The Apprentice Workshop - Episode 5
The Apprentice's Workshop
KrazyCaley
4 December 2011
1986 views
The Apprentice Workshop
4 December 2011
1986 views
The Apprentice Workshop
Here in the Apprentice Workshop, we take a deck whose owner has asked for help on it in the forums or by posting it in the Noob list, and we turn it into a horrifying nightmare that will cause said owner to dole out the harshness on his or her poor unsuspecting buddies.
Today the deck is Mono blue control by Kingchortels.
The decklist
Mono blue control
Standard*
SCORE: 1 | 4 COMMENTS | 8551 VIEWS
First Glance
This is a hardcore standard permission deck, which is my favorite thing in the whole world. There are two issues with the deck that I can see:
1 - There is no efficient win condition. As Epochalyptik points out in the deck's comments, the deck is filled with relatively tiny beaters. The whole point of a control deck of this kind is to stop your opponent from killing you so that you can buy time to cast something truly awful. While midrange beatdown CAN work instead, why do that when you could have so much more fun casting something terrifying? It's also worth pointing out that a permission deck like this that uses small and midrange creatures will have a very, very crowded mana curve: everything in the deck will cost 2-4 mana to cast, which makes it tough to play efficiently. One finds oneself too frequently having to decide between casting a creature or leaving open counter mana.
2 - There are no real answers for things that are already in play. This is a common problem for mono-blue, but it is remediable.
3 - At 22, the land is very thin.
4- The deck has 69 cards; we need to cut that to 60!
With these issues in mind, let's start!
Control Tools
I love the commitment to counterspells in this deck. What I DON'T like, however, are Unsummon and Vapor Snag. The whole idea of "blue should bounce things so that it can counter them later" is a vile piece of Wizards beginner propaganda that they peddle in Duels of the Planeswalkers and elsewhere. Don't buy into it! By definition this kind of play is card inefficient- you are spending two cards to neutralize one. Let's cut Vapor Snag and Unsummon and think of something better to put in their place. I am tempted to add a fourth Cancel and then 4x Stoic Rebuttal just to make sure that this deck causes people to ragequit, but fortunately, I'm not that insane. Instead I'll just add 4x Stoic Rebuttal and leave Cancel at three. Close call there. Ha. Hahahaha. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ::ahem::
My FAVORITE way of dealing with things that are already on the board in monoblue is to steal them. Why use Ice Cage when for just a bit more mana, that Primeval Titan could be yours? Anything worth stealing is going to cost around at least 5 mana anyway. Let's add 4x Mind Control. ( Corrupted Conscience is a more defensive option]] ) I'll probably want to find room for some Volition Reins somewhere as well for non-creature things we want to steal, but we'll deal with that later. Now, on we go.
Card Advantage
We have 4x Divination and 4x Ponder. These are fine choices, but I prefer Think Twice to Divination - being able to cast Think Twice at instant speed during the end step instead of burning mana on one's own turn is invaluable for a counterspell-heavy deck. Let's replace all four copies of Divination with Think Twice. Since we're a bit over our best deck size of 60 and Ponder gives us higher QUALITY cards rather than MORE cards, let's cut a single Ponder while we're here.
Win Conditions and Misc.
Everything else in the deck is a bit of a mess. The entire creature assortment is pretty random and we also have 2x Elixir of Immortality for not much good reason that I can see. Thus, let's cut all this other stuff. That leaves us with a nice 12 open slots after we scratch the nine cards over 60.
First, let's add 2x of those Volition Reins I was talking about earlier. This gives us more capacity to eliminate our enemy's late game and catch anything that may slip through the counterspell cracks. Plus in this deck, Volition Reins' casting cost might as well read "6," and it'd be a shame to waste such a grand opportunity as that. 10 spots left.
I decline here to recommend Snapcaster Mage for two reasons. First, he is expensive, and here in the Apprentice Workshop, we try to keep costs down wherever we can. Second, he's almost unnecessary in a deck with this MANY counterspells.
What we need are big burly finishers. Consecrated Sphinx is the usual choice here, but he may be too pricey at $16 a pop. We could use planeswalkers like Karn Liberated or Jace, Memory Adept, but these are expensive too. Frost Titan is a much cheaper standby that also helps us lock down our opponent. 2x to start, though we might modify that later. Down to 8 slots. Let's also try the relatively-cheap Sphinx of Uthuun and Quicksilver Gargantuan, both nice choices as well. Adding 2x each of these gets us to 4 slots left to fill with a nice 6 creatures that will turn the tide decisively in our favor. That should be enough given the powerful creatures we've selected, the ease of finding them with our card advantage array, and the backup we have for them.
Finally, we need more land if we're ever going to cast this nastiness! Let's allocate all four spots to land, and let's make it something that will give us some extra help dealing with problems our counterspells can't handle. Ghost Quarter is what I'm thinking of- it will mess with our opponent's mana in some situations and handle key pieces of many modern standard decks that we can't otherwise stop in others. (Looking at you, Inkmoth Nexus ). So now we're at a lean, mean, 60 card deck. Let's consider a very basic, by-the-book sideboard in case we play this competitively.
Sideboard
4x Flashfreeze is a great idea to stop our nemesis- red (and green) aggro decks. Against other control decks, 4x Negate will be our best friend. We are very likely to run into the pesky Thrun, the Last Troll with this deck, so let's add 4x Phantasmal Image just for him. We might also consider Phyrexian Metamorph, which costs more, but gives us nice flexibility against other problems besides Thrun. I prefer Phantasmal Image for the cost, but the deck owner can decide. This leaves us with three spots. Looking at various holes in the deck, the biggest one seems to be dealing with annoying one-drops that will bleed us for tons of life before we can safely deal with them, so let's try out 3x Mental Misstep to plug that hole when necessary. This is a very basic sideboard, but a serviceable one that will see us through many matchups that would otherwise be disastrous for us.
