It wasn't a CHALLENGE!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was for fun and I want to convince him that the list is good.  I also thought I might make a friend rather than an enemy.  I see no point in playing MArske's list against this one.  The point is to play it against Tez and Grow.  People on these boards are seriously weird, man.  Some of you guys are really self-obsessed.  tying your self-image to MTG is seriously not a good thing.  Go see a shrink.  They have enlargement pills for that.

In the words of the moderation report I got, "obvious troll is obvious."  In the words of my response in the mod forum, "obvious troll is banned."  -DA

Lol.  I'm the one being trolled.  Seriously, if your up for a three match set, send me a message.  I'll prove it to you.

Yes obviously that is my plan!  thats all my deck does!  All the other cards in there do nothing!  Sophist.

Do you have apprentice? (edit: I mean magic workstation) Up for best of three matches?  Tez versus The Deck?

My opponent has no land left in his deck.  Trust me opponent has no land left in deck=win.

"If your goal is to play a 2-card combo that does something sweet, why not play Vault-Key and just win the game."

Orb+Balance+ REB: 1R, 1W, 1C Total Mana Cost: 3 Mana
1 Good Card, 1 "Dead" card

Opponent cannot Play Nature's Claim in response.

My opponent has no land left in his deck.  Hence I cannot lose the game.  Hence I win the game.

Voltaic Key+ Time Vault +REB: 1R, 3-4C  Total Mana Cost: 4-5 Mana
2 Absolutely Dead Cards.

Opponent can play natures claim in response.

Yes force of Will is terrible right now.  Disenchant is better than Nature's claim as i already play 3 nature's claims called "swords to plowshares".  It also can be cast off white mana, that way my deck deck isn't confused when it goes to fetch up a land against shop.  I also don't lose to chalice at 1.  Morphling is the sick nuts.  See the beauty in Morphling is that no one can get rid of it, its blue so you can pitch it, and I don't have to play piles of crappy cards to win with.  It also eats planeswalker and bears.

Although admittedly the vast majority of my wins come off concessions or gorilla shaman beats.

Another nice feature of this deck is that it has a very low mana curve.  Not grow low, but for  The Deck very low.  It has 11 spells that cost 1, 11 spells that cost 2, 3 spells that cost 3, and 6 spells that cost 4 up to X.  Of those six 3 are force of will and the other three are variable costed meaning they can be effectively cast at 3.

Zuran Orb is good against aggro type decks, this deck doesn't have tinker bot or abyss.  Orb can make all the difference.  Orb is good against Tendrils kill.  It is almost impossible to kill me with a bear.  Orb is good against Magus of the Moon.  Magus is a slow clock.  I can see allot more topdecks looking for moxen or red cards.  Orb makes it almost impossible to slow dredge me.  Orb/Balance is good against Tez.  I often almost kill myself with damage.  I can race your trygdon predator with your mana crypt.  Orb fills up my graveyard if I need cards to scrye away (say crypt was played).  Orb/Balance kills basic islands.  Orb/Balance kills people who fetch all their land out of their deck.  My deck has more land than any other deck.  If am loosing a game, I can set up Orb/ Balance and turn a loosing game into a statistical winner.

If I was to just jot down a sideboard right now to play on apprentice it would be

Swords to Plowshares
Diabolic Edict
Lava Dart
2 Red Elemental Blasts
Pyroblast
Trinisphere
Pact of the Titan
2 Gorilla Shaman
Morphling
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Disenchant
Ancient Grudge

I also need to add another volcanic island main.  I might just take out the basic island as I never fetch for it.  Its only really in there for magus of the moon and this deck doesn't have allot of blue spells to play off it like other versions I have played.  There is also no BEB in the sideboard anymore to get rid of the magus.  i have switched over to lava dart.

An alternate configuration to the above list is
+1 Timetwister
+1 Fact or Fiction
+1 Force of Will
+1 tormod's Crypt
-1 Spell Pierce
-1 Skeletal Scrying
+1 Skeletal Scrying SB
-1 Reclaim
-1 Zuran Orb
+1 Zuran Orb SB

That version is a bit better if you are expecting more combo, gush(but no tez), and allot of dredge.  But losing Reclaim sucks and scrying is a thousand times better than fact or fiction.  

