[Deck Idea] U/B B2B

[GlockAndRoll]

Ok, here's a budget deck i've been working on for a little while. It's basically MonoBlue splash black for bombs. Keep in mind that it's budget, thus the lack of power. I'm not completely sure if it's better or worse than the original MonoBlue, but I think it has some potential. I'll explain some of the card choices below, here's the list:

Back to Black v1.0:

MANA: (24)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
9 Islands
3 Underground Sea
2 Swamps
1 Sol Ring

Draw/Tutor/Broken: (16)
2 Ophidian
2 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Impulse
2 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind Twist
3 Cranial Extraction

Kill: (2)
2 Morhpling

Utility: (6)
3 Powder Keg
3 Back to Basics

Counters: (12)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak

Wishboard (so far):
1 Snuff Out
1 Diabolic Edict
1 BeB
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Coffin Purge
1 Fact or Fiction

Here are the explanations for some of the card choices:

Cunning Wish: The addition of black gives Monoblue lots of good wish targets in SB that it didn't have before. It pretty much gives the deck an answer to permanents that resolve besides powder keg. I don't really know how many slots in the SB should be alloted to wish targets, i have 6 so far.

Yawgmoths Will: Great Drain sink, broken card, but i'm not sure if its really worth it without power.

Cranial Extraction: Excellent card, main reason I made the deck was to try out this card in t1. Not sure if 2 or 3 is the right number. Wrecks combo game 1, and hurts alot against other decks with Bomb-ish cards. (Welder vs Drain slaver, Exalted against 4cc, Tog, Dryad and of course combo). The 3B mana cost makes it a great sink after drain, and I find this card gives the deck what it needs against combo: Try and counter early threats, to survive long enough to Cranial for a key card. Easy sailing from there on...

Morphling: Superman... Great kill condition, except vulnerable to Cranial if it ever gets popular, more on that later.

Back to Basics: The card that makes Monoblue work. Slightly weaker here because of 3x Underground Seas, but still often worth it. I don't mind shutting off 1 or 2 lands if i can ruin my opponents manabase...

Powder Keg: Very unsure about number of these to play. 3 seems to be good in testing. Originally Vedalken shackles here, but I changed because i found the shackles a bit too slow and specific against certain sort of decks. The lack of Moxen also makes this a very good card agains opposing power.

12 Counters: Just like monoblue, this is a slow deck, that lives off permission. Could maybe go down to 10-11 counters, but I like it a lot as it is.

The following are cards that could possibly be good, but I havn't yet found a place for:
Duress: Good against combo, additionnal disruption, not sure if it deserves a spot maindeck.
Razormane Masticore :Additionnal kill condition, definatly added if Cranial Ext. gets played alot, but discard at upk. sucks alot...
Skeletal Scrying: Great with Drain, as seen in 4CC, but unsure if the loss of life will be supportable because the deck is slower, and doesn't play a certain flying whore who's name starts with an E. (I play fish, I hate that card... )

I'm relatively new to Vintage (been playing 6 months), and I need some help with the list. Please no "This deck sucks, chuck it" replies, I just need constructive criticism and help with the deck. If i'm forgetting something, tell me, and comments/criticism on the deck are very wanted. Thanks in advance.
-GlockAndRoll

[dromar]

OK. Here's a few things that came to mind:

First of all, you should make decks as if you had power, even when you don't. If you're going to a tournament, there's a good chance they allow some amount of proxies, and the general rule here is to post the best possible version of a deck, so you gotta include power.

Second, wasteland + b2b I'm undecided about, so I'll leave that. Underground Sea, on the other hand, shouldn't be in there if you're running b2b.

Slightly weaker here because of 3x Underground Seas, but still often worth it. I don't mind shutting off 1 or 2 lands if i can ruin my opponents manabase...

You can still shut off your opponent's mana base without losing two lands. Use basics.

Why only two each of Phid/Infiltrator? I think Shadowmage is better than Phid when you have black in your deck. And for your win condition, have you thought of using Tog instead?

No Vampiric Tutor? No Mystical Tutor? No Counterspell?
I see how you might exclude the tutors because your version doesn't have power in it yet, but in that case, you don't really need WiN either, cuz' it doesn't WiN without ancestral/walk/other goodies. As for Counterspell, it's tough to say whether it's better than mana leak. But most likely, you're gonna have UU available on turn two. Mana Leak is popular because it's a turn one counter with land + random mox. Since you don't have moxen in this version, Counterspell is better.

whew. that's all for now.

