Mage-Core

[Odern420]

 Just a deck i have been tinkering with. I like the idea of basic control and feel that this is a solid deck that covers most the bases. I'm not sure i like the black in here but, the Shadowmages are great. I feel that the sideboard is the weakest link in this list..... I have tried to make room for Chalice and maybe something a little out landish such as Phyrexian Proccessor.... granted it is a little unorthidox in a blue deck, I feel that it could be a sleeper in a deck like this. However, the lose of life is a factor to consider and in order to compinsate, you would have to make more room in the sideboard for a card like Spirit Link.

Now, many of you probably are asking, "Why doesnt he just cut it to a 2 color deck and play Morphlings?" and the answer is simple. Variety is the spice of life my friends. Its fun to know that you virtually have an answer to any problem that may arise. And besides, I really like Masticore better than Morphling, the Core works wonderfully with the Shadowmage to make sure you always have cards in your hand to ditch and he is just a pimp  ...... but anyways..... Any ideas on the side board would be great, but I'm not picky, I'll take all the help I can get!



 4x Meddling Mage
 4x Shadowmage Inf.
 3x Masticore
 2x Voidmage Prodigy

 4x Force of Will
 4x Mana Leak
 4x Counterspell
 2x Mana Drain

 1x Ancestral Recall
 1x Timewalk
 4x Brainstorm

 2x Disenchant
 3x Duress
 
 1x Mox Sapphire
 1x Mox Jet
 1x Mox Pearl
 1x Black Lotus
 
 4x Tundra
 4x Underground Sea
 3x Flooded Strand
 3x Poluted Delta
 3x Island
 
Side Board:

4x Swords to plowshares
2x Disenchant
4x Diabolic Edict
1x Duress
3x Stifle
 

[Roxas]

An idea, tip, and hint all in one: read these, and hopefully you will have a chance to edit your post before the topic is closed.

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=18027.0

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=15089.0

[islanderboi10]

Welcome to The Mana Drain!

[the boogie man]

I doubt you really need the drains, as you have nothing but the cores to drain into, and you don't even run yawgmoth's will. you could run a couple of merchant scrolls, as they tutor up ancestral early game, pitch counters for a bobm you need to protect, or whatever. I love them. but you probably don't run enough instants. and I'd run probably 2-ish swords main, just in case.

[Luiggi]

The deck looks like a quasi-EBA, but suffers from the same problems that EBA does:

- no real draw-engine, making Mana Drain many times go to waste. You have Infiltrators, but their cost is really annoying, especially with Meddling Mages in the deck, too.

- extreme vulnerability to Wasteland, especially if you want to cast a Mana Drain some someone Wastes your Tundra/USea. You need to run all those non-basics to support the radically different casting costs for everything, which means that you can't really depend on lots of basics, as other decks can.

- lack of a good clock. Some versions run Exalted Angel or Phyrexian Negator, but the closest you have is Masticore, which costs you a card a turn. Unless you have an Infiltrator going that upkeep will really mess you up.

I tried to get EBA to work, but couldn't surpass these hurdles. That being said, good luck with the deck, and may you have more success with it than I did.

Luiggi

[eddavatar]

Finkel is a cute card, but counting on it as a draw engine is just a stretch.

[Revvik]

Finkel is a cute card, but counting on it as a draw engine is just a stretch.

The same might once have been said of Ophidian, and now its legacy lives on in Standard decks running Thieving Magpie.

[eddavatar]

Finkel is a cute card, but counting on it as a draw engine is just a stretch.

The same might once have been said of Ophidian, and now its legacy lives on in Standard decks running Thieving Magpie.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not, but what I'm trying to say is I would not count solely on a gold 3CC creature for cards in a 3 color deck in an environment where wastelands exist.

[Revvik]

Agreeing with you?  No.  I do see the combined color of blue and black being a problem only if you are ignorant with fetchlands, but I am willing to concede the point that he can be unreliable against aggro strategies* (which in some places DO exist) and that you won't always be able to rely on fetchlands / basics.
I still think he's pretty damn good.

