Hello all.... Ive been reworking my deck a bit over the past year or so after not really having looked at it in over a decade. Ive taken some old cards out and put some new things in... but mostly the deck works pretty well. Im not looking to rip it apart, just tweak it a little. Since I left college I havent run into too many people with the older cards and the newer powerful cards, so Im curious as to how I would fare against a type 1 deck that has stayed current with the new sets. Heres the deck as it stands now:
so, since my playing days, Tempest era, ive mostly updated the land. i took out the City of Brass and put in the Watery Grave. I took out the Underground River and put in the Darkslick Shores. Other then that, i took out one of my Time Warps to add the Ponder. And, (heres the real reason i started looking at the deck in the first place) they unrestricted Mind Twist? How is that even possible? I had to read it in a bunch of places before i even beleived it. So i took out 4 Abbysal Spectors and put in 3 more Mind Twists and 1 Plague Sliver.
in a perfect world, on my first turn i use 1 land, 1 dark ritual and any one of my 8 artifacts to cast a Juzam (or Sliver). Since i have 12 lands that give me black mana, 4 dark rituals, 5 Juzam/ Sliver, and 8 chances at a workable artifact, its a pretty common occurance to get the 4 cards i need in my hand on the first turn.
Im sure there are cards in sets im not familar with that could handle that, but when i was playing regularly, the only time that first turn Juzam play would get jammed up was with a force of will. Ive had him get swords to plowshared too, but then im starting my second turn with a 25% life advantage which is also pretty good as far as im concerned.
if i dont get the cards i need for that first turn combo, i figure there has to be something in my hand... mind twists.... counters....hypnotic spectors...to throw my opponent off until my juzam comes up, or im able to tutor for him.
The only thing Im really considering is adding more Plague Slivers. With one in the deck its just like a 5th Juzam, but if i wind up with 2 or 3 of them in my hand.....the cumlative loss of life would keep me from putting mutliple Plague Slivers on the table at once. And then id have to take something out... but what? some of the tutors? the time warps?
Id love to hear some suggestions for changes to the deck, but keep in mind that anything i put in, ill have to take something out. So dont just say "put jace the mindsculpter in" What would i take out to add him? speaking of jace.... its very difficult to play him on the first turn....
Thanks for your time and input. also, if anyone knows a way for me to see all of my posts, id love to hear about it. ive been clicking around.. but cant seem to find it.
Added deck tags, moved to Miscellaneous Decks subforum. In future, please use card and deck tags and don't post deck lists in the main Vintage forum. Thanks! - BlackVise
I know it's been a while, but I want to thank you both for your answers, although one of you seems like youd be more fun to hang out with then the other. I have taken your advice into account and made some changes to my deck, here's the deck as it stands now:
Id like to address the points you've both made one at a time.
-Mind Twist: I've played with both Mind Twist and Hymn to Tourach in the same deck, and I've almost never wished that a Twist was a Hymn when I have it in my hand. Sure, the Hymn is better at getting 2 cards out of your opponent's hand, but it will never be able to get 4 or 5 cards out of their hand. With the 8 artifacts I have in the deck and the Dark Rituals, it's easy to get 4 or 5 mana on my first turn. Loosing half my hand before I've even drawn a card has always been a tough situation to recover from when it's happened to me. Add in the additional Mana Drain mana, it's not uncommon for me to be able to totally empty my opponent's hand by turn 3 or 4. Since the un-restricting, it's pretty common that I get to empty it out more then once in a game. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree that Hymn to Tourach is a more useful card then Mind Twist.
Hypnotic Specter: Sigh. Such a great card for me for so long, it was hard to admit his time has passed. But, you're right, hes out.