Here is the maindeck I played at The Kentucky State Championships.  It felt very good and performed very well.  The sideboard was pretty weak and needed more spot removal and needs some more work, so I will not list it here, but this list is really good.  It has been performing well online as well.  There is only 1 "dead" card in this list, Zuran Orb, compared to the countless dead cards which have been advocated by others.  I have also added Pact of the Titan back to my sideboard as a win condition off cunning wish, and as an extra  sideboard cards versus Magus of the Moon decks.  Its also funny to put out a 4/4 wall at instant speed when your opponent attacks with his dark confidant.  Had no difficulty winning despite peoples claims that the deck is too slow.  Kill speed is an entirely different thing than interactive speed.  Only two games I played all day ended before turn 10.  I took games to turn 20-30 pretty easily.  I got straight up crushed by a zoo deck one game and a gush tendrils player opened with Ancestral, timewalk, Demonic, Lotus, Yawgmoth's.  I thought I had a pretty good hand with 2 spell pierces, mana drain, and wasteland, but not much I could do there with the entire yawg's package in hand on the draw.  I love the 4 spell Pierce, 4 Drain, 3 Force of Will package as Force of Will is so bad right now ( Isideboard out another Force in control mirrors), but it creates sideboard difficulties (not enough spot removal in my board) and a slightly weaker game one against aggro decks.  I was on the draw 4 out the five matches I played and the deck still did not let me down.  One of my favorite moments of the tournament was when a guy mulliganed to 6 and had a big smile on the play and opened with fetch-usea-thoughtseize and saw Usea, Delta, Wasteland, 2 Spell Pierce, Swords, Mana Drain.  i casually drew, wastelanded the Usea and passed the turn.  Suddenly his hand didn't look so good anymore.  His smile soon turned upside down as he languished for twenty some turns before Morphling ended his long suffering mercifully.

Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Mystical Tutor
Merchant Scroll
Cunning Wish
4 Spell Pierce
4 Mana Drain
3 Force of Will
Balance
Disenchant
2 Swords to Plowshares
Gorilla Shaman
Mindtwist
Yawgmoth's Will
2 Skeletal Scrying
Demonic tutor
Vampiric tutor
Regrowth
Reclaim
Living Wish
Crucible of Worlds
Zuran Orb
SoLoMox
Library of Alexandria
3 City of Brass
3 Fetch
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
Tropical Island
Island
4 Wasteland
Strip Mine

Thoughtseize has been printed since you last played.  Someone else mentioned it above, but I thought I'd highlight it.  4 Duress, 4 Thoughtseize all the way.  Hypnotic Specter is actually still pretty good if Trygdon Predator isn't seeing play were you are at.  Most players have no removal for it and it serves as an answer of sorts for Dark Confidant.  I never liked suicide black without mana destruction elements.  The reason for this is that a blue control deck can just drop a Dark Confidant and nullify your discard spells essentially, then tutor up a vault/key combo or tinker.  Having a way to kill Dark Confidant is really important as well.  Mogg Fanatic beats, kills confidant, and pulls bridges.  Sui Black is hard to build these days as it requires adding another color and loses some focus.  People have been playing Dark Depths/Hexmage instead of sui black.

i would suggest the following cards to start out with.
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Confidant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Wasteland
Strip Mine

I went 3-0 versus Gush decks at the Kentucky State Championships with The Deck.  I got crushed by a zoo deck, and made a critical play mistake against a control-hate deck costing me the match 2-1.  A good day despite the play mistake.  It was allot of fun eating gush decks alive.    I just wish I had been in practice.  Might have had a shot at top 8.  How could I not regrowth swords to plowshareswhen the only cards he can rip are dark confidant and magus of the moon?  Rip Magus of the Moon.  So dumb.  Reclaim, Swords to Plowshares, and Mindtwist were savage all day.

