Well, yes... I understand what you are saying and that is why those decks are frustrating to me so much. They, just as you said and most find out on thier own, lack any consistant form of removal or support and one deck will just outclass another. Goblins can't get rid of Elves and the creatures in Goblins are too weak to trade with elves. Elves just put many big creautres on the table and beat face.
Divine versus Demonic, the Demonic spells look nice, but the demonic creatures are terrible. Even the booklet of the DvD booklet and box tell you how bad the deck is. It says teh Demonic deck should try and strike quickly before the Angle deck can get defenders out. The problem is the creatures in the Demon deck start arounf 3 mana for a 2/1 flyer while the Angel deck has a 2/4 flyer with a pump ability for 4 mana. The demon deck doesn't even have fast agressive creatures to start the attack with and it has terrible "control" cards to deal with threats once the Angel deck gets to 4 or more mana. Oh, and while I love Barter in blood, you don't play that in a creature heavy deck like Demons is. There are very few creatures worth a darn that are even a threat to the Angel build and the Angel deck gets Pacifisim, Faith's Fetters, and other answers to get rid of the few Demons that are a real threat. You know how nice it is to power out a Lord of the Pit via Dark Ritual only to have them play Pacifism on it? Mmm mmm mmm.
Next take a look at the Jace vs Chandra. Jace gets Fact or Fiction, Guile, Mulldrifter and all sorts of other great cards than can dominate a game while Chandra gets Flametongue Kavu and some burn spells as it's only good cards. It can't outrgiht burn BLue's face off likea real red deck and it's creatures have a slow mana curve and are marginal across the board. Add in that cards like Willbender can turn a removal spell into a two for nothing against red, and all the card advantage Jace and his deck can provide, Chandra should roll over and die. Unless the player using Jace is a total scrub or has terrible luck anyway.
What I suggest is just make some flavor/theme decks and test them agaisnt each other. If you have some balance between them, then they should be fun for everyone. That's the point of casual.
I have all the planechase decks and I knew before we plyed our first game that the Red White one was going to be nuts and should win most of the games and in our group and the ther tables playing 4 way games with them it was the same thing over and over again. the Green red deck has some beaters, the Artifact deck is pretty bad, the Zombie deck has a few nice cards but a lot of jank and the red White one is filled with nice agressive early game creatures along with solid finishers and more importantly Planes that work better with it's deck than any of the other ones do. One game a guy rolled into the Furnace of Rath plane and then cast one from his hand and swung for leathal across the board. A 5/5 Haste Vigilance creature, 2 boros swift blade, 2 lightning helix, and razia alone are insane. Add in te Red White liege that turns adds lightning helix to all your multi colored spells [including lightning helix] and you should tear people apart. Games end up turning into 3 on one and then finish each other off. that's not what multiplayer casual should turn into. That is a total lack of blaance.
You get Worldgorger Dragon into your graveyard and use Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead or Necromancy to bring it back to life. When the Dragon comes into play you have to remove everyting else you own in play from the game causing the enchantment to leave play. This in turn causes the Dragon to leave play. This in turn causes everything you made leave play come back into play including your lands and the enchantment. Now, your lands come into play untapped which is important and he enchantment just came into play looking for a target. tapping land for mana does not use the stack so now you float mana and then chose the Dragon to come back and you repeat this until you have infinte mana. After you have infinite mana you chose Oona, Queen of the Fae and remove everyone's decks from the game. You can also choose Caller of the Claw instead of floating mana and just make infinte bear tokens at the end of your opponents last turn by using the flash ability of Necromancy and swing at everyone.
I can work on this deck from here, but the goal is to use Duress and/or Thoughtsize to remove counterspells from his hand while you try to combo off. You use Bazaar of Baghdad for two reasons. The first is it is a great way to discard a Dragon In your hand. The second is that if you use Entomb or discard to get the dragon into the yard, you can use the bazaar to mill yourself into the Oona as you combo off.
You said you can use proxies so I just built a busted list off of the top of my head. I used to run a version like this before entomb was unrestricted. Turn one Swamp, Dark Ritual [3 mana], Dark Ritual [5 mana], Buried Alive [2 mana, find win-con], Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead - GG. This deck likes to win turn two msot of the time, three at the slowest.