[oyzar]

I went the other direction with this deck: white
I played it in a tourny today though i had to leave early and only got to play 3 rounds. it was sanctioned so no proxies was allowed. The decklist might be a bit subpar as i dont got all the cards yet(have not played for very long).

// Lands
    4 Wasteland
    1 Strip Mine
    2 Tundra
    1 Polluted Delta
    12 Island
    3 Plains

// Creatures
    4 Ophidian

// Spells
    2 Vedalken Shackles
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Force of Will
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Impulse
    1 Fact or Fiction
    1 Nevinyrral's Disk
    4 Counterspell
    3 Chalice of the Void
    1 Decree of Justice
    2 Back to Basics
    2 Deep Analysis
    1 Balance

I had a sb but that was soo bad that i wont even list it here.

Even though my decklist might not be the best, i still think that white is superiour to black because stp just is soo good against everything but combo and morphling. Also balance is a house and you get an uncountrable wincondition in decree. Yawgmoths will is just not very good when all that hit your graveyard is lands and counterspells. You also dont got very much good to fetch with tutors in that deck.

Anyway, in the tourny i played 3 rounds. First round i squared of against a semi-powered tog deck without mana drains. The first game i won on the back of back to basics and chalice. The second i took when he got mana flooded and i just countered everything he did.

The second match i faced of against a almost mono-black masknaught deck with a bit of blue(for power, recoil and b2b sb i think). He got out an early hypnotic specter which i was not able to counter due to duress and unmasks and it just went downhill from there. I was not able to get a white mana early enough(problem with me not having enough fetches) and just sucumbed to the beatdown after a dreadnaught joined the fray. Game 2 he drew 1 black mana source and that I wasted so my ophidians was able to go all the way. Game 3 was actually pretty close. He got a slow start. His first play was a turn 2 Negator. After taking a hit i managed to get some soldiers in the way with the help of mana from a drain on his unmask. I got down an ophidian but could do nothing but hit with a couple of soldiers as his negator was in the way. He managed to resolve a mask after some duress action and beat me to death with a naught before i could find a stp or disenchant.

In my 3rd match i met fish. He got down some quick fliers but stalled on land so he could do nothing when my disk wiped the board. I got down a ophidian and coupled with a chalice set at 1 he could do nothing but scoop as i just continued to accumulate cards. In game 2 he did almost nothing the few first turns. I managed to resolve a back to basics when he was tapped out. Unfortunatly he ripped a red elemental blast of the top and managed to destry it. Then he managed to resolve a standstill with the help of some Force and Daze. With the help of my mana screw, the manalands beat me to death. In game 3 he managed to break 2 of his own standstills. He just could not find any man lands and my soldiers beat him to death.

I think that this deck can be a viable budget deck in the right metagames. Null rod might be the way to go as it fits perfectly in with the rest of the deck's mana denial strategy. In that case the disks/kegs/shakles have to go. I would definatly up the number of Back to basics. Also the mana base can be improved ALOT. I would also add another decree. With all that maindeck hate this deck dont got as mutch problem with critters as a traditional mono blue deck. However the manabase need to be fixed if it is to play consistent.

[GlockAndRoll]

Dromar: For the power, I didn't include it in my list because I want people to help the deck how it is, not how it would be with power. And by the way, my local tournaments are unproxied . As for the wastelands, they are needed. Smemen (sp?) played them in his version, and their presence is needed. As for the undergrounds, i know they're anti-synergetic, except I need to be able to have UU for drain, and generally B for the following sink spell (demonic, cranial, twist, Will). I only play 3, and could possibly cut down to 2.  But up to now, i've rarely had any trouble with the manabase. I choose to play 2/2 Phid/Infiltrator because I prefer that configuration, Infiltrator IS more powerful, but he requires B that I don't always have, and ophidian is a better sink after drain. Finally, Vampiric is in sideboard, the only reason i don't play mystical is as you said, no recall/walk and I originally tested Counterspell instead of leak, and was pissed a couple of times at the fact that I couldn't play it with the mana available.
I'll probably cut the Yawg's Will though, because it isn't so great with no power.

Oyzar: I MUCH prefer black in this deck, because the bombs are so greater, and although balance is ridiculous, I don't see it as a reason to splash white. I'm definatly sticking with black over white, so please no more U/W lists.

Thanks for the comments, and any idea what I should replace Yawg's Win with?