Favorite Spell Stack of the Day:
Me: Mind Twist for four (opponent with six cards in hand
Him: Ancestral
Me: Mana Drain
Hime: Spell Pierce
Me: Spell Pierce
Him: Gush
Gush Resolves: Ancestral Recall is countered, he discards 4 at random. including 2 lands


Me; Wastelande go
Me: Strip Mine GO
Me Regrowth YAwgmoth's Will+ Mana Drain, Ancestral, Strip Mine, Mindtwist for 5+ Other fun stuff..

Great Non-Mulligans of the day.  WAstelande, Mox Pearl, Mox Jet, Vampiric Tutor, Swords to Plowshares, Yawgmoth's Will, Skeletal Scrying
2X REB, WAstelande, Strip Mine, Trinisphere, Polluted Delta, Reclaim

Drew 38 Cards off 2X Skeletal Scrying today in 5 rounds  Had hoped to boast of a higher number but didnt make top 8.  Drew only eleven off Stroke of Genius as I didn't side it in all day and only got to wish for it once
Take that Gush!

I'm not sure Goblin Guide is that good in a deck that trying to deny its opponent mana.

Try starting with the following cards.

4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Ethersworn Cannonist
4 Raze
4 Tithe
0 Null Rod
Moxen+ Mox Diamonds
4 Wasteland
Strip Mine

And go from there.

Raze is a card you should consider in every aggressive red based strategy.

Let me explain myself a bit more on two points just for clarification so that you can agree or disagree knowing what I meant.  I will also try to spell better.

1) You never want to force of will on principle.

Force of Will was put in the deck to deal with cards like Wheel of Fortune, Timetwister, etc. (But really it was put in for Necro.)  It is also flexible and can deal with any card.  What I mean by this is we don't want to build a deck that HAS to force of will a BOB allot.  Bob is a valid target for Force of Will.  But Swords is just so much better here.  Their deck doesn't run right without the BOB's.  If you preserve your Force of Will and simply swords the Bob you are very hard to beat here.

So what I mean by this is, don't fall into the trap of deckbuilding where you say, I will just counter that or I will just force that.  Force of Will is not really what you want to be playing against Bob.

2) We want to surround our opponents plays.
By this I mean, Bob is a fundamental play in allot of decks.  We want to be able to swords it.  We want to be able to Counter it.  We want to be able to race it with broken card drawing of our own until we find a swords, and we want to balance it off the table and remove the card advantage gained if we can not do any of these things.  You don't ever want to just lose because your opponent played a Bob because it is common and fundamental.  If Balance is winning me 40% of the losers ( The games I get steamrolled)it is worth its inclusion.

In my opinion MArske your lists fail because they are bad combo-control lists.  You are trying to make the deck into a combo control list instead of a control list.

The problem with cards like Duress is that they fail because you have no information.  Duress really doesn't give you information, it requires information to play it.  This is why you see its power increase in decks that can reliably play it on the first turn, have a synthetic card advantage due to density, and can win against hands to die to an early duress.  Think about it, you are trading the what could have been the best card in your hand (had it been another card rather than duress) for your opponents best card.  Essentially what you are doing is reducing the total number of options available to each player and betting that your deck can win off fewer options.  People often fail when evaluating duress in a decklist, because they forget that it could have been another card and secondly because you always get to pick a card they assume that it was effective.

When you play Duress you often play it blind and unless you are capable of capitalizing on it immediately you are often playing blind form there on out.  When I play a card like Swords to Plowshares or Mana Drain, my opponent gives me the information that I need to make the decision.  When I play duress, my opponent gives me no such information.

The second problem with Duress is that it costs mana but does not force my opponent to pay mana where swords to plowshares or mana drain produce a mana surplus.

I would recommend only playing duress in decks that can produce synthetic card advantage due to density or in combinational decks.  It is worth noting that abeyance is often better in combinational decks if you intend to face other combinational decks as you can use it steal there fundamental turn and then take your fundamental turn.  The additional cost of abeyance is a drawback however, when trying to force expensive spells through of if you are runing mana light builds.

Given that Duress is black it requires you to fetch an underground sea up immediately limited your colors and thus spell selection.  It also can make you vulnerable to wasteland unless you play ALLOT of fetchlands

Lastly, duress is at sorcery speed and although cheap, casting on turn two cuts you off from drain and casting it on turn 3 can cut you off from drain if your opponent has wastelande whereas playing a reastive card allows you to leave the extra mana untapped.