*Some aggro strategies, such as U/W Fish and R/G Beatz hold removal capable of killing him before he can draw you a card.  Just so you're not confusing what I said with him being blocked by a Kird Ape 

[yespuhyren]

While that holds true, I would never...and I mean NEVER play a control deck with the only draw spells in the deck being a creature, and only 4.

Fish runs standstills, ninja's, curiosity, mystical tutor for recall
3 and 4cc (when played) run scryings, tutors
TOG and lots of other control decks run intuition/ak

I'm not counting brainstorm because it is card selection, not card advantage.

The point is that all of these good control decks have MULTIPLE card drawing spells and MULTIPLE tutors, coupled with the fact that there are no angels in this deck, so realistically the mages, prodigies and infiltrators aren't going all the way.

Therefore, the 3 masticores are going to go all the way, or at least one of them will, and that is going to mean feeding them every single turn.  A control deck can't function if its discarding one and drawing one every turn, while hoping to be able to reactively deal with threats. 

I like the idea personally, I think it looks like fun, but I do not believe that the deck will work.

[eddavatar]

Agreeing with you?  No.  I do see the combined color of blue and black being a problem only if you are ignorant with fetchlands, but I am willing to concede the point that he can be unreliable against aggro strategies* (which in some places DO exist) and that you won't always be able to rely on fetchlands / basics.
I still think he's pretty damn good.

*Some aggro strategies, such as U/W Fish and R/G Beatz hold removal capable of killing him before he can draw you a card.  Just so you're not confusing what I said with him being blocked by a Kird Ape 

His mana base has no swamp. All it takes is for the opponent to take out all black source, and you have no ways to draw extra cards to sustain your strategy (Card for card silver bullet) other than Recall. Why take the chance in an environment where 5 strips exist? Not to mention the occasional random bolt that you mentioned.

Yet another problem of Finkel is that you've to spend main phase mana, nor is it a good mana drain sink.

[TheWayOfNoWay]

The idea of playing those three invitational wizards is very appealing at first glance; they seem to have a lot of synergy with each other. However, the main issue with these guys, which has already been touched upon, is their color-intensive main-phase-only mana costs. Aside from the 5-strip problem (which can even be avoided if you play your fetch's right) there's trying to balance playing a bunch of main-phase spells like Duress and dorks while keeping mana open to for the 10 counters in the deck that need it. This makes it almost like the cards of the deck are fighting each other for control of your game plan. Do you ever find this to produce a lack of synergy?

Having played a deck very similar to this one a few months ago, I would very much like to see it work. But the most annoying thing I noticed about this type of strategy is that it has very little, if any at all, potential to go broken. In my opinion, Type 1 is all about brokenness. Either you have the potential to go absolutely nuts on turns 1 and 2 or you play things during those turns that make your opponent unable to go broken themselves. The best this deck can do for brokenness is land, lotus, Meddling Mage, recall (maybe adding mox, mox, walk, but that's even more improbable). Now that's not a bad start at all, but it isn't game ending. What's more is that you probably can't follow it up with more brokenness the next turn; maybe land, Shadowmage, beats for 2.

Perhaps instead of running counters that get in the way of your win condition it’d be better to play things like Daze and Misdirection. This way you can play your disruptive/card drawing creatures and still be able to counter things. Also, as it stands this deck seems like it’d fall into top-deck mode far too often. That being said I think some more card draw is in order; maybe something like Standstill.

A parting note on Masticore: This guy used to be huge in Type II and Extended as a way to control the board and kill the opponent efficiently. But, in today’s Type I it’s just not very good. Against decks that have creatures you can kill without spending 6, 8, even 10 mana (Fish), he’ll probably be locked under Null Rod or sent farming. It’s gets a lot scarier against decks with Mana Drain in them.

[Revvik]

His mana base has no swamp. All it takes is for the opponent to take out all black source, and you have no ways to draw extra cards to sustain your strategy (Card for card silver bullet) other than Recall. Why take the chance in an environment where 5 strips exist? Not to mention the occasional random bolt that you mentioned.

Yet another problem of Finkel is that you've to spend main phase mana, nor is it a good mana drain sink.

