The Return Of Ophie, The One-Eyed, Card-Drawing Snake – A Primer On Mono-Blue Permission In Type One
Type One has a store of decks waiting in the wings to make their big return. Often they are waiting for that new card to bring the deck back into the limelight. More likely, they are waiting for a shift in the metagame or banning to weaken rivals. If both conditions are met, then the stage may be set for an encore performance.
In Vintage, Mono-Blue Control was once a deck to be feared. The most successful form of mono-Blue was an aggro-control concept known simply as BluebullSh*t (BBS). The idea was simple and effective: Counterspell anything relevant your opponent does, play a Morphling, lots of Fact or Fictions to refill your hand, and a Back to Basics to lock them down if need be while Morphling finished the job. The restriction of Fact or Fiction did little to dampen enthusiasm for the deck.
The switch to Ophidian as the draw engine and more counterspells just meant that the deck had to work harder at protecting itself instead of being able to play an aggressive Morphling game.
Here is what those decks looked like:
Michael Bower, a.k.a. mikephoen, Champion, First Beyond Dominia Type I Tournament of Champions, 2000
Mana (25)
17 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
Counters (17)
4 Counterspell
4 Mana Drain
2 Forbid
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
Removal (6)
4 Powder Keg
2 Nevinyrral’s Disk
Creatures (6)
4 Ophidian
2 Morphling
Utility (6)
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Soothsaying
1 Zuran Orb
Rebuilding from the ground up, here is what I ended up with:
SmmenenBlue 2001/early 2002
4 Ophidian
2 Morphling
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Impulse
3 Powder Keg
2 Back to Basics
15 Islands
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
5 Moxen
1 Lotus
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
3 Counterspell
1 Prohibit
Sideboard
4 Control Magic
2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Wasteland
2 Psionic Blast
1 Powder Keg
1 Misdirection
1 Back to Basics
1 Extract
You can find the primer I wrote on this deck here: http://www.themanadrain.com/monoblue.htm
In other words, Mono-Blue could no longer work as an aggro-control deck. Keeper still ran Braingeyser, Stroke of Genius and played spells that enabled the deck to find and play Ancestral Recall quickly. What do all those cards have in common? They are all vulnerable to being used in favor of your opponent with Misdirection. Misdirection was also strong against the sligh and Red/Green weenie decks that were designed to fight Keeper at the time. And combo couldn’t fight very well through a fist full of counterspells.
In other words, the metagame was at an equilibrium point with mono-Blue in a dominant position. No internal shift in the metagame would disturb that balance. The only real threat to mono-Blue was therefore mirror matches. This did not create the usual tension that mirror matches might cause. As we all know, misassignment of role equals game loss. However, the deck was designed to play control and the proper role in the mirror match was control. Therefore, beefing up the deck with more permission didn’t weaken the deck to other metagame predators.
New deck design is what weakened mono-Blue (external changes). It was at this time that people were innovating unique type one ideas for the first time in many years. The first hint of a problem for mono-Blue permission was Mask-Naught. The idea was that one only had to resolve an Illusionary Mask to win a game unless Mono-Blue could get Powder Keg up to enough counters to matter before two attack steps had passed. This meant that MaskNaught (the Illusionary Mask–Phyrexian Dreadnought based combo) could design its deck to achieve that simple goal and win as a result. Unmask and Duress could clear the way off of a Dark Ritual so that Illusionary Mask and its compatriot Phyrexian Dreadnought could come down and finish the game rather quickly. Mono-Blue evolved to board in Control Magic and potentially Gilded Drake to help secure itself against this threat.
The second design shift was Tools ‘N Tubbies. The Germans designed this deck to abuse the synergies between the new Judgement Incarnation cycle (which was to come out a few months later), Goblin Welder, Survival of the Fittest and Mishra’s Workshop-propelled monsters like Juggernaut and Su-Chi. Goblin Welder was a threat because it slipped into play quickly and turned off counterspells with each Mox cast. (Because if you counter a Juggernaut, then the Goblin Welder can return it to play by switching it with a Mox). If that wasn’t threatening enough, two Juggernaut-sized threats could come down before mono-Blue had two Islands in play.
