Maralock

[MTGFan]

4 Polluted Delta
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl

4 Dark Confidant
4 Maralen of the Mornsong
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Aven Mindcensor

4 Mental Misstep
4 Stifle
4 Shadow of Doubt
4 Force of Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall

SB:
4 Steel Sabotage
4 Extirpate
4 Spell Pierce
3 Darkblast


This is a Delver aggro deck that uses Maralen of the Mornsong as a finisher and a way to stop opponents from drawing stuff.

The way to play this is -> do the normal broken stuff blue does, beat with Delver and Confidant, and when you want to play Maralen, you need 4 mana for Maralen + Stifle or 5 mana for Maralen + Shadow of Doubt. Use Stifle or Shadow to stop opponent from tutoring in his turn (he loses 3 life if you Shadow, but doesn't lose any life if you Stifle). Then on your turn tutor for another Shadow or a Snapcaster to play it again, rinse repeat, and hopefully he'll be dead soon with no way to answer back.

The key to making this remotely viable is that both Shadow of Doubt and Stifle are not bad spells on their own even without Maralen. Shadow of Doubt can be played in response to Tinker, Forgemaster, Stoneforge Mystic, Fetchlands, and Tutors of all kinds. And it cantrips without Maralen in play. Stifle is decent as well, for obvious reasons.

Thoughts?

[hashswag]

Seems like it could struggle with counter magic, since they could counter your stifle or tutor up counter magic to protect any bombs they're already holding. One possible way to build this could be to play anti-control tactics like City of Solitude and Defense grid, then filling the rest of your deck with toolbox answers to whatever your opponent tutors up. Maralen could be fetched with 4x Living wish and could find a wincon that isn't answerable with the usual cardpool.

In retrospect, a big issue with my idea is the possibility of an opponent tutoring up multiple combo/protection pieces over several turns without you knowing what they were getting (thought it was a reveal tutor). Hmm.

[vaughnbros]

Aven Mindcensor seems like a much better combo with her.  Its also a wizard letting you play caverns.

[Bill Copes]

If the meta were control-heavy, this type of list would be fine.  Unfortunately, the world currently revolves around dorks, lodestone golems and grizzlebrand.  A 5-mana soft lock that's conditional based on life-totals seems really hard to do.

[MTGFan]

Aven Mindcensor seems like a much better combo with her.  Its also a wizard letting you play caverns.

The problem is that Mindcensor costs 3 mana.. and it still lets opponent tutor the top 4 cards of his deck, so he gets something better than a normal draw.

If you're going to assemble a two-card combo with Maralen, it has to be good enough to completely stop the tutur/draw completely, because as Bill Copes said, the conditionality and life loss in this combo make it a bit weak to begin with in an aggro-infested metagame.

[vaughnbros]

Aven Mindcensor seems like a much better combo with her.  Its also a wizard letting you play caverns.

The problem is that Mindcensor costs 3 mana.. and it still lets opponent tutor the top 4 cards of his deck, so he gets something better than a normal draw.

If you're going to assemble a two-card combo with Maralen, it has to be good enough to completely stop the tutur/draw completely, because as Bill Copes said, the conditionality and life loss in this combo make it a bit weak to begin with in an aggro-infested metagame.

Yes but as is you are not getting ahead of your opponent when you combo.  In fact its worse for you.  Since you lose 3 life every turn and need to spend the 1 or 2 mana or more to cast your stifle, shadow, or Snapcaster.  While your opponent doesn't lose life when you stifle.  Count bobs, fetches, and forces in on your side and it may be difficult to race anything.  

With mindcensor you gain a much larger benefit as you can find anything and your opponent is limited to his top 4.  A 2/1 evasion is also great to have out when both players take a bolt to the face every turn.

[MTGFan]

Aven Mindcensor seems like a much better combo with her.  Its also a wizard letting you play caverns.

The problem is that Mindcensor costs 3 mana.. and it still lets opponent tutor the top 4 cards of his deck, so he gets something better than a normal draw.

If you're going to assemble a two-card combo with Maralen, it has to be good enough to completely stop the tutur/draw completely, because as Bill Copes said, the conditionality and life loss in this combo make it a bit weak to begin with in an aggro-infested metagame.

Yes but as is you are not getting ahead of your opponent when you combo.  In fact its worse for you.  Since you lose 3 life every turn and need to spend the 1 or 2 mana or more to cast your stifle, shadow, or Snapcaster.  While your opponent doesn't lose life when you stifle.  Count bobs, fetches, and forces in on your side and it may be difficult to race anything.  

With mindcensor you gain a much larger benefit as you can find anything and your opponent is limited to his top 4.  A 2/1 evasion is also great to have out when both players take a bolt to the face every turn.

You only Stifle if you haven't tutored with Maralen yet. You almost always tutor for Shadow once you have access to Maralen on your turn.

