Mana Drain Meets Mana Denial..

[the_lord_shaper]

     For The past few weeks I've been toying with a new deck at my local tournaments. It's been doing well, I've split twice in the finals and came in fourth in another tournament with it. It is a combination of a aggro mana denial deck and a mana drain control deck.

4 Curse Catcher
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Werebear
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Brainstorm
1 Life from the Loam
4 Stifle
1 Regrowth
4 Null Rod
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Tropical Island
SB
2 Krosan Grip
3 Trygon Predator
3 Spell Snare
2 Echoing Truth
3 Tormods Crypt
2 Sower of Temptation


    Mana Denial: I have the normal 4 null rods, 4 stifles, and 4 curse catchers. All of which have been working well. Not much that needs to be said about the denial package.

    Creatures: I have curse catcher for mana denial,  Tarmo for damage, and I also have werebear for damage. I felt that the deck needed to be speed up some, so I added the bears. They have been proving themselves in many games, especially vs. stax and aggro.

    Control: Now here's where my deck deviates from most aggro decks, the addition of mana drain. It is a fantastic card that helps accelerates this deck. I know the deck has few spells that cost more than 2 but what drain helps with so much is playing null rods with ease and allowing me to play multiple 2 drop draw and  2 drop creature spells on the same turn. Life from the Loam seems like an odd addition but it helps in late games vs control, and helps in general vs. stax and other aggro builds. It also make intuition useful if I have already drawn some AKs already.

   Well, thats my deck in a nut shell. I hope you write it any comments would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading my post. Oh by the way if  anyone could think of a good name for deck, let me know. 

[Lurker101]

It doesn't seem like Mana Drain fits into this deck. What do you drain into? Also I would cut the werebears for a more efficient utility creature like Spellstutter Sprite or something of that nature. Also I would run crucibles over life from the loam in this deck if you're using it to recur waste/strip, it's more efficient and gives you something to drain into at least. I would run more than 1 crucible as well. Overall though, I think you should cut the drains completely and cut the waste/strip lock and just play BUG Fish or GUW Fish. You could still run Tarmo and Cursecatcher as well as Ninja of the Deep Hours, Dark Confidant, Spellstutter Sprite, Jotun Grunt, Meddling Mage, Children of Korlis etc. It would also help to know what your meta consists of mainly, what decks are you facing?

[FadeToBlack]

This seems like it's just BUG Fish that awkwardly squeezes in a draw engine and some Mana Drains over Dark Confidant and Negates...which just seems more inconsistent to me.

[the_lord_shaper]

My local meta game is pretty inconsistent for the most part. But normally there are a a few Tezz decks at each tourney. And to answer the second question, usually I just drain into null rod, intuition, or multiple 2 drops. I realize that I don't have many of the normal drain targets and thats why there are only 3 in the deck. It's been very consistent over the past few tournaments for me. I have to defend the bears, they are there to speed up matches, in particle the control ones. Having just four Tarmo wasn't ending those games fast enough. Lastly, Loam is better then you give it credit. Most of the time I just use intuition to get loam, strip mine, and wasteland. I only do that if null rod is out and the strip lock will help. It has been a godsend though vs. aggro and stax. Another plus of loam is that it get Tarmo and bears big fast, even if a relic as been popped.

[Nehptis]

I must admit when I first saw this deck in a tourney report, I was very skeptical.  And for the folks who are dismissing it as "Drains jammed into a Fish deck" or an "awkward BUG Fish deck", I say look again!  This deck DOES NOT run black.  And it might actually have found a productive way to use Drains in Fish.  It's easy to overlook those two critical points.

Now I'm not saying that this deck is optimal by any means.  But, there are some things that I like:

1) Multiple Basic Lands (Islands).  I hate being subject to mana denial.  Especially, when that's what my deck is supposed to do to you!

2) Mana Drain in a Fish Deck!  I can see how this can be used in accelerating Rods or playing multiple 2 drops in a single turn. There are two sides to this though.  The other side is UU with 5 lands that don't produce U.  Only testing will tell me if this is a problem. 