Honestly, the question is how busted to you really want to get here? How many proxies can you play with? There are pleanty of stupid broken multiplayer combo decks that can wreak face quickly and protect itself. Painter's Servant with GrindStone, Leyline of the Void with Helm of Obedience, Flash with Protean Hulk, Rings of Brighthearth with Basalt Monolith for infinte colorless mana, the list goes on and on with two card combos that win games for very little mana. The question is this how you want to win?
The problem isn't really with the Liliana deck as much as a problem with WotC and their inability to make fun balanced dual decks. None of the Dual decks are competative against each other despite their implications on the box. Elves overrun Goblins, from what I'm told Jace soars over Chandra, Divine slays Demonic, and Garruk tramples Liliana. In each case one deck is obviously better than the other. WotC appears to be working on the idea that the player with the "bad deck" will want to buy boosters in order to get new cards to improve the deck. The down side of this is that a lot of people I see who buy these dual decks are looking for competative match ups out of the box where skill and luck play bigger role than "who has more money."
The trick in my opinion is to take the genaric theme of the decks and colors and just build your own decks to play against each other. I have a nice size collection of my own, as do a lot of magic players, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do this instead. I get the impression when talking to other magic players that they like the idea of theme decks but all theme decks "suck." The real trick is to create your own balanced theme decks to play against each other.
Again, this isn't just Liliana versus Garruk, but all theme decks WotC makes. The Planechase decks are no different. I recommend that you just take a look at what each color wants to do and find nice cards that help you with those goals. For example, if you are making a black deck, I would include creatures that kill other creatures like Nekrataal along with graveyard recursion like Grim Harvest or Recover when playing casual. I would also look for cards that were bombs in limited formats for the mid and late game, cards like Midnight Banshee and Sengir Nosferatu.
Instead of making four of decks, I would recomend making a "sampler" deck that is closer to singleton, if not totaly singleton. Magic has been around for a long time. There are a lot of cards to choose from. You shouldn't have a hard time finding good fun cards that represent the colors you are playing. In red, for example, I would say you should get a copy of Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt, Incinerate, and maybe Volcanic Hammer along with the many other burn spells out there. Your opponant wont know what is comming, but most all these cards are "the same." I know lightning Bolt is the best on this list. I'm not stupid. I know how to play the game. I don't need Trolls telling me that Volcanic Hammer and Lightning Bolt shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. The point is that you can get the same effect of 3 damage for a reasonable cost out of a lot of different cards in red. the same is true for a lot of what this game does. Take a basic mechanic or idea of a card already printed, give it a new name and a new drawback and poof you have a new card. From time to time you can even make cards better than the old versions. Look how long Shades were in Magic until they printed Nantuko Shade.
You could drop tribal and go for the theme. Add stuff like Stonewood Invocation, the elemental mares, pegasi, and unicorns.
I was thinking the same thing here. If you are hell bent on Horse creature type then i don't think there is much that can be done. However, if you are willing to do a theme deck instead of tribal, there is a lot more that can be done.
@meteorainer
I will address those issues later in another update. Thank you for asking. Short answer: Against blue, a turn one hippie can win the game, but bounce will slow you down. The real key against blue is to keep the pressure up and try and bait a counterspell with one card and follow up with a Hymn to Tourach, not the other way around. The control match up is a long game to play, but quite winnable.
Removal is pretty much assumed and I will have to post that in the Support section later.
Finally, in casual, you really have to understand your meta and like I wrote, because agro and creatures are popular in casual, you almost have to go in a different direction than where Discard wants to go. You just about have to reverse the sideboard and main board. Discard is intended for a combo and control heavy meta and casual is mostly an agro and combo format.
Lastly, I did do an update and I likely won't be doing another one until Sunday. I have things to do tonight [Friday] and tomorrow [Halloween] I have work in the morning and a party to go to at night.