[dromar]

I MUCH prefer black in this deck, because the bombs are so greater, and although balance is ridiculous, I don't see it as a reason to splash white. I'm definatly sticking with black over white, so please no more U/W lists.

In a similar deck of my own, I actually ended up playing UBW, still with b2b. White for Balance, Black for Yawg, Vamp, Demonic, Infiltrators, and Tog. And I also traded the powder kegs for Engineered Explosives. That's just a fun kind of deck I'm using though, because I'm really not very experienced in Vintage with control decks.

As for my post, I just questioned everything I wasn't sure about. I can see why Wastes are necessary to keep the person down before b2b hits. And I haven't playtested the deck, so I couldn't foresee whether you would have problems with UU or not. Also, I missed the Cunning Wish/Sideboard part completely.

my local tournaments are unproxied

that really sucks, man. All the tournaments in my area are 3 or 5 proxy.

Thanks for the comments, and any idea what I should replace Yawg's Win with?

Honestly, I would replace it with Vampiric Tutor from the board (assuming you won't have proxy power to make the WiN good), but that's my preference I guess. I like having powerful search cards main.

I suppose I might as well post MY decklist while I'm at it. Note that it's a little different style of deck though.

Basic Tog

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
9 Island
4 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire (proxy)
1 Mox Jet (proxy)
1 Mox Pearl (proxy)
1 Sol Ring

3 Psychatog
2 Shadowmage Infiltrator

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
2 Counterspell
2 Mana Leak

3 Back to Basics
2 Engineered Explosives

1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Balance
1 Mind Twist
1 Ancestral Recall (proxy)
1 Time Walk (proxy)
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm

Sideboard:
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle
1 Infiltrate
1 Gush
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Capsize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Energy Flux (heavy workshop meta)
4 Control Magic

It's in no way tested, refined, or optimized. I just thought I would throw it out there. By the way, I've never had any trouble getting any of the colors I need with the deck.

[Team-Judgement]

Everybody have their own thoughts about splashes into Mono U, but mono U is so good because it playes 4-4-4-4-4-4-4 and then a bunch of islands and blue sources, you wont have any spells you cant play because of screw, and mulligans are very rare when playing mono colored

Splashing....
Red - Reb's, RaR, Gorilla Shaman, Fire/ice
Black - Duress, Tutors, Will
White - Stp's, Balance
Green - Ehrm nvm

But still, f.x in dromas version you will get owned because you dont have the control element that Mono U has, he play 9 counters where Mono U playes 13, keeper has the same amount of brokness, and even more, and they play the same number of counters, and keeper has more post SB. Psychatog is also pretty easy to get rid of, not like morphling who will stay on the board until the opponent is dead or he's smashed by a darksteel colousos

[Mana Duane]

The problem I see with splashing black is that you never want to break your searchland for a swamp early on in a game. The result is that duress is a lot less powerful than it looks. Say you have a duress in your first hand, you probably want to play either a swamp or an underground sea and duress your opponent.  If you play a swamp then you have a land that doesn't produce blue and so it will take you until turn 3 or later to get UU up for mana drain or counterspell. If however you take the underground sea you open yourself up to wasteland and have to delay your B2B. You've lost mono Us main advantage which is that it is unaffected by wasteland and can drop B2B to lock the opponent.

PS if you keep black in the deck, you MUST play Yawg Will. It is too powerful not to include in a control deck playing black.

[Outlaw]

Heres a list some teammates and I have been working on, we based it upon almost entirely on SmennenBlue.  First off, I started playing Mono-U a year ago and then quit playing, and with its recent success I picked it back up.  The deck is great, but I believe its possible to tweak it up and still keep the mana base safe with including black. This could definitely work, it give the mono-U some more of an edge, especially in the mirror (who loves Phid vs. Phid?).  My team and I atempted to keep it Back to Basics friendly (2 swamps main , the deck isnt a black color hog).

Beginning List (please keep in mind, this is all first stage stuff)
-=Team Savage Tech Special=-

Mana: (26)
7x SoLoMox
4x Polluted Delta
1x Flooded Strand
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Library of Alexandria
5x Island
2x Swamp
1x Underground Sea

Permissions: (13)
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Leak
4x Mana Drain
1x Misdirection

Draw: (5)
4x Brainstorm
1x Ancestral Recall

Creatures: (5)
4x Shadowmage Infiltrator
1x Darksteel Colossus

IamsoBroken: (4)
1x Mind Twist
1x Time Walk
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Tinker

PleaseDontHateMe: (7)
3x Back to Basics
2x Duress
2x Powder Keg

Sideboard: (15)
4x Energy flux
4x Control Magic
4x Old Man of the Sea
3x Blue Elemental Blast

Alright so lets take a look at what black offers us
Demonic Tutor
Duress
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Mind Twist

Demonic Tutor - Definite inclusion, its just purely broken, especially with our win condition (primarly is tinker).

