[Deck] Edit: Mono Blue w/ varied CC for Shoals

[Onslaught]

First, the list (basically a modified version of a standard mono-blue build)

Mana:
5 Moxes
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
6 Fetch
8 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Permission:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
1 Misdirection (Would be a Stifle if Chalice wasn't main deck)

Draw:
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Ophidian

The Rest:
2 Morphling
3 Back to Basics
4 Chalice of the Void

Sideboard:
4 Energy Flux
3 Hydroblast
2 Powder Keg
3 Control Magic
3 ???

I'd like something to answer Oath. I've seen Capsize mentioned, but I suppose thats more of a wish target. Can Oath do anything if you resolve an early Waterfront Bouncer? Seems kinda scrubby but I can't come up with anything else.

I've seen lots of discussion over whether Fact or Fiction belongs or not, but with a lower Counterspell count and 4 AK's I think its definietely worth its slot.

There was some discussion about adapting Mono Blue for a post Gen-Con metagame, but that thread sort of died and was in the hardcore forum anyway. I think this is a very solid deck when you know you'll be playing against non-random beats and can be tuned to beat the current best decks.

[Tash]

Can Oath do anything if you resolve an early Waterfront Bouncer? Seems kinda scrubby but I can't come up with anything else.

No.

I've playtested U/g Madness Vs. Oath, and when I resolve a Turn 2 Waterfront Bouncer, the oath player almost cries. At that point you just beat them silly with the spirit tokens they gave you.

Of course Gilded Drake is ok, of course they have a turn with that spiffy SotN or Akroma with which to beat your ass down.

[thecapn]

You can't take out Impulse for Accumulated Knowledge.  Smmenen didn't run Brainstorm at Gencon because there are times when you have nothing in your hand and you need an answer - here you Impulse for the counterspell or whatever and put the rest on the bottom, not Brainstorm and put chaff back.  Ophidian is your card drawer, Impulse is your tutor - they're the best at what they do, and I don't feel like there's room for anything else.

[Onslaught]

Tash: Then for now those 3 ??? Slots in SB are considered Waterfront Bouncers.

thecapn: I have tested all three: Brainstorm, Impulse, and AK. Brainstorm isn't optimal for the reasons you mentioned and the fact that powering out a Chalice for 1 is one of the strengths of the deck. Impulse gives you card quality while AK gives you card quantity and allows you to run Fact or Fiction.  

While I am not doubting the importance of getting an Ophidian online as early as possible, there are also scenarios where you'd rather drop a Chalice or B2B. AK in these situations doesn't give you the same filtering as Impulse but becomes even stronger when you play an Ophidian later on in the game.

[thecapn]

While I am not doubting the importance of getting an Ophidian online as early as possible, there are also scenarios where you'd rather drop a Chalice or B2B. AK in these situations doesn't give you the same filtering as Impulse but becomes even stronger when you play an Ophidian later on in the game.

Impulse is way better than AK for 1 or 2, and it's much more likely to get you to the late game that you alluded to.  Besides, if you have an active Ophidian and are drawing into more AK's you were probably going to win anyways.

[Dante]

Of course Gilded Drake is ok, of course they have a turn with that spiffy SotN or Akroma with which to beat your ass down.

Gilded Drake really depends on which one they Oath out first.

If they Oath out Akroma and you Drake Akroma, you win b/c it can outrace/block&kill SotN or Drake.

If they Oath out Sotn and you Drake that, next turn they Oath out Akroma and you lose (unless you have 2 Drakes).

[Mixing Mike]

I totally agree with the above post by thcapn.

Also, those last three slots could be Propoganda.  I'd aslo look into AEther Spellbombs/Echoing Truth against Oath.  Keg is also very good, almost necessary in the maindeck.

[Tash]

Of course Gilded Drake is ok, of course they have a turn with that spiffy SotN or Akroma with which to beat your ass down.

Gilded Drake really depends on which one they Oath out first.

If they Oath out Akroma and you Drake Akroma, you win b/c it can outrace/block&kill SotN or Drake.

If they Oath out Sotn and you Drake that, next turn they Oath out Akroma and you lose (unless you have 2 Drakes).

Yes, you're right, but do you really want a Sideboard card that in the end the effectiveness of it depends on which creature comes out first? Seems a bit random to me, while with the bouncer you can just get the threat off the table.

[E Face]

Can Oath do anything if you resolve an early Waterfront Bouncer? Seems kinda scrubby but I can't come up with anything else.

