Masknought: A List and Some Thoughts

[Wolven]

Upon seeing policehq's list and report, I decided to take a stab at my own version of the deck. I've been playing MDG for the last month or so, and I thought attacking would be fun.

My second reason for building the deck is it's success against a random field, and the fact that Dreadnought is bigger then Colossus. Where I'm from, Tinker>Fatty is more common then "Slaver you"... weird hey?

Upon first viewing, I thought that the deck is inherently weak to any disruption to it's mana base, whether it be strip effects or Null Rod. Second, Thoughtcast is a problem when the Tier 1 decks love their Mana Drain. It may only cost U to you, but... yeah 5 mana is super.

Firstly here is policehq's list:

// Lands
4  Seat of the Synod
1  Tolarian Academy
4  Underground Sea
2  Vault of Whispers

// Creatures
1  Darksteel Colossus
3  Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4  Phyrexian Dreadnought

// Spells
1  Black Lotus
1  Chrome Mox
1  Lotus Petal
1  Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1  Mox Emerald
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Pearl
1  Mox Ruby
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Sol Ring
1  Engineered Explosives
1 Ancestral Recall
4  Artificer's Intuition
1  Demonic Tutor
1  Mystical Tutor
4  Thoughtcast
1  Time Walk
1  Tinker
1  Vampiric Tutor
3  Duress
4  Force of Will
1  Misdirection
4 Illusionary Mask
3  Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Engineered Explosives
SB: 4  Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2  Echoing Truth
SB: 3  Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 2  Chill
SB: 3  Chalice of the Void

This is obviously an aggro/combo deck with moderate disruption elements. (Sorry if this is mundane, but this is my first deck discussion so I'm trying to be thorough). However while I was testing, I found that the disruption wasn't enough in my Gift variant match-ups and their game plan could easily supersede my own. Second, Stax was a horrible match-up. I mostly tested against Vroman UbaStax, and between the Null Rods, Chalices, Strips, and even Duplicants... well I had some bad times.

I found that the deck had a tendency to want to twiddle it's thumbs with Divining Top, and Top is amazing in the deck,  but I found it did little to apply enough early pressure against the control deck [Note: this disregards random broken draws] and second, it wasn't versatile/defensive enough to hold against Stax.

So I took it upon myself to attempt to build a version, and I'd welcome criticism from the community. So onto the list:

Under a Mask of Control:

Lands:
1 Academy
2 Sea
5 Island
4 Delta/Strand
4 Seat of the Synod

Artifacts:
5 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 Petal
1 Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Vault
4 Mask
1 Top

Creatures:
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Dreadnought

Sorcery's:
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
2 Braingeyser
1 Will
1 Demonic Tutor

Instants:
4 Brainstorm
4 Drain
4 Force
1 Rebuild
1 Recall

Enchantments:
4 Artificer's Intuition

The main difference between this build and most I've seen around the internet is the presence of Mana Drain. While I am slightly biased, having bought my drains recently, it made sense to me to play them in a deck where your win condition/kombo are a pair of artifacts. Mana Drain also provides an excellent defense against Stax and can help you to force through threats against Gifts.

Next we have the fact that this deck is mostly a Mono-U deck with a Demonic Tutor and a Yawgmoth's Will. This allowed the deck to become more control focused and strenghtened it's mana base, providing a large number of basic Island. The Demonic and Will are there to abuse the interactions of the deck. Demonic for obvious reasons, but Will provides recursion for dumped moxen to the GY.

Now for the real "WTF?!?!?!" of the deck: "OMFG!?!?! He's playing Braingeyser!?!?!" Yup. This deck is a control deck, which loves it's Drain Mana. I've found that Geyser makes the best use of it's time, and also provided the best Drain sink. While Stroke and Scrying both are instants, I'd still end up playing them mostly on my own turn, or simply whittling away the mana with Top, using up :U: to get fresh shuffle effects. It's a Dangerous card though, and must be carefully played in certain match-ups, but it's been the best to me, taking up minimal spaces and still drawing lots of cards when needed.

