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Total Votes : 4
Memnarch Mastermind
Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 10:52 pm
Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 49 Location: Bochum/Germany
--- description ---
This is a funny deck that lets you control your opponent and dissolves his deck to nothing else than an empty void. See for yourselves!
--- end description ---





1. Introduction

The Golgari deal with death, the Dimir with lobotomy(brain cutting). There has to be a meeting point of both these aspects, and there is indeed.
A famous card is glimpse the unthinkable – not necessary to metion it is one of the heaviest disruptors in the ravnica block. In combination with circu, dimir lobotomist, it is such a scary combination that you’ll never like to meet – if you are not playing it for yourself!
Control is what you make of it – everybody knows about savra and shambling shell – so I get started telling you my ideas about the deck itself.

2. The decklist

Here are the cards that make this deck a horror for nearly everyone:

I Creatures = 12

3 x Birds of Paradise
3 x Llanowar elves
2 x Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
2 x Hunted Horror
2 x Hunted Phantasm

II Enchantments = 4

2 x Leyline of singularity
2 x Leyline of the Void

III Instants / Sorceries = 24

4 x Glimpse the unthinkable
4 x Recollect
4 x Mana leak
2 x sins of the Past
3 x muddle the mixture
3 x Traumatize
4 x Compulsive research

IV Lands = 24

3 x Overgrown Tomb
3 x Watery grave
3 x Breeding Pool
2 x Yavimaya coast
2 x underground river
2 x llanowar wastes
3 x Forest
3 x Island
3 x Swamp

Sideboard = 15

1 x muddle the mixture
4 x Voidslime
4 x Life from the loam
1 x Leyline of the Void
1x Leyline of singularity
4 x Bound / determined


3. What is what for what reason?
Birds of paradise – Llanowar elves

It would be stupid if I explain this in detail though everyone knews: Mana acceleration. To those not knowing yet: To improve the speed of your deck, you’ll play one of these in turn 1, maybe another one in turn two and you’ll find yourself in turn 3 with at least 5 mana.

Circu, dimir lobotomist – Hunted horror – Hunted phantasm

According to Putrefy and/or mortify, your opponent has the exclusive freedom to chose whether he’d like to play the cards you’ve removed with Circu or if he rather die by the horror or phantasm.

Leyline of singularity – leyline of the void

Two reasons for two leylines:
Leyline of singularity has somehow a stop – effect: It stops your opponent from playing the same beasts and cruel permanents(think only of 2 ghostly prisons!) and will give you a 7 / 7 Horror for BB without any green token for your opponent.
Leyline of the void will stop all those nasty reanimators and makes cards like zombify or vigor mortis useless.
And, of course, your opponent will not be able to grab back his graveyard with reminisce, mnemonic nexus or loaming shaman. It would be a shame for all that you glimpsed him!

Glimpse the unthinkable – Recollect – muddle the mixture – sins of the past - Traumatize

The primary goal of this deck is simple: without a library you won’t win. So won’t your opponent and to make sure you’ll always have a glimpse, there are recollect and sins of the past. Sins should be your finishing move. Muddle the mixture isn’t such a good counterspell so you’ll need him for transmutation.
Recollect can give you back a played glimpse in turn 3 for a possible turn 4 traumatize… let’s imagine this scenario: turn 2 = glimpse, -10 cards, say there are about 43 cards left for your opponent. Turn 3 returns the glimpse to your hand, turn 4 = opponent puts away 22 cards, i.e. he has ~20 left. Turn 5 comes another glimpse which might return or transmute for turn 6. Finish.

Lands – Compulsive research

Compulsive research is a good card to draw additional hand cards, but you need a land to discard unless you like to throw away something you might need. For this reason there are 24 land cards in this deck, not only for the research but also to accomplish full mana supply through the whole game.

Sideboard

Life from the loam vs. Vore/ Land destruction

You got it: while your opponent is busy destroying your lands, you keep pulling them back into your hand what makes his tactics as effective as wrath of God against Konda, lord of Eiganjo or counterspells against Isao.

Voidslime – Muddle the mixture

You’ll have all the mana so that you can play this one any time except turn 1 and maybe 2. And you might hinder your opponent from getting triggered or activated ability boni. Good card! I’ve searched for such a thing since the legendary stifle.
All additional counterspells will make their job. You can have a maximum of 12 counterspells, what should make it easy against U control.