No.

this is not entirely true anymore, because a lot of the oath players have taken accustom into running pristine angel and iridiscent angel in their SB's, because even though they are slower, they get around cards like waterfront, gilded drake, echoing truth, etc. also, experienced oath players rarely give you too many spirit tokens to race them with.

[Disburden]

First off, I would agree about brainstorm being subpar in Mono-U with Ophidian and Impulse in the MD. The snake really does the job well enough on it's own and since this is blue afterall impulse works as a fine tutor.  AK is a great card, but it doesnt seem quite as mandatory as you think.
   I've been playing U since the mid 90's and it is usually my main deck of choice, although I do build all the top decks I see on top 8's for testing.  With all the other types of decks flying around now (3sphere, combo and aggro) I'm surpised no one has tried to bring drain control back into the mainstream. Slaver is ofcourse the exception.

Im surpised that no one has mentioned this new card:

Disrupting Shoal
Instant- Arcane
You may remove a blue card in your hand with converted mana cost X from the game rather than pay Disrupting Shoal's mana cost.
Counter target spell if it's converted mana cost is X.

I'm sure someone that posted in this thread has heard of this bad boy. I agree with the small few that believe this card would be insanely powerful in mono U and Tog. Ive already put a set into my blue deck and it is quite a good add in. I would try it out for yourself, and not in 1 or 2's but in 3-4 copies. I've had very few problems with this card being "Too situational" as some people have been saying on TMD.

Question: Have you found Misdirection to be useless alot of times? I've made the decision to exclude it from my build after it sitting in my hand and being used as a FOW spell rather than a Misdirection.


One more thing, you need some SB slots filled, perhaps some Arcane Labratory would help? It is good against storm decks, But you do run Stifle. Just a suggestion.

[Dante]

Of course Gilded Drake is ok, of course they have a turn with that spiffy SotN or Akroma with which to beat your ass down.

Gilded Drake really depends on which one they Oath out first.

If they Oath out Akroma and you Drake Akroma, you win b/c it can outrace/block&kill SotN or Drake.

If they Oath out Sotn and you Drake that, next turn they Oath out Akroma and you lose (unless you have 2 Drakes).

Yes, you're right, but do you really want a Sideboard card that in the end the effectiveness of it depends on which creature comes out first? Seems a bit random to me, while with the bouncer you can just get the threat off the table.

That was exactly my point - don't use Gilded Drake.  

[verduran]

Question: Have you found Misdirection to be useless alot of times? I've made the decision to exclude it from my build after it sitting in my hand and being used as a FOW spell rather than a Misdirection.

Yeah, having two more FoW is very bad.  

Any way, which cards  do you usually discard to DS, and what do you usually counter with it?

[Disburden]

Question: Have you found Misdirection to be useless alot of times? I've made the decision to exclude it from my build after it sitting in my hand and being used as a FOW spell rather than a Misdirection.

Yeah, having two more FoW is very bad.  

Any way, which cards  do you usually discard to DS, and what do you usually counter with it?

I'm not saying that Misdirection is a bad card, but I mean it ends up being tossed out of the game to use FOW most of the time rather than being able to use it itself (I'm not sure if that was what you were referring to, or if you were referring to the comment of how the shoal is good but some people rather disbelieve it). To me misdirection is more of a SB card now then a MB card for U control decks.

Anyway for your question this is the basic costs of the cards in my mono Blue deck with shoals:

5 1cc cards (chalice takes card of this lack of 1cc's).
16  2cc cards
15  3cc's
And so on. I wont keep going on since this card really wasn't made to be used for high casting counters.

   The shoal is basically used for a early-mid game counter, letting you save the FOW until later when you can actually hardcast if needed. Ofcourse you will always have U cards with Ophidian in play, but you may not when you need them most. With Vintage running so many low costing cards (0,1,2,3s) Mono Blue actually has enough goods to toss away for these Shoals. I currently run three of them, but I may change that number at a later date. There HAVE been a few occasions when I need to counter, lets say from an actual game a Tinker but have no 3cc in hand, well you can actually luck out and have FOW and shoals in the same hand alot of the time which means you dont have a 3CC to toss out, then just toss the Shoal out and FOW instead. Echoing truth helped out alot also when this happened to me. This card (Shoals) lets you have a double solution without having to pay squat.