Juzam Djinn: I know he's old, and many, many people have suggested many cards that should replace him. I have tried versions of the deck with other black creatures in it, none of them have really worked as well for me. In my opinion, Juzam's casting cost and relatively light drawback make him the right card. For a while I had replaced the Juzams with Phyrexian Obliterators. Obviously, the Obilerator is a bigger threat once he's on the table. The switch really slowed the deck down. BBBB is a lot harder to get on the first and second turn then 2BB. A LOT harder. 4 of my moxes, my Sol Ring, my Library of Alexandria and all of my additional Mana Drain mana are useless to cast the Obliterator. There are 8 cards in my deck that let me cast Juzam on the first turn. I need to draw the Black Lotus or a Dark Ritual AND the Mox Jet to play the Obliterator on the first turn. I practically need a Dark Ritual to even cast the Obliterator on the second turn, while there are numerous ways for me to cast a first or second turn Juzam. Here's the shortlist of other cards I've considered for the Juzam role: Abyssal Persecutor: He comes out just as fast, but it seems to me that you would need to build a deck around the card, or at least around sacrificing creatures. Just taking the Juzams out and putting in Persecutors doesn't seem like the right thing for this deck, unless i was to totally redo it. Phyrexian Negator: Permanents are just too dear to me to risk loosing so many of them so easily. Even someone just pinging him for 1 damage each turn could wind up being devastating. Kokusho, the Evening Star: This card is awesome, there's no doubt. It just comes down to speed for me again. It's not uncommon for me to have 2 Juzams on the table by turn 3. That's never going to happen with Kokusho. The whole legendary thing aside, at 6 mana, I'd have to get a pretty good draw just to play one of him by turn 3. Visara the Dreadful: Casting cost issues for me again. Instead of hoping to get a great draw and play a Juzam on each of the first 2 turns, Im hoping to get a great draw and play one Visara by the third turn.
Dark Ritual: I'm not even sure how to respond to this. I can't imagine how it's not a great card. With the Dark Ritual I can:
play a first turn Juzam Djinn (or other big black creature) Mind Twist you for 3, 4 or even 5 cards on my first turn
pop out extra 'surprise' mana to counteract my own Nether Void later in the game.
Extra mana is extra mana. If 0 for 3 of any color is the best mana accelerator card ever made, it's hard for me to see how B for BBB is not a useful card.
Dark Confidant: I know this is a great card, I'm just not sure how useful it would be to me. I have't tried any of them in my deck, so this is just theoretical, but lets just say I took out the 4 Juzams and replaced them with Dark Confidants, i'd be paying 5 life for a Force of Will or 4 life for a Nether Void or 4 life for Juzam, which I'm not sure is worth it, since I have a bunch of tutors that let me choose cards anyway. Even if the extra draw winds up being worth all that life, how would i damage my opponent?
Snapcaster Mage: Again, my thoughts on this card are theoretical as I haven't tried any of them in my deck, but it seems to me that if I replaced the big creatures in the deck with Snapcater Mages, Id have almost no way to damage my opponent. Interacting with the graveyard would be great in terms of some of my restricted cards, but mostly artifacts and creatures, which Snapcaster can't help with. Sure it would be nice to use my Time Walk or Ancestral Recall more then once, but I think I would have to make major changes to the deck before I could make this card work. In terms of cards that aren't restricted, I like to think the deck is consistent enough that I wont have to use graveyard effects to have a counter spell at the ready.
"casual decks don't need or get advice". Well.... what does that even mean? Unless you've won the world championships a few years in a row, I'd say everyone could use some deck advice or someone to bounce ideas off of. Obviously casual players need more advice then expert players. Isn't this site a place people can go to talk with more experienced players?
In terms of deck 'direction', ideally I'd like to play a 3 or 4 card mind twist on turn 1, then a juzam on turn 2, then a Nether Void. After that I rely on Jace and my counter spells to let the Juzam get through 4 times.
As you've pointed out, my mana base is entirely non basic lands. Wasteland doesn't bother me because almost all of my lands can produce B or Uso loosing any one of them is a setback, but not a disaster since it's a one for one trade with my opponent.
I understand what you're saying about the different natures of Dark Ritual and Mana Drain. However, I think that Mana Drain is a great mana accelerator. For example, I'll happily use a Mana Drain on the second or third turn for the extra mana. On rare occasions, when my Mox Sapphire comes up at the draw, Ill lay back on my first turn, just to use the Mana Drain on YOUR first turn for the extra mana or 2. After a Mana Drain, Jace can come out on the second or third turn, or my third turn Mind Twist is for 4 or 5 cards instead of 2 or 3.