Essentially this deck is a concept: "Why Can't Drain work in Masknought?" as it's defining principle. I feel like the deck can be inherently strong enough against Fish and other Aggro variants that I have left them unmentioned. Also as boards are mostly metagame calls, I've left it undiscussed. However, were I to play this deck tomorrow, I'd board something like this, or within a couple of cards:

x1 Rebuild
x2 Hurkel's Recall
x3 BEB
x3 Echoing Truth
x2 Tormod's Crypt
x1 Phyrexian Furnace
x1 Aether Spellbomb
x2 Cursed Totem

Well I hope I can get some discussion going. Thanks to policehq for giving me my idea and comming up with some great ones to jump start these. I hope also that comments will be kept within the boundaries of nicety. Thanks

Joe Hurley
"Wolven"
cujoeAThomailDOTcom

St. John's, NL, Canada

[Moxlotus]

This looks like CS only

-4 Welder
-4 utility artifacts win you the game
-good draw
-4 basics/fetch

+4 masks
+4 Dreadnoughts
+crappy draw spells
+ lands that are wasted, eaten by Mox Monkey, and shut down by Null Rod

Explain how this isn't the case.

[Wolven]

First I'd like to point out that CS is incapable of winning the game by turn 3.

Can CS win the game on turn 3?

With regards to your comment on on card drawing:

The purpose of card drawing is to create card advantage which in turn will result in a continuation of a deck's overall game plan, IE: generation of positive tempo or negate your opponent's tempo. That being said, if a deck can complete it's game plan with minimal card advantage gained (I'm not referring to virtual advantage, involving the determining of particular cards in an opponent's deck to become useless) relying as much on tempo as card advantage (be it virtual or traditional), then  it is stupidity to question the strict number of cards spent in the process. A good example of this could be the Sligh decks of x years ago.

Now I'm not suggesting this is the same style deck, however I will suggest that not in all cases should card advantage be considered to be the equivalent to a win which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Second you are questioning the stability of things such as the mana base and a lack of "utility artifact". Firstly I'd like to question the necessity of said utilities. Isn't a mask a utility artifact against Gifts? Slipping under a counter-wall and placing the pressure on the opponent to win? This means it's then the opponent's "utility artifacts" which are needed not your own.

As for mana base concerns: yes there are lands which can be eaten by monkey, and there are fewer lands in the deck. However you are examining this deck in comparison to an archtype which it isn't. This isn't designed to be a traditional control deck. It's designed to maintain control elements, providing that as a means of furthering it's plan to be a aggro deck. Both as prevention of problems, stopping the deck from losing, and , in the case of Mana Drain, a mana accellerant.

I think you should examine a decks role in a match-up, be it aggressive or controlling, before you even shuffle the deck. I've seen too many players make this mistake in all formats. Once this is determined, it is that which it can be decided if the deck can be successful in that role.

[Moxlotus]

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm attacking your deck.  I, like many, need reasons to try this deck over any other deck

The thing about your draw is it sucks ass without Drain mana.

What is your deck trying to do?  I assumed it was trying to control, but you said not to compare it to CS.  Is it trying to be aggro control?  Control-Combo?  I can't tell.  I thought it was supposed to be Control but I was wrong.

With your example it seems like you are trying to be aggro control.  But your deck doesn't look like it can fulfill that role at all.  Mana Drain doesn't fuel aggro-control strategies that well.  Neither does expensive card draw.  Geyser is only useful when you drain something.  I hate using conditional cards like that because they sit in your hand and suck.

I would suggest Impulse.  I use it in my build of Oath to find the combo pieces (Oath and Orchard) and it works very well. 

Maybe you should try to cut the Drains and replace them with Mis'd.  If you are trying to lay down the combo ASAP, then Mis'D will help you with that.  This allows for turn 2 Artificer's Intuition and with 8 pitch counters, it should resolve.

[Revvik]

Skeletal Scrying?  With Artificer's Intuition to feed it?

[Wolven]

@ Moxlotus: I understand your opinion, and I think I can better explain the deck by saying this:

This issue of the draw engine being useless can be handled by saying that the deck doesn't necessarily rely on it. It uses Intuition and Top and various shuffle effects to filter your draws. Finding the peices. The Geyser is meant to supplement the filtering. I could potentially see see making these changes:

-2 Geyser
-4 Intuition

+2 Top
+4 Impulse

The problem is that cutting the Intutions restricts the tutoring power of the deck overall.

I thoguth of Mis'd but they are too conditional.

@Revvik: I dislike Scrying cause it has 2 conditions upon it's casting.