I play tested this card for four hours the other night instead of going to sleep against some decks I've made of top 8's. Cards I've countered? Well I dont see the importance of this question since I've already proven the right U build will have more than enough spells to chuck away, but if you insist here are some I can remember:

Tinker
Brainstorm
Welder
3sphere
Y. Will
Doomsday
academy rector

I can go on forever, but I'd rather not list cards for an hour. BTW this card helps alot in a Mono U mirror without MD Shoals.

[adamdod]

I played a similar deck this past weekend at Waterbury to 24ish place..

maindeck AK's would have been horrible as every other deck with a blue base is running the intuition/Ak engine and you don't need to compete with that..

i was running 3 md chalice and 3 md annuls that worked wonderfully... I didnt face a deck all day that either of them were bad for.. and im glad i ran the annuls in place of leaks

i was running 1 md misdirection and used it 3/4 times mainly on either ancestrals or in counter wars to redirect counters on the stack.. its earned its keep.

i ran tinker/DSCollossus and only 1 morphling.. which worked fine for me all day.  bk of the main deck DSC i ran 3 impulse/1ThirstFK..

the only bad matchup i had all day really was oath.. mainly because id not played against it much and wasnt sure what to put in the board against it.. (i had 1 md bounce spell, and 3 s/b).. in hindsight i should've run waterfront bouncer or something..  i also s/b out the ophidians so if i was ever given the chance to oath, id oath into my morphling/DSC..

im sure the shoal will find it's way into this deck after this weekend..

im gonna try and post a tournie report tonight.. but see Razvan's waterbury report as I was his first round opp.

[Disburden]

I've also started to use Annul in the MD to wonderful results.

some secret tech  :lol:

[Tash]

That was exactly my point - don't use Gilded Drake.  

Ah... Well then we see eye level on this one, even though I really do think that Waterfront Bouncer is good against oath, but then again that is my opinion.

[Lou]

I don't think that Waterfront Bouncer is as good as is being mentioned against Oath, with Pernicious Deed being not only maindecked now but in the board as well in Oath builds that I have played against recently.  The addition of black for Deed and Duress in some Oath builds makes this match a lot tougher I think.

[Smmenen]

Although I'm fairly convinced that Mono Blue can  be built to defeat most metagames that aren't ready for it, I'm not quite sure how to design it properly for this field.  

The first problem is the existence of Oath of Druids.  This has been somewhat ameliorated in recent weeks and Back to Basics has become more potent given the fact that many Oath players are using three colors.  

The second problem is Goblin Welder.  Welder has always been a nuisance for mono blue since the first Stacker list, and it is no less so today.  Powder Keg is sometimes ineffectual, and I'm afraid that engineered Explosives is not much better.  Any mono blue list has to be designed around the strength of Back to Basics in the current metagame.

The final problem for mono blue is the brokeness in opposing decks.  If Control Slaver resolves Tinker you are basically done for even if you can keep welders from being useful or active.  

Annul may be very potent - but it can also be very frustrating.  Annul can't stop a draw spell or a Welder.  It  helps deal with some of these problems, but not all.  Shoals is almost certainly an autoinclusion and will probably help this deck out in those problem areas.   But I'm not sure what can be done as of this moment.  If forced to run Mono blue with what we have, I would probably go with either the Chalice or Annul plan.  Energy Flux, BEBs, and Control Magics are probably SB necessaries.

[maxxx]

I dont understand why you play AK in a deck where you dont play intuition!

I think InTuiTion could be a good add-in in the deck. It would helps the draw engine, could tutor answer at instant speed ( FOW, Drain, morphling...wathever U want...). It would be also a good way to spend mana from drains.

Another thing I would add is thinker. tinker+ colossus. ( no need to explain here.

crucible of world could be a great thing to add ( to protect, stabilizeyour mana base, and destroy oponent manabase).

my 2cents

[Disburden]

crucible of world could be a great thing to add ( to protect, stabilizeyour mana base, and destroy oponent manabase).

my 2cents

 To me, adding another artifact in a deck relies on U cards to cast fow and possible Shoals would be shaky. Theres already four maindeck chalices, and counting all moxen,lotus and SB with possible explosives or power keg there just isnt room to jam in another one without cutting U cards out.

It would be a cool addition, yes, but I think my point is one of the biggest reasons we haven't seen that yet.

