I just sort of looked around at my card collection after drafting and found a card with SERIOUS potential:
Rise from the Tides.
I immediately decided to go ahead and try to build some spellspam decks that support it as a win condition, and ended up with three ideas:
Red-Blue EDIT: I'll try this again and will post list soon
Black-Blue
Mono Blue
Red-Blue seems to clearly be the weakest due to it's crappy manabase, but the other two both look viable, and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to build.
Black-Blue has access to hand control and very efficient removal, although it is slightly weakened by its slowness.
Mono Blue can play more support lands, and should be quite fast/consistent, but all of its ''removal'' is minus and does nothing but stall.
Which one should I go with? EDIT: Went for Mono Blue because it was cheap, on second thought the Black-Blue lsit was almost certainly better.
Here are the lists:
I tried to keep all the spells as low as they'd cost. Originally I was playing Brain in a Jar, and I found it just didn't work if you never drew it in the first couple turns. When I cut Brain in the Jar, I knew I lost my instant speed Rise, so I decided to add more counter magic to protect it when I went for the big finish. That worked for a lot of decks, but the big one it didn't work against was Languish decks, they just played draw-go with you until you went for the big finish, then just had all the mana and cards to kill your dudes. I put in Thing in the Ice to try and put more pressure on them and make them use more mana and cards to help your Rise From the Tides finish, and it worked. Thing in the Ice also worked well against other decks in the format just by happenstance. Take Inventory is an MVP in this decklist, as soon as you play the second one, it's all worth it. Plus, you play all kinds of cantrips, so finding at least 3 of them isn't hard at all.
I play Invasive Surgery and Fiery Impulse out of the sideboard to shore up each of the respective match-ups where those will be good, e.g. Negate isn't so good against aggro and small burn isn't so good against control. I also play a couple Summary Dismissal, a couple Crumble to Dust, and a couple Devour in Flames to shore up other problems with this deck, which are Eldrazi with cast triggers (Emrakul), Manlands (Lumbering Falls), and Planeswalkers (Any resolved ones).
I actually went with mono blue (WAYYY cheaper), and then STRONGLY modified modified the deck due to really bad results at locals.
In fact, I'm planning on changing it even more to accommodate new techs, like Prism Ring.
The deck gets outs sped and out advantaged by almost everything due to the crappy stall removal...
So I'll have to make it stall more effectively by adding life gain.
Also, Pieces of the Puzzle actually really underperformed due to making some of my turns dead, letting my opponent rush at me.
I play more Islands and more Nephalia, all the while cutting Drownyard because the effect was almost never relevant.
Also, I did play Take Inventory a long time ago, but I just got killed because it was too slow for me to survive.
The card IS amazing when it works, though, but it relies on you running Pieces/other mill, which got me killed due to slowness.
At the same time, with red, you're a bit safer because your opponents actually run out of resources!
Yeah, field nukes really hurt... but funnily enough all the times I got screwed over were due to counterspells combined with hand control.
This forced me to play negate, which in turn made me have a harder time dealing with their creatures.
Creatures are just so powerful nowadays XD.
Tormenting voice is really good, but it's pretty much the only card of it's kind this format.
If there were more, I would probably have tried harder to make the red build work.
Although your attempt makes me want to try again ;)!
I'll post a red list, and goldfish it for comparison's sake.
Also, I'm guessing TiTi is the only things stopping you from dying early game due to the general mediocrity of red/blue lands (painlands cause burn which makes you die faster, and manlands come tapped, not to mention the fact that you run Drownyard, which in turn makes you occasionally brick colors, I imagine, seeing as you run 2drop blue spells and 1-2 drop red spells.
Agreed, Brain in a Jar is terrible, and I honestly wonder why so many people want to play it, seeing as it has so much brick potential and is generally better replaced by counterspells (to make matters worse BJ isn't even ''total'' protection because Kozilek's Return and counterspells still make you lose the game).
Went ahead and made an RU build: unlike yours I REALLY focus on red so that I don't brick/don't need to play many islands/don't need to play manlands.
50/50 split decks usually brick more than something like a red deck with a blue combo wincon meant to be played very late in the game.
Lol... new mono blue build simply never runs out of cards/continuously messes with opp. it have a glass cannon wincon, but the deck is SO grindy that I should be able to draw/cantrip other copies into my hand hand long before I die.
Rise from the Tides.
I immediately decided to go ahead and try to build some spellspam decks that support it as a win condition, and ended up with three ideas:
Red-Blue EDIT: I'll try this again and will post list soon
Black-Blue
Mono Blue
Red-Blue seems to clearly be the weakest due to it's crappy manabase, but the other two both look viable, and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to build.
Black-Blue has access to hand control and very efficient removal, although it is slightly weakened by its slowness.
Mono Blue can play more support lands, and should be quite fast/consistent, but all of its ''removal'' is minus and does nothing but stall.
Which one should I go with? EDIT: Went for Mono Blue because it was cheap, on second thought the Black-Blue lsit was almost certainly better.
