands I usually use this site: http://https://www.channelfireball.com/article/How-Many-Lands-Do-You-Need-in-Your-Deck-An-Updated-Analysis/cd1c1a24-d439-4a8e-b369-b936edb0b38a/ With your current deck it looks like it should be about 25.

5) I don't play much control but if you have draw spells I wouldn't run 4 copies of Teferi. You may be able to run more Shark as you can cycle them away. The thought behind 3 Teferi is you will get to late game and draw him.

6) The sorcery speed is what hurts that card. You are looking for more instant speed interaction.

From all this I would remove: 4x Silence and 4x Syncopate and put in 3x Memory Deluge, 3x The Wandering Emperor, 1x Doomskar, 1x Deserted Beach and my personal idea is swap 1x Censor, 1x Make Disappear and 1x March of Otherworldly Light for 3x Disallow. Can be cast with Lotus and can counter abilities as well. You can put the removed cards in the sideboard.

wallisface on Modern Bad ETB

8 months ago

Some thoughts:

• Aether Vial has no place in a deck with such a low creature count.

• both Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Memory Deluge don’t really fit here - you’re not a control deck, and if the game drags on long enough fir you to make use of either of these cards, it probably means your opponent is winning.

• the deck really feels like it wants a playset of Giver of Runes to protect your board better and prevent getting blown-out.

Dani3377 on Grixis Dragon Control

1 year ago

Did you see this one: Temple of the Dragon Queen.

Something that I'm noticing is that there isn't much to fuel the graveyard other than Consider.

The Opt + Dragonlord's Prerogative or Memory Deluge or Painful Truths package makes just as much sense.

cyeRunner on Sultai Flash Control

1 year ago

With Nightpack Ambusher out you can change some lands, because you need less {G}, I recommend the following:

• +1 Ice Tunnel, -1 Zagoth Triome
• +1 Castle Vantress, -1 Snow-Covered Island
• +1 Waterlogged Grove, -1 Nurturing Peatland

Also i'd cut 1 Brazen Borrower for some card advantage: Cling to Dust, JtMS, Memory Deluge

Bob_Spaghet on

1 year ago

I play a similar deck in explorer on arena. My first main thought is that playing four copies of the legendary creatures isn't necessary, and they all get very bad in multiple. Typically, you won't need or want more than one copy of each per game, so I would probably stick to one or two copies of each max. I agree with the last comment about Memory Deluge, that card is the truth in this type of deck and should probably replace Search; I also agree that Strategic Planning and Collective Brutality are clunky. I strongly recommend some split of Censor, Tainted Indulgence, or Thought Erasure replacing all eight Plannings and Brutalities. I also think any black deck needs at least three copies of Fatal Push; that card is incredibly well placed right now. Finally, I think that some number of hard counter spells are necessary in case you match up against other controlling strategies. Sinister Sabotage, Saw it Coming, or just good old Negate would probably be better than the third and fourth copies of Dreadbore or Heartless Act

wallisface on crab rave

1 year ago

Pact of Negation feels very dubious when you’ll be very unlikely to ever have the mana to pay for it.

Memory Deluge feels super slow/clumsy here. Not sure i’m a fan of Archmage's Charm either, as you’ll often be wanting to cast some kind of massive mill spell once you reach 3 lands.

Most mill decks run a playset of Field of Ruin to both trigger their crabs and force Archive Trap being castable.

zapyourtumor on Murky Waters

1 year ago

Card Suggestions Show

I've listed all these below with explanations, I just have to put them at the top so I can check mark them as suggestions. Drown in the Loch, Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, Damnation, Unmoored Ego, Sunken Ruins, Ledger Shredder, Aether Gust, Mystical Dispute, Remand, Spreading Seas, Memory Deluge, Orvar, the All-Form

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I think the main decision you have to make with this deck is whether you want it to be a true control deck or a tempo deck. A true control deck would try to trade one for one and build card advantage before dropping a threat like Murktide or Jace or simply winning with Snappy beatdown. A tempo deck on the other hand would try to turbo out a quick Murktide and then protect that threat.

Mixing control and tempo is nothing new, and it sometimes works quite well. But because a lot of the cards from each type of deck don't necessarily go well together, you can sometimes end up in an awkward situation.

Here, you definitely have a mix of both types (which, I'd like to emphasize, is not necessarily bad). Archmage's Charm, Counterspell, Cryptic Command, Snapcaster Mage, Devastation Tide and Jace, the Mind Sculptor are all heavily control-flavored cards in your deck. They all either break even or generate card advantage, or massively stall out the game.