[spawn]

I think one of the main problems with this deck is that you dont draw enough cards, and therefor cant establish a threat fast enough.

Ive tested a similar build against cs and tog, both were BAD matchups, since the both draw much more cards than u.

draw more cards-get more counters...

If you cant win against control, its crap, right?

second, imo, any welder based deck would be a really bad matchup. If you get an artefakt in the GY your fried, so I think one alternative is to run a mask deck with 2 combos, such as ninjamask or ghoulmask.

or you could play with welders and thirst, but as someone else said earlier this looks like an cs, only a more inoptimal build.

also, the card synergi in this deck isnt so good, if you have double blue second turn, and are holding mask/drain+more, what should you do?

what makes mask decks bad, is the fact that the cards are dead if you dont draw them together with the second combo card. what you want to do, is to build a deck with as few dead cards as possible and as good synergi as possible. and I dont think this is the deck., look at survival or ghoul.

/spawn

[Arvid]

CS can win by turn 3.

Turn 1-3: Double Welder, mana accelerants and Intuition or TfK for Mindslaver, and Pentavus or CoW with artifact land.

Against a lot of decks it can also win turn 1 with mox, lotus, Tinker, Platinum Angel. Against your deck it just needs to counter the Rebuild. This could also be a turn 2/3 win in other scenarios including Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor or weldering in a Platinum Angel.

[Methuselahn]

I think it is really cool that you are running masknaught.  With Null Rods, being seen less and less, due to Jittes, Vials, and 10 proxy, Illusionary Mask has less hate to fight.

I'll be blunt, your deck needs work.

Out of curiosity, have you tried Gifts Ungiven in the deck?

[Wolven]

The deck isn't fully refined and that was the purpose of my thread: to get some opinons and see if it's possible to refine the deck to a point where it's competive.

When I considered running some MD anwsers to randomness, I thought it would dilute the deck too much. However, I'm starting to question my own logic. Maybe these could be fit into the deck:

2 Pithing Needle
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt

I thought of playing the deck with Gifts Ungiven, but it would require the retooling of the mana base and I simply had no idea what to cut for it.

[bebe]

I'll tell you frankly what the problem is. I have played MaskNaught blue control for a few years and had some memorable matches ( including against Welder decks - Shockwave beat ime in the Vintage Ont championships 2-1 in a very close match playing CS). I used a base of 14 counters - yes fourteen. Now splashing black for Duress would mean using ten and four Duress. My counters are always FoW, Leaks and Daze. If I do not lay a Colossus or Dreadby turn three my deck has not done its thing. I often played turn one Collossus or turn two Dread. I have toyed with adding white, green or black and these days I think Black makes a very strong choice. However, green allows a transformational Oath side which can kick but against FCG, Fish and other common decks.
I also maindecked some green fat for backup alla ToG but if I went black I would definately add Psychatog ort two as a backup plan. Ther deck requires a good solid suite of search - Sleights, Opts, Merchant Scrolls and others always appeared in my deck. The last time I played there was NO Artificier's intuition but that looks a good addition.
Too much is made of Rods. You can find ways to rid yourself of a rod. I've beaten decks playing them on many occasions. I do not see Mask Naught as a Slaver variant at all. It was played before CS was burning up the scene but all control decks will have similarities. I much prefer a MaskNaught build to a NinjaMask build, BTW. I find it more resiliant.

[Wolven]

Thanks I really appreciate the comments.

Currently I'm in a stage of testing the deck as Mono-U, and it's looking like this:


Lands:
1 Academy
8 Island
4 Delta/Strand
4 Seat of the Synod

Artifacts:
5 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 Petal
1 Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Vault
4 Mask
1 Top
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt

Creatures:
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Dreadnought

Sorcery's:
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

Instants:
4 Brainstorm
4 Drain
4 Force
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Rebuild
1 Ancestral Recall

Enchantments:
3 Artificer's Intuition

Most of my testing has been against Stax, the mono-R Vroman variety, but today I was testing against a version of the 5cc Dragon deck form Gencon and between the Pithing Needle and Crypt MD, It went around 65-70% in my favor. Essentially, if I resolved Artificer's Intuition I won.

Also the Crypt and Needle also came handy in my Stax Match-up.