Duress - Saves you vs. combo, strong vs. control.  This is a card we were considering inclusion or not, in the end it seems it should be definitely included maindeck.

Shadowmage Infiltrator - Superior to Ophidian, as he still does damage and has fear.  Main reason to include black into the deck!  His downfall is he doesnt add as much to a drain target as the ol' snake.

Mind Twist - This is our most debatable inclusion, it is amazing after drain but sorcery speed makes people cry.  Seems to be working so far.

Items Were Considering
Yawgmoth's Will
Damping Matrix
Cranial Extraction
Crucible of Worlds
Fact or Fiction
Merchant Scroll
Mystical Tutor
Vampiric Tutor

Yawgmoth's Will - Should be a given because of lotus' bein in the deck, not to many bombs that can be replayed aside from a pieces of power.  Definitely looking into though.

Damping Matrix - With a high rise of 5/3 (thanks Trix) and other welder based decks, this totally runs rampart on their strategies.

Cranial Extraction - The new black card everyone is talking about, frankly I believe it is too expensive but that is just me, open to suggestions though.

Crucible of Worlds - JP Meyer wrote that the best answer to an opponents crucible, is one of your own.  Definitely drain target, allows constant fetching and wastelock.  Need opinions.

Fact or Fiction - One reason Mono-U doesnt use this is lack of brokenness, we put brokenness in perhaps it could be used to our advantage.  Good with Yawgmoth's Will also.

Merchant Scroll - Assists in the win condition, adds to counter magic and most of the rest of the deck.

Mystical Tutor - Another tutor, pitchable.

Vampiric Tutor - All around tutor, can sniff out anything.

Items of Debate!

Brainstorm vs. Impulse - We chose to include Brainstorm because of the use of Darksteel Colossus, and since were not using chalices were able to fix hands much easier.  On a negative though, brainstorm is not as drain friendly as Impulse is. If the Colossus kill gets removed surely +4 Impulse, -4 Brainstorm would also occur.

Tinker + Darksteel vs. Morphling - Its simply a faster clock, and can win you stuff you shouldn't be able to win.  Will test both though..  Morphling gives a more solid win condition, not a randomly broken one.  Arguablely is +2 Morphling, -1 Tinker -1 Darksteel Colossus.

Inclusion of Underground Sea - It allows the 5th fetch to find another black source, yet has bad synergie with all the wastes + back to basics running around.

In current testing the list has been testing well, I cannot give any intense notes i'm afraid because its redonkulously late right now.  I'm asking of any suggestions, would like to keep it two color so were not overstressing the basic tech.

Current Suggestions (via PurpleHatage)
-2 Duress
+1 Fact or fiction
+1 Merchant Scroll

[sa17dk]

What advantage does this deck have over a theoretical U/B Tog deck? The 3c Tog decks already utililize B2B very well, as well as having a superior draw engine compared to this deck. Not to mention, the Tog is a 1-turn kill.

[Outlaw]

I believe the deck is superior to 2c Tog because of a few reasons.

The kill condition I am using is a 2 turn clock that is ridiculously hard to remove from play (aside from welder + stp)

Higher Counter magic (13 to the 9 I had seen), with togs increased draw engine you definitely lower the amount of permissions allowed.

If you could provide me with the theoretical list you were speaking of I could debate more upon it.

Definite current updates were looking at for my U/B is -2 Duress, +1 Fact or Fiction +1 Merchant Scroll.

[JDawg13]

@Outlaw: It seems to me that Morphling would be a superior kill condition in this deck as it is just as difficult to get rid of as Colossus.  Also, if you run the Morphling, you can go back to running Impulse instead of the inferior (in this deck anyway) Brainstorm, as you mentioned this as the justification for the switch.

[Mind_under_Matter]

No matter how much I want to do it I still can't justify splashing for Cranial Extraction, especially when you can't reliably cast it on turns one and two. If I splash black I'm going to cut the B2B, put Chalices back in, and use Duress. There are far too many combo matches where having a way to deal with something in their hand early is much more important than the raw power of Extraction.