Even if you managed to stop each of those threats, you still had to deal with Survival of the Fittest, which, by itself is enough to overwhelm you. They can Survival into Squee, Goblin Nabob, which finds Anger, which finds Genesis, which finds Goblin Welder. If you cast the Welder you can use it immediately (because of Anger) to return something into play which you can then attack with. A combination of Blue Elemental Blast, Control Magic, and luck (and hopefully Back to Basics) was enough to minimize this threat, if not completely allay it.
The final blow was impending. Pat Chapin brought Miracle Gro into the format. Although Type One players scoffed at first, it was a real monster. Known for playing Academy, Chapin promoted Gro heavily and was successful – moreso than he probably realizes. Gro is a Quirion Dryad based concept that dominated Extended by playing an extremely light mana base, lots of cheap cantrips and countermagic to grow the Dryad out of control. The deck naturally abused cards like Misdirection and refilled its hand with Gush. Chapin’s first list had 4 Misdirection, 4 Foil, and 4 Force of Will on top of a couple of Dazes as well.
Mono-Blue was used to trading one for one to survive and then gain virtual card advantage from Back to Basics to win the game. Miracle Gro didn’t care about card advantage in that sense – it would spend far more resources to force Dryad onto the board and use superior search to refuel its hand with the now-restricted Gush. In many ways this is like Illusionary Mask, except much worse. Gush and many cantrips meant that the Gro deck would topdeck better and recover sooner. Therefore it could win not only the first counterwar, but subsequent counterbattles as well. Mono-Blue’s only hope was to nail the Dryad with Powder Kegs.
This deck was almost enough to blow Mono-Blue out of the water, but the final blow was the printing of Fetchlands in Onslaught. Fetchlands enabled fantastic new desk design with Dual Lands like Tundra and Volcanic Island which counted as two basic land types. Psychatog had now found a home in Type One. The first deck to really abuse the fetchlands and Psychatog, GroAtog, was a four color deck with only nineteen mana sources, five of which were Moxen and Black Lotus. Instead of running only four Quirion Dryads to beat down with, you now had four Psychatogs in the mix. Psychatog is deadly for mono-Blue – particularly with four Gush. What made matters worse is that the deck could also afford to run basic lands, as every deck now could, thus avoiding the price to be paid for running many colors. This made Back to Basics much weaker.
Now Gush has been restricted and Masknaught isn’t really played. 4 Color Control (modernized Keeper of sorts) is once again a premier deck to beat, and the format has slowed considerably. The most pervasive metagame card appears to be Crucible of the Worlds to recur Wastelands. Why? Returning a single land into play from your graveyard once a turn is not something that is broken in Type One anymore than Back to Basics itself is broken. What makes Crucible so strong is the fact that the environment is so slow.
The best tempo deck since GroAtog to develop in Type One is an extremely unique blend of mana denial, permission, small critters, and card draw known as U/R Fish. The deck is almost entirely tempo oriented. It seeks to steal tempo from the opponent with nearly every play. Fish has pushed combo and Tog from the format. What emerges is then decks that are tempo based – like Fish, or anti-tempo, like Trinisphere decks with Smokestack or Control decks with Exalted Angel to steal back tempo. 4 Color Control is the only remaining Mana Drain reliant deck that has really remained unscathed.
The remaining contenders are just Mishra’s Workshop based Aggro-Prison decks, less beatdown and more mana denial oriented then the Workshop based decks that Mono-Blue feared in 2001. The most common card among 4cc, the Mishra’s Workshop decks, and Fish is probably Crucible of the Worlds. Because it is so powerful in the metagame, I have no doubt that many people will bring decks to the table that are designed on abusing it as much as possible.
In such an environment, what is the best answer to Crucible of the Worlds?
