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)

doc_frank_18 on A mill-ion

4 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

6 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 …

6 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.

9-lives on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

1 year ago

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Mystimechanics

Modern 9-lives

SCORE: 3 | 6 COMMENTS | 96 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

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Artifact-creature deck that is aggro-control. I am also running this deck for the art it has in it; it's some of my favorite!

I know that I'm basically sacrificing ability to cast creatures quickly with the couterspells taking up so much mana.

I do like the control with Ethersworn Canonist. This can work in my favor, especially that this is an aggro deck, so that I will be able to cast as many artifact-creature spells with no problem, and keeping the opponent from casting other spells that aren't artifacts except for one. This magic number of one is that which I can easily counter each turn.

Mana-counter Control with Mana Leak with Esper Sentinel and Oppressive Rays and No More Lies and Spell Pierce.

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.

Also, Assemble the Players and Sorcerous Spyglass and Mishra's Bauble is really useful in this deck, with that and Peek working optimally to give me the heads up before anything occurs so that I know what to do with my mana if I need to use a counterspell or not.

Is it really worth it to have this hand-awareness?

Also, Peek and Mishra's Bauble and Defiant Strike all give me card draw not to mention their other abilities.

Assemble the Players is just as good as not having it, except for taking up deck space. This card is good if I cast two or more creatures with it, which will most likely happen, and if it only stays on the field for one turn, it will have nothing gained and nothing lost if it casts one 2 CMC creature.

Arcbound Javelineers are to remove creatures with 1 toughness or less while I am starting the game with them.

Skrelv, Defector Mite is useful for its protection from color as well as granting toxic 1. This for a 1 mana card is crazy good.

Pairing toxic with creature power plus Defiant Strike makes for a strong creature.

wallisface on

1 year ago

Some thoughts:

• 20 lands is extremely low considering how steep your mana curve is. I’d suggest going to at least 24.

• you’ve got 11 cards that let you assign combat damage with toughness, and while you obviously want that effect, you’ve currently got such-high density of these cards that you’re bound to draw into multiple redundant copies. I’d drop the number of these effects down to 8-9 (ditching 2-3 of the enchants).

• Glaring Aegis seems like a really bad card. You’ll almost never need the extra 3 toughness, and this just lets the opponent 2-for-1 you with a killspell.

• Skeleton Key is cute, but imo not particularly strong. You never want to draw a second copy of it. I’d suggest running an absolute maximum of 2, if at all.

• Fading Hope is almost always just giving you card disadvantage (the opponent still has all their cards, you just lost one).

• I know i’ve just dismissed all your 1-mana cards as being bad, but I do think you need some actually playable 1-mana cards so that you can do something turn 1. Spell Pierce, Preordain, and Utopia Sprawl are all good options.

• you really need more ways to interact with the opponent, your only viable option at the moment is Mana Leak… you need more options!