@thnkr
Good analysis and I am glad to read a new opinion. I agree with the late game idea of Blackmail over Duress, however, Duress offers up so much more from the start of the game. In high levels of competitive play this becomes key. Knowing everything in their hand is vital in your plans moving forward. You also don't just throw a Duress at someone holding a single card or two. I was really hopping to get the point across why I like Duress better than Hymn and that is because Duress is more versatile in the decks it can fit in. Hymn is likely the better card in a discard deck, but Duress is the better Magic card.
Regarding Blackmail in you Pox deck, I agree with you, but that is a Pox deck rather than a discard deck. There is a reason Vintage never ran Blackmail, and the only reason they replaced Duress with Thoughtsize was because they don't care about life totals and forcing your opponent to discard a win-con creature is strong. The same is true for Raven's Crime. We really are talking two different decks. I have not played a lot of Pox decks, but when I do build them I know what you mean. They are just a whole different kind of animal and deserve their own Primer honestly.
This thread will focus on the less popular but still potent archetype, Discard. We will analyze card selection, objectives, and generally how to play these very fun decks.
IMPORTANT: Before I even begin, it is essential you read this article written by Magic great, Brian Wiseman, regarding Card Advantage written in 1996. I don't care if you are a novice or a veteran at Magic, this is a great article that no magic player should miss out on. It has everything to do with our topic.
Part I The Archetype
The first thing you have to do when playing discard is to understand what your goals are. The purpose of a discard deck is to disrupt your opponent and limit his or her resources as quickly as possible. Combo decks need cards, and more importantly specific cards to combo out. Discard stops this from ever happening. Control decks also need to keep their hands full as much and for as long as possible. Discard's ability to negate this makes life very rough on a control player, and the match up fun and interesting. One of the Control's biggest threats is a turn one Hypnotic Specter. Even WotC acknowledges this in it's Xth edition core set Player's Guide where they write, "Once this flying terror starts randomly ripping apart your opponent's hand, the game is practically over." Agro decks, on the other hand, don't have a lot to fear from discard decks. This is because their goal is to empty their own hand as quickly as possible and burn you away before you can stabilize. Agro, by it's very nature, packs a lot of removal and burn spells that are designed to kill your creatures. This typically means that utility creatures like Hypnotic specter, Dark Confidant, and others have a short life expectancy. Most agro match ups that discard will face are usually won in games two and three after side boarding. In casual though, players typically don't side board. Also, many casual player prefer to run agro decks. This is why discard is a less popular and less powerful casual deck in my opinion.
Discarding your opponents cards, however, is not the only thing a discard deck needs to do to assure victory. Disruption is the name of the game when playing discard, and in this vein, we tend to look to land destruction. Many people have argued that Black should never have even gotten LD. That Land Destruction doesn't fit the theme of the color. I disagree. Black is the color of death and even in the fiction of Magic the Gathering, Black is the color of true evil power. While Red will destroy land in it's chaotic rampage, Black destroys land methodically in a much more cold and calculated manner.
In summary, discard's ideal match ups are combo first and control second. The weakness of a discard deck is agro.
Part II
The Cards
Lands: Here I will discuss the lands typically found in discard builds.
Strip Mine - LD is a tool for discard to disrupt their opponents and Strip mine is the best LD card ever printed. It is restricted, but it is also cheep to buy. Get yourself a copy when you get the chance. Even if you don't play discard a lot, you'll be putting this card to good use for years to come. EDH anyone?
Wasteland - Just a smidgen below the power level of Strip Mine, but still a great card. These are more expensive though and you can live with out them if you are on a budget. The only downside of this card is it produces colorless. I have a personal history of having 2 or 3 wasteland opening hands as my only mana source. If you have them, use them, if you can afford them, buy them. They are another great staple in most any collection.
There are not a whole lot of lands that discard plays. If you are going with a Red/Black build or a Black/White build you should play with mana fixers such as duals and fetches, but I recommend staying away from two or more color discard decks. A strength of mono black discard actually is it's basic land base. People who run Lake of the Dead or Cabal Coffers actually run the risk of getting targeted with a Wasteland. Having tried two color discard in competitive and casual formats, I have to say from my experience the advantage they give you does not out weigh the risks you take.
Discard Cards: The meat of a discard deck. I know i'll forget stuff so please help add to this list.