Bound / determined

Don’t want your spells countered all day? You’d like to get a glimpse back into your hand? Very well then, put in this card and there won’t be any trouble from this aspect.


4. Play the deck!

Now you are going to challenge. But how? Well, that’s quite simple. I’d recommend to have at least one leyline in your opening hand, best of all the blue one. Put it into play so that it can begin.
Mostly you’ll have a forest in your opening hand, which will give you the chance to bring in a llanowar elves or BoP. Turn 2 depends on your opponent’s deck: it would be wise to hold a counter spell in your hand so that you can hold him off for a moment if you know he’s got some bombs to drop. But you might also play a hunted one, U or B, if your leyline of singularity hit the table from the start on. Naturalize or putrefy / mortify might be such bombs… don’t let him make you angry.
Turn 3: yeah! “Could you please put the top 10 cards from your library into your graveyard?” It should be turn 2 to do this, but now you might be able to attack your opponent and there is little he can do about it.
If you have the right colors of mana and a mana leak, he’d also fail to condemn or devouring light your hunted horror or phantasm, make him scream! Twisted Evil
Turn 4:Circu – time! If you don’t have a circu now you can grab(by transmute) for another glimpse with recollect and even play it this turn. Minus 20(!) cards by now for your opponent. Ouch! Shocked
Turn 5: Sins of the past could traumatize your opponent – if you didn’t play the card til now you might do so or pull a glimpse back from your graveyard again. You can also play compulsive research to refresh your hand.
Turn 6: by now you should be sure on the winning side. And you’ll know what to do to kill your opponent!

It is the advantage of this deck that there is nearly nothing to adapt to… you got creatures to block and attack, you got traumatize and glimpse the unthinkable to erase your opponents library… what can he possibly do?
A lot, of course, but you know the ways to make your tactics fit. It might be that one glimpse erases 4 copies of a central card in your opponents deck, nevertheless he’ll have problems to compensate that.

5. Additional cards

Infernal tutor: An expensive card that can bring you anything you already have, but IMO muddle the mixture is just fine in this case because it is a counterspell and can bring a glimpse. Very versatile!

Cranial extraction: Yepp, a must yet has not to be. If you know your opponent got one, counter it.
Maybe a fine alternative if you switch to only sorcery/ instant without creatures or other permanents(stupid but possible).

Applause Well, that’s it. Applause
BrianBoitano
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:43 am
Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 124 Location: Houston, TX
Well! There’s definitely an interesting idea. I really like the amount of control you have going on, and you have quite a few win conditions. I think you have a bit too much mana acceleration, but I guess you need it with the 3 colors and high cc cards. Right now you only have one way to be rid of the tokens, and that is 2 Leylines in your entire deck. Night of Soul’s Betrayal would take care of the gobbos, but your mana accel would die. Voidslime wouldn’t quite work, because that’d put a serious restriction on the mana, you’d need exactly BBUUG (or 1UUUUG). Necroplasm doesn’t help much, since you have no way of stopping him from eating the Horror. I’ve been tinkering with the Hunted Horror (see my Hunted Necroplasm deck, please someone!), and Voyager Staff does so much for you. It can save your Circu’s butt, it can deal with a bloated Husk, and it can halve the drawback on the Hunted Horror. Maybe you have enough countermagic to not worry about the first two problems, but it’s still worth considering. I also think Clutch of the Undercity could help you out, it deals with things that slipped past your counters, it can help chip away at the opponent, and (best of all), it can transmute for either Leyline or Circu.
All in all, seems like a deck that’ll throw a wrench into it’s opponents’ plans. Good job!
Felipe Musco
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:43 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
I could make A LOT of comments about this deck design, specially about Clutch of the Undercity and Muddle the Mixture not being so good as they look like, and Circu being to expensive and having a too short lifespam, however, just read my Article entitled "Milling Deep". It started with the Golgari/Dimir idea, too (you missed my neat combo, though, Glimpse the Unthinkable + Vulturous Zombie, this would be something if we could make it work!), but you’ll soon find out it does not work very well for a very simple reason: how do you stay alive? How do you stop aggro? Leyline of Singularity? Well, that MAY hold them off a while, but not for long (since they have enough creatures to still harm you badly with just one copy in play). Also, think you should concentrate on only one aspect, you have too many win conditions, but they’re all a bit slow, and it’ll be difficult to control the board on this construction. After you check out my reference, and edit your post (I think you’ll edit at least one or two cards, we’ve had a lot of discussion ’round here at this subject), I’ll come back to give a full analysis, and if I can still see any weak spots, I’ll post some comments on them. But at least it’s nice to see someone else with crazy ideas like mine, means I’m not alone!!! Laughing
I don't like YOU.
KillerKiku
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:48 am
Joined: 19 Jun 2006 Posts: 13 Location:
OK, as far as I can see this deck is all about removal. Fine idea! Especially the B leyline, that’s the most interesting of all.
I think you’ll need more counter cards but after all I can see it is hard to beat this deck. Circu is somehow a famous target, luckily he’s also black so terror or eradicate won’t trigger. Maybe you add some shielding plax or lightning greaves in casual.