Here are the lists:
11 Swamp
3 Island
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Choked Estuary
2 Drownyard Temple
Black Magic (24)
4 Languish
4 Ruinous Path
4 Grasp of Darkness
4 Collective Brutality
4 Ultimate Price
2 Reave Soul
2 Transgress the Mind
4 Rise from the Tides
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Contingency Plan
2 Scour from Existence
4 Flaying Tendrils
4 Mind Rot
2 Infinite Obliteration
4 Duress
18 Island
3 Blighted Cataract
Blue (Control) Magic (24)
4 Engulf the Shore
4 Hydrolash
4 Drag Under
4 Grip of the Roil
4 Press for Answers
4 Send to Sleep
3 Rise from the Tides
4 Nagging Thoughts
4 Anticipate
Artifacts (Support) (4)
4 Prism Ring
3 Imprisoned in the Moon
4 Displacement Wave
4 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Invasive Surgery
13 Mountain
6 Island
4 Shivan Reef
3 Drownyard Temple
4 Alchemist's Greeting
4 Fiery Temper
4 Lightning Axe
4 Fiery Impulse
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Magmatic Insight
Blue Magic (Wincon/Search) (10)
4 Rise from the Tides
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Negate
2 Thing in the Ice
SPELLS:
2 Rise From the Tides
4 Void Shatter
4 Fiery Temper
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Negate
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Take Inventory
4 Lightning Axe
4 Galvanic Bombardment
4 Drownyard Temple
4 Wandering Fumarole
4 Shivan Reef
6 Island
6 Mountain
I tried to keep all the spells as low as they'd cost. Originally I was playing Brain in a Jar, and I found it just didn't work if you never drew it in the first couple turns. When I cut Brain in the Jar, I knew I lost my instant speed Rise, so I decided to add more counter magic to protect it when I went for the big finish. That worked for a lot of decks, but the big one it didn't work against was Languish decks, they just played draw-go with you until you went for the big finish, then just had all the mana and cards to kill your dudes. I put in Thing in the Ice to try and put more pressure on them and make them use more mana and cards to help your Rise From the Tides finish, and it worked. Thing in the Ice also worked well against other decks in the format just by happenstance. Take Inventory is an MVP in this decklist, as soon as you play the second one, it's all worth it. Plus, you play all kinds of cantrips, so finding at least 3 of them isn't hard at all.
I play Invasive Surgery and Fiery Impulse out of the sideboard to shore up each of the respective match-ups where those will be good, e.g. Negate isn't so good against aggro and small burn isn't so good against control. I also play a couple Summary Dismissal, a couple Crumble to Dust, and a couple Devour in Flames to shore up other problems with this deck, which are Eldrazi with cast triggers (Emrakul), Manlands (Lumbering Falls), and Planeswalkers (Any resolved ones).
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Shreds of Sanity
2 Devour in Flames
4 Invasive Surgery
4 Fiery Impulse
EDIT: Formatting and adding my sideboard.
In fact, I'm planning on changing it even more to accommodate new techs, like Prism Ring.
The deck gets outs sped and out advantaged by almost everything due to the crappy stall removal...
So I'll have to make it stall more effectively by adding life gain.
Also, Pieces of the Puzzle actually really underperformed due to making some of my turns dead, letting my opponent rush at me.
I play more Islands and more Nephalia, all the while cutting Drownyard because the effect was almost never relevant.
Also, I did play Take Inventory a long time ago, but I just got killed because it was too slow for me to survive.
The card IS amazing when it works, though, but it relies on you running Pieces/other mill, which got me killed due to slowness.
At the same time, with red, you're a bit safer because your opponents actually run out of resources!
Yeah, field nukes really hurt... but funnily enough all the times I got screwed over were due to counterspells combined with hand control.
This forced me to play negate, which in turn made me have a harder time dealing with their creatures.
Creatures are just so powerful nowadays XD.
Tormenting voice is really good, but it's pretty much the only card of it's kind this format.
If there were more, I would probably have tried harder to make the red build work.
Although your attempt makes me want to try again ;)!
I'll post a red list, and goldfish it for comparison's sake.
Also, I'm guessing TiTi is the only things stopping you from dying early game due to the general mediocrity of red/blue lands (painlands cause burn which makes you die faster, and manlands come tapped, not to mention the fact that you run Drownyard, which in turn makes you occasionally brick colors, I imagine, seeing as you run 2drop blue spells and 1-2 drop red spells.
Agreed, Brain in a Jar is terrible, and I honestly wonder why so many people want to play it, seeing as it has so much brick potential and is generally better replaced by counterspells (to make matters worse BJ isn't even ''total'' protection because Kozilek's Return and counterspells still make you lose the game).
Went ahead and made an RU build: unlike yours I REALLY focus on red so that I don't brick/don't need to play many islands/don't need to play manlands.
50/50 split decks usually brick more than something like a red deck with a blue combo wincon meant to be played very late in the game.
Lol... new mono blue build simply never runs out of cards/continuously messes with opp. it have a glass cannon wincon, but the deck is SO grindy that I should be able to draw/cantrip other copies into my hand hand long before I die.