[Deck] Mono Blue

[netherspirit]

Tao, I've been doing a little bit of testing with this today, in all honesty it does play better than people would think by looking at the deck list, however, it does have some weaknesses that I feel need addressing.
1) It often runs out of steam after turn 3 and just waits for something good. Admittedly when it has got a bit of steam it can be very good.
2) The mana base is quite unstable, cut out 2-3 Tombs and the Seats and replace them with fetch lands and maybe even a couple of basic islands, in about 40% of the games I played there was a shortage in blue mana.
3) I think Mana Drain would be much better than Mana Leak if you add a little more blue to the mana base, Drain would help you get your artifacts out and is a good hard counter, whereas Mana Leak isn't always particularly useful by time you pull it.
4) Sensei's Divining Top doesn't really do much, and to be honest neither does Compulsive Research until turn 3 or 4. Cut them for Brainstorms or even Accumulated Knowledge.
5) The last thing is that it is often quite a wait until you get a kill card. You rely on artifacts, so you could even look into Fabricate.

Don't mistake how I'm saying this, I do not mean to be at all insulting, in all honesty I rather like the deck, but seriously, the people on here have a lot of collective experience, and when the majority are saying "try Brainstorm and fetches" it is worth listening. I hope this has helped in some way, good luck with the deck!

[Purple Hat]

i never said anyone except flaming cloud is flaming my thread and that was when he said that my thread should get locked and mod followed, but how can you know??? you'd have to read my post for that and i really dont want anyone to do this, i am writing all this because i like writing, i dont expect anything from this

i really dont care, lock this, ban me for not playing brainstorm, whatever

dont forget to send me emails with "play brainstorm" after banning me, because i didnt hear that suggestion often enough the last 5 or so days

but dont dare testing the deck before writing a comment or testing cards from new editions, how can a spell that hardcounters oath for U or a bounce spell with card parity be good

dude...not to highjack the thread or anything but I was talking to kowal at the time, flaming cloud's post had nothing to do with it.  You posted a redundant thread, it got locked, problem solved.

that's all, you may return to your regularly scheduled mana drain vs mana leak argument.

[Kieranwolf]

Judging by what Netherspirit says about how the deck plays now, why not try Ophidian instead of Compulsive Research? It doesn't require any discarding, and it has a large bottom. Card drawing on legs that doubles as a win condition? Same mana cost? Both can only be played during your main with an empty stack?

The worst thing about it is the fact that it takes three turns to catch up with the draw spell (in terms of cards seen). If you're worried about blockers bigger than the snake, then you're most likely playing mono blue in the wrong metagame. Otherwise he seems really good, especially with drain (seeing as this deck seems pretty controllish, and also mono blue).

[Mr. Type 4]

I just wish I understood why he hates Brainstorm so much?  Did it mess up his childhood or something?  Did his friends bet him that he couldn't build a good monoblue deck without drains and brains?

Seriously, this is the Vintage improvement forum, not the casual forum.  It is my belief that the decklists in this forum are being listed so that they can be tuned into something competitive.  It's almost impossible to give any constructive criticism here because we can't get beyond the Brainstorm/Mana Drain thing.  I can hardly imagine playing BLUE without playing Brainstorm, in fact, I'm pretty sure if my deck can squeeze out blue mana, then Brainstorm is probably getting included. 

Perhaps there is some confusion here about the theory of "Card advantage".  This is really a dated concept that doesn't apply so much anymore.  "Card Advantage" is certainly not as important in Type 1 as card quality and tempo.  Let's look at a quick example:

You cast Stroke of Genius X=5 and draw five cards.  Card advantage = net 4 cards
I cast Ancestral Recall then Brainstorm = card advantage net 2 cards

But I actually saw 6 cards, and I spent 2 mana, you spent 8.  Now my hand is pretty juiced.  With the remaining 6 mana I didn't spend, I cast some busted spells, I even have mana to back my stuff up with a good old mana drain.  We know you didn't cast your Stroke of Genius with Mana Drain mana, because you don't like Mana Drain for some reason.

But to really make it simple: As a control deck it is important in the earliest stage of the game to be able to counter.  Turns 1 and 2 are the scary turns where lots of bad stuff can happen.  To combat this you have two options: you get land Mox(or Blotus) out on turn 1 and have some 2 mana counterspells, this doesn't happen everygame, and what if they have Chalice = 0?  Second- You have Force of Will.  If you don't have Force of will in your opening hand, it is quite common to play Brainstorm on turn 1 and you greatly up your chances of finding Force of Will.  The game gets a lot easier once you've established you mana base, but until then, an aggressive deck is going to take advantage of you.

I'm actually pretty sure I know what Tao's problem is.  It's this:

I feared that this discussion would come, and even though I hate to repeat myself: Brainstorm is bad in this deck. You will see this after 1 or 2 Goldfishes.

Well, you just aren't seeing the problem when you goldfish the deck.  If you throw this deck up against any good competitive Vintage deck, it will become quickly apparent that it has some serious holes in it's early game plan.  I think there are a number of other holes to be patched up as well, but it's not going to happen until we can get past this prejudice against Brainstorm and Mana Drain. So, let's just put them in and then we can talk about the problems with the Mana Base, the Cursed Scroll, etc.  The general idea of a Trinket Mage toolbox deck is a fine thing to discuss.  The discussion is just being held back by unnecessary stubbornness. 