I never said he NEEDED a swamp.  All he needs is a fetchland at the time he wants to play Shadowmage Infiltrator.
I also never said to rely ONLY on him - decks utilizing Ophidian back in the old days backed him up with Impulse, and in modern times Thirst for Knowledge.

If I personally were going to run Shadowmages, I would not run them in combination with Meddling Mages.  Your curve exposes your manabase far too much at that point, since your plays go in an order like this:

Turn One:
Brainstorm, Ancestral, Duress (exposing you to Wasteland)
Turn Two:
Meddling Mage (exposing you to Wasteland), Disenchant (exposing you to Wasteland) Voidmage Prodigy, Time Walk
Turn Three:
Shadowmage Infiltrator (exposing you to Wasteland)

Note also, eddavatar, that you don't need a black source but once to draw some cards 
Back to the Meddling Mage point, however.

The card clashes way too much with Mana Drain.  If left with the choice of playing Meddling Mage, even if you Duressed a turn earlier, leaving UU open for Mana Drain is generally a better option.  The weak link here is not the Shadowmage Infiltrator, but the Meddling Mage (at least in my eyes).
If he's cut, Voidmage Prodigy also loses some of his power, but I'm not sure if he's as terrible in reality as he is in theory.  Played turn one off a Sapphire or Lotus turn one seems kinda solid, but is it more solid as well than leaving that same mana open for Mana Drain?

You could change the creature base into something like this, giving you a more solid manabase:

3 Ophidian
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
3 Masticore / Phyrexian Negator

Leaving you some open spots as well for more controllish elements.  Negators could replace 'Cores, but I think 7 attack-to-draw creatures makes his drawback negligible (he also clears the way for them to attack).
Note that the fourth Shadowmage is interchangeable with a 4th Ophidian (Bonus: foil 'Phids are cheap).

[eddavatar]

I never said he NEEDED a swamp. All he needs is a fetchland at the time he wants to play Shadowmage Infiltrator.
I also never said to rely ONLY on him - decks utilizing Ophidian back in the old days backed him up with Impulse, and in modern times Thirst for Knowledge.

If I personally were going to run Shadowmages, I would not run them in combination with Meddling Mages. Your curve exposes your manabase far too much at that point, since your plays go in an order like this:

Turn One:
Brainstorm, Ancestral, Duress (exposing you to Wasteland)
Turn Two:
Meddling Mage (exposing you to Wasteland), Disenchant (exposing you to Wasteland) Voidmage Prodigy, Time Walk
Turn Three:
Shadowmage Infiltrator (exposing you to Wasteland)

Note also, eddavatar, that you don't need a black source but once to draw some cards
Back to the Meddling Mage point, however.

The card clashes way too much with Mana Drain. If left with the choice of playing Meddling Mage, even if you Duressed a turn earlier, leaving UU open for Mana Drain is generally a better option. The weak link here is not the Shadowmage Infiltrator, but the Meddling Mage (at least in my eyes).
If he's cut, Voidmage Prodigy also loses some of his power, but I'm not sure if he's as terrible in reality as he is in theory. Played turn one off a Sapphire or Lotus turn one seems kinda solid, but is it more solid as well than leaving that same mana open for Mana Drain?

You could change the creature base into something like this, giving you a more solid manabase:

3 Ophidian
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
3 Masticore / Phyrexian Negator

Leaving you some open spots as well for more controllish elements. Negators could replace 'Cores, but I think 7 attack-to-draw creatures makes his drawback negligible (he also clears the way for them to attack).
Note that the fourth Shadowmage is interchangeable with a 4th Ophidian (Bonus: foil 'Phids are cheap).

Using Phid as a complement to Finkel is much more feasible. But yet again, I hate to spend main phase mana when I dont have to when piloting a control deck.

[Xyre]

I personally would run Ninja of the Deep Hours over Ophidian, purely because it a)cost less with ninjitsu, and b)applies the beats while still drawing cards. It puts your opponent on a more applied clock, and it still gains you cards.
Also, I would keep the Mages, because they do so much for the deck. But then the problem becomes that you're running three colors on an unstable manabase. You really need to choose between Finkel and Mage, and Mages do you more in the long run. From there, you could make the deck somewhat like Fish, but all this is my personal opinion. Do what you will.