3) The use of IT / AK as a draw engine.  (See comments on this in my next section.)


Critiques:

1) Lack of Black not only means no Bobs.  But, it also means no Duress effects.  This limits a non accelerated 1st turn play to Cursecatcher.

2) I like the idea of using IT/AK which can be accelerated by Drains and even a Bear.  But, I think 2 ITs is optimal.

3) 1 MISD always feels random to me in a non-combo deck. I say cut it.

4) I see how the Bears can be effective.  But, I would use Trygons instead.

5) 4 Stifle seems like 2 too many for my taste.

6) I agree CoW > LftL in this deck.  But, ITing Loam, Strip, Waste is solid.  This is especially why I would run 2 ITs.  One to grab Strip effects another to grab AKs.

[the_lord_shaper]

I really like having four stifles in the deck. They not only are a good turn one play instead of cure catcher, but they have saved me so many times from engineered explosives, Triskelion, goblin welder, sower of temptation, and sundering titian. Oh and I forgot to mention how awesome it is to stifle Tezz and time vault and pretty much all of dredge. Stifle is sadly, a really underrated card apparently. Having more then two is easily justified, I think. Now having a second intuition is interesting, but I'm not so sure if I need two of them. The Were-Bears are a spot that might be better filled with something else. I'm just not sure what. I really need something cheap and beefy.  I should probably up my three count spells a bit too. I was toying with cunning wish maybe. I don't know, but thanks everyone for your posts so far.

[FadeToBlack]

1) Multiple Basic Lands (Islands).  I hate being subject to mana denial.  Especially, when that's what my deck is supposed to do to you!

I've played with Fish Variants plenty of times, and mana denial really doesn't bother me. If you have a Tarmogoyf down, your more than happy to have your opponent spend their turn Wastelanding you. The exception is Tinker --> Sundering Titan...but your in trouble at that point regardless.

2) Mana Drain in a Fish Deck!  I can see how this can be used in accelerating Rods or playing multiple 2 drops in a single turn. There are two sides to this though.  The other side is UU with 5 lands that don't produce U.  Only testing will tell me if this is a problem. 

You're not exactly accelerating into anything with Drain. If you could Drain, you could've just played Null Rod. You also point out the mana issues of UU, which is why Negate reigns supreme in Fish builds.

My biggest problem is that your just trying to make a Fish deck with a long game...which just means that its early game is worse. You want to be dropping men to get in there and Null Rod to slow your opponent...not sit around and draw cards. What are you possibly trying to draw into with a Fish deck? You don't run any of the singleton Bomb's that the control decks have, like Tinker or Yawg Will. Your grounded on consistency and speed...spending turns drawing cards impedes this. That is why Dark Confidant is so good, as he still attacks, and uses a resource that you have an excess of (life) rather than one you are constantly short on (mana).

For what its worth, I did try out this build. I realize your going for something different..but it just seems looser. In what situation am I ever going to want CoW or the Loam Engine going? I realize its great in theory to Wasteland my opponent out..but it seems so unnecessary. If your deploying men and Null Rods, 1 or 2 Wastelands should keep your opponent far enough behind regardless.

[the_lord_shaper]

     Here's the new deck list I ran yesterday at Something 2 Do's tournament for a Library of Alexandria. I came in second, losing to oath in the end. But my deck did really well over all.

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Werebear
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Mana Drain
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Misdirection
1 Regrowth
1 Echoing Truth
4 Stifle
4 Null Rod
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Island
3 Tropical Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald

SB
2 Echoing Truth
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Krosan Grip
3 Trygon Predator
3 Spell Snare
3 Tormod's Crypt

    I traded the thirsts for AK's for draw, but to up my artifact count I added chalices. The thirsts were great over all. I didn't even mind discarding two cards sometimes ,because it made Tarmogoyf and werebear bigger. I cut curse catchers for dazes, only because I couldn't fit four in the deck and I didn't have time to test if three catchers would work well or not. Funny thing though is that I won almost all of my pre-top eight games with were-bears.
 