On the other hand, Force of Negation, Otherworldly Gaze, Thought Scour, Spell Pierce, and Subtlety are all tempo-flavored cards.

The problem with this combination in this deck is that half of your cards aim to turbo out a Murktide Regent as fast as possible with Otherworldly Gaze and Thought Scour and then protect it in the short term with cheap spells like Dismember, Force of Negation, Subtlety, and Spell Pierce. The main problems with these cards is that they are pretty terrible topdecks late game. Scour isn't too bad because it cantrips, but topdecking a Gaze when you really needed a counterspell or card advantage engine or a Murktide would probably feel terrible. And all the control-type cards aim to reach that stage of the game.

One example of a problem that arises when you try and combine these two archetypes is in the manabase. Tempo decks typically don't need many lands; depending on the deck's mana curve, we are generally looking at 19-20 lands, and occasionally even 18 or less. On the other hand, control decks almost always want at least 22-23 lands, sometimes up to 24-26 lands in order to reliably play their more expensive spells on curve like Archmage's Charm, Cryptic Command and Snapcaster Mage, and to also always have mana held up during their opponents turn for a reactive spell.

Of course, many cards fit very flexibly into both tempo and control decks, for example Counterspell is just so strong it works in both, while Consider being a cheap cantrip also fits into both types. So in my opinion one of the most important decisions you should make, if you want to make the deck more cohesive and just function smoother as a whole, is whether you want to lean more towards tempo or control.

Quick disclaimer: I think it is definitely possible to make the deck more competitive while keeping both tempo and control aspects; however you should probably then trim both the very slow control-leaning cards (Cryptic Command, Devastation Tide, Jace, the Mind Sculptor), and the cheap tempo-leaning cards (Otherworldly Gaze, Thought Scour, Force of Negation) and replace them with cards more towards the middle ground. The rest of the cards, like Archmage's Charm, Subtlety, Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Dismember, and of course Murktide Regent are all flexible enough that they can slot into both types of decks.

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The second important decision to make is what secondary color, if any, you want for your deck in order to complement the primary color (blue). The main issue with mono blue control is that you have very few ways to deal with resolved permanents, which is why most players typically splash white or black (or occasionally red). Blue only has access to bounce spells, which are decent in tempo decks but generally bad in control decks because they are card disadvantage (and also terrible late).

Here, I see you kind of "splashed" black, but your only maindeck spell with black pips uses phyrexian mana anyways, while the only black spell in your sideboard can be casted with only blue mana. In my opinion, since you already have black lands, I would commit fully to a UB manabase by including a few more fetches (U fetches since that's your main color) because it gives you access to a lot of strong options:

Drown in the Loch is a really good spell doubling as both removal and countermagic at only 2 cmc, and only gets stronger as the game goes on. Fatal Push is another great removal spell which is generally stronger than Dismember, although it needs at least around 7 fetches to show its full potential. You can also run discard like Inquisition of Kozilek, although that is more tempo/midrange-esque so it may not be a great fit for this deck. Black also gives you an actual boardwipe in the form of Damnation, which is definitely a lot stronger than something like Devastation Tide since it gets rid of the creatures permanently and indirectly generates CA by trading with multiple enemy creature cards. It also doesn't hit Jace. If you don't think you need it in the mainboard, it can be a great sideboard inclusion. Lastly you have access to some sideboard options like Unmoored Ego.

If all of the blue pip spells like Counterspell and Archmage's Charm have you worried about mana fixing issues, you can run the filter land Sunken Ruins which is great in these types of decks to ensure you can cast both BB and UUU spells.

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Those two main points aside, I have a few other card suggestions I think could work well here, some of which lean more control and some which lean more tempo.

Ledger Shredder is a great card which leans a bit more towards tempo but unlike Gaze/Thought Scour it helps turbo out a Murktide while also growing into a significant threat itself.

Aether Gust and Mystical Dispute are decent color-specific sideboard cards.

Remand is a tempo-leaning card that is generally not great in pure control lists, but could be good here if you decide to stick to the turbo murktide strategy.

Spreading Seas is probably the best sideboard option mono-blue has against Urza's Saga.

Memory Deluge has a bit of antisynergy with Murktide, but a very good digging spell if you decide to go towards control.

Orvar, the All-Form is another great sideboard card which instantly turns the tables on any Creativity player thinking they auto won the game after cheating out an early Archon of Cruelty.

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If you made it this far, thanks for reading all of my comments. I like the deck and I'm excited to see where you can take it in the future. Happy brewing!