I like the idea of a transformational Sideboard, however, I think that doing so could seriously hurt mana base by adding addition colours and thus making my Stax Match-up so much more difficult. As a matter of fact, when I was playing Black in the deck, I thought of a transformational board into some crazy Tendrils based Kill, setting up a will turn by dumping Moxen, then going off for the win.

With the exception of Null Rod, The deck shouldn't have much trouble against the random decks which play Null Rod. 12/12's make Fish cry.

I guess as far as Null Rod goes, I'm playing 1 MD Rebuild, 1 Board and 2 Echoing Truth.

Here;s a question: Is anyone else COMPLETELY unsatisfied with Engineered Explosives?

[Luc]

Have you ever thought about using  4 Myr Servitor plus 2 Skullclamp as a draw engine?
When i read the the pimp taiga report i immideately swapped the Thoughcasts for
Servitors and added 2 Skullclamps. Sure it takes up space, but they all can be pitched
for A'S Intuition and it should draw a hell lot of cards. First get Lotus to get things started.
Leave one servitor in the deck in case of removal and clamp for 4 cards a turn.

[bebe]

I think adding a color is a a good idea but even using the mono-blue suite i have issues with the build presented.
I do not like your suite of search components. Notably TFK is not that great in this deck. I used Opts and Sleights and generally preferred them to TFKs. Why no Mystical or Merchant. I have found Tinker by turn two on too many occasions using these cards. Its your Null Rod bypass game one.
Yo0u seem mana heavy to me. This deck does not require much mana to run and with Brainstorm/OPpt/Sleight you will find mana quickly.
Here mis where we will disagree - Daze is one of the best spells for Mask. I cannot tell how many times it sealed the game for me on turn two when UI either Tinkered or layed my Mask. I would prefer a counter suite of
4 FoW
3 Mana Leak
3 Daze
as almost a bare minimum to ensure you get to go off turns one - three. Heresy, yes. But Drains are not played until turn two ( actually turn three because you will play a card turn two) at the earliest - I can play Leak or Daze turn one or two often. .
The question becomes  - what do we remove?
Start by reducing your mana to about 24  sources. In a 2 color build I often went with 23 and rarely was I mana screwed with the search available. 

" The Crypt and Needle came in handy" does not convince me to maindeck single copies of them in your build. I have better uses for my tinker - as in winning outright. These are sideboard cards.

I never played with Artificier's - it had just come out when I last played the deck and I was still testing builds with it when I retired ( have not played now in quite awhile but I'm coming back). Now with the Artificier's I can see laying fat turn two as quite a common occurrence. You need to outrun some very fast dedcks pout there - Gifts, combo, and stax locks. My counters ensure that you have the opportunity. I remember beating shockwave game one by dazing a turn two TFK. It swung the game. A mana drain would have sat in my hand.

Take these comments with a grain of salt but at least test out the possibilities.

[Wolven]

The problem with Opt and Slight is that the deck requires cards in hand to fuel Intuition. This is where the TFK came in handy. Previously, I found that the deck couldn't activly run TFK until I up'ed the mana count (the damage of Strip effects was too great) and the additional lands ensure that I have the blue mana avaible to activate Artifiacer's Intuition.

Daze is an amazing card for punching througha key spell (Mask or Intuition). I'm going to try to figure out some way to fit them in as well.

I HIGHLY suggest fooling around with Artificer's Intuition. It's incredibly good in this deck and the ability to search out a couple of Silver Bullets is too good to not utilize. It ensures that a Goblin Welder isn't almost an auto loss. It means I have more game against CS and Gifts Game 1 too. Hell you can even try to play a Chalice if you are worried about Storm Combo. My main problem so far is that I'm not playing enough Pithing Needles. These cards buy a lot of time which this deck can easily abuse as you know. 2 turns is a lot as you know.

I origioinally played Mystical, but I ended up cutting it. It may or may not have been a bad idea, however it seemed to create a suicidal game plan where I had to be sure it would resolve otherwise it was a game loss.

As before I really appreciate the comments. I thought of testing out Slight of hand and Opt when I was looking for relevant draw spells, but I didn't persue them because Sensei's Divining Top does essentially the same thing.

I would like to know what mana sources you would cut though. Of course my current version has a higher opperating cost/mana curve so I'm not overly sure how good it would be. I'm kinda partial to my mana base as is, with the exception to maybe cutting a single Seat for another Pithing Needle.

