Battle of Wits Deck Challenge

[Anusien]

Doug Linn and I were having a discussion on #TMD about the best 250 card decks that could be made.  If everyone had to play a Battle deck, would the best deck be combo-control style the way they are built now?  What about UG aggro-control Madness/Threshold style?  Assume Legacy cardlist.  I have a feeling that some sort of UGx would be the best.  You get all the best blue tutoring and really efficient creatures.

[Mr. Nightmare]

I'm not sure if you will be able to find it or not, I'll help, but check The Source for Fakespam's BOW deck from Big Arse II.  As he asked me the other day while reminiscing, do you think 150 blue cards is enough to support Force of Will?

After looking, he never posted the list.

[Anusien]

Something like:
// Win Conditions
4 Battle of Wits
4 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Rancor

// Engines
4 Quiet Speculation
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Obsessive Search
4 Life from the Loam
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Compulsion

// Survival
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Genesis
1 Wonder

// Creatures
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Werebear
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Aquameoba
4 Waterfront Bouncer
4 Ohran Viper
4 Call of the Herd
4 Roar of the Wurm
4 Grizzly Fate
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Voidmage Prodigy
4 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise

// Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Remand
4 Counterspell
4 Aether Burst
4 Stifle

// Mana Sources: 100
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
4 Pendlehaven
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe
2 Yavimaya Coast
27 Forest
27 Island

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

no city of brass? and i think plaxmanta would be good, AETher vial?

[Harlequin]

I'm not sure I would go this route, but I would make the following modifications to your deck.

I'm wondering if you will still have 200 cards in the deck when you finally find battle of wits

Gifts pile:  Battle, Reclaim, Argovian Find, Replenish ... So long as you have 5 mana and at least G and W then... EOT = GG any way you pile it.

Something like:
// Win Conditions
4 Battle of Wits
4 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Sword of Fire and Ice

1 Argovian Find
1 Reclaim
1 Replenish


// Engines
4 Quiet Speculation
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Life from the Loam
4 Compulsion
4 Compulsive Research
4 LOCKETS OF YESTERDAY



// Survival
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Genesis
1 Wonder

// Creatures
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Werebear
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Aquameoba
2 Waterfront Bouncer
4 Call of the Herd
4 Roar of the Wurm
3 Grizzly Fate
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise

4 Quirion Dryad
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Sunscape Familliar


// Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Remand
4 Counterspell
4 Stifle
4 Circular Logic

// Mana Sources: 100
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe

27 Forest
25 Island
2  Plains


Cut list
4 Pendelhaven (for Terramorph)
2 Ilands (for plains)
2 Yavimaya Coast (for Tundras)

1 Grizzly Fate
2 Rancor (gifts win)
4 Ohran Viper(for Dryad)
4 Voidmage Prodigy (for Famillar)
4 Sensei's Divining Top (for Locket)


4 Obsessive Search (for Compulsive research)

4 Aether Burst (for logic)

[EnialisLiadon]

Replenish is banned, so perhaps replacing it with the already maindecked Eternal Witness for the Gifts pile?  Merchant Scroll would also be a nice addition--finding Gifts, draw, bounce, counters, etc.

[Harlequin]

I would probably replace it with Show and Tell.  the 4th card doesn't really matter becuase with either reclaim or find, you can win on 5 mana.  The replenish was just for show.

[Mr. Nightmare]

If your win condition is an Enchantment, and you're already in white, why aren't you running Academy Rector?  Even as a 1-of to Survival for, it's still better than Waterfront Bouncer.  Also, Enlightened Tutor?

[bomholmm]

My favorite gifts piles for battle of wits are these:

recoup, reanimate, academy rector, cabal therapy.

to cut out red you can do this:

reanimate, animate dead, rector, therapy

[Anusien]

Any other deck ideas?  Think you can find 142 or so good Goblins?

[parallax]

I would have to build Solidarity just for the challenge.

[Nomad]

I just wanted to add that the most satisfying game I've seen with a Battle of Wits deck was at Nationals this year, where the guy killed his opponent by pinging him to death with 3 Spectral Searchlights...