[sa17dk]

Just off the top of my head

I wont post the mana base since you could keep it reliably the same

(25 Mana)

3 Duress
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

(That means if you add 1 more Duress, Tog also has 12 Counters)

4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Intuition
2 Deep Analysis

3 Psychatog (Also a 2 turn clock with minimal protection. Drop it. Next turn kill.)

3 Cunning Wish
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Back to Basics

[Covetous]

If you want to run B2B and duals, consider such cards as Daze and Gush.  If they are mana-light due to B2B, then Daze is that much better.  Duress is a huge bomb against all non-aggro decks.  If you expect lots of aggro, why are you playing a deck with B2B anyway?  Strip effects can suck with B2B, but they can also be really good by keeping your opponent from building up the mana they need to cast that one spell to save them.  Tog is often considered the best creature in the game, but the current metagame (with slavers galore) reduces his effectiveness.  On the issue of Shadowmage--he is better than Phid once he is in play but the Snake is easier to cast off mox-mox-land and reduces your need for multiple colors of mana.  Plus, draining into Phid rules and draining into Mage is lackluster.  

UB control seems like a good idea but again--why is it better than mono-U?  Just think about what makes Mono-U any good at all and what weaknesses it has.  Does this deck have fewer weaknesses than Mono-U?
Mono-U's strengths include a bomb-proof manabase, huge counterbase, and massive redundancy.  Its weaknesses include limited answers to most problems, slow win condition and inability to deal with speedy decks.  Does this hypothetical deck have a better manabase?  No.  Does it have a faster win condition?  No, unless you play Mr. Teeth.  Can this deck deal with speedy decks?  Yes, in the case of combo (if you run duress) but no in the case of Aggro because you still use PKeg as your removal.  

White has much better answers to aggro (balance, stp) and potentially better win conditions (Angel and DoJ) while having access to removal for all types of non-land permanents (disenchant, serenity, dust to dust).  I seem to recall seeing a UW hate deck getting T8 somewhere sometime a little while back (pretty specific huh?), but that deck was poorly built (according to its designer).  If you tweaked it, you might come up with something good.  I'm not sure Phid would be your draw engine of choice, but you would have access to a wide array of bombs, from angel and doj to damping matrix and moat.

[Duffy]

But up to now, i've rarely had any trouble with the manabase.
I choose to play 2/2 Phid/Infiltrator because I prefer that configuration, Infiltrator IS more powerful, but he requires B that I don't always have, and ophidian is a better sink after drain.

You seem to contradict yourselve here

I see that all pro's and con's have been mentioned already, but in my humble opinion I would definitely try and make a decision on this matter, either to play Phid or Shadowmage.
If you don't always have the extra B for the Shadowmage, why risk it? Either tweak your manabase so that the Shadowmage hits the table as regular as Phid, or play 4 Phids.
I mean, I wouldn't want to run the risk making it to a final of a tournament and then being stuck on having no available black sources.

just my 0.02

[GlockAndRoll]

Ok, i'm considering your comments and currently building up and testing a new version, but as a general question, do you think this deck could compete in a semi-powered no proxy metagame? My local tournaments are unfortunatly unproxied, and around 50% of the field is at least semi-powered. It's a varying metagme, but mostly control and aggro. For example, here are the last 3 top 8s (monthly tournaments):

1) Dragon (semi-powered)
2) FCG (budget)
3) Salvagers combo-control (powered)
4) Stax (powered)
5) 4CC (powered)
6) TnT (powered)
7) Sligh (budget)
8) FCG (budget

1) Landstill (powered)
2) Dragon (powered)
3) Salvagers combo-control (powered)
4) Tog (semi-powered)
5) White Weenie (powered, and yes... white weenie)
6) RG Beatz (semi-powered)
7) FCG (budget)
8) WTF/r (budget)

1) Salvagers combo-control (powered)
2) O-Stompy w/MaskNought (powered)
3) 4CC (powered)
4) 4CC (powered)
5) Oshawa Stompy (powered)
6) FCG (powered)
7) U/R Fish (Me , budget)
8) URb Phid (semi-powered)

The field as you see, seems mostly powered, because generally the powered people make t8 alot more. I would just like to know if MonoBlue or the UB list I posted above could compete in a meta like this (keep in mind- no power). And if not, what would be your suggestion for a deck for this kind of meta? Thanks alot
-GaR