[cssamerican]

I kind of agree with bebe, Drains and Thirst really do seem unneeded. To me all the deck wants to do is put a 12/12 trampler in play and swing, so I think you counter base should be focused on that. What I mean is cheap counter to force through your plays, I wouldn't even rule out misdirection as part of that counter base. Thirst just seems like its over costed for what you want, which is digging power. If you actually needed cards in hand to fuel Artificer's Intuition there has got to be better tools for the job. I will have to do some research for possible alternatives because I just can't beleive a card that requires you to basically discard an artifact for it to be worthwhile would be the right card to fuel another card that requires you to discard artifacts as well.

Mystical Tutor should be an automatic inclusion, it grabs Tinker and Bounce. Artificer's Intuition should be a four of because it grabs everything you need in your deck besides the Mask itself.

The Rebuild should just be a Hurkly's Recall, Echoing Truth, or Rushing River. You really wouldn't want to bounce your own Mask when getting rid of Null Rod, would you?

I would probaly drop three Islands and one Seat of the Synod then add one fetchland then three of either Opt, Slieght of Hand, or Impulse.  These changes will make your mana base feel the same but actully use less space. I like that you are running the lone Top, but it isn't enough on its own. Plus you don't want your kill and all your search for bounce to be shut down by Null Rod.

And I actually like the fact tht your running a couple metagamed silver bullets just don't run to many of them, two is probably a good number.

[bebe]

The top is not the same as Sleights and Opts although it is still useful. With fetchlands these are first turn cantrips that can cycle through your de4ck quickly. You do not want to find only mana sources - 27 is excessive in a mono blue build of this type. Drop two seats, minimum. Maybe drop an island.  Drop your Crypt - that is a sideboard card. That is four spots. Now your drains are a little harder to use until turn three so use three Leaks and three Dazes. You do not need that much mana that the drains are essential. That still leaves you an extra card to fit in. I would add C. Wishes (two) and move my Needle and Rebuild to the side. Now add that M. Tutor.
Change your TFKs to Sleights or Opts. I unhderstand that A. intuition is useful but I would drop to two as it only really fetches a Dread which you should find pretty easily with all the search you have. These are just some things that i would test.

[Wolven]

Bebe, I have to disagree with you when it comes to the intuition and the silver bullets. The Crypt and Needle have won enough games for me in testing that I can't warrent cutting them. I'm going to test out the Daze's and Leaks and Slights, and prehaps that will speed the deck up to a point where the bullets are no longer necessary but I'm going to leave them for now.

The A.I. I'm going to leave @ 3 copies. I've not been having a problem finding them, nor have they been getting sitting in my hand, so it feels like a good number. Prehaps with the addition of Slight over Thirst this may change, but I'll know after some testing.

Keep the comments rolling

[dreadNOT]

Hi all,   
                  Let me start by saying this is my first post and not the last! I have been trying to find a good set up for my masknought deck I just read throughout the posts here and all i can say is that i have tried just about every deck list setup here. What i have found is that it works good with mono-blue BUT i have decided not to go so much that route. I have gone with a Masknought\CS setup and is work very well for me in the environment that i play in!!!  Yes i said Masknought/CS  i call it "Masked Slaver" and so far its been a fun deck to play. It's funny watching my opponent's face when there is a Mask in play and i play a Welder threw the mask the hole time they think its a Dreadnought  then i flip it and they come to see its a welder the look on faces is to die for :lol: the rest of the deck is blue control. This is just a ruff draft of the deck and still needs some tuning. I will be playing in a Tourney on Sunday the 28th and will report back on how it stood up.

 LAND!
3x Island
4x Seat of the Synod
3x Volcanic Island
4x Flooded Strain
1x Tolarian Academy

 Creatures 
4x Dreadnought
3x Weilder
1x Darksteel
 
 Instant's & Sorcery's
4x FoW
3x CounterSpell (to poor to get drains )
2x Echoing Truth
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Twincast

 Enchantment's
4x Artificer's Intuition
4x Standstill

 Artifact's
4x Mask
2x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Mindslaver
1x Black Lotus
3x Mox
1x Lotus Pedel
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Engineered Explosives

    There is no sideboard yet    Like i said its still in its very ruff draft stage.  Well now that i have gone on for awhile its time to say bye!  I hope this helps out a Lil for u all plz let me know all and every thought u all might have on this build!!! 