[Anusien]

I would have to build Solidarity just for the challenge.

We were talking about this in IRC.  One potential idea is to use brain freeze and flash of insight to dig your library in order to tutor up Battle of Wits and trigger Gaea's Blessing, then untap and cast Battle.

[Hi-Val]

Another idea could be to build kind of like Prismatic does with a HUGE element of the deck dedicated to mana development. Run the best 90 mana fixers in Green and Artifacts and then just count on blowing people out with giant spells. For example, you Tidings up a hand, Wrath the board, Nostalgic Dreams your bomby cards back, then Rude Awakening ftw or something similar.

Rude Awakening, Morphling and BOW can all be tutored with Brainspoil : )

Also, 64 cards is the minimum blue needed to support FOW in a 240 deck. Until someone comes along and says I did my math wrong, at least.

[Anusien]

5 Colors, with All Sun's Dawn and company?  Seems interesting.

[OfficeShredder]

A much better (i.e. cooler) idea.  Instead of having a 250+ card deck, you make yourself a 60 card deck with burning wish (or cunning), mirari, and an infinite mana combo.  Mirari + wish gives you infinite cards in your hand, then drop a temporal cascade with battle of the wits on the ground and say good game

[EnialisLiadon]

Izzet Guildmage would do the same thing (though only with burning), and it would be cheaper to cast than mirari.  Also, I think you can only copy a spell once with Mirari.

[Harlequin]

BEST WIN CONDITION EVER

This is possibly my favorite thread on TMD.

[Hi-Val]

The point of the BOW challenge is to see whether 60-card strategies translate to 250-card strategies. Obviously you probably don't have Storm combo anymore but the speed of the format looks slowed enough that you could likely BOW kill. I'm guessing that 250-card aggro would probably be the strongest archetype, however.

[OfficeShredder]

Izzet Guildmage would do the same thing (though only with burning), and it would be cheaper to cast than mirari.  Also, I think you can only copy a spell once with Mirari.

I play cunning wish, and copy it with mirari.  I get cunning wish, and another instant.  I play cunning wish, copy it with mirari.  Get the other cunning wish I played, and another instant.  Play that cunning wish, copy it with mirari.  Get the cunning wish, and another instant.  Rinse and repeat

[EnialisLiadon]

Izzet Guildmage would do the same thing (though only with burning), and it would be cheaper to cast than mirari.  Also, I think you can only copy a spell once with Mirari.

I play cunning wish, and copy it with mirari.  I get cunning wish, and another instant.  I play cunning wish, copy it with mirari.  Get the other cunning wish I played, and another instant.  Play that cunning wish, copy it with mirari.  Get the cunning wish, and another instant.  Rinse and repeat

Ah, I was assuming you were trying to do something like Izzet Guildmage in copying the spell and copying the copy or something.  What infinite mana combo would be used?

[OfficeShredder]

I like the reset/high tide strategy to be honest  :lol:

[Jacob Orlove]

The point of the BOW challenge is to see whether 60-card strategies translate to 250-card strategies. Obviously you probably don't have Storm combo anymore but the speed of the format looks slowed enough that you could likely BOW kill. I'm guessing that 250-card aggro would probably be the strongest archetype, however.

If you want 60 card analogues of 250 card decks, you need to look at highlander builds (or skittles!). Anything that's a viable build for Legacy Highlander should work fine as a BOW deck.

Mana bases and mana development is insanely crucial. I would work on that before even deciding what cards to run. Green is pretty much required if you want to play more than one color and/or cards that cost more than 3 mana.

[Hi-Val]

It's interesting that in Prismatic, Green isn't really run as color fixing at all. There's enough colorless and on-color fixing that one needn't dip for Harrow and Explosive Veggies. STE is one of the only green mana fixers played, sometimes along with Reach. The Signets and Bauble have gone a long way towards making manabases work better on colorless mana.

[silvernail]

I dont know if I were to want to build a BOW deck - Id want to win with BOW, not a bunch of creatures

Id make the deck a mix of counter magic, card draw and removal. The point would be to survive just logn enough to get and cast a battle and get an upkeep phase to win in.