Is Impulse the best option in Mono-U

[Since97]

I was looking over some mono-blue decklists post-gen con and see that every runs impulse. Do you think that is really the best option?

AK and brainstorm seem on-par, and in some cases better than Impulse. My question is, why play impulse over these 2 cards?


Also the slot of sol ring in mono-u. This could be replaced by lotus petal to give you 7 fast mana cards- giving you a very good chance of being able to drain, impulse during your opponents turn.

Any thoughts?

[Smmenen]

Impulse is a miniture Demonic Tutor.  It gives you what you need now.  If you are playing a powerless build, then clearly Brainstorm is better.  Brainstorm is a hand optimizer, but doesn't get you what you need.

[Alfred]

Doesn't impulse just see one card deeper in your deck? I understand why it would be better after it has been cast multiple times, but is this really worth the extra mana?

[Whatever Works]

Brainstorm is not good in mono blue simply because the deck is so consistent, and if you run brainstorm it prevents you from running chalice of the void as affectively that is a HUGE bomb in the deck vs... everything it seems.

The AK engine in mono blue didnt work to well from my testing simply because Ophidian was better, and the first 2 AK's are not very good. If you get to cast 3 or 4 then its great, but that almost never happens. Intuition is to slow and clunky in the deck to help abuse AK's when you could just cast B2B/Phid/Energy Flux/etc. and win the game.

Impulse like Smmenen said is a demonic tutor to the deck. It is better because it can help to fix the already incredibly solid mana base, and can grab a counter etc... the deck is so consistent that if you look at the top 4 cards you usually will see a (1-2 mana sources... 1 counterspell of some type... 1 business card like B2B/Phid/etc.)

The most important part of the game for mono blue is the first few turns when your trying to stabalize the initial rush, and finding an answer with impulse (whether its B2B/Phid/counterspell) is much much more effective then essentially "cycling" your AK for 1.

[Milton]

I found Brainstorm to be superior.  In an extremely redundant deck like Mono-Blue, you have the ability to shuffle extra unneeded bombs back into your deck if you run fetchlands.  For example, if you draw two Back to Basics, one is dead in your hand.  Impulse won't change that, and will not allow you to take full advantage of the high ammount of Fetchlands.  If Impulse is like Demonic Tutor in a highly redundant deck, then Brainstorm is like Ancestral.  Ancestral > Demonic.

[rvs]

Ancestral > Demonic.

Take the word from a combo-player, Demonic > Ancestral. Demonic gets a card that wins. Ancestral might get cards that win.

[zero]

Just a quick question : with Impulse/AK, do you ever worry about an opposing chalice for two early? It seems like it hits an awful lot of cards in the deck, including powder keg, your most likely way of removing it.

[Whatever Works]

I dropped the AK's overall for 4 Maindeck chalice. A chalice for 2 will shutdown the deck to a degree if you run AK's or not, but then again with 4 Chalice maindeck you can always drop it for 0, and not have to worrie about that. You can also maybe put a 2ndary maindeck answer to the chailce that has a different casting cost.

Brainstorm is awful in this deck from experience, and hasnt been in any of the top builds I have seen. This deck has the ability to abuse chalice to the extreme from testing, (and as shown in Smmenen's report). I would rather draw a counter/impulse then brainstorm, and with only 5 shuffle affects I would not consider brainstorm to fit in the deck. I still dont see where your coming from when you say that 2 B2B is a bad thing, but having 2 in play can be very good (when you consider there is no real rack and ruin for enchantments), and that a REB wont suddenly swing a game against you.

[Caelestis]

A chalice for 2 will shutdown the deck to a degree if you run AK's or not, but then again with 4 Chalice maindeck you can always drop it for 0, and not have to worrie about that. You can also maybe put a 2ndary maindeck answer to the chailce that has a different casting cost.

A Chalice for 2 on the Stack has a CC of 4.

[Whatever Works]

A chalice for 2 will shutdown the deck to a degree if you run AK's or not, but then again with 4 Chalice maindeck you can always drop it for 0, and not have to worrie about that. You can also maybe put a 2ndary maindeck answer to the chailce that has a different casting cost.

A Chalice for 2 on the Stack has a CC of 4.