When you are using Shadow, you get to tutor for anything and your opponent doesn't even get to draw cards, let alone tutor at all.

Life loss is definitely an issue, but I've also tried the Mindcensor / Vial route and it's just too slow and not interactive enough with combo decks.

[vaughnbros]

When you are using Shadow, you get to tutor for anything and your opponent doesn't even get to draw cards, let alone tutor at all.

Neither do you though.  Unless Im completely misunderstanding something the combo plays out as follows...
1. Neither player sees new cards.  (Maralen prevents draws, and your tutor is devoted to stopping theirs every turn)
2. Both players lose 3 life every turn.

So this is a 2 card combo that creates parity, and where neither of the individual cards are all that powerful.  Shouldn't the goal be to gain an advantage?

[Bill Copes]

I don't know what it would do to the blue count (because I'm not counting), but you could perhaps you could swap delvers for Death's Shadow?  Either that or Mirror Universe

[MTGFan]

When you are using Shadow, you get to tutor for anything and your opponent doesn't even get to draw cards, let alone tutor at all.

Neither do you though.  Unless Im completely misunderstanding something the combo plays out as follows...
1. Neither player sees new cards.  (Maralen prevents draws, and your tutor is devoted to stopping theirs every turn)
2. Both players lose 3 life every turn.

So this is a 2 card combo that creates parity, and where neither of the individual cards are all that powerful.  Shouldn't the goal be to gain an advantage?

That's the point. It locks your opponent completely out of the game by nullifying draw and tutor. The only prerequisite is obviously to establish favorable board position with creatures doing more damage to him than to you. Tutoring for snapcaster to flash back Shadow helps establish board position with more attackers, as well.

Whereas in the Mindcensor case, there is card advantage parity but your opponent is still in the game because any one of those 4 cards on the top of his library can dig him out of "lock".

With Shadow/Snapcaster, etc, there is no chance whatsoever that opponent can win the game if you have a better position on the board.

[vaughnbros]

Whereas in the Mindcensor case, there is card advantage parity but your opponent is still in the game because any one of those 4 cards on the top of his library can dig him out of "lock".

Yes the combo is not a hard lock on the gamestate, but it requires only that your life total is not low.

With Shadow/Snapcaster, etc, there is no chance whatsoever that opponent can win the game if you have a better position on the board.

This isn't exactly the case.  There are two factors affecting the end result of the game after you assemble your combo:
1. Superior board/hand position.
2. Each players life total.

Both points together are a big issue.  Just stablizing isn't enough.  You need to stabilize with a decent amount of life as well.

The combination need of 1 and 2 makes cards, like Deathrite Shaman and batterskull, cause you serious problems.

You could potentially run both combos pieces in the deck... I don't think you are losing much from the maralen hardlock by cutting stifle for mindcensor and in return you are gaining a great engine that is capable of gaining board position for you.

[MTGFan]

Whereas in the Mindcensor case, there is card advantage parity but your opponent is still in the game because any one of those 4 cards on the top of his library can dig him out of "lock".

Yes the combo is not a hard lock on the gamestate, but it requires only that your life total is not low.

With Shadow/Snapcaster, etc, there is no chance whatsoever that opponent can win the game if you have a better position on the board.

This isn't exactly the case.  There are two factors affecting the end result of the game after you assemble your combo:
1. Superior board/hand position.
2. Each players life total.

Both points together are a big issue.  Just stablizing isn't enough.  You need to stabilize with a decent amount of life as well.

The combination need of 1 and 2 makes cards, like Deathrite Shaman and batterskull, cause you serious problems.

You could potentially run both combos pieces in the deck... I don't think you are losing much from the maralen hardlock by cutting stifle for mindcensor and in return you are gaining a great engine that is capable of gaining board position for you.

No doubt that this deck could benefit from Mindcensor if you chose to go that route. The reasons I didn't include Mindcensor in this version (but I did make a WB AEther Vial version more focused on Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter) are: a.) needing to splash one more color for a single card weakens the manabase without adding much and b.) a 3 mana creature is alot harder to consistently make useful than a 1 mana instant that also happens to be blue and pitch to FoW and c.) that instant happens to be immediately effective vs stuff like Forgemaster, Fetchlands, EE, Oath, and the like, and can be flashed back by Snapcaster, whereas Mindcensor has no synergy with Snapcaster at all.

[MTGFan]

Added 4 Wasteland 1 Strip package, which alongside 4 Stifle and 4 Shadow, and 2 Mindcensor, will be heavy mana denial for most decks running fetchlands.

4 Stifle, 4 Shadow, 2 Mindcensor also gives you serious protection from Forgemaster, Tinker, and any other strategy that makes heavy use of tutoring.

[MaximumCDawg]

You know, for decks that lock your opponent out of drawing cards, there's still nothing more awesome than good ol' Zur's Weirding + Convelesant Care (or any other recurring life gain).

Don't mess with Mara.
Zip to the Zur.