1cc
Duress is the grand daddy of discard spells. It can't hit creatures like Thoughtseize, it can't hit many cards like Mind Twist, but at one mana to see their entire hand and force them to discard the best non-creature spell, this card is arguably the best discard spell in your deck. it is with out a doubt the best one drop discard spell. Also, because it is a common, you should have ZERO problem finding these somewhere.
Thoughtseize A great card that many will tell me is better than Duress I am sure. Having played both cards though, I hardly find myself discarding a creature with it anyway. There are few creatures I care about at all that I am willing to spend the two life on. Morphling and Psychatog come to mind, but that is about it. On the other hand, when you see a hand with only creatures and land it is nice i can get something. When that happens though, it usually means I am winning any way. Noncreature spells are normally the game winners in magic anyway. I am not going to say this card is bad, it's amazing, but I just think it is overpriced and wouldn't recommend you buy them to play in a casual deck.
Cabal Therapy This is more of a niche card. It is a great card that has found a home on a lot of decks over the years. Vintage Ichorid decks use it to pull double duty as a means of fishing out Force of Wills and a sacrifice outlet for Bridge From Below. Cabal Therapy can also be a lot of good with cards like Ravenous Rats. I'll get more into the Rats later, but I am sure you can already understand why these two cards like each other. The real way to play this card is after a Duress, or with a creature in play to sacrifice. When you have both, you can really go to town on your opponent. In the end though this card isn't cheep to buy, so unless you plan on using it in a constructed deck too, don't worry about it.
Blackmail is a card that is fun to play with, but just lacks the power needed to be a staple card. I will say this again and again, there is no reason you shouldn't be playing Duress in 4 copies unless you are playing singleton. In that case you shouldn't be playing discard, but instead use discard as a form of support. To be fair, I did play blackmail in Ravnica/Timespiral standard because it was in 9th edition, but that is the only reason. It still lets you see three cards and you can choose any one of them, so you can get land this way.
Funeral Charm this card is a lot of fun to play with, it has many uses, and is one of the only two instant speed discard spells I know of. I would put this in a discard deck, but I would put it in a casual deck as a support card. I have for visions ones that took me a while to find so I could play them in standard after it was reprinted in Timespiral, but that is the only time I ever used it or saw it used by anyone else.
Mind Peel This card looks nice, and it is the opposite to Whispers of the Muse, however, it is not nearly as good as the blue card because it is a sorcery that requires a heavy mana investment. I would rather play with Scepter of Fugue which I will talk about later.
Raven's Crime isn't terrible. Okay, it is, but at least it is a nice draft card. In limited, turning needless land into discard spells isn't bad.
Skull Fracture The flashback makes this card worth mentioning, but that's it. Basically a two for one, but delayed. Not really worth deck space in my opinion, but fun to put into singleton. I guess the argument of "budget" falls on def ears for me because Duress and Hymn to Tourach are so cheap to purchase and are possibly the best discard spells ever printed. After all, part of the appeal to discard for a lot of people is how cheap it is to build a deck.
2cc
Hymn to Tourach I sometimes feel that this is even better than Duress, but it costs double black and Duress is so versatile at one black that it can fit in a ton of decks. Hymn gets my vote as the 2ed best discard spell in the game and just like with Duress [or even you Thoughseize fans] this is another must have for anyone playing casual discard. Hymn is very cheep [under $2 each on average, and on ebay you cand find "buy it now" for around $3 for a set of four plus shipping] and has 4 different back border pictures to choose from. I prefer the wolf picture, but it doesn't really matter. I have 4 of each picture anyway. Beware of the Misdirection. That card will do to you what Rick James did to Charlie Murphy's couch. I know. I've been there, in a vintage tournament no less.
Scepter of Fugue is a card that is growing on me. A 2cc version of Disrupting Scepter that is faster to activate as well. I haven't built a discard deck with this in it yet, but that is because both of my copies are in EDH decks right now. Any time you can get "free discard" it is worth it. Yes it costs mana, but you are not expending your cards to get rid of theirs. I would make this at least a two of in a discard deck, though the more I think of it, activating one than one a turn isn't a bad idea either. Tell me what you all think.