Basic Island cannot be the subject of Crucible recursion of Wasteland. Crucible is not an inherently powerful card. In such a very, very, slow environment Mono-Blue facially appears extremely attractive. When you consider built-in immunity to Crucible of the Worlds, mono-Blue appears to be a deck with great potential. Additionally, a cursory examination of the tier one reveals that although fetchlands are rampant, too few of the decks actually run basic lands anymore, and even if they do, they run only a few. It just so happens that one of the most powerful cards to play against U/R Fish, with all of its manlands and extremely cheap men that it seeks to play many a turn, is Back to Basics.
In such a field, Back to Basics has a similar functionality to Crucible, but trumps it. Back to Basics in addition to many basic Islands is a threat that the metagame is not prepared to handle.
With that in mind I decided to see how it might go.
Here is my first test deck:
SmmenenBlue v.1.0
15 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
3 Back to Basics
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Vedalken Shackles
4 Ophidian
1 Morphling
1 Capsize
4 Impulse
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
1 Prohibit
2 Misdirection
2 Counterspell
SB:
1 Back to Basics
1 Chalice
4 Energy Flux
4 Control Magic
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 open slots
This list isn’t far off from where I left off years ago.
Almost immediately when designing mono-Blue, you hit upon the most fundamental tension in magic: role assignment and the distinction between threat and answer.
The most successful mono-Blue decks have been threat oriented – play a key threat, protect it, attack multiple times and then win the game. The second string decks attempted to play entirely permissive game. Sometimes this strategy works. My last mono-Blue lists bear this out – as do Randy Buehler success with the archetype in Standard using his now famous decklist.
Draw, Go
Randy Buehler 1998 World Championships Standard Deck
18 Island
4 Quicksand
4 Stalking Stones
4 Counterspell
4 Dismiss
2 Dissipate
3 Forbid
4 Force Spike
4 Impulse
3 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk
4 Whispers of the Muse
Sideboard
2 Capsize
1 Grindstone
4 Hydroblast
4 Sea Sprite
4 Wasteland
Here is Randy’s deck with Urza’s Block cards:
Draw, Go
Randy Buehler
4 Faerie Conclave
16 Island
4 Stalking Stones
4 Wasteland
3 Masticore
4 Counterspell
4 Dismiss
4 Forbid
4 Mana Leak
1 Miscalculation
4 Powder Keg
4 Treachery
4 Whispers of the Muse
Sideboard
4 Annul
1 Capsize
3 Chill
3 Legacy’s Allure
1 Masticore
2 Maze of Shadows
1 Stroke of Genius
These decks are almost entirely reactive. There are only a few cards that the player wants to bring down early: Ophidian and Back to Basics, and in Randy’s deck there is almost nothing. He uses Disk to negate anything that might have resolved.
The goal was to maximize your counter power at all times – counter every threat and then play Back to Basics or Morphling and win the game – gaining small card advantage with spells like Ophidian, Back to Basics, and particularly Misdirection. The idea was to leverage that slight card advantage and countering on a one-for-one basis into a winning position. Such a strategy required an immaculate mana base. Too much mana meant too few, or ill-timed answers. Too little mana meant being unable to use your answers. That’s why Impulse is here – to smooth out your draws so that you become incredibly consistent. If you need more land, you find it. If you need more counterpower, you find it.
It is here that the tension I spoke of is most visible. The old axiom goes: there are no bad threats, just bad answers. A counterspell has a very important conditional requirement – it must be available before the opposing threat is cast, not afterward. Not all counterspells are made equal. If on my first turn, after electing to play first, I play Island with Annul in hand and pass the turn anticipating that my opponent will play Mox, Mishra’s Workshop and Juggernaut when, instead, they play Mountain, Goblin Welder, I would much rather have Blue Elemental Blast. Now the Goblin Welder is in play and I have few ways to deal with it. That was why mono-Blue was forced to run Powder Kegs. The small, early threat which slipped by could be answered, and hopefully become a source of card advantage by murdering two or more creatures on the opponents side of the board. Some threats were best answered by Morphling, and Capsize is a general answer that is useful enough to maindeck.