Duresses value also dramatically increases if you are really good at winning coinflips  and at being on the play.

You never want to cast force of will on principle.  If Bob is heavily played then you need 2 swords, 1 cunning wish, and 1 balance.  Or comparable.  

Swords gives you spot removal for the BOB at one mana which is pretty important and useful against shop.  Wish gives you an alternate way to get rid of a bob and you can even use a card like darkblast of lavadart out of the board or similar.  Balance gives you the means to allow a bob to resolve and then balance away the bob and the card advantage later.

We want to surround our opponents key plays.

Against Workshop based decks I still think the best strategy is to ignore the spheres and use them to trap the workshop player, but then again I play max shamans and max wastelands.

i am not sure you are correct about the blue restricted cards like ponder and brainstorm.  They do not actually increase the likeleyhood of having and answer against Bob or oath or similar, if you are taking out answers to put them in.  They reduce the odds that you have an answer.  They are rather bad against workshop although brainstorm is passable.  They do help you find wasteland however.

You really do want to play Skeletal Scrying: AKA YAWGMOTH's WILL AT INSTANT SPEED.  Play all the baubles out of my graveyard.

"Winning takes care of itself."

If you don't believe in this principle you have no business posting to this thread moderator or not.
You proclaim yourself an expert on The Deck, but have done nothing but argue against The Deck's principles.

No one who draws Helm and thinks its good is an expert on The Deck.

No the mistake that the Deck players made was to play it as a metagame deck.  Hence PowderKegs and all kind of garbage.  ITS SO GOOD AGAINST SLIGH!  So is STP.

The deck wins with it sideboard, not by maindecking a pile which is good against 2 decks.

Solving the dredge puzzle is key as Dredge is too powerful to be ignored even if there are only 2-3 in a tournament of 24, but at the same time we do not want to bastardize the Deck to deal with it.  

Why is everything too slow?  I am taking games to turn 30.  WTF do I care about kill speed for?  I only care about interactive speed.  Crypt is great against dredge, twister is great against dredge.  It just so happens that twister puts crypt back in your deck use again and again.  I AM NOT TRYING TO WIN.  HAve you ever really played The Deck or did you convince yourself that a blue pile with some hosers in it was The Deck?  What do I give a crap about winning for?  All I do is not lose.  Winning takes care of itself.

Marske I agree with you that attacking the graveyard is a good if not the best strategy.  I would do it with Crypt/Twister if there is allot of stax and no MUD, and Dredge doesn't play white leyline.  However, if dredge is playing white leyline and there is allot of MUD, that is not a good plan.  Leyline+Helm has never been good.  Crypt/Twister is a superior graveyard attack strategy when coupled with wastelands.

That being said.  They have no removal for Tabernacle.  They never have mana to pay the upkeeps.  Shutting down a dredge deck is pretty easy with a Tabernacle.  I encourage you to actually try out the strategy.  you might be surprised at how effective Tabernacle is when it is placed into the right network of cards.

BTW, i am very interested in making a good The Deck list.  I tired of this its a metagame deck BS.  I want a stock list with different options highlighted depending upon metagame.  Anyone who wants to help build this thing feel free to chime in.  One of the reasons i am focusing on the dredge matchup is that it requires certain cards and those cards must be present.  Knowing exactly what our plays against dredge are sets some cards in stone.

Reuben any luck with your list?

Take out the yard with what really crappy cards? 
If I can beat dredge with 1 mediocre card main with full sideboard instead of a bastardied I can only hose dredge sideboard as my only deck change I will do that in a heartbeat over playing three TERRIBLE cards maindeck.  Leyline of Void...Helm =TERRIBLE.  Those cards are so bad it is unreal.

What combo with 4 Living Wish, 3 Hexmage, 3 Darkdepths main and 1 dark depths and 1 hexmage side?  You already have black tutors.
I was thinking of living wish in disruptive aggro as, I have some terrible matchups, so ill wish for something inthose.  In my other matchups wish is not great but at least passable as I didnt have to take any good disruption out to put them in.  Didn't say it would work, just said if I was going to try to use it then...

