Can forbidian work w/out power

[Milamber]

Well, the title pretty much states what i want your opinion on.  can i build forbidian (either mono u or U/r) without the power and mana drains, or should i stick to oath and parfait for control?

the meta-game in question is underpowered.  only a few people have more than the odd mox or something.  as far as i know, at most 2 people have a full set.  since i will not have to generally compete with 1st and 2nd turn brokenness, will the deck be fast enough to be competitive?

thanks for your opinion.

[pernicious dude]

I wouldn't call it Forbiddian, on account of I don't run Forbid,
but I have an unpowered U/R phid deck that can hold it's own.
It's the set of 4 Drains that make it go.
You need that mana acceleration to come from somewhere.

[Sergio]

Post the decklist.

[BillTheDuck]

I would have to say you cannot run a competetive Forbidian deck without power. You can however run a blue based deck with Ophidian that splashes a color to regain the lost speed from lack of power. For example with a red splash you can add cards like Fire/Ice (or other forms of burn) in addition to poweder keg to give you more time against aggro to set up control and cards like Gorilla Shaman/Dwarven Miner to even the score against other control players.

In any case I would consider it a bad idea to actually run forbid, 1) because I hate the card 2) because I find setting up an actual semi-lock isn't as efficient as controlling the game the old fasioned way (counters in hand to back up threats on table).

[pernicious dude]

I built this when our metagame got too black.
As with most of my decks, it's got no restricted cards,
since I play far more 1.5 than 1,
and since I don't own any power.
It's also way more red than most U/R decks.
Consider that maindeck hate for my metagame,
sort of like Back To Basics at Neutral Ground.

Aggro Culture

real estate
10 Island
9 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

drawing is good
2 Scrying Glass
4 Ophidian

aggro culture
3 Masticore
1 Shard Phoenix
4 Seal Of Fire
4 Fire/Ice
4 Incinerate

I vote no
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
2 Misdirection

amusing drain sinks
2 Urza's Rage
2 Capsize
1 Prophetic Bolt

side
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Control Magic
3 Dwarven Miner

This deck has a whole lot of
"What's your life total again? Oops, I win."

[Rakso]

Pretty well, but... why are you maindecking Scrying Glass and Urza's Rage?\n\n

[pernicious dude]

I like to know what's in their hand,
and I like to draw cards,
and I like to drop them from 9 to -1 when the game's stalled out.

Oh, you mean as opposed to some other cards?

The Glass is a back-up plan if I can't keep a Phid down,
and it's Telepathy effect doesn't suck.

I put the Rages in just cause we owned them
when I was looking for fun things to do with Drain mana,
and they've been good. Rage ends control stalls,
and serves 3 to anything earlier against an aggro opponent.
Stall, stall, stall, stall, EOT kicked Rage, untap, kicked Rage works OK.
I like where it says "can't be countered".
I don't think it's ever been a dead card for me.

I'd like to fit Kegs, & I should probably look at restricted mana artifacts,
but I don't want to make Null Rod even better against me.

I'm certainly open to suggestions about any of it.
It's a pretty new deck, lot's of room to improve.

[BillTheDuck]

I would say that our metagame is at a point were its starting to become more competetive. That means almost every single deck runs enough non-basics to make wastelands a viable maindeck choice. I run 4 strips in my keeper and they haven't seemed to be dead too often. If you do try that, then you would have to cut some other lands and we wouldn't want you loosing blue sources for your UU counterspells so I would replace some of the other lands with Shivan Reef, giving a mana base like:
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Volcanic Island
4 Shivan Reef
6 Island
5 Mountain
Giving 13 red sources and 14 blue sources.

[Rakso]

Quote (pernicious dude @ July 11 2002,10:37)I put the Rages in just cause we owned them
when I was looking for fun things to do with Drain mana

Can't argue with that...

[pernicious dude]

Nonbasics have finally shown up in most decks here, as well.
However, that means B2B, Blood Moon, Miners & Wastes are everywhere.
Wouldn't the Wastes & Reefs open me up to that same hate?
I haven't got much to fear from Wastelands at the moment.

The sideboarded Miners are counterable and slow,
but if they don't get answered in a couple of turns,
they can win the game all by themselves.

I had 2 Miners out against a Keeper last week.
They ate his entire lunch.

[Milamber]

Here's the deck i'm thinking of running.  (i haven't tested it or anything; i wanted to see if people around here thought it would be worth taking the time to tinker with a powered one.)

Counters
        4 Mana Leak
        4 Force of Will
        3 Counterspell
        1 Mana Drain
        2 Misdirection
Creatures
        4 Ophidian
        2 Morphling
Card Draw
        1 Stroke of Genius
        1 Fact or Fiction
        3 Impulse
Other
        4 Powder Keg
        4 Fire/Ice
Mana
        14 Island
        4 Shivan Reef
        4 Volcanic Island
        3 Wasteland
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Sol Ring

i may add shamans later, but atm it isn't worth it.  would mono-u be better?  should i bother at all?

thanks.

[BillTheDuck]

Oh, I know, that was my keeper .
It was piloted by someone who didn't know what they were doing though.
First off, I don't notice too many decks running B2B running around besides the lone Oath which sideboard REBs + counters should be fine to get rid of(I don't think he even runs any main). Second, I would even consider running Blood Moon in your deck (sideboard of course). It turns your nonbasics into mountains (which you can use) and leaves you with less blue mana than wanted, but its enough to screw over a lot of decks, and if played smart, shouldn't end up hurting you that much. Also in the same match you sideboard moons in, you would sb REBs (probably) for counterspell, lowering the amount of blue mana you would need. If you ran blood moons sb than the mana base should run maybe -2 Reef +2 Island or something. In any case, them playing blood moon shouldn't be a big fear. You playing wastelands yourself allows you to cut off splash colors, hit pesky factories, or just plain mana screw people. I find them to be far worth it, but thats just my opinion.

By adding reefs you do open a weakness to enemy wastelands, but you yourself gain the ability to run them at the same time. And from what I've noticed, the only people who run wastelands are the ones who have plenty of wasteland targets themselves, so you can almost think of it as even. Anyone who gains advantage from you running more non-basics disadvantages from you running wastelands.

This is all based on my observations and I could be completely wrong.

Also, I wasn't suggesting you replace miners with wastelands. I would say they work well together. Knock out his 2nd blue source before you play the miner to either force them to FoW (rack up some card advantage) it or kill some lands (more card advantage).

[Milamber]

so the deck is at least viable without power.

i think i will try out dropping 2 reefs for 2 islands.

how does this look for the sideboard:

4 REB
3 Blood Moon
4 BEB
2 Hibernation
2 MisD

thanks

[pernicious dude]

That looks like a solid start.
You can upgrade it as you acquire cards.

Might want to toy with Standstill,
as long as you're running the 4 strips
so their Mishra's Factories can't highjack it.
It's better if you run Mishra's of your own, though.