BBS eluded this tension because it played Fact or Fiction and protected the hell out of it and then recouped the card advantage upon its resolution. This gets to the heart of one of the most successful strategies in Magic: play a threat, protect it/disrupt the opponent, and win.
You’ll notice the extremely high counterspell count that the early mono-Blue decks ran – that reflected the need for answers. The central question then is: how does mono-Blue resolve the tension between threats and answers? Part of the answer is that in some matchups, it would just want to power out its own threat, like Back to Basics. The real answer is that it didn’t. It just stuck with the control role entirely and attempted to manage threats as best it could. The power level of the format’s counterspells greatly aided this effort, as did the metagame power, at the time, of Misdirection.
Some time ago, I heralded the coming of Chalice of the Void as a card of rare power. I said that it would squeeze mana curves and be played in almost every archetype for many different reasons. One writer said that, in part because of my article, it was one of the most over-rated cards of all time. This deck shows why he is wrong. There is no other deck in the format that can, if it wants to, drop Chalice for one with regular frequency.
Mono-Blue no longer has to resolve, in part, the important tension between the strength of powering out threats and having good answers – it can now do both at the same time! It can play spells and retain the control role. How? Chalice of the Void is a counterspell on a stick. It’s the Weissman principle: With Mox, Island, Chalice for one, you can counter upwards of 20% of most decks. On average, most decks have about 15% of their deck at the one-mana slot. Playing Chalice for one is extremely powerful if you can run it without it affecting your game plan. Moreover, it tends to slow down opposing decks creating a tempo boost as well.
It just so happens that Brainstorm is bad in mono-Blue. The only way Brainstorm is good is if, 100% of the time, or a percentage approaching that, you can shuffle afterward. The need to modulate your answers in a specific and effective way means that drawing two cards you don’t want and have already seen is simply terrible. The deck is so redundant that simply seeing more cards isn’t necessary as it would be in a deck with many different parts. Impulse is much better at that than Brainstorm. Alternatively, if you are playing against a Mishra’s Workshop-based deck, or a combo deck, Chalice for zero is often enough to seal the game. Chalice for zero turns off Goblin Welder (as it won’t have many targets in play) and prevents them from accelerating out lock parts. Chalice for one is often just as good against other Welder-based decks for the simple reason that it stops Goblin Welders entirely.
Against certain other decks, Chalice may ideally played at other amounts to be discussed herein.
After a bit of testing, it became quickly apparent that the strongest cards in the deck were Back to basics and Chalice of the Void. I only ran three of each because of my past experience. Chalice of the Void and Back to Basics have a tremendous synergy, in addition. Therefore, I upped both to four and wound up with this list:
SmmenenBlue 2.0
10 Island
5 Fetchland
1 Strip Mine
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
4 Back to Basics
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Vedalken Shackles
4 Ophidian
1 Capsize
4 Impulse
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
2 Counterspells
Sideboard
4 Energy Flux
3 Control Magic
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Domineer
2 Open Slots
There remained one large question that I had to resolve: Wastelands or no? In the past I had always said no, but often reluctantly. To illustrate my uncertainty, I had 1 Wasteland and a Strip Mine in the maindeck and three in the sideboard if there was space. The reason I mainboarded some was to reach twenty-four mana sources when I really didn’t need more Islands.
Why not Wasteland? Wasteland can be used in many ways. Most effectively, your opponent has a mana light hand and you can mana screw them into oblivion – in other words, you can murder their only or few mana sources and then build up your position while they play Draw-Go for many turns. Alternatively, you can use Wasteland as a tempo abuser. Play a large threat, then Wasteland to rewind the game one turn. That, in my view, is the most likely and useful use of Wasteland.