[Wolven]

I can see ur list as being fun, however I find it difficult to believe that it can solve any metagame issues. Your list is trying to do too much @ once, and that can be a big problem diluting the focus of the deck and resulting is some resource management issues with the deck. However if you like a deck you like a deck. I just don't think that it may be said to be better then other options.

[dreadNOT]

Why do u say " I find it difficult to believe that it can solve any metagame issues" the only deck i have a problem with is CS.
 My roommate plays both Tendrils and Belcher so i have some time at the bad end's of both of those decks.  
 Oath is Oath and with a half way decent draw i can take it.

[Wolven]

All I mean is that you havn't stated how you deck can be effective against any of the Teir 1 decks. Also these decks are normally meant to be optimal, which in most cases includes all 5 Moxen, etc.

I'm not trying to be hard, but I just don't see where you intend your deck to travel, and you should be careful when building a deck to be as 2 dimensional as you've designed your's. Sometime you won't have enough butter to cover your toast (w00t analogies!!)

[Wolven]

Hey guys, I left this thread a lone for a while so I could do some testing, and try to make the deck more focused and give it some better tools for beating the environment.

Some things I learnt:
1) Welders=bad, so does Mox Monkey
2) Almost winning and then getting pwned by Tendrils isn't much better
3) If I have 2 mana I shouldn't be passing my turn so I can cast Mana Drain/Leak, I should be playing a threat.
4) Minus the Bear is an Awesome band, and Armor for Sleep is even better (Hooray for whoring music)
5) Artificer's Intuition should be abused as much as possible, considering it wants to be Survival.

So here's my current testing list. I'll talk about some of the points following it.

Lands:
1 Academy
8 Island
4 Strand


Artifacts:
5 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 Petal
1 Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Vault
4 Mask
1 Top
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle
3 Chalice of the Void

Creatures:
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Dreadnought

Sorceries:
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

Instants:
4 Brainstorm
4 Force
3 TFK
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkel's
1 Recall
1 Mystical

Enchantments:
4 Artificer's Intuition

So firstly, Pithing Needle is AMAZING. It's won me so many games that I upped it to a 3-of. This involved me reducing my fetch count and also going to a single type so I could name delta whenever possible. This also allowed me to reduce my mana base as was suggested to 23. This has become a very good number and I feel confident with it.

Next, is Chalice. I cut my additional counters for Chalice, the theory being that it's stronger vs Storm combo, since currently you can't out counter them and also it damages Gift's Mana Base quite good. Also it's Fetchable with Intuition and it's Pitchable too.

Final change was cutting Hurkel's Recall. I realized that my deck had NO answer to Chalice for 2. Not too good. So I added both a Rebuild and a Chain of Vapor. The Rebuild has become good for not only refilling my hand with Fodder to pitch to A.I., but also solves my Chalice for 2/Null Rod dilemma. Chain of Vapor also fixes Chalice issues and a bunch of other things. I've loves this card for a while... which reminds me, I need to find a foil one

Well I'm looking forward to hearing some more thoughts. A deck is never finished, but hopefully this one is getting closer.

[policehq]

For reference, here is where testing has taken me. Black and Blue do not cut it alone when you are trying to face opponents' disruption.

// Lands
    1  Tolarian Academy
    4  Seat of the Synod
    3  Gemstone Mine
    3  City of Brass
    3  Forbidden Orchard

// Creatures
    4  Phyrexian Dreadnought
    1  Darksteel Colossus

// Spells
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Time Walk
    1  Engineered Explosives
    4  Thoughtcast
    1  Ancestral Recall
    4  Artificer's Intuition
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Tinker
    4  Illusionary Mask
    1  Demonic Tutor
    3  Sensei's Divining Top
    1  Mox Ruby
    4  Force of Will
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Burning Wish
    1  Hanna's Custody
    1  Crop Rotation
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Engineered Explosives
SB: 1  Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
SB: 2  Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3  Sacred Ground
SB: 2  Rack and Ruin
SB: 1  Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1  Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1  Artifact Mutation
SB: 1  Pithing Needle
SB: 1  Pyroclasm
SB: 1  Vindicate