"You're suggesting Living Wish (Sorcery) and Tabernacle (Sorcery speed) and Wasteland (Sorcery speed) to deal with dredge and are suggesting people attack Bazaar / their mana and sweep the board. Along with spot removal to deal with any leftover Ichorid's and Bloodghasts."
Yes I am suggesting that
1) Draw Spells
2) Recursion Cards
3) Living Wish/Tabernacle
4) Swords to Plowshares
5) WAstelands
6) Some small level of recursable graveyard hate element(s).
7) Counterspells to protect my hand from therapy, counter flashback spells, and counter non-bazaar enabler spells.
8) ZORB!  Gotta love immortality.
are sufficient to deal with dredge.
I also like that they cannot attack into gorilla shaman or they will have the bridges pulled.  I also like how shaman pulls bridges with tabernacle.  I think using as few non-general cards as possible against dredge gives you good enough game against them that you feel comfortable playing the matchup and lets you have a much better sideboard.

Ultimately this matchup is about card advantage.  Dredges form of card advantage is to dump its library into it graveyard and use the cards in its graveyard as if they were in their hand.  By Slowing down the pace of this dumping, dredge does not gain card advantage early, and we will be gaining allot which we use to pick apart their deck piece by piece play by play with our insane level of card advantage.  Dredge is extremely slow without bazaar and usually musters up and aquamoeba and sacs it for cabaal, and puts out an ichorid or bloodghast which gets swords.  At that point I'm the non-interactive deck and playing and replaying every broken card in the book.  

"Yes!  Of course how obvious, how could I have missed it?  Wastelanding the bazaar does nothing!  Dredges main goal is to fill up the graveyard with bad cards.  Wastelanding the bazaar and playing spellpierces only cuts them down to one third their pace!  I have been a fool to wasteland the bazaar.  To think the games were going to turn 15 and the whole time I was wrong... dredge was going to beat The Deck through inevitability not the other way around.  I will definately board out Ancestral Recall from now on.  It clearly is no good against dredge as they want to be non-interactive with all my interactive cards and Ancestral Recall is not directly interactive." - David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature.

Not many people realise it but David Hume was an avid MTG enthusiast.  I looked and looked and finally found this passage.  Marske is clearly correct and better informed than I.  I will play piles of sorcery speed jank bombs despite the fact that it is a known strategy for failure.

Normally, groups of principles that pop up over and over are named out of convention so that they are more easily referred to.  I'm not trying to wound anyones pride.  It is useful to have things grouped as such by words.  Fruit is an example of a word that groups many things togther by convention for ease of discussion.

I wouldn't underestimate wastelande in the dredge matchup either.  Clearly it is not enough alone.  But with a pile of other cards that are generally good, I think a workable build that is good against dredge without having to resort to hosing is possible.  The main reason I went for living wish for tabernacle is that is entails only having 1 bad card maindeck and the bad card is not really bad just mediocre.  The last three games I have played against dredge have all been disconnects.  I am sure that I am far from having an optimal list, but I think that maybe Living Wish for Tabernacle is part of The Deck now unless a better solution is found.  When dredge forst cam eout I played Tormod's Crypt and Timwtwister main and 1 extirpate in the sideboard and had allot fo success.  Timetwister is allot weaker against MUD than stax however and Tormod's crypt no longer works that well if dredge decks reliably play the white leyline.

I think laying out the Weissman and Menendian principles and reflecting on them is useful.  Clearly these are the two most influencial people as regards type 1 deckbuilding as far as control strategies is concerned.  While Steve never laid out his principles as such, I think after looking and playing against Menendian decks for many years now (since Steve first starting playing competitively and writing), these are basic principles that Steve follows when building a decklist.  Do you remember when Steve first became vocal when Gro was having its early battles against the deck at the tail end of Oscar Tans tenure?  Do you remeber how bad the deck builds were?  Multiple Fire/Ices, powder kegs, pernicous deeds, multiple morphlings.  Just terrible builds.  No swords to Plowshares.  No maindeck REB.  I mean the deck builds were terrible and Grow cut through them like a hot knife through butter.  People would say things like swords is bad in that one matchups so I will make the following 12 card changes to my deck  to get rid of two swords for one match in game 1. It was all about the metagame.  Lol.