In mono-Blue, if your opponent plays, Mishra’s Workshop, Mox Emerald, Juggernaut, and you respond with Wastelanding the Mishra’s Workshop, you have just given them a nice tempo boost. You will be at fifteen life before you get to play your first Island, and will likely be in a completely unwinnable position. What made me decide to play Wastelands were several considerations:
1) Most of the time, Wasteland would be tempo neutral. They would play a land, I would wasteland. The position would be a position of relative parity. The difference is that we both have seen one more card, a situation which I believe favors me. This is only true because the metagame is generally so slow.
2) Mishra’s Factories. They can remain untapped and block Ophidians all day without turning off under Back to Basics. Wastelands are good at stopping that.
With most of the decks in the upper tier running Wastelands (in fact all of the decks do) that dramatically increases the chances that you will be able to mana screw them. Why? Adding a full complement of Wastelands generally increases a decks total mana base, but not at a one-for-one ratio. A few color sources are removed to make room. Therefore, although every deck seeks to abuse Wasteland, they also become more vulnerable to it.
One of the best answers to Mishra’s Workshop, Trinisphere is Wasteland.
3) Finally, the most important reason is that I now have threats. No longer am I just holding counterspells, but I’m playing Chalice for one aggressively. My number of proactive spells has risen without lowering my counterspell count. Before, I only had Morphling, Kegs, Back to Basics (2-3), and Ophidian. Now I have 4 Chalices, 4 Back to Basics and 4 Ophidians. Particularly when you consider the speed with which I try to power out Chalice for 1, then Wasteland is far more attractive at creating tempo.
Consider:
Turn1:
Me: Mox, Island, Chalice for 1.
Opponent: land, go
Turn Two:
Wasteland your land.
At this point, they can’t even play Brainstorm to find more land or have played their turn 1 threat. This creates great tempo on my side of the board and I likely have Mana Leak or Force of Will up by this point, or can Impulse into the latter if need be. Whatever the case may be, they likely won’t have a threat until two turns from now anyway since they can’t play anything that costs 1.
So here is my next list which was the logical extension of where I started:
SmmenenBlue 3.0
By Stephen Menendian
8 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
Counterspells:
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
2 Counterspell/Misdirection
Draw/Optimizers
4 Impulse
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Ophidian
Bombs:
2 Morphling
4 Back to Basics (I may turn one Back to Basics into something else)
Sideboard:
4 Control Magic
4 Energy Flux
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Propaganda
It’s worth mentioning that I fiddled around with other lists. I didn’t want any avenue to remain unexplored. I would be left with the nagging suspicion that I may have missed something – perhaps something revolutionary. Therefore, I tried an Accumulated Knowledge-based list based upon the notion that Ophidian was the weakest link of my deck.
With the idea that the most important cards were Chalice and Back to Basics, I decided to build the deck around those two cards.
I started off with something like this:
SmmenenBlue 3.1
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Back to Basics
I needed a very solid counterbase to protect and help aid these cards in making it to play.
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
The new draw engine:
4 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
After adding it all up, there was no room for Wastelands:
9 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
If you add this up, you’ll see its sixty, but I didn’t even have room to add the 3 Morphling’s I wanted to squeeze in the maindeck. To test to see if the deck functioned before dropping Morphling, I decided to do some preliminary testing without Morphling. The first thing I discovered was that Intuition was sadly weak. Often I would have two Accumulated Knowledge already used or in hand, and the second and third Intuitions are borderline dead. I decided to try this:
+ 4 Merchant Scroll
– 4 Intuition
The Accumulated Knowledges were now working. They felt functional and tended to help me find more. The Merchant Scrolls often found Ancestral first, unless I had already played Chalice of the Void for one. The deck was working well, but I needed to make room for Morphling. The first card that I felt I could cut was Misdirection number four. There is little difference between having four and three Misdirections in a deck. The chances of having it in your opening hand dip by less than 10%. I decided with all those Merchant Scrolls I also wanted Fact or Fiction. Therefore, I cut the Impulses entirely to make room for the Morphlings, Sol Ring and the Fact or Fiction. The Impulses overlapped with Merchant Scroll and Accumulated Knowledge in many ways and therefore I decided it was an appropriate change.