    Round one I played a Tezz deck. Game one was pretty standard; I got early null rod and eventually dropped a bear and won. Game two was much harder though. My opponent brought in ancient grudges, which sucked to play against. At least spell snare helped though. Anyway, that game went into time and so I won the round. It really should have been a tie. I made such a stupid play mistake. I knew he had a misdirection in hand but I still tutored up A-Call....yeah.

    Round two I played a very cool workshop deck, called T.O.G.W.D.E. I'm not sure what it stands for but I remember the designer of the deck trying to think of a deck name that had to with their workshop deck not have crappy cards in them. None the less, I lost game one in like two turns. On the second turn he intuitioned for three artifact creatures one them being titan, which he had eight mana open to cast it with and a goblin welder on the field. I got game two by dropping an early null rod and were-bears.  Game three I got lucky by top decking multiple null rods and bears.

    Round three I played against R/G beatz. Which my deck is both good and bad against at the same time. My deck has the greater number of bigger dudes but I have no basic forest, and that's what did me in. I couldn't keep the bears down to green mana, so in game three I sat with 3 Tarmogoyfs and two predators in hand. But we did have some insane counter wars, I think one over a Tarmogoyf the was something like eight spells played I think, nutty.

    Round Four I played against Tezz again. Same old null + two drop dude to victory.

    Now in the first round of top eight I played against the same workshop list from before, but played by a different player. Again, I lost horribly game one. I didn't have a chance in the world. Game two I won, but I bet you can guess how, by null + Tarmogoyf. Then there was game three, which wasn't fair to my opponent. He had to mulligan down to three cards. His first turn was just a mox pearl. Mine was land, chalice. And from there I play A-call and played three wastelands and a goyf. 

    Next up was fish with counter balance. I really thought I was going to lose game one when counter balance hit play, but some how I was able to play null rod and then a gofy. Then in game two he just played a land first turn and passed. I got lucky with a top decked black lotus and then I played two tarmogoyfs. That was pretty much that.

    The the finals vs oath with progentitus and magister sphinx. I got game one with null rod shutting down his only mana sources and a tarnogoyf. But from there my luck kind of ran dry. I boarded in 2 echoing truths, 2 sowers, 2 grips, 3 spell snare, and 3 predators. But both games he had an early game oath and I didn't have any counters. My stifles gave me a little time, but all I drew were lands. It kind of sucked to get so close to getting a library, but at least I got as far as I did. Especially since I heavily changed my deck with out any real deck testing.

[Lurker101]

Congrats on your success with the deck but I would play cursecatcher over daze. Also, I still can't figure out what you're draining into. Why not just play negate?

[nineisnoone]

Congrats on your success with the deck but I would play cursecatcher over daze. Also, I still can't figure out what you're draining into. Why not just play negate?

To be honest, I don't think running "drain sinks" is really all that good an idea and is sort of out-dated.  I mean, sure sometimes you can drain a force, and sink that 5 mana but that's limiting.  Most spells really don't count that much.  Most of the time 1-2, sometimes 3. 

I think contemporary (and the correct) approach is to just treat mana drain as a counter spell that sometimes gives you back a mana or two.  Sure, maybe you normally would EOT that thirst, but if you got 2 mana coming in on the drain, why not main phase it for 1?  I think that's why I've seen less and less of bots in drain decks, and why they seem to be consistently good despite the presence of storm decks.  Rather than treating it as a mini-combo, they just play small ball with it.  Getting those little incremental resource advantages.

My main issue (or critical curiosity) is more on the Null Rod -> Thirst interaction.  Namely, not being able to run full power making Thirst at least a whole turn slower, if not more simply due to not hitting that 3rd mana source.

The inclusion of Wearbears is actually ingenius as it solves that problem and is a solid beater.  I'm guessing that is why he has so much success when he draws them.