Counterspells (15)
4x Dissipate
4x Mana Leak
3x Cancel
25% of this deck is comprised of counterspells. That is AWESOME.
Card Advantage (7)
4x Think Twice
3x Ponder
A solid selection of cards that will set up nice draws AND let us outdraw our opponents to keep the counterspells coming.
Thievery (6)
4x Mind Control
In the late game, we can steal our opponents' best stuff (Why buy Karn when you can steal him?) and deal with anything we couldn't counter earlier.
Win Conditions (6)
2x Frost Titan
If you like one or the other of these creatures better, do feel free to mess with these numbers. 3x Frost Titan and 3x Sphinx of Uthuun is a more consistent variant, though I like the possible fun and flexibility of Quicksilver Gargantuan.
Land (26)
22x Island
26 is a much more healthy number for a classic control deck such as this, and Ghost Quarter will stop Inkmoth Nexus and Co. as well as mess with multicolor decks' mana bases.
Sideboard (15)
4x Flashfreeze
4x Negate
This plugs most of the major holes in our monoblue strategy.
Overall
We now have a really powerful Innistrad standard deck that nevertheless has that old-school blue permission feel. With a horrifying 15 counterspells (and 11 more specialist counters waiting in the sideboard), people don't cast things past turn 1 unless we let them, and if you don't enjoy saying "No" with this frequency, well, you and I enjoy this game for different reasons, my friend. We can outdraw them to make sure we don't run out of counterspell gas (or steal their threats if we run out of gas anyway), and our finishing blows are heavy and terrifying. I'm actually pretty envious of this deck's 15 counterspells, quite honestly. That's just FILTHY.
Thoughts? Something I missed? Additional suggestions for our deckbuilder? Leave them in the comments below.
your at 16 sideboard not 15. and dont forget Gut Shot in sideboard. one of the best cards for mono blue.
December 4, 2011 4:45 p.m.
KorApprentice says... #3
I think you could a lot better with the creatures, by the way. I would recommend 2x Wurmcoil Engine , 2x Frost Titan , and 2x Consecrated Sphinx .
December 4, 2011 4:51 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #4
@bman5604 : Whoop, mistype. Should only be 3x Mental Misstep .
@KorApprentice : Wurmcoil Engine and Consecrated Sphinx are indeed superior choices, but they are also $15-$20 for a single copy. I try not to break the deckbuilder's bank too badly with my recommendations.
And yeah, I think it's a good idea for every experienced Magic player to get into the mix and explain good deckbuilding. Makes the game as a whole stronger.
December 4, 2011 4:59 p.m.
pookypuppy6 says... #5
I think the idea is to keep the creatures cheap for the minute, as Wurmcoil Engine and Consecrated Sphinx are pretty expensive like Caley indicated. I support that decision, IMO.
December 4, 2011 5:03 p.m.
DarasuumKote28 says... #6
Not going to lie, I physically shuddered at the original. I couldn't figure out what he would do if he didn't get out that one Sphinx. I too appreciate massive amounts of counters- my deck deck:sunblast-stonehorn-and-a-sojourner runs 12, then has 4 O-rings for the misses. Obviously that's no option here, being mono-blue, so the extra counters are both evil and totally justified.
My only recommendations would to be go for the 3-of's in the creature department (Why bother paying 7 for a copy when you can pay 5 and just take it, or in some circumstances just 2?), and to actually mainboard the Negate s over the Cancel s/Stoic Rebuttal s. I say as much for 3 reasons:
- RDW's face when you consistently have answers to their burns and Shrines turn 2.
- I know lots of inexperienced players play mana ramp. You could theoretically Negate a Rampant Growth for lulz, or even a card:Green Sun's Zenith if they managed to get their hands on one.
- Nonstandard infect pumping- T2 Glistener Elf , T3 Giant Growth +Groundswell to the face HURTS. Anything to knock down those 8 counters is good.
December 4, 2011 5:08 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #8
@Darasuum - Mainboarding Negate is a serious option in this metagame that deserves real consideration for sure. It has so many applications; almost every deck runs something important that's not a creature these days, and it's especially critical against RDW. With you 100% on that as a good option.
December 4, 2011 5:12 p.m.
Arachnarchist says... #9
If you're going to consider price, Phantasmal Image is upwards of $10. It would cost less to go with Phyrexian Metamorph ($6-7) or Cackling Counterpart (less than $5).
December 4, 2011 6:34 p.m.
Arachnarchist says... #10
Nevermind the Cackling Counterpart . Just read the text a little closer.
December 4, 2011 6:36 p.m.
Kingchortels says... #11
Ok first of all I would like to thank everyone for the help. I appreciate it. But the only thing I got lost in is the actual deck I don't know what the final count on the deck is could someone please help?
December 5, 2011 4:02 p.m.
With 2x Volition Reins and 4x Mind Control , 6 finishers is kind of a lot. I'd go with 2xFrost Titan , 2xConsecrated Sphinx and 1xWurmcoil Engine .
I'd probably also go down to 2x Cancel , and add 2x Spellskite .
KorApprentice says... #1
I think it is great that you are taking time to help new or inexperienced players by fixing their decks to be competitive. I have often thought that I could accomplish this, except that I have almost no patience for explaining certain basic aspects of competitive play (like trying to explain why singletons are typically bad). Kudos!
December 4, 2011 4:01 p.m.