Ok, so I have an upcoming tournament, and I am going to enter with my U/B Painter deck. It is mainly a control deck, with a the Painter combo. It is meta'ed against aggro/control and combo decks at my metagame. I'll give you some archtype breakdowns below. The point with this deck is to build tempo, and establish control by drawing cards, countering and killing threats and tutoring. Then I would lay down the Painter combo when backed with counter and win. The deck has a hard time dealing with some fast Fish decks, like R/G beats and BUG Fish. It can squash combo, buit I also need it ready for aggro/copntrol, as well as strong matchups for everything else. I want the deck to be as cheap as it can be, even though I have some expensive stuff for the proxies. I may be getting U/B Duals and Fetches, but there may be a chance it will fall through. I will note the proxies, but keep in mind my budget.
Grind the Night Away!
6 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins
1 Strip Mine
3 Trinket mage
4 Painter's Servant
1 Sundering Titan (I'm trying to get a DSC)
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will ****
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grindstone *
1 Mox sapphire *
1 Tinker
2 Mana Leak
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Black Lotus *
1 Ancestral Recall *
4 Duress
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Echoing Truth
1 Sol Ring
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ponder
1 Mox jet *
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Time walk *
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Echoing Truth
2 Stifle
1 Trickbind
1 Infest
2 Executioner's capsule
3 Annul
3 Tormod's Crypt
Now, about the deck choices. I will skip over obvious ones...
Academy Ruins: Very helpful. Acts like an Auriok salvagers. Can get back grindstone and Painter if needed, making it harder to deal with.
Trinket Mage: My big answer to Fish. It helps me tutor up mainly my Explosives, but can also be the Capsules, the Crypts or the Needle, or SDT. A blocker to boot.
Tinker/Titan: It's nice against the people oin my meta who are ambitious with their manabases. Sometimes it hurts me more, but I think it is worth the risk against Fish.
Mana Leak: I don't have any mana Drains, so these are in place for now. They are okay, but I'm on the fence with the, because I just pitch them to FoW.
TfKs: Helpful, but I'm not sure about my whole draw engine. Sometimes the deck just runs out of steam and loses. I'm not sure if more or less draw is the thing I should eb adding right now.
Duress: many people like to play combo, especially one-turn kill crap and Oath. These are helpful. I wish I had some Thoughtseizes
Echoing Truth: I love this card. It has saved me many games with Empty the Warrens and just buying myself time against Aggro.
Executioner's Capsules: My tutorable solution for Aggro. very nice, but sometimes I don't have the extra black to get it right off the top. I may have to wait a turn. other than that, they are excellent. I love recurring them with Ruins and such.
For the sideboard:
Extra Explosives: Come in against Aggro and Fish. Very helpful in board stablilizing.
Wipe Away: I like this one of for the decks that rely on a DSC on Titan win. I can usually Mystical Totur for it and they let it resolve anyway.
Infests: helpful against Goblins and Fish.
Extra ECapsules: Come in with Infests
Tormod's Crypts: For the random grave deck that one may play. Ichorid isn't common, I worry more of Bomberman and Dragon.
Annuls: Shops are very common, but every once and a while, I play against them. I cannot win unless I ahve these. These give me hope.
Stifles and Trickbind: Storm is gay and so is other combos.
As I said, I have the combo matchup down pat. My problem is agressively oriented Fish decks. I ask for advice regarding the decklist, keeping in mind the information I have presented. I hope that you guys respond, and if you do, I will respond back! Please help me with my goals.