[the_lord_shaper]

     Lurker101, I mainly drain into thirsts, but I have drained into null rods and into mutiple two drops. In the next tourney I will try out catchers in dazes spot. The reason for the switch is that I have rarely seen decks that run less than four catchers.

[the_lord_shaper]

     Thanks nineisnoone for your post. Honestly, I have been getting so much crap for playing this deck. 

[nineisnoone]

Thanks nineisnoone for your post. Honestly, I have been getting so much crap for playing this deck.

No problem.  To be honestly, I wasn't sure what I thought of the deck until I posted that.  But it sort of came together as I thought about it.  I used to play some Legacy Threshold, so I know how even though Werebear looks like crap on paper compared to Nimble Mongoose or Tarmogoyf, the ability frequently makes it much better.

Some comments, I think your SB is off.  You run Chalice and Null Rod.  When I'm not running full mana acceleration I rarelygo for 3 cost spells when there are similar 2 cost spells.  Especially, if they are SB answer cards.  You don't want to hope that your mana falls together on top of drawing the right card.

So... Seals for Grips. 

Not really sure, why you brought in the Predators, it's slower than Oath in that it'll Oath the creature out if you play it after the Oath and it costs more.  Is this for your Stacks matchup?  I would just play Energy Flux.  I don't Predators add that much to your Oath match.  I would think at the very least just add more Seals.

I can't imagine Sower not being anything other than win-more.  Are you just running Sower for Aggro?  Again, not sure I'd play it over the lesser Propaganda.  Don't forget the mana denial strategy works well with that. 

Also, someone brought up Curfew in the BUG thread as a way to deal with Progenitus.  It'll also do DSC in a pinch. 

As far as main deck goes, I wouldn't add Cursecatchers.  I would actually trade the Stifles for Shadow of Doubt, which gets you the same Stifle effect and is a counter spell in a number of other circumstances all the while cantripping.  This is mainly to look to add the 4th Chalice of the Void, to minimalize the interference Chalice @ 1 would do to you.  On top of that, I'd look to add the 4th Wearbear and the 4th Thrist.  Probably the Dazes (not a fan) and maybe the Regrowth. 

Oh, and also Tinker DSC.

[Troy_Costisick]

     Thanks nineisnoone for your post. Honestly, I have been getting so much crap for playing this deck. 

I've always liked your deck builds.  It's the only one I really don't have much of a plan against.  I'm sure you'll keep refining it, but given your performance at the last few tourneys, it's win record speaks for itself IMO.  Just keep winning with it, bro

Peace,

-Troy

[the_lord_shaper]

   Nineisnoone, I think your right about the sowers, but the predators are there because its a good creature vs. oath , shop, Tezz, and to a lesser extent against slaver. I also thought of curfew, bouncing progenitus and a spirit token seems fine. The only problem is if magister sphinx is oathed up first. What are your thoughts though, on replacing dazes with curse catchers. I'm not sure if running three of them is worth it.

[Troy_Costisick]

  Nineisnoone, I think your right about the sowers, but the predators are there because its a good creature vs. oath , shop, Tezz, and to a lesser extent against slaver. I also thought of curfew, bouncing progenitus and a spirit token seems fine. The only problem is if magister sphinx is oathed up first. What are your thoughts though, on replacing dazes with curse catchers. I'm not sure if running three of them is worth it.

The nice thing about Daze is that you can play it as a surprize.  If you have a Cursecatcher in play, your opponent can play around it.  If you have two tapped islands in play, then your opponent is likely to be more aggressive in his spell casting since he knows you can't cast Drain.  Daze also hits creatures, artifacts, and enchantments which Cursecatcher doesn't

[the_lord_shaper]

    Thanks Troy. But honestly, our game come down to a forest, at least on my part. I do agree with you on dazes. If had four slots open, I would be much more open to playing catchers.

[nineisnoone]

Is it that good against Tezz?  Mostly, I don't like sorcery speed artifact removal against Tezz since the combo is a measly 4 mana to play all at once.  It certainly has it's backers though. 