Ravenous Rats Another staple of classic discard decks. While not a super strong creature or anything, the rats are simple and to the point. Play a guy, force the opponent to discard a card, and now you have a warm body to sacrifice to an effect or act as a chump blocker. When the rats come into play they have done their job, anything beyond that [such as sacrifice effects] and they become a bargain. I have played with and against decks that have equipped Umezawas Jitte to the rats or even used the ninjitsu mechanic ala Okiba-Gang Shinobi and Throat Slitter to further break them off.
Augur of Skulls is a really, really good creature for discard decks. This guy plays double duty in a discard deck because of his regenerate effect. While his discard effect is slow, it is worth it. 2 for 1s are always good. I'll repeat that for magic players out there who are new to the game or have been living under a rock all these years. 2 for 1s are ALWAYS good. If you don't know what 2 for 1 means, look it up.
Dimir Guildmage While a lot better as a support card in a multicolor deck, this creature isn't too bad. It is basically a [card]Disrupting Scepter[cad] with a 2/2 body. I like this card and use them in EDH, but the 2/2 body is also it's weakness. Agaisnt agro this guy is bound to die. However, against Combo and Control which is what you want to play against, this guy can be a game winner beating in for two and forcing discard whether you attack or not.
Distress WotC wanted you to play this card for a few years, even reprinting it in 10th edition. Thank goodness they finally broke down and just reprinted Duress in 2010. 2 mana Thoughtseize with out the life loss. Let's put it this way, there is a reason why no one played with Distress and why Thoughtseize is a $20 card. [whispers: It's the converted mana cost] Why spend 2 mana on Duress when you could get Hymn's ability for the same price?
Headhunter This card is fun in a morph deck and would be bad if you are going for a morph theme. Against combo and control he also works as a simple 2 drop as well. When making cuts though, I don't see myself keeping him in a deck. Honestly, how often will he get through after the first attack?
Hypnotic Cloud Simply put this card isn't worth playing at only 2 mana, and at 6 mana Mind Twist, Haunting Hymn and many others are far better. Thumbs down outside of limited.
Rotting Rats Much better in multiplayer, this card is another example of a strictly worse. The only time i want to self discard is if I want to play madness or reanimate, in which case Small Pox is so much better.
Small Pox One of the best disruption spells I have ever played with. A friend of mine is playing a casual deck that uses Grim Discovery and Eternal Witness to go nuts. Small pox is also abused in two well known decks "Pox," which gets it's name from the card Pox, and the old type two deck Solar pox that abused Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. In a discard deck, Small Pox can also shine as a form of heavy disruption. This is more recommended for an agro meta to get the full effect, you obviously play it early before you play a creature, or later on when you have a ravenous rats or something to throw away.
Nezumi Shortfang is a nice creature with a cheap activation cost. Unlike Dimir Guildmage though, you have to choose between attacking or using it's ability. Still, it is a good card and worth exploring if you already have some. I just wouldn't go out and buy them for this deck yet.
Wrench Mind Now this card isn't too bad. I don't know if I would play it over anything in a tight build, but the ability to hit two cards or someone's artifact is a good ability. Mono-Black cannot deal with artifacts and getting rid of them via discard can be strong. This, however, is another example of why Hymn is so good just by comparing it to other cards of similar costs or abilities. Everything else pales in comparison.
3cc
Mind RotA poor man's Hymn to Tourach. A really, really poor man. Like a guy so poor he cant afford Hymn to Tourachs. Unless you are playing standard, which makes me ask why you are here in the casual forum, you shouldn't be playing Mind Rot. At one more mana and not being able to hit cards at random, Mind Rot is a perfect example of strictly worse magic cards. Okay, to be fair it only requires one black, but seriously... play Blightning or Gerrard's Verdict if color matters to you. At least those two cards are good.
Now please note that while I said that 2 for 1s are ALWAYS good, this still applies to Mind Rot. Mind Rot's effect is good and that is why I am talking about it here, however, when there are better options out there and ones that cost less mana, you should ignore worse cards like this one and those like it.