I did a lot of testing before it dawned on me that I wasn’t playing Chalice for one consistently, let alone seeing Chalice. Focusing the deck on being more Tutor and Accumulated Knowledge oriented made it less likely that I’d find and play my strongest card early. Impulse was stronger at that.
Additionally, the Accumulated Knowledge engine gave me uneven results. Mono-Blue wants to be a wave of uniformity. Ophidian provides a stronger resource as a blocker, attacker, and long term source of card advantage, and even in many cases short-term card advantage. Although I thought Ophidian to be the weakest part of my deck, it isn’t weak. The lesson in exploring different avenues of deck design with this deck bolstered my confidence in Ophidian and permitted me to return to the original design without wondering if it was truly best.
With that detour fresh in mind, I began to become frustrated with my testing against Psychatog. The metagame isn’t prepared for Chalice of the Void being played with one counter. This simple and effective play solves sleepless nights of agony lost over whether to be more aggressive with more proactive threats or ease up and play more reactive answers. This is both. Most decks will be tremendously stunted. In some cases, such as Control Slaver, they may be irreparably damaged because they cannot play Goblin Welder. It is important not to play Chalice singlemindedly. Against Psychatog, by all means, play Chalice for three and you may have just won the game. Against Goblin Charbelcher, Chalice for zero going first (as with some Mishra’s Workshop decks) is going to be a severe, game stunting, if not game-breaking play.
However, Chalice of the Void does not directly affect the board. The mono-Blue player can answer most of the threats that come up, but pre-emptorily answering each one-mana threat in the opposing deck is doing more than needed, and is often too narrow. Moat answers each non-flying threat, but the number of non-flyers is quite small, and at the time, many decks had lots of creatures. The number of non-one-mana spells is quite high.
With my previous test list using Accumulated Knowledge instead of Impulse, I wanted to transport that idea into the primary list. The simple question of whether AK or Impulse is better is extremely difficult to measure. My intuition tells me that the second AK is probably better than Impulse, and clearly the third and the fourth are. The determinative question is how much worse the first AK is than Impulse and if that early game marginal weakness is outweighed by the strength AK gives the deck later.
Impulse is the ultimate hand adjuster. For an extremely homogeneous deck, Impulse can often function as well as Brainstorm – and sometimes better. Brainstorm is very strong in decks with parts that function in diversely differing ways. Impulse helps you find a land if you are short, or a counterspell if you are short on countermagic, or can just help you dig to find a Chalice of the Void, Morphling, or Back to Basics. Impulsing into more Impulses helps to strongly manipulate your library.
Accumulated Knowledge is a steam roller though. Once it starts to get going, it’s overwhelming. The AKs complement the Ophidians and help you move through your deck – not as well or as early as Impulse, but the explosive potential seems to outweigh the drawbacks.
My testing against Psychatog made me extremely wary of my inability to deal with potent, resolved permanents. Once I tried a design without Chalice, I turned my attention to Shackles again, and Powder Keg. This time, Powder Keg proved better than Shackles, and more versatile. In some ways, it’s the exact opposite of Chalice of the Void. Chalice of the Void proactively stops cards at certain casting costs and Powder Keg reactively stops those cards. Powder Keg also has synergy with Back to Basics in that it can be used as a Mox killer. Powder Keg proved to be stronger against Psychatog than Shackles.
SmmenenBlue 4.0
8 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
Counterspells:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
1 Misdirection
1 Counterspell
1 Prohibit (can be Counterspell, Misdirection, or even Miscalculation)
Draw/Optimizers
4 Ophidian
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
Bombs:
3 Powder Keg
2 Morphling
4 Back to Basics
Sideboard
4 Control Magic
4 Energy Flux
4 Propaganda
3 Blue Elemental Blast
So, after deciding that Chalice is strong, I decided it wasn’t strong enough to warrant the weaknesses it created – so it is cut from this build. While I think this final build is the strongest, you should play the build that you feel most comfortable with. My matchup analysis is drawn from my experience with the different builds and references cards like Chalice of the Void frequently.