Well, I've never been a big fan of Daze.  Mostly, I just don't like how it goes from useful to not-so-useful so quickly.  Or at least that's the fear. 

At least Cursecatcher, it can turn sideways and contribute to your win condition.  Also, don't forget being able to invest it early means they are less likely to counter it.  For me, that would be the trade-off.  Cursecatcher in an aggro deck is just going to be more consistent, always doing something. Even if that something is "die to Tarmogoyf." 

Daze, on the other hand, becomes useless fairly easily.  Not saying that it is bad because of that, it just because tons of cards are situational.  But the real power is in the mind games, making them play around it.  But once the mana isn't tight anymore, playing around it and playing generically smart are frequently similar.

Personally, I've always been a bigger fan of stability and consistency, which is probably why if I had to lean one way, I'd lean Cursecatcher.  If I were to run Daze, I'd probably run 2.  And cross my fingers to get it early in the first game, and then hope to never draw it ever again. 

EDIT:  Propoganda probably isn't a good card against aggro since you run creatures too. hehee.

[M.Solymossy]

predators are there because its a good creature vs. oath

[Facepalm!]

Seriously, did you just say that?   No creature is good against oath.  I WOULD LOVE for someone to board in creatures against me when I'm playing oath.  The plan then becomes to find double oath, or to find time walk.  Or, the easiest play, to resolve oath before you resolve a predator, and then laugh.

[Lurker101]

predators are there because its a good creature vs. oath

 No creature is good against oath. 

Duplicant is good against Oath.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

predators are there because its a good creature vs. oath

 No creature is good against oath. 

Duplicant is good against Oath.

game 1... for the other 2/3 of the round not really. And considering that most of the oath your ground to be seeing is out of tez sb, its not really good any games.

[M.Solymossy]

Duplicant is good against Oath.

Only with Da Joblin Welder, and like Johnny Beste (100yearhax) said, only game 1.  Game 2, you're going to see Simic, or better guys such as Empyrial Archangel or Proginitus.  Have fun doing ANYTHING to those guys.

[VorpalBunnyDuby]

Trygon doesn't seem all that bad though, considering his deck plays stifles, chalices and can also bring in seals/grips.
Is it optimal? Probably not, since its usually easier for them to get oath online faster than you can get trygon out and ready to attack.
As for comments about dealing with oaths creatures, lets be honest, once oath gets its dudes out the match is usually done. Playing cards like curfew might seem worthwhile but they just aren't that good. The best way to combat oath is to stop them from triggering and or resolving oath, sometimes oath gets that busted hand of mox, orchard, and oath. Crap happens, there is a reason why people play it.
Just test out different hate cards and find which one helps the most, i'd try seals and or grips, since they are harder for oath to deal with than trygons.
Good luck and keep on winning.
Dont let soly get ya down, I'm sure that he'd lose to a creature deck while playing oath and just complain how the creature deck got lucky and how he didn't have his billion outs

[the_lord_shaper]

     M.Solymossy, the oath deck I played against had Progentitus in the main deck. I was lucky game one when I played null Rod, and that he didn't have any land and only moxen in play. I'm starting to come around to the idea of replacing trygons, but I think I would still use grips plus somehting eles (probably seals).

[the_lord_shaper]

    I was just reading the thread, "With Tezzeret dominating, what would it be safe to unrestrict?," and I just realized something kind of cool about my deck. In my local meta, Tezz is rampant for the most part. Each weekly tournament at Somehting 2 Do, there is at least 3 to 4 Tezz decks decks. I have played them so many times. In one tournament, half of all my games were against Tezz. Here's the kind of cool thing, I can clearly remember playing against it 9 times in the past 4 weeks. I tied 3 of those games and won the other 6. I'm not saying that my deck is the anti-Tezz deck, but I thought that it was a neat little realization. 

    Oh, I took all of your comments to heart and I have seriously changed my sideboard, but I'm still torn between using 3 dazes or 3 curse catchers.