Yawgmoth's Will: Great card. Sometimes I put it in, and take out my 5th Juzam (the Plague Sliver). Getting my moxes or lotus or time walk back out of the graveyard IS great fun, however I sometimes find myself just sitting with the Yawgmoth's Will in my hand, wishing I had another 5/5 creature to play. If you look at the deck in a certain way, there are actually very few different kinds of cards in it. There are 12 mana accelerators, 8 counter spells, 3 card drawing cards, 4 tutors, 5 creatures, Nether Void, Mind Twist and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. There's so much redundancy that there's really not any cards i HAVE to get back out of the graveyard. I can spend 2B to go through my graveyard and then hope I have enough mana left that turn to make use of the cards, or I can tutor and dig through my deck for the card I need, and hold onto it for a turn to get all my mana untapped.
Like I said, sometimes i feel it's great to have, other times I take it out.
I think that's everything that was brought up in response to my original post. Thanks for taking the time to read it and offer your opinions. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
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As to the comment about casual decks above - I think what the poster was trying to suggest was that your deck is not really for tournament play - what you want is to use it against people who also have Type I or Vintage decks lying around.
If that's the case, then you will get far more commentary by posting in the casual section of the website - people love Juzam and would probably have all sort of questions and comments there.
Specific commentary, the all non-basics could be problematic at times, as someone who gets a Magus of the Moon or Blood Moon down on you is going to just cause you to scoop it up. Those types of cards are often run with Null Rod or Stony Silence to lock you out.
Secondly - you are playing 12 blue spells with your Forces, most agree that you want 16 as a minimum - they are going to be dead draws in hand at times.
Thanks for getting back to me. You're partially right, I haven't played in tournaments for at least 10 years. However, I am interested in trying to improve the deck, making it into a 'tournament ready' deck, if possible. If the theme of the deck is just too outdated to be competitive, so be it. I'd still like it to be as good as it can possibly be.
I was under the impression that a lot of the cards in it are generally considered tournament quality. Specifically:
A reply the first time I asked about this deck mentioned Polluted Delta. That's a good idea, and taking out the Underground River for the Delta is a no-brainer. Even if I don't put in any basic lands, paying 1 life to lay down an Underground Sea is vastly superior to paying 1 life every time I need B or U.
Keeping in mind that I'd like to keep the deck a B and U counter spell deck, and I'd like to use as many of the cards that are already in the deck as possible, could you make suggestions for how to make it a tournament level deck?
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1 black lotus
1 mox emerald
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl
1 mox sapphire
1 sol ring
1 lotus petal
BLUE
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Mana Drain
1 Brainstorm
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Time Warp
1 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Mind Twist
4 Hypnotic Spector
4 Juzam Djinn
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Plague Sliver
LAND
4 Underground Sea
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Watery Grave
4 Darkslick Shores
so, since my playing days, Tempest era, ive mostly updated the land. i took out the City of Brass and put in the Watery Grave. I took out the Underground River and put in the Darkslick Shores. Other then that, i took out one of my Time Warps to add the Ponder. And, (heres the real reason i started looking at the deck in the first place) they unrestricted Mind Twist? How is that even possible? I had to read it in a bunch of places before i even beleived it. So i took out 4 Abbysal Spectors and put in 3 more Mind Twists and 1 Plague Sliver.
in a perfect world, on my first turn i use 1 land, 1 dark ritual and any one of my 8 artifacts to cast a Juzam (or Sliver). Since i have 12 lands that give me black mana, 4 dark rituals, 5 Juzam/ Sliver, and 8 chances at a workable artifact, its a pretty common occurance to get the 4 cards i need in my hand on the first turn.
Im sure there are cards in sets im not familar with that could handle that, but when i was playing regularly, the only time that first turn Juzam play would get jammed up was with a force of will. Ive had him get swords to plowshared too, but then im starting my second turn with a 25% life advantage which is also pretty good as far as im concerned.
if i dont get the cards i need for that first turn combo, i figure there has to be something in my hand... mind twists.... counters....hypnotic spectors...to throw my opponent off until my juzam comes up, or im able to tutor for him.
The only thing Im really considering is adding more Plague Slivers. With one in the deck its just like a 5th Juzam, but if i wind up with 2 or 3 of them in my hand.....the cumlative loss of life would keep me from putting mutliple Plague Slivers on the table at once. And then id have to take something out... but what? some of the tutors? the time warps?
Id love to hear some suggestions for changes to the deck, but keep in mind that anything i put in, ill have to take something out. So dont just say "put jace the mindsculpter in" What would i take out to add him? speaking of jace.... its very difficult to play him on the first turn....
Thanks for your time and input. also, if anyone knows a way for me to see all of my posts, id love to hear about it. ive been clicking around.. but cant seem to find it.