I like the interaction between the spells that pull out the glimpse from your graveyard but perhaps you take in some infernal tutors.

finally I’d say that you can remove a library with ease! Cool
Memnarch Mastermind
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:52 am
Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 49 Location: Bochum/Germany
Thank you for your comment, although I have to admit that you got a somehow... heavy tune in your replies, from what I’ve seen from you... Think

But I don’t want to be unfriendly... Indeed I was buffed when Felipe posted the combo GtU + Vulturous Zombie... I can imagine to pull this combo out as soon as turn 3 or 4(turn 3 zombie, turn 4 GtU= 13/13 zombie with flying!).
But in this case I have to rebuilt this deck... maybe I’ll see what I can do about this.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:44 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Yes, please DO! I failed miserably in this task, and would like a lot to see it done! Very Happy
Just waiting, then!
I don't like YOU.
Osion
Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:54 am
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 62 Location: MD
Killing through milling is always cool, and Glimpse price is at an all-time low. the rush to get them is dampened now because there is no "competitive netdeck" that takes advantage of the cheap card.

I see conflicting themes with this deck. Do you want to go for the straight-up mill or do you want to attack with hunted creatures backed by leyline of singularity?

I would ditch the creatures and the blue leyline. If you want to win by milling, why spend any resources at all on trying to deal 20?

In that respect, you have little creatures to block with. Why give your opponents more ways to exploit your defenses?

If you want to protect Circu, I’d recommend Shielding Plax as the most viable solution, or Moldervine Cloak to boost Circu out of Last Gasp, Char, and Lightning Helix range.

As for searching for Circu, the transmute on Clutch of the Undercity and Dimir House Guard or the 9th edition Diabolic Tutor should do fine.

Just focus on one front, instead of trying to juggle a heavy-mill deck with some high-maintenance Hunted creatures.
T2_Fr33K
Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 11:49 am
Joined: 28 Nov 2005 Posts: 32 Location:
This seems like a pretty basic milling deck that can’t really beat things. Zoo>this deck. Husk>this deck. Heartbeat is the only deck you may be able to beat...
Felipe Musco
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 2:51 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
If you’re using Circu, PLEASE use Hinder! It let’s you "choose" what you want to permanently remove from the game, so Instead of pulling back Land with Life from the Loam, you could simply Hinder and then remove with Circu a Magnivore or Wildfire... And not only is this a nice strategy against vore, but against almost anything! Hinder/remove Nantuko Husk, Hinder/remove Heartbeat of Spring, well, you name it! Hinder/remove Umezawa’s Jitte or Sunforger, well, you get the picture.
I don't like YOU.
Nephilim__Beserker
Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:45 pm
Joined: 10 Jun 2006 Posts: 7 Location:
I thought of this combo of milling + Vulturous Zombie. i made a deck on it and it worked all right. I also had the milling cards with remand hinder putrefy gleancrawler and privileged position. When i played with it I played with Mesmeric orb. That way my opponent was fueling my vulturous zombie. My only problem was i decked myself a couple of times and my early game was pretty much terrible. In multiplayer this was awesome because my VZ was huge and always getting bigger while my opponents couldn’t touch him due to privileged position.
Last edited by Nephilim__Beserker on Sat Jul 15, 2006 1:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

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