[Deck Concept] Artifact-Based Control

[Hellsing293]

Well I've toiled with this deck concept in my mind for a while now. I finally sat down and planned this deck out but I couldn't really finish it. I'm stuck and I don't know what else to cut, and also I'm not even sure it would work lol. I'm asking for help/suggestions on what to cut/change and if you think this deck will be competitive at all in a T1 environment.

The point of this deck to control early in the game with Tangle Wire alone or a combination of Tangle Wire and Winter Orb. With these cards out this deck takes advantage land-for-land against the opponent, sporting lands that add multiple mana. Also the deck includes Dark Rituals, Metalworkers, Moxen, Black Lotus and other mana producing artifacts to get around Winter Orb and give you an advantage speed-wise versus your opponent.

As I said before, the key to this deck is early dominance, through Tangle Wire and/or Winer Orb. A key to getting these out would be mana-producing artifacts but also powerful lands such as Mishra's Workshop, Tolarian Academy and Lake of the Dead.

Although establishing dominance over your opponent, you still will be somewhat slowed down. Using very big, yet cost-efficient creatures will be the kill as your opponent will be too slowed down to sport enough, if any creatures. The decks creatures would include Juzam Djinn for only BB, and Juggernaut for 4 which can be accelerated with Mishra's Workshop or Metalworker.

The deck splashes Black and Blue for either speed, disruption or drawing/tutoring. I was hesitant calling this control since it's not really "control" but uses control aspects in order to gain an advantage on the opponent.

Ok, well here's my list of cards which still needed some cards cut from the deck. Please give me some advice on what to cut or change about the deck and if you think it will work at all. I ahven't gotten a chance to playtest this yet because I haven't finalized what the deck would consist of yet.

CREATURES

4 Metal Worker
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Juggernaut
4 Juzam Djinn

INSTANTS

4 Mana Drain
4 Dark Ritual
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Intuition
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Frantic Search

SORCERIES

1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Damnation
1 Yawgmoth's Will

ARTIFACTS

4 Tangle Wire
3 Winter Orb
1 Black Lotus
1 Trinisphere
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Jet

ENCHANTMENTS

1 Necropotence

LANDS

4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Lake of the Dead
4 Underground Sea
3 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 The Tabernacle at Pendreval

70 Cards total, needs 10 of them cut.

**Notes**
Fetches-to-Available Land Ratio-4:8
Lake of the Dead-to-Swamp/Underground Sea Ratio: 2:7

One thing I think can be sideboarded is The Tabernacle at Pendreval. This card just reeks havoc with Winter Orb or Tangle Wire out. Damnation is also meant for creature-swarm decks if I'm having trouble with early control. Strip Mine can be taken out, I only considered it for early disruption. Trinisphere combined with Tangle Wire or Winter Orb can be formidable but could also backfire on me too.

Well, Comments/Advice are appreciated. I'm very interested to see if this works. One of my only concerns is the immense amount of artifact-hate out there.

[MirariKnight]

I would suggest that you look at a deck called Stax, it has a similar game plan to yous. There are many different varieties of this, but there are similarities between them. First of all, some of the black cards just aren't going to be effective in this deck (Juzaam, Damnation, Necropotence without Rituals and with Mana Drains). Another really useful lock piece in your deck is Crucible of Worlds, and Strip Mine/Wastelands. Because of this, I would suggest cutting Lakes of the Dead and Tabernacles and adding in Wastelands. This deck also loves all 5 of the Moxen, and don't forget they are Tinker freindly. Another card I would advise, which is the defining part of these type of decks, is Goblin Welder. It is worth running Red stricly for this card. He can lock you opponent and remove the lock pieces during your turn, and thats just the beginning. Because of this, cards like Platinum Angel, Mindslaver and Triskelion become options, although I would suggest the latter for this type of deck. If you choose to stick with blue, I would use Thirst for Knowledge, and cut the Mana Drains, although blue is not the best color for this deck imo (except possibly for Recall). Other really useful Artifact pieces include Sphere of Resistance (stops GAT from Gushing, FoW, etc, stops combo) and possibly Smokestack, which is quite good, both of these are better than Winter Orb imo. Those are my basic opinions but I don't know that much about Prison decks so I would again advise you to look at Stax decks for ideas.