Added deck tags, moved to Miscellaneous Decks subforum. In future, please use card and deck tags and don't post deck lists in the main Vintage forum. Thanks! - BlackVise
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
4 Hypnotic Spector
4 Juzam Djinn
1 Plague Sliver
4 Dark Ritual
remove rituals, card disadvantage, this is not storm
remove the creatures, run dark confidants, snapcasters
mind twist worse than hymn
casual decks don't need or get advice
1 black lotus
1 mox emerald
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl
1 mox sapphire
1 sol ring
1 lotus petal
BLUE
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Mind Twist
4 Juzam Djinn
1 Plague Sliver
3 Nether Void
LAND
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
4 Watery Grave
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Library of Alexandria
Id like to address the points you've both made one at a time.
-Mind Twist: I've played with both Mind Twist and Hymn to Tourach in the same deck, and I've almost never wished that a Twist was a Hymn when I have it in my hand. Sure, the Hymn is better at getting 2 cards out of your opponent's hand, but it will never be able to get 4 or 5 cards out of their hand. With the 8 artifacts I have in the deck and the Dark Rituals, it's easy to get 4 or 5 mana on my first turn. Loosing half my hand before I've even drawn a card has always been a tough situation to recover from when it's happened to me. Add in the additional Mana Drain mana, it's not uncommon for me to be able to totally empty my opponent's hand by turn 3 or 4. Since the un-restricting, it's pretty common that I get to empty it out more then once in a game. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree that Hymn to Tourach is a more useful card then Mind Twist.
Hypnotic Specter: Sigh. Such a great card for me for so long, it was hard to admit his time has passed. But, you're right, hes out.
Juzam Djinn: I know he's old, and many, many people have suggested many cards that should replace him. I have tried versions of the deck with other black creatures in it, none of them have really worked as well for me. In my opinion, Juzam's casting cost and relatively light drawback make him the right card. For a while I had replaced the Juzams with Phyrexian Obliterators. Obviously, the Obilerator is a bigger threat once he's on the table. The switch really slowed the deck down. BBBB is a lot harder to get on the first and second turn then 2BB. A LOT harder. 4 of my moxes, my Sol Ring, my Library of Alexandria and all of my additional Mana Drain mana are useless to cast the Obliterator. There are 8 cards in my deck that let me cast Juzam on the first turn. I need to draw the Black Lotus or a Dark Ritual AND the Mox Jet to play the Obliterator on the first turn. I practically need a Dark Ritual to even cast the Obliterator on the second turn, while there are numerous ways for me to cast a first or second turn Juzam. Here's the shortlist of other cards I've considered for the Juzam role:
Abyssal Persecutor: He comes out just as fast, but it seems to me that you would need to build a deck around the card, or at least around sacrificing creatures. Just taking the Juzams out and putting in Persecutors doesn't seem like the right thing for this deck, unless i was to totally redo it.
Phyrexian Negator: Permanents are just too dear to me to risk loosing so many of them so easily. Even someone just pinging him for 1 damage each turn could wind up being devastating.
Kokusho, the Evening Star: This card is awesome, there's no doubt. It just comes down to speed for me again. It's not uncommon for me to have 2 Juzams on the table by turn 3. That's never going to happen with Kokusho. The whole legendary thing aside, at 6 mana, I'd have to get a pretty good draw just to play one of him by turn 3.
Visara the Dreadful: Casting cost issues for me again. Instead of hoping to get a great draw and play a Juzam on each of the first 2 turns, Im hoping to get a great draw and play one Visara by the third turn.
Dark Ritual: I'm not even sure how to respond to this. I can't imagine how it's not a great card. With the Dark Ritual I can:
play a first turn Juzam Djinn (or other big black creature)
Mind Twist you for 3, 4 or even 5 cards on my first turn
pop out extra 'surprise' mana to counteract my own Nether Void later in the game.
Extra mana is extra mana. If 0 for 3 of any color is the best mana accelerator card ever made, it's hard for me to see how B for BBB is not a useful card.
Dark Confidant: I know this is a great card, I'm just not sure how useful it would be to me. I have't tried any of them in my deck, so this is just theoretical, but lets just say I took out the 4 Juzams and replaced them with Dark Confidants, i'd be paying 5 life for a Force of Will or 4 life for a Nether Void or 4 life for Juzam, which I'm not sure is worth it, since I have a bunch of tutors that let me choose cards anyway. Even if the extra draw winds up being worth all that life, how would i damage my opponent?
