[Deck Idea] Drain Golem

[BlackVise]

The idea behind this deck is that heavy control decks are, stereotypically, slow and rely on a lot of counters, so this deck tries to address the two issues by using accelerating into Lodestone Golems to create a fast clock, and cards like Lodestone, Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, Wasteland etc to strain their mana base and reduce your reliance on counters. The counters also give you the ability to react to the opponent on turn 0, and allow you to protect your mana denial cards which will then buy you several turns, allowing you to build up a more controlling position and advance your game plan while the opponent is struggling to get there's started.

Now, I know the idea may sound a bit silly, but I've actually found that it can be very effective once you learn how to pilot the deck.

Here's the list, and then I'll do some card explanations afterwards.

Mana Base:
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
3x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
8x Island

Creatures:
4x Lodestone Golem
1x Blightsteel Colossus

Draw/Tutors:
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
1x Tinker

Counters:
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
3x Spell Pierce

Mana Disruption:
1x Trinisphere
4x Sphere of Resistance
3x Null Rod

Utility:
3x Crucible of Worlds

Broken Awesomeness:
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Time Walk

Board Control
1x Hurkyl's Recall

Sideboard:
1x Pithing Needle
2x Tormod's Crypt
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Flusterstorm
1x Hurkyl's Recall
4x Steel Sabotage

So there's the list, and here are a few card explanations.

Black Lotus/Sol Ring/Mox Sapphire - Great accelerants, and there are few enough of them in the deck that Null Rod isn't a huge problem for your own mana.
Tolarian Academy - Helps negate the effects of sphere effects, and allows you to accelerate into them early.
Strip Mine/Wasteland - Disrupts the opponent's mana base, and allow you to buy time if you're struggling to play a Sphere/Mana Drain.
Flooded Strand/Polluted Delta - Pretty obvious cards to include, help to thin the deck and provide a stable mana base.
Island - Immune to Wasteland, make your mana much less vulnerable than your opponent's in a lot of matches.
Lodestone Golem - Slows the opponent's game plan down, provides a quick clock, and is a hefty blocker - brilliant!
Trinisphere/Sphere of Resistance - Again, they slow down the opponent's game plan, and turn one they can often disrupt the opponent too much for them to recover for a few turns.
Ancestral Recall/Brainstorm/Ponder - All draw/dig 3 cards and are cheap to play, and they fit in with the deck's sphere theme by being cheap enough to play even under a Trinisphere.
Tinker/Blightsteel Colossus - Quick win condition, and if need be Tinker can be used to fetch a lock piece if Blightsteel Colossus is in your hand or removed from the game.
Force of Will/Spell Snare - Cheap counters, fairly easy to play under a few sphere effects, and protect your lock pieces from opposing counters or removal.
Mana Drain - Pretty obvious - counters threats and accelerates into lock pieces and threats.
Crucible of Worlds - Creates a soft lock with Strip Mine/Wasteland, and helps to keep your mana base steady by using fetchlands and negating opposing land destruction.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - All of his abilities are brilliant with this deck - the Brainstorm one creates a nice draw engine, the Fateseal one can lock an opponent out of the game almost permanently if they're struggling to play cards, the Unsummon one is great at dealing with cards like Blightsteel Colossus and Dark Confidant when you've got no other answers, and his ultimate ability is just amazing, it ends the game almost instantly.
Time Walk - Early game this lets you drop a sphere effect easier, and late game it can often effectively read " Untap all your permanents, draw a card, destroy target land, and take another combat phase.", which is an incredibly powerful play.
Hurkyl's Recall - This deck struggles against Stax and MUD, so this card is particularly helpful in those matchups, can help against the Time Vault/Voltaic Key combo, and if you lock yourself out with sphere effects then this can be a fairly effective, if slightly self-disruptive, way to create a better board position.

Sideboard:
Pithing Needle/Tormod's Crypt/Leyline of the Void - Primarily included for the Ichorid matchup, but they all have uses in other matches too.
Flusterstorm - Included for the control and combo matchups, but I've not tested it enough to work out exactly how useful it is.
Hurkyl's Recall/Steel Sabotage - These are included for the Stax/MUD matchups, but I can see either this Hurkyl's Recall or the maindeck one being replaced with another bounce card like Echoing Truth, as two seems a little redundant.

I'm considering adding some Mishra's Factories to the deck to provide some earlier threats and as a way to deal with smaller creatures that the opponent may be able to successfully play. Going this route then sort of suggests Standstill as a possible draw engine, but with the sphere effects it could be too mana intensive and redundant to warrant inclusion.

So, that's the deck! I'm aware that this will probably never be tier 1, but it's fun to play, is surprisingly quick and successful, and totally ruins decks that don't run a considerable amount of hate and disruption.

Any comments and suggestions about the deck would be very much appreciated!

Thanks!

[MaximumCDawg]

What does this deck do that traditional Workshop builds don't do better?  Have Jace?

[BlackVise]

Good question, and one that I've spent a lot of time thinking about! It gives you access to counters, bounce, and card draw; granted, these may not be advantages that make this "better" than Workshop builds, but they certainly give you new options. It's also far more resilient to Wasteland, which is always nice.