Hypnotic Specter The greatest discard creature ever printed. Not much needs to be said about this guy that hasn't already been said before. I own 9 foils, 4 10th edition and 5 DCI promos [1 for an EDH deck] and 4 revised and 2 10th edition non foils myself and use every one of them. They are that good. Buy at least 4 of them and thank yourself for it every time you attack. If you can't afford them, save your money instead of buying cheaper replacements. They are legal in every format and there area lot of them about. They used to be an uncommon. Turn one Dark Ritual into a Hypnotic Specter is one of the best turn one plays you will make playing Magic. I'm not saying it is the best play, but it is among them. It is also a play that has been made since Magic was first printed, as both cards could be found in Alpha.
Delirium Skeins Now, I like this card in multiplayer, however, unless you are abusing Geth's Grimoire, losing 3 cards yourself makes this card difficult to justify casting.
4cc and above
Persecute Another one of the best discard spells ever printed. Even when your opponent is playing multicolor decks, the fact that multicolor cards share colors, you have a good chance of forcing them to discard almost their entire hand upon resolution. Not much more needs to be said about this card, however, when I am tight for deck space, I can't really justify keeping this card in over Mind Sludge or Mind Twist. I know people will disagree with me, but both of the other two cards I mentioned normally force the entire hand to go away while Persecute can't guarantee that. I have played with Persecute and love it, but it isn't in my top 5 favorite discard spell list.
Mind Twist My third favorite discard spell, resolving a mind twist almost always means GG. The only draw back to mind twist isn't really a draw back at all. In order to crank off a mind twist you have to use mana accelerators like Sol Ring, mana Vault or mana crypt. Yeah, that's right, in order to make Mind twist broken, you should use broken cards. What ever am I to do?!? Oh, if you twist my arm, I guess I'll use a bunch of broken fun cards to break off Mind twist and win the game. [/dry sarcasm]
Mind Shatter One more mana for a Mind twist. Did you know Mind twist was unrestricted a year or so ago? Did you know Mind twist is only like $5 for a revised copy? If you have Mind Shatters laying around, they are good enough, but if you are going to spend money, just buy the Mind Twists. Just like Strip Mine and other staple discard spells, you will be using them a lot more than Mind Shatters IMO. After all, you are in the casual forums.
Mind Sludge We can debate if Persecute or Mind Sludge is better until we are blue in the face, the real difference is that Persecute is great in any deck and Mind Sludge costs one more and requires swamps. However, since Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth has been printed, that isn't much of an argument. I like Mind Sludge because it pretty much always discards their entire hand upon resolution in mono black with out playing the guessing game. In the end tough, Mind sludge is at best a 2 of and played in MBC more than discard.
Okiba-Gang Shinobi This card is a lot of fun to play with and works great with Ravenous Rats and other comes into play abilities. Combine this with Throat Slitter or Nekrataal that kill creatures your opponents play to keep the path clear and Okiba-Gang can double as a win condition much like Hypnotic Specter.
I am sure there are a lot of cards I am missing, and if you want my opinion on them, or you feel they should be in this list, let me know.
Multicolor Options
I will start off by saying that I recommend staying away from a multicolor discard theme for a few reasons. Firstly is the mana base. The objective is to force your opponent to discard their hand as quickly as possible and keep it that way for as long as possible. There are very few multicolor cards or off color cards that really help you do that. the other big reason is that you can play discard cards in multicolor decks, you just won't be playing a discard deck. You would just be using discard as an additional tool to hinder your opponent.
Esper Charm This is a great example of using discard as an additional tool in your UWB deck. Instant sped discard is nice. "EOT, you discard 2?"
Gerrard's Verdict This is a really fun card. It is a appropriately priced at two mana to force two cards to be discarded. the life gain effect is just in there for kicks and makes your opponent think about what they want to to pitch.
Castigate Now I love this card. We have two nicknames for this card at our shop and among our friends. The first is obvious, Castrate because this is what you are doing to their hand of cards, and the second is because of the picture and color "Infernal Nuggy/or Nuggy of the Damned." This card may appear similar to Distress, however, removing the chosen card from the game makes it worth it. Gerrard's Verdict and Castigate should find a home in B/W discard, possibly the only multicolor discard deck I would have you make.
Shrieking Grotesque Read Ravenous Rats and add the word flying. See how much better it gets? This is also the final piece I am aware of for BW discard.