Thats the stack but not the casting cost, its hard to explain but i have hard its countered anyway... I have heard from several people that it doesnt work. Hopfully Jebus etc. will give an answer, but im pretty sure it shuts down other chalices if you cast it for 0.

[Since97]

Wait, say your hand is something like

2x chalice/island/fetchland/force of will/mana leak/b2b

if u chalice for 0 then you can't play ANYMORE chalices for the whole game?

[zero]

I'll introduce you to a technique I've used to win many a magic game : reading the card. The spell is countered " whenever a player plays a spell with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on COTV".
The only chalice with a CMC of 0 on the stack is a chalice for 0. When in play, all chalices have a CMC of XX, and X is 0, and hence can be eaten by a mox monkey, kegged at 0, etc. A chalice in play with 2 counters will counter a chalice being cast for one (XX=2, get it?).

[Covetous]

Zero is right about chalice.  However, chalice for zero stops face-down angels among other things.  Brainstorm isn't as good in this deck, as Smmennen said, because you don't want to put back two sub-optimal cards onto your deck with no way to shuffle them away.  Most of the decks that run BS have more ways than just fetches to shuffle the deck (i.e. tutors), while mono-U doesn't.  What if you BS into three cards, one of which is what you need and the other two are crap you don't?  Then, you must put two crappy cards on top of your library and draw them for two turns.  Impulse not only lets you dig one card deeper, but also lets you avoid crap you don't need.  For example, this deck has 26 mana sources.  It would not be too uncommon to BS into 3 sources, or 2 sources plus 1 spell.  Impulse completely owns BS in cases such as this.  True, there are those occasional "God dammit I just Impulsed into Ancestral, Force and Time Walk," but the opposite, where you have 3 crappy cards and one good one, are more common.  Plus, with Chains becoming more popular, impulse is the obvious choice.  I don't like AK in decks that don't run Intuition, and I think that the lack of an instant I-Win condition for this deck (such as Tog/Berserk or Welder/Titan or Mindslaver) precludes the use of Intuition/AK because this deck can't afford to tap out to intuition and then AK.  I still wonder about other cards such as Deep A, FoF and Future Sight, which are big and clunky but powerful.  Future sight especially is mana-intensive, but unusually castable in this deck which can't get blue-screwed.

[Whatever Works]

You can argue running FoF in the deck, but trying to fit in future sight is unrealistic from testing. I never wanted it when i had it, and usually ended pitching it to FoW. Late game its incredible but I feel stabalizing the early game is more important.

the Impulse engine has been far superior in all my testing of mono blue compared  to the AK engine. the AK engine is weak early game, and the deck just cant support intuition at all. I would rather cast a turn 2 back to basics or Phid then to tap out (then spend most of my mana the following turn) to cast AK.

I dont see why everyone is trying to find a way to dump phids out of the deck. I have found them to be amazing, and very easy to abuse in this deck. Over a course of several turns the "inferior" card when protected creates a virtual lock.  Mono blues ability to protect phid so well is what makes the card so usable, and the cards spent protecting it are just regained back through card draw anyway. Phid destroys fish as well on a sidenote, and just becomes a real pain to deal with for the opposing players.

Kyle

[Phyr[NA]]

Has anyone tried Thirst for Knowledge in the deck instead of Impulse? I know it's three mana, but with 10(or 13 artifacts, if you play both Chalice and Keg) you'll have an artifact to pitch very often.

The pros:

Thirst will often net you card advantage.
If you want to, you can keep more than one of the cards you drew.
(Drain sink)
(Chalice for two won't hurt as much)

The Cons:

It costs one more mana than Impulse.
It doesn't dig quite as deep as Impulse.

Personally, I think that the pros outweighs the cons, although not by much.
Maybe it's possible to fit in both Impulse and Thirst for Knowledge somehow and play, say, three of each.

Any thoughts on this?

[Since97]

Impulse is alot better than TFK because you get to choose 1 out of 4 cards, the most useful one at the time.

TFK allows you to draw 3, and most likely you will be discarding 2.

Early game you need moxes/chalice/keg, so discarding an artifcat is unlikely.

Not to mention TFK costs 1 more mana to use (mono-u needs to have a better mana curve than this).

[martyr]

Thirst will never net you card advantage. Just so we're clear on that. You will come out even, a turn after and and not any deeper than Impulse, ASSUMING you ditched an artifact, which you can't always rely on.