Old mono blue control refresh

Legacy Deck Help forum

Posted on Aug. 7, 2018, 2:53 p.m. by Kendis

Hello,

I played Magic around 20 years ago. About 2 years ago I sold most of my cards and held onto a couple of decks, including a blue control deck.

Kendis Blue Control

Recently I've started playing again and the biggest change I've noticed is that creature mana costs have been reduced, especially on the lower end. For example, when I first started playing Magic, a creature's converted mana cost would typically equal [(Power + Toughness)/2 + 1]. A 2/2 creature would have a converted mana cost of 3 and usually have some kind of special ability. Creatures that had mana costs less than this formula always had some kind of drawback, whether that was Echo, can't block, etc.

These days most small creatures seem to have their converted mana costs reduced by 1 mana. For example, I see a lot of 2/2 creatures with a converted mana cost equal to 2 and no negatives but instead positive special abilities. The result is that aggressive decks with small creatures play faster now than they did in the past. 20 years ago my control deck won 90%+ of the time against my friends with a variety of decks. Now, against modern (in the time sense of the word, not the MTG deck type) aggressive weenie decks I have trouble much more frequently.

I'd appreciate any insight or ideas you may have to refresh my control deck to deal with small, fast creature decks. I found some ideas on the internet that I listed in my deck's Maybeboard.

Thanks.

Arvail says... #2

You're right. Magic has become a lot more creature-centric as a whole over the last twenty years in most formats. Still, I don't want you to feel like playing control or creatureless decks is impossible. There are lots of viable control and combo decks that use practically no creatures at all. All in all, there are lots of powerful non-creature spells that have made their way into magic as well over the years.

Looking at your deck, there's not a whole lot of power or money there by today's standards. If I were you, I'd investigate the various types of formats being played around you at your local store, for example. Typically not enough people are into Legacy to sustain a group of players at shops. Those shops that can do this usually are populated by pretty cutthroat decks playing competitive decks.

If you familiarize yourself with what's being played, you can look at the investment that entering into these formats will cost you both in terms of time spent on learning and in terms of dollars spent on cards.

August 7, 2018 5:13 p.m.

sylvannos says... #3

There's a lot of viable Mono-Blue Control (and control/combo) decks in Legacy.

Some you might like:

Mono-Blue Painter
Omnishow
Counter Bridge
Mono-Blue Fish (this one isn't a control deck, but it's worth looking at because it's cheap to build, can be configured for Modern, and has a lot of overlap with other decks in the format)

I'm partial towards Omnishow, which is a combo deck that plays very "draw, go" before it dumpsters all over your opponent's face.

You might also like U/W Standstill. The deck can be made mono-blue, but it loses some of its power. Decklist can be found here. To make it mono-blue, you'd cut:

-4x Myth Realized
-4x Terminus
-4x Swords to Plowshares
-1x Council's Judgment
-3x Tundra
-1x Karakas

...and add something like:

+1x Faerie Conclave
+1x Mishra's Factory
+2x Island
+2x Daze
+1x Flusterstorm
+4x Delver of Secrets  Flip
+2x Counterspell
+4x Preordain

August 7, 2018 6:49 p.m.

Rabid_Wombat says... #4

If you want a mono-Blue Control Legacy deck that actually wins games go out and spend fifty bucks on: 4x Stasis, 4x Howling Mine, 4x Frozen AEther, 4x Black Vise, 3x Chronatog, 3x Propaganda.

August 8, 2018 9:47 p.m.

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