I'd love your opinions on this deck (including the sideboard). I've been hard-pressed to find any successful UB deck lists online, so I'm assuming it has its limits in terms of competitive play. However, I have a lot of fun and a high win-ratio on mtgo Tournament Practice, so I want to tune this deck up as best as I can!
How the deck wins:
At its best, this deck puts a stranglehold on my opponent and turns his deck against itself. There's nothing more satisfying than beating down my opponent with his own fatties and watching him use his removal against them. Against midrange, Lazav is an absolute house. He's the inspiration behind the whole deck, in fact, and I've sort of molded it around that type of play. Against control, I usually turn up the mill engine and use Dimir Charm to screw up his draws. This match up is often iffy to me, but I've won several times by simply siding in my mill and melting his deck as fast as possible. Against aggro, I'm siding in Rachets and Essences and hoping I survive. My removal feels a bit slow. Omenspeaker helps a bit. Truthfully, there don't seem to be many aggro decks in my meta (mtgo), so I'm not particularly well-versed in my strategy against them.
On the deck's "budgetness," vis a vis your suggestions:
The deck isn't strictly budget if you consider the Nightveils and Ashiok, but I'm definitely not spending any money on Jace's, and unless I can see a great reason to play Hero's Downfall, I'm not buying those either. So if anyone has a suggestion as to what cards to add, I'm opposed to high-priced cards but will consider mid-priced cards if they pose a clear benefit to my deck.
Also, improving my manabase with Watery Grave is certainly doable, but I want to hold off on that if I can invest my small budget in better meat cards. Mana problems are fairly rare for me anyway.
I've been experimenting with mill since M13 & to be honest I've never really found Lazav (despite multiple tries to make him work) to be worth playing. You already have what you need to make the theme work in Nightveil Specter & Ashiok.
Could you give me some ideas for replacement? The main reason I love Lazav is he's the hexproof version of Ashiok and Nightveil, but I understand at four mana he might be slow and still susceptible to sacrifice mechanics and verdict. The deck is already very creature-light and planeswalker-light. What do you think?
Control is typically the lightest in creatures so no issues there. Nightveil and Ashiok aren't really helping you mill that much and actually works against Lazav and Nighthowler. You don't have enough mill MB to go for a mill victory, so basically all your mill is just for Lazav and while Psychic Strike & Pilfered Plans are good, Grisly Spectacle isn't really constructed playable. So IMO what you need to do is either move away from mill, replacing Grisly Spectacle, Lazav & Nighthowler with more efficient, non-dependent creatures/spells OR keep mill in the form of Jace, Memory Adept.
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4 Dimir Guildgate
4 Temple of Deceit
8 Island
7 Swamp
Creatures (12)
2 Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
2 Nighthowler
4 Nightveil Specter
2 Omenspeaker
2 Prognostic Sphinx
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
Other Spells (23)
3 Dimir Charm
2 Dissolve
2 Doom Blade
2 Essence Scatter
4 Far/Away
2 Grisly Spectacle
2 Pilfered Plans
4 Psychic Strike
2 Syncopate
2 Mind Grind
4 Breaking/Entering
4 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
3 Ratchet Bomb
First, I'd like to give a shoutout to shinbatsu, whose deck "Making Mill Viable in Constructed Since 2013" inspired this endeavor. You can find his super-budget deck in the stickied budget thread.
I'd love your opinions on this deck (including the sideboard). I've been hard-pressed to find any successful UB deck lists online, so I'm assuming it has its limits in terms of competitive play. However, I have a lot of fun and a high win-ratio on mtgo Tournament Practice, so I want to tune this deck up as best as I can!
How the deck wins:
At its best, this deck puts a stranglehold on my opponent and turns his deck against itself. There's nothing more satisfying than beating down my opponent with his own fatties and watching him use his removal against them.
Against midrange, Lazav is an absolute house. He's the inspiration behind the whole deck, in fact, and I've sort of molded it around that type of play.
Against control, I usually turn up the mill engine and use Dimir Charm to screw up his draws. This match up is often iffy to me, but I've won several times by simply siding in my mill and melting his deck as fast as possible.
Against aggro, I'm siding in Rachets and Essences and hoping I survive. My removal feels a bit slow. Omenspeaker helps a bit. Truthfully, there don't seem to be many aggro decks in my meta (mtgo), so I'm not particularly well-versed in my strategy against them.
On the deck's "budgetness," vis a vis your suggestions:
The deck isn't strictly budget if you consider the Nightveils and Ashiok, but I'm definitely not spending any money on Jace's, and unless I can see a great reason to play Hero's Downfall, I'm not buying those either. So if anyone has a suggestion as to what cards to add, I'm opposed to high-priced cards but will consider mid-priced cards if they pose a clear benefit to my deck.
Also, improving my manabase with Watery Grave is certainly doable, but I want to hold off on that if I can invest my small budget in better meat cards. Mana problems are fairly rare for me anyway.
Thanks again for your suggestions!