[Roat17]

In this particular deck, you don't really want UU open for Mana Drain early because then you aren't playing your beats.  I don't know what you would intuition for, and Frantic Search, as someone pointed out to me, is just not that great a card.

Duress + Orb of Dreams + Karn Should be in this deck as well.

Duress fits in with your strategy and is just an awesome card right now.  While your opponent is locked you are able to remove his best chances of getting out of said lock.  Orb of Dreams is just an awesome card.  No deck likes to play against it, especially since it hoses GAT, Flash to a small degree, all Tendrils based combo, and Ichorid.  Karn will just allow you to use your lock pieces to mash your opponent as well as take out their moxen.  Damnation is just too slow, and you have HUGE creatures, so you shouldn't really worry about casting it.  I would throw a Sundering Titan in as well, as he will pretty much end games.

As Mirari stated, wastes are essential. 


To get you down to 60 cards, I would make the following changes
-4 Mana Drain
-2 Intuition
-1 Frantic Search
-1 Damnation
-4 Underground Sea
-2 Lake of the Undead
-1 The tabernacle at Pendrel Vale
-3 Winter Orb
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-1 Necropotence

-20

+3 Wasteland
+3 Orb of Dreams
+3 Duress
+1 Karn, Silver Golemn

+10

I realize I cut most of your mana base, which would need to be re-evaluated as well.  But frankly you don't need the 26 mana sources that you had.  I would use lots of basics so you don't get owned by Magus of the Moon, even though most of your spells are brown anyway.  Finally, I would possibly add an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth as it allows for BB if you decid to keep Necro and Damnation. 
If Aggro isn't a problem in your meta, I would say you should go with Negator over Djinn, or if it is maybe Razormane Masticore.  Djinn isn't bad, I just want to give you other options as well.


I think it looks like a fun deck and wish you luck with whatever route you choose.

[MirariKnight]

I'm not going to try to say that Juzaam is a viable card at all but IF you were to play it I think that Plague Sliver is a much better (and cheaper) option, for the 1/1000000 chance that it comes out when Flash has slivers out. Roat you had brought up Magus of the Moon, which I think would also be a great card to include in this deck. A lot of your cards are colorless, and the only real black spell youd run is Duress, which is best before you could play a Magus. Possible sideboard option maybe at the least imo.

[netherspirit]

How about trying Paradox Haze and Smokestack? Paradox Haze is brilliant with Tangle Wire, Smokestack and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale; and the more Paradox Hazes you get out the more brutal it will be. This should then allow you to stabilize a lock and find a win condition such as Sundering Titan, Karn or Platinum Angel.

Just a few ideas! Good luck.

netherspirit

[Roat17]

Mirari brought up a good point.  If you do end up cutting things like Drains, then you rely a lot less heavily on coloured mana sources, and this would allow you to run Magus of the Moon yourself. 

What I would do, is ask yourself what you want this deck to achieve.  Do you want it to be control, or more prison/lock?  Or do you want it more aggressive?  From there, I would look at the cards that help you achieve your goal.  For example, Sphere of Resistance is a lock card, where as Triskellion is more of a control card, however it can compliment the lock role very nicely with recurring usage (Goblin Welder).

I think right now, everyone is making a suggestion, however after thinking about this deck again, there seems to be a bit of doubt as to what this deck wants to do.  Winning with fatties is cool, as is locking your opponent out, but I think you need to decide exactly what it is you want this deck to achieve.  Personally, I think Workshop Aggro has potential at the moment with the right lock piece compliments and the right creatures. 

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

you might want to look into the 1 variant of blue stax. there's a list at http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=22101