Blightning A great card, but I wouldn't shift over to red just to play with it. This is a great card if you are building a red/black deck already. Too often I see casual players say things like "Oh, if I add in this color I can play Xxxx." This isn't always bad thinking, as sometimes making a color shift/addition will improve a casual deck, doing this with discard is a bad idea. Once you add red you are really making a new deck altogether.
Support: Discard is already a form of disruption, but not the only way a Discard decks gets the job done. This is a list of the other support cards Discard uses to lock in a game.
Leyline of the Void is possibly the best RFG card printed. When you play discard, you should be aware of your opponent abuseing their graveyard and actually thanking you for the work you are doing. Leyline stops them from thanking you, and in some match ups, they will just scoop. See Ichorid decks. This card has become expensive and not an auto include though, so if you don't own them, you don't have to play with them. This was main board for me in my vintage deck back before Flash just to deal with Yawgwin combo. I ended up giving it the nickname Mainline of the Void because at the time I was the only non-ichorid player running it in the main and people were shocked to see it game one. "I'll start the game with Mainline of the Void in play."
Planer Void The original Leyline of the Void. this card is not a replacement effect, however that rarely matters. the only real down side to Leyline or Planer Void is after the first one is in play you don't really need another. One way to look at it though is as fodder to a Small Pox forced discard or something.
Cremate A personal favorite of mien for casual. Removing a card in a grave yard and drawing a card is nice when you expect grave yard shenanigans which you should in casual games. Not really an auto include either though.
Withered Wretch In regards to creatures, this is one of the best graveyard hate cards you'll ever see. Obvious weakness to agro, but against agro you shouldn't really need him. Against agro you'll just have a warm body for 2 mana.
Nezumi Graverobber I would argue that this guy is even better than Withered Wretch, however, WW only costs one colorless to activate. The flip ability is what really puts the Graverobber over the top, literally.
Null Rod More of a legacy and vintage card than a casual card, it is still amazing. Note that if you play with Null rod, don't play with Scepter of Fugue or risk getting slapped upside the head through the internet.
Crucible of Worlds Just a great card. the real use of this card is to abuse Strip Mine and/or Wasteland to lock your opponent out of the game. this isn't cheep either and also not a mandatory card for discard decks.
Sinkhole Expensive to purchase but amazing. As I said earlier, LD is a tool of disruption for discard and combined with Strip Mine, Wasteland, and the possibility of hitting lands with Hypnotic Specter and Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole can be back breaking.
Rain of Tears Budget Sinkhole. Good enough to play with still. I don't know if i would use this along with Small pox, but it is worth a try.
Dark Confidant A bit more expensive card, and it depends on what kind of curve you are playing with, but Dark Confidant is one of the best card draw support cards along with Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena.
Graveborn Muse Not as good as Dark Confidant, but still a nice budget card.
Necropotence The best card draw spell not named Ancestral recall ever printed. Restricted for obvious reasons. You don't have to play with this card, but I recommend it with out hesitation. Card draw is as important to a discard deck as the discard spells them selves. Think of it this way, why are you playing discard? Losing cards is bad for your opponent, so then, in turn, drawing cards must be good for you.
Phyrexian Arena Little Necropotence. Less broken, more balanced, REALLY good. If you can't afford 4, that's okay, but try and get them at some point.
Sign in Blood he polar opposite of Hymn to Tourach, just not as good. Really good, don't get me wrong, but there are a lot better card draw spells out there. If you are on a budget though, these aren't bad.
Skeletal Scrying A nice card draw card for mid or late game. Doesn't work with Yawgmoth's Will, but if you are laying on a budget you likely aren't playing with with Yawgwin anyway. Good 2 of.
Promise of Power Cheep rare that is very good. 5 mana, 5 life, draw 5 cards. That's a solid deal to replenish your hand. Kick it over by paying the entwine cost and get yourself a 5/5 or larger flying creature. Another 2 of.
Dark Ritual You play with four of these Buy them. Buy 4 of them. Buy four Tempest ones because they have the best art and flavor text. I have like 8 or 12 tempest ones, I can't remember which. I know I have like over 20 of these though from various sets. That's a lot of decks...