[ed0]

the reason workshop decks can play sphere of resistance and lodestone golem is (very simplified) that they break the symmetry of those cards by running lands that tap for more than one mana (shop, tomb, traitor) or bypass it (by playing only artifacts). your deck does neither, so what advantage do you get out of playing those cards?
considering the sparse acceleration you play it's unlikely you'll be able to drop a lodestone before turn 3-4, at which point your opponent will already have developed his manabase enough that he is either able to counter the golem (for which you likely would have to tap out) or bounce it. if you can't effectively lock out your opponent you can't expect him to just sit around and do nothing.
playing a sphere before laying down a golem would delay your gameplan (resolve tinker or beat with golem) just as much as your opponents - and due to not being able to properly lock your opponent he likely gains more (card draw, etc.) from each additional turn than you do.
your draw suite is tiny at best. not enough to balance out the number of dead or not synergetic cards in your deck. playing ponder under trinisphere is just wrong.

there is a place for Marina-MUD, but i fear just throwing spheres into a weak blue shell is not the way to go.

[xouman]

I played a semi-turbo tezz deck changing confidants for golems when noxius appeared, getting 4-2 (not bad for me, I'm a crappy player). A tezz deck usually has a high density of artifacts, and golem is better than confidant against gush decks, quicker than us. Golem is also quite nice in the mirror and vs fish decks, it is a must counter. Of course against mud it is not so great, but it's a blocker to keep yourself alive until you can assembly vault+key.

But adding null rod and spheres is another song. A blue mud is possible, but it needs 4 MWS without any doubt.

[RichardD]

I can't imagine running this deck without Shops.

[BlackVise]

I've actually tried adding Mishra's Workshop to the deck and it really works! It's allowed me to cut Mana Drain and add some Mental Missteps, giving the deck more chances to interact on turn 0.

The changes I've made are:
-1 Island
-1 Flooded Strand
-1 Polluted Delta
-4 Mana Drain
+3 Mental Misstep
+4 Mishra's Workshop

I'm questioning the place of Jace in the deck, but late game he's proving to be incredibly powerful. I may try cutting 1 or 2, but I'd quite like to keep at least 1 if I can, as he can effectively become a hard lock with the mana denial plan in place. Any opinions?

Thanks for all the responses!

[serracollector]

I was testing something like this, my reasoning tho for using Workshops and Blue was Uba Mask + Jace.  Drawing 3 cards, and being able to use them every turn was amazing.  I only ran 4 force, and 4 misstep, so losing counters to Uba didn't happen as often as one would think. 

[BlackVise]

I was testing something like this, my reasoning tho for using Workshops and Blue was Uba Mask + Jace.  Drawing 3 cards, and being able to use them every turn was amazing.  I only ran 4 force, and 4 misstep, so losing counters to Uba didn't happen as often as one would think. 

That seems like a really cool idea! Sounds like it would probably be very slow though - how early did you usually manage to get it running?

I've tweaked the list further, adding a Steel Hellkite, and it's becoming a very aggressive deck with a strong control suite and seems to be very reliable all round. The current list is:

Mana Base:
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
4x Mishra's Workshop
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
2x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
7x Island

Creatures:
1x Steel Hellkite
4x Lodestone Golem
1x Blightsteel Colossus

Draw/Tutors:
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
1x Tinker

Counters:
4x Force of Will
3x Mental Misstep
3x Spell Pierce

Mana Disruption:
1x Trinisphere
4x Sphere of Resistance
2x Null Rod

Utility:
3x Crucible of Worlds

Broken Awesomeness:
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Time Walk

Board Control:
1x Hurkyl's Recall

Sideboard:
1x Pithing Needle
2x Tormod's Crypt
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Flusterstorm
1x Hurkyl's Recall
4x Steel Sabotage

Steel Hellkite is proving to be amazing, I've not lost a game where I've got it into play - I'm considering adding a second one as it really is so powerful, but the dis synergy between Hellkite and Null Rod is slightly problematic.

Despite Jace not being castable with mana from Mishra's Workshop I'm still really pleased with him in the deck - his Brainstorm and Unsummon abilities have saved me in several games, his Fateseal ability is phenomenal when the opponent is short of mana, and his ulitmate ability is just amazing in any situation. Plus, he pitches to Force of Will, which is handy.

Any opinions or feedback on the current list? This deck is definitely proving to be pretty solid in my testing, so I'm hoping to keep developing it into a more competitive list.

[serracollector]

Try replacing the 3 spell pierce with 3 Uba Mask, and see how well it works for yourself.  Makes gush decks just cry. Standstill loses a bunch of its counters, and thus its power. Also you should have a mana crypt and a mana vault in there somewhere.  Not sure what you would drop, but yea, too good with Uba's, Jace, and Spheres/Golems/Hellkite.  Maybe -1 Crucible -1 Ponder for them 2.  Ponder does dig three deep, but BS, Jace, and Acall should be plenty, and the 2 are instants.  Especially with Uba Mask.

[BlackVise]

I'll give it a try. I am slightly skeptical, in all honesty, but I won't know whether it works or not until I try it out.