[adamdod]

3xchalice, 2x powder keg worked wonders for me against the two slaver variants i played at waterbury..  and then post board i was running blasts (and would even be tempted to run hydroblasts)..

i tried out stupefying touch as a anti-welder tech.. but blasts seemed to work better.  another card i looked at was the blue magus from Ice age.. but havent gotten to test it yet.

im half tempted to run an aether spell bomb or two main deck as they can cycle.. and maybe plat angel as the 3rd creature.. as i can drain into her, or tinker her out.. (and the spellbombs act as another tinker target..

i cut control magics out of the side for 3 arcane labs

my two match losses were to Oath and IRM (mono red workshop).. both of which were more to my inexperience with the matchup than the deck itself...   i beat TPS (arcane lab), slaver (BEB), FCG (BEB) and a few other randoms (u/w, some ravager variant).. and drew with landstill (only because of a play error on my part..and again inexperience with the matchup)

[Onslaught]

Oath is just a terrible matchup any way you slice it and devoting too much tech to it ruins the purpose of the deck.

As Smmenen said, it sucks to try to keep up with the broken things the other player is doing. You are countering spells and digging through your deck a little while they are powering out Slavers, resolving an Oath, etc. Disrupting Shoals, as everyone has mentioned, should go a long way to assisting these matchups since Mono U has a nice variation of 2/3 CC spells.  

3 Shoals maindeck seems nice, but what to cut? It seems like Misdirection will be the odd man out, but the x1 inclusion has proven amazing so many times.

[Disburden]

3 Shoals maindeck seems nice, but what to cut? It seems like Misdirection will be the odd man out, but the x1 inclusion has proven amazing so many times.

I use Three Shoals in my mono U deck.  Yes I no longer run the Misdirection. This card is useful "at times" and to me those times are far and few apart. Misdirection was a powerhouse back in the day, but as a mentioned earlier in this thread, its just useless most of the time I draw it now (If I do draw it anyway). To me it made alot more sense to cut this card and use three shoals, since three shoals is more useful than one lone misdirection. I apologize to all you that think Misdirection is awesome, I'm not saying it isn't; but it certainly has run it's main curse in the past and now is "overripe" to the rotten extent. I pushed mine into the SB.

[Onslaught]

I use Three Shoals in my mono U deck. Yes I no longer run the Misdirection. This card is useful "at times" and to me those times are far and few apart. Misdirection was a powerhouse back in the day, but as a mentioned earlier in this thread, its just useless most of the time I draw it now (If I do draw it anyway). To me it made alot more sense to cut this card and use three shoals, since three shoals is more useful than one lone misdirection. I apologize to all you that think Misdirection is awesome, I'm not saying it isn't; but it certainly has run it's main curse in the past and now is "overripe" to the rotten extent. I pushed mine into the SB.

Are you runnning Chalice in your build with three Shoals? I'm having trouble fitting the Shoals, even with cutting the MisD. The casting cost distribution seems spot on for Shoals, and tossing away excess B2Bs or late game Mana Leaks seems very appealing.

I really think Accumulated Knowledge deserves more credit than this thread is giving it (especially considering it makes Fact or Fiction worth running), but ultimately the first Impulse is so much better than the first AK that not even the strength of the second or possible third AK's is worth it. So with that change, -1 MisD and -1 FoF make room for 2 Shoals.

I'm still at a loss for what to cut for the third Shoals, but three does seem like the magic number. I suppose I'm looking in direction of the more experienced mono-blue players (cough Smmenen).

Oath remains a bad matchup, but Shoals at least helps as a free counter for the initial casting of Oath. However it might be harder to win the counter war without the Misdirection, so who knows. The bottom line is Shoals has plenty of ammo at 2 and 3 and no other deck can take advantage of it like Mono U.

[Onslaught]

Not trying to necromancy the thread, just thought I'd show how Shoals can fit with a nice distribution of 1-3 CC stuff.

Chalice had to go, it was starting to become iffy in the first place (it was often much better to have 1U open to Leak with than blindly throw down a chalice for one), and in a deck with Shoals in mind it doesn't cut the mustard.

As mentioned above, having 1U open first turn for that Leak is so vital to the deck that I wanted another Leak effect for the extra consistency. It came down to Prohibit and Miscalculation. Either way is fine, I chose Prohibit for the ability to hit topdecked stuff later in the game.

Impulse/AK turned into Brainstorm to spread the casting costs around. Also, I managed to keep the Misdirection along with 3 Shoals and a Stifle. The Stifle is never dead in a deck with 7 pitch counters, and it can be very strong when you're going a denial route to stop a Fetchland/Strip.