If you want help on a decklist, you got to be ready to accept it. 

[Duncan]

I liked the idea of this deck and i also think brainstorms and drains just belong in here. I altered the list and started testing a bit . My latest version is this one:

Mana:
    3 Flooded Strand
    7 Island
    1 Library of Alexandria
    2 Polluted Delta
    1 Strip Mine
    3 Wasteland
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Black Lotus

Creatures:
    1 Darksteel Colossus
    4 Trinket Mage
    1 Triskelion

Counter:
    4 Force of Will
    4 Mana Drain
    3 Mana Leak

Draw/Search:
    1 Ancestral Recall
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Fact or Fiction
    1 Mystical Tutor
    3 Thirst for Knowledge

Some stuff:
    1 Repeal
    1 Time Walk
    1 Tinker

Trinket Toolbox:
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Engineered Explosives
    1 AEther Spellbomb
    1 Sensei's Divining Top
    1 Pithing Needle


// Sideboard
SB: 3 Stifle
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Sundering Titan
SB: 1 Rushing River
SB: 2 Arcane Laboratory
SB: 3 Propaganda
SB: 3 Energy Flux

The sideboard hasnt been tested yet, this is just a rough sketch. Right now i'm testing stifle MD instead of mana leak, to make it more like a mana-denial deck. The one Top is in there for when i cast Mage and don't know what to search, top is always good. Repeal used to be chalice but i liked this one more because it's cheaper vs. chalices and replaces itself. Against big creatures i've got spellbomb anyway. I'm wondering whether to include Cryp + Vault or not, the deck is quite tight as it is now.

Mana Drain belongs in this deck for real. Casting things like thirst/mage/trike/FoF off drain mana is just what the deck is made for. I hope we can discuss more about the deck itself and some more difficult points instead of discussing about brainstorms and mana drains. It's not for nothing that 99 % of the field says it belongs in there.

EDIT: As for the matchups. As far as i see now, most decks are doable, except the real aggro decks like goblins. The biggest problems of this deck are Null Rod and the relatively slow wincondition. I was also thinking about splashing a second color (which would be either black - confidant, plague - or red - fire/ice, pyrite spellbomb, shamans) to the deck. Two issues arise: it weakens the decks mana base; i love it right now, not having to be concerned about wastelands, and second, what to cut?

[Mr. Type 4]

Aggro does look kind of like a rough match.  I think you have several options, first, you have you Explosives in the main, but you're right that Null Rod will mess that up.  Mono Blue can only do so much to beat critters, but I think you might want to go old school and play Propaganda in the sideboard.  You have some mana denial cards, so it might work.  There's also Psyonic Blast, but that might not be what you need to really hold off serious Aggro. 

I think you'll definitly want Back to Basics somewhere in here.  It'll be pretty savage to Stifle fetchlands while people's duals are loocked up. 

This list is a very good starting point for this deck.  This could be a good list to experiment with Counterbalance from Coldsnap. 

The only problem I'm seeing is that I'm not sure that this list has a lot of advantages over a list with a splash color.  If you splash White, you might as well play Salvagers, which is a much stronger win condition, and with Black you gain access to a lot of good stuff.  I think Back to Basics will help this deck make more sense as monocolored, but otherwise there is little reason to stay mono blue.

[Tao]

@Duncan: The list looks pretty solid. My intention was to build a different deck, but this looks quite good, too.

Classic MUC with Trinket Mages in Ophidian Slot. First of all I think that Mana Leak and Thirst for Knowledge should be 4-offs.

You can replace Striplands and Library with B2B and more Basics because if you are so much Mono-U these are the best Nonbasic-Hosers.

If you splash a Color (No B2B then) I would suggest R for Fire/ Ice. It helps vs. Aggro decks and Goblin Welder. You can replace the E.Ex. and Needles because they are really dead in many matchups. It will also add Clasms to your SB.

___________________

Did it mess up his childhood or something?
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 "Card Advantage" is certainly not as important in Type 1 as card quality and tempo.  Let's look at a quick example:

You cast Stroke of Genius X=5 and draw five cards.  Card advantage = net 4 cards
I cast Ancestral Recall then Brainstorm = card advantage net 2 cards

But I actually saw 6 cards, and I spent 2 mana, you spent 8.

But then you play Zephyr Spirit for 5U and I play Ancestral Recall, Mana Crypt, Tinker for Colossus. I spent net 2 Mana for a 11/11 Beater and you spent 6 Mana for a horrbible card with Defender. And your childhood was obviously bad, too. I can say that from your posts on this forum.

[yangtze34]

I don't see where type4 said he was playing Zephyr Spirit for the 6 mana remaining.  I'm pretty sure he meant he was gonna play something a lot more broken than that, like gifts and then pwning the opponent afterwards.

If you're not playing mana drain in your deck, that's not that bad.  However, since your playing a lot of colorless stuff, it might be a good idea.  Not playing brainstorms in a MUC deck is just not smart.  It's definate card quality off the bat and coupled with the fetches allow you to get rid of useless cards in your hand.  Not to mention it hides your goodies from duress and other discard spells.  Mana leaks should not be a 4 of IMO, because vintage has so much mana available at the end of early-game even that mana leak will be useless and definately will be useless in midgame and lategame.