Snapcaster Mage: Again, my thoughts on this card are theoretical as I haven't tried any of them in my deck, but it seems to me that if I replaced the big creatures in the deck with Snapcater Mages, Id have almost no way to damage my opponent. Interacting with the graveyard would be great in terms of some of my restricted cards, but mostly artifacts and creatures, which Snapcaster can't help with. Sure it would be nice to use my Time Walk or Ancestral Recall more then once, but I think I would have to make major changes to the deck before I could make this card work. In terms of cards that aren't restricted, I like to think the deck is consistent enough that I wont have to use graveyard effects to have a counter spell at the ready.
"casual decks don't need or get advice". Well.... what does that even mean? Unless you've won the world championships a few years in a row, I'd say everyone could use some deck advice or someone to bounce ideas off of. Obviously casual players need more advice then expert players. Isn't this site a place people can go to talk with more experienced players?
In terms of deck 'direction', ideally I'd like to play a 3 or 4 card mind twist on turn 1, then a juzam on turn 2, then a Nether Void. After that I rely on Jace and my counter spells to let the Juzam get through 4 times.
As you've pointed out, my mana base is entirely non basic lands. Wasteland doesn't bother me because almost all of my lands can produce B or Uso loosing any one of them is a setback, but not a disaster since it's a one for one trade with my opponent.
I understand what you're saying about the different natures of Dark Ritual and Mana Drain. However, I think that Mana Drain is a great mana accelerator. For example, I'll happily use a Mana Drain on the second or third turn for the extra mana. On rare occasions, when my Mox Sapphire comes up at the draw, Ill lay back on my first turn, just to use the Mana Drain on YOUR first turn for the extra mana or 2. After a Mana Drain, Jace can come out on the second or third turn, or my third turn Mind Twist is for 4 or 5 cards instead of 2 or 3.
Yawgmoth's Will: Great card. Sometimes I put it in, and take out my 5th Juzam (the Plague Sliver). Getting my moxes or lotus or time walk back out of the graveyard IS great fun, however I sometimes find myself just sitting with the Yawgmoth's Will in my hand, wishing I had another 5/5 creature to play. If you look at the deck in a certain way, there are actually very few different kinds of cards in it. There are 12 mana accelerators, 8 counter spells, 3 card drawing cards, 4 tutors, 5 creatures, Nether Void, Mind Twist and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. There's so much redundancy that there's really not any cards i HAVE to get back out of the graveyard. I can spend 2 B to go through my graveyard and then hope I have enough mana left that turn to make use of the cards, or I can tutor and dig through my deck for the card I need, and hold onto it for a turn to get all my mana untapped.
Like I said, sometimes i feel it's great to have, other times I take it out.
I think that's everything that was brought up in response to my original post. Thanks for taking the time to read it and offer your opinions. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
If that's the case, then you will get far more commentary by posting in the casual section of the website - people love Juzam and would probably have all sort of questions and comments there.
Specific commentary, the all non-basics could be problematic at times, as someone who gets a Magus of the Moon or Blood Moon down on you is going to just cause you to scoop it up. Those types of cards are often run with Null Rod or Stony Silence to lock you out.
Secondly - you are playing 12 blue spells with your Forces, most agree that you want 16 as a minimum - they are going to be dead draws in hand at times.
Good luck.
I was under the impression that a lot of the cards in it are generally considered tournament quality. Specifically:
1 mox emerald
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl
1 mox sapphire
1 sol ring
1 lotus petal
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Nether Void
4 Underground Sea
4 Watery Grave
1 Library of Alexandria
and it seems that these cards are generally not considered tournament quality cards:
4 Juzam Djinn
1 Plague Sliver
4 Mind Twist
4 Dark Ritual
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Underground River
A reply the first time I asked about this deck mentioned Polluted Delta. That's a good idea, and taking out the Underground River for the Delta is a no-brainer. Even if I don't put in any basic lands, paying 1 life to lay down an Underground Sea is vastly superior to paying 1 life every time I need B or U.
Keeping in mind that I'd like to keep the deck a B and U counter spell deck, and I'd like to use as many of the cards that are already in the deck as possible, could you make suggestions for how to make it a tournament level deck?
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W