Final Card Choices
I’ve spent some time discussing the card choices, here I’ll briefly summarize my thoughts on some of the cards and describe what I perceive as their strengths and weaknesses and importance in the deck.
The Mana
The first thing that has to be mentioned is that before the Onslaught Fetchland cycle, mono-Blue could not support both a full complement of Wastelands and Moxen. The result was a flood of mana which is not even on color in addition to too many Island topdecks. Running Fetchlands really does drastically decrease the number of Islands you’re likely to topdeck. When I was testing with my first list, although the math was right, I kept topdecking Islands at inopportune moments in the midgame. The Fetchlands has virtually eliminated that problem. I just kept adding fetchlands until it felt right.
Moxen are broken for a reason and should definitely be played with. The minimum number of Islands one can play with (or fechlands to get Island) is fourteen. That can only be done if you have a full rack or darn near full rack of Wastelands. Without Wastelands, you can go as low as twenty-two mana sources with fifteen Islands assuming you have Impulses to back you up. However, I want to run a full rack of Wastelands and am able to do so with a full rack of Moxen because of the thinning effect of Fetchlands. I’m not running Sol Ring because too often it will be a terrible draw with Chalice for one in play (in testing).
Utility/Threats
Back to Basics
Once again, the metagame evolved around Back to Basics, however, it has gone unnoticed for too long. Back to Basics is now an excellent hoser against Mishra’s Workshop decks, UR Fish, and Four Color Control. Chalice of the Void complements Back to Basics by hermetically sealing the board from zero-mana artifact accelerants which might be used to aid the wounded opponent in playing spells and minimizing the impact of Back to Basics. Back to Basics, like Chalice, slows the game down tremendously buying mono-Blue lots of time to draw more threats and excellent answers.
Ophidian
Ophidian is a second tier win condition (in multiples, it only takes a handful of turns to win) and the deck’s best draw engine. Ophie is also solid at dealing with problems that other draw engines can’t tackle. What’s important to note is that the real answers to Ophie such as Red Elemental Blast and Swords to Plowshares are stopped with Chalice of the Void, once against demonstrating the synergies between the cards.
Morphling
What can you say about Superman that hasn’t been said before? This guy wins games, but he can’t stop an army. Sometimes he’ll seem amazing, and other times he’ll seem like an overcosted, pumpable Hill Giant. Morphling is one of those cards that the metagame no longer is best equipped to handle. Cards that actually murder Morphling are not common and Morphling bests Exalted Angel in a dual. Morphling is also particularly strong against U/R Fish. Morphling is not the end-all and be-all of Mono-Blue permission. Rainbow Efreet and Masticore are both viable options in addition to using cards like Palinchron and even Memnarch. All of these cards have their own set of vulnerabilities and drawbacks so that in the end, it seems to me that Morphling is the superior choice.
Accumulated Knowledge
I’m going to be frank here and say that I’m not sure that they are better than Impulse. This slot is subject to change back to Impulse after more experience with AK.
Why no Fact or Fiction?
Quite simply, Fact or Fiction is too expensive for this deck. It is turn 5-6, at the earliest, before it is castable. Morphling is similar, but necessary because it is a win condition. The power of Fact or Fiction does not make up for the difficulty of use. As far as design goes, this is possibly the most perfect deck I’ve ever designed.
Countermagic
Force of Will and Mana Drain are the heart of the counterbase and their inclusion is obvious. Misdirection is hard to aim. The fact that you must lose a card hurts this cards position. Another thing which damages this card is the fact that the metagame has subtly, almost imperceptibly come to expect this card as it has Mana Drain. Nevertheless, I advocate using as many of this card as you can fit it. Moreover, Misdirection is strong when trying to force into play a very small set of key cards like Chalice of the Void. However, the lower counterspell density makes Misdirection a harder counterspell to justify making room for.
[This article is continued in part II.]