I understand that many people don't feel FoF is right in this deck, but just on sheer card advantage alone its needed here to help the loss in hand from the Disrupting Shoal.

//1 CC (6)
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Stifle

//2 CC (10)
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
1 Prohibit
1 Time Walk

//3 CC (7)
4 Ophidian
3 Back to Basics

//The Rest
4 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
1 Misdirection
1 Fact or Fiction

2 Morphling

//Mana
7 Sol Ring, Moxes, Lotus
8 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
5 Fetch

Sideboard:
2 Powder Keg
4 Energy Flux
3 BEB
3 Control Magic
3 Anti-Oath (currently Waterfront Bouncer, poor in light of Pristine)

Against anything with Welder I still find the Shoals coming out if I am on the play in game 2 since you are going for the Energy Flux route. For the most part, Shoal has proven extremely valuable even in the late game, where you are tossing away an inept Mana Leak or an extra Back to Basics.

I don't miss Chalice that much at all, and at times Brainstorm feels so much stronger than Impulse. The biggest problem I'm running into is still Oath, as theres not much you can do besides keeping an Oath from Resolving.

[thecapn]

Against anything with Welder I still find the Shoals coming out if I am on the play in game 2 since you are going for the Energy Flux route. For the most part, Shoal has proven extremely valuable even in the late game, where you are tossing away an inept Mana Leak or an extra Back to Basics.

Energy Flux is terrible against Control Slaver.  I just wanted to make sure you weren't siding it in against them, since it is currently the most popular Welder deck.  I often see people do this - please don't be one of them.

[That0neguy]

Id say the shoal really depends on your meta since for since if you have alot of oath you probably want more 2 CC spells and for workshop you want a lot of 3 cc spells.  

1 Prohibit

haha smmenen will love you.

But seriosly its probably not that bad right now since you need to counter welders and oaths a lot recently.

[Sytupal]

Prohibit is a solid solid solid, oh yeah, SOLID card in type 1.  Even as a wish target for decks maindecking cunning wish.


Besides hitting oath and Goblin Welder, it also efficiently slows tps down as well where mana leak may not be as effective.

[Jacob Orlove]

Disrupting Shoal has a CMC of 2 when it is not on the stack.

[Dozer]

Any mono blue list has to be designed around the strength of Back to Basics in the current metagame.

It will be interesting to watch if Mono-Blue can actually work in an environment that seems to be intent on avoiding too much damage from Crucible/Wasteland. Back to Basics gets significantly weakened when the decks you face take all the trouble to avoid Crucible. For example, at my last tournament I had an Oath player siding in BtB against my U/B control deck. Now Oath is not exactly Mono-U, but with 5 basic Islands and a basic Swamp, BtB did not bother me one bit. I realize that is a very high amount of basics. But however little basic lands current decks have, most of them come prepared. Also, everyone runs enchantment removal now, so BtB does not have an advantage over, say, Crucible any more.
BtB is really only necessary for Workshops and Bazaars, but there the full complement of Strips might be sufficient if backed up by stronger defensive measures (and maybe Crucible, which is otoh even more vulnerable). Here, I see a lot of room for Shoals.
On the other hand, given that Shoals add defense, Chalice might be the better card to ditch, as Onslaught proposes. This is a question of the metagame. Chalice is difficult to play blindly, but stops a lot of brokenness (see below).

The final problem for mono blue is the brokeness in opposing decks. [snip] Shoals is almost certainly an autoinclusion and will probably help this deck out in those problem areas. But I'm not sure what can be done as of this moment.

Does BtB really stop the brokenness? I'd rather have a Shoal than a BtB when faced with Brokenness in the first few turns. Back to Basics is an excellent card, but I am not sure if it is still a MD option. Even versus Oath, it does not exactly matter if they can tap each Orchard only once - you need to stop Oath. Shoals help there, and Chalice is still there to stop some brokenness.

Also, I'd like to point out that even if you cannot Shoal on the first turn, it can still be played with mana. Many posters have emphasized the density of low casting coasts in Vintage. This means a hard-cast Shoal will usually not be more expensive than a hard-cast Force of Will.

In short, while the inclusion of Shoals to Mono-U makes a lot of sense, the slots for it are open for debate - for me, it comes down to Chalice vs. BtB. Anything else will be needed for Mono-U's game.

Dozer