When you play wasteland against dredge it is a crippling blow.  By no means do you auto-win the matchup.  But that is not my intent.  I want to use cards that are generally good and already present in the deck to play against dredge.  I think perhaps you are forgetting that dredge has to cast dredge return.  It can be countered.  When dredge is slow, cards like cabal therapy lose much of their effectiveness.  i generally have no problem with dredge unless they get a critical mass of cabal therapies or get allot of tokens right away.  There are allot of ways to attack a dredge deck other than hosing it.  What good does dread return do when you counter it and they have no bridges?  What good are the bridges when you swords the ichorid and they only have one bridge and one therapy?  There are allot of situations like this when you waste the bazaar where dredge has to have multiple game conditions be "true" to be effective.

You are looking at cards in isolation and saying that they won't beat dredge.  I'm not trying to hose it, I am trying to outplay it.  There are games I am willing to ceed against it just like I seed, Duress, Force, lotus, crypt, Vault Key.  No one expects to win against auto-win hands in type 1.  Why would i expect to win against double bridge, ichorid, therapytherapytherapy?

As Troy said above, living wish is like casting time walk for your opponent (in an aggro deck).

You generally want your disruptive creatures maindeck.
if I was going try to use living wish in a disruptive aggro deck I would try the following
Make sure you have ample mana:  Wish needs to be easily castable along with what its casting. Moxen+Chromes
Move the kill creature (The one thats in there for its power) to the sideboard and use the wish to get the kill card after to play out your disruption.
Wish for toolbox cards and/or bullets to problem cards like oath of druids and bazaar of baghdad Chalice at 1.
Try to keep your wish targets as cheap as possible.  Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Welder, Elvish Lyricist etc.

This frees up deck slots to move MORE disruptive creatures main instead of to the board, and gives you four cards that fetch bullets for problem matchups. 

I think the deck looks very cool and could definately win games.
1) If you are having trouble with Bazaar, you might try Mogg Fanatic.  He kills all one toughness creatures like Confidant, Cobra etc.  This could also let you save your liquid metal destruction for other things.
2) Chains of Mephistopheles any good out of the board?
3) Black Tutors?  Do they add something to the deck or make it worse?

Do you not have moxen?  They are very good in this deck. 

You have wasteland.  Dredge is slow when you play wasteland.  I don't see why people keep saying dredge is too fast.  When I play wasteland I have plenty of time.  When I can't find one I have to have a plan B.  I used to like Cunning Wish for Trap, but people have been running the untargetability leyline, so I switched back to extirpate and just recur it with Regrowth, Reclaim, and Yawgmoth's Will.

Leyline isn't any good against Workshop, for real, if you were going to add a card into your deck for workshop it wouldn't be leyline.

Chapin admitted that his world's deck sucked.  So many expensive jank bombs at sorcery speed!  I'm sure BRian Weissman didnt tell him that over the phone.  

Jace is only good when you play Duress/Thoughtseize and you have a reason to play his like 4 Bob.  Jace is a Tez specific card, although he might be good in mono-blue.  I would never even contemplate adding Jace to a deck that didn't run Duress/Seize.  You can't play him into pierce, REB or drain.  You have to have Duress to pull counters.  I think he sucks even with Duress.  Jace is a Tor Giant.

There are two schools in type 1 control: The Weissman School and The Menendian School.

Weissman School:
1) Card advantage wins.
2. A control deck is good if it threatens interaction with its opponent on any given turn and can make the right plays.
3) Mana denial wins.
4) Land Development is key to early game.
5) Bombs that generate overwhelming card advantage are good.

Menendian School:
1) CA does not win and is but a means to an end.
2) A control deck is good if it generates a velocity of early spells that utilize its mana early.
3) Immunity from land destruction wins.
4. Card quality is key to the early game.
5) Bombs are bad and you should play as few as possible and be reliant on tutors to find them.

Nope the Zombies don't have haste.  Have to receive haste from other cards.  Tabernacle equals no slow dredge.  You can also, kill your own shaman with the tabernacle to pull the bridges.