Drudge Skeletons One of the things discard needs is some form of defense and Drudge Skeletons is a classic blocker in Black. Drudge Skeletons also help to give Discard game against agro decks. Putting a wall of two or three Drudge skeletons can be agonizing for your opponent to get through.
Royal Assassin Another classic support card for discard, Royal assassin does a number against agro decks. Expect this guy to be the target of removal early and often.
Geth's Grimoire An amazing card for a discard deck. It isn't one of he better card draw sources in magic, but it is amazing in a discard deck. Use this card with Words of Waste and or Scepter of Fugue and you have a nasty combination. This is one of those cards that rewards you for playing your deck.
Liliana Vess Pretty self explanatory. Force discard every turn, tutor up what you need, like The Rack, and even a built in win condition of her own.
Honden of Night's reach A shrine. Not a great card by itself, but it is cheep to purchase and does force a card every turn to be discarded, so even alone it is a nice card to have in play. Another card that when played with Geth's Grimoire can get silly fast.
Other support ideas are welcome. Support and disruption cards shouldn't make up more than 12 cards in a 60 card discard deck though. I recommend you run some sort of grave yard hate because you should be filling it up and don't want that to be your downfall. After that it really depends on what your meta looks like.
Win Conditions:Self explanatory.
There are a lot of win-cons that Discard decks can use. Classics like Ihsan's Shade to more modern ones like Kokusho, the Evening Star. Not all win-cons in discard have to be creatures though.
The Rack is possibly the best win-con discard has. They are very cheep to purchase and cast. As a one drop you can go turn one swamp, ritual, Hymn, the Rack. What is really funny about the rack is how it makes people play against discard. Often times the idea is to just empty their hand as soon as possible with the idea that they are going to lose it anyway. With the Rack in play you not only punish that thought process [which also hurts Megrim. Hard to make them discard and lose two life if they have no had] because no they are taking 3 or more a turn, but they actually change it up and try to keep 3 or more cards in hand instead of playing stuff. This keeps your discard spells relative over the long haul. If you want to play discard, buck up and spend the $8 to buy 4 of these.
Phyrexian Negator A meta game card if there ever was one. Primarily a Vintage only card, this fatty's sole purpose is to hit the board fast and strike hard while you are spending the next four turns finishing the job of disruption. Only recommended for a creatureless "combo" heavy meta, you know, like Vintage used to be.
Nyxathid A really cool looking creature and great against an agro deck. My only real problem with this creature is that when you are not winning, he wont do anything to help turn the game back in your favor. The obvious plus side is that he will help you close a game quickly giving your opponent a short clock to deal with him. The idea here si to force hard discard and strike quickly before they can recover.
Ideas for great win-cons welcome. I will always recommend Kokusho because he is not just a bomb, he's a freaking NUKE! When it comes to discard, you typically win but obliterating your opponents ability to do anything and then the rest becomes a formality rather than some epic conclusion. In Vintage, for example, my goal was to have Leyline out to prevent graveyard shenanigans; Null Rod out to stop moxen and other broken stuff; and hate on their land with Sinkhole, Wasteland, and Strip Mine while Phyrexian Negator, Hypnotic Specter and Dark Confidant beat in.
This is a simple build I just came up with off of the top of my head. As Halted Asylum said, with a low curve you only ned 20 land to go with the 4 Dark Rituals. In regards to mulligans, you typically want a hand that starts with either a Duress or a Ritual, or both. When playing Ritual-Duress-Hymn, be sure to do it in that order. I am serious when I say I have had people claim they should play hymn first because they can hit two strong cards at random and then duress what is left... Excuse me? You Duress first to know everything they are holding and force them to discard their strongest non-land non-creature card them hymn the rest away and take note what they lost so you know what is left in their hand.
From there on it is pretty straight forward. You just keep hammering away at thier hand until it is empty, remove a nasty threat with the Doom Blade and try to beat face with Nyxathid or stall with the rack in play. Scepter of Fugue will give you consistent discard even with a dead Hippie.
The Duals of the Planeswalkers for the XBox 360 is a fun game for beginners or as a way to pass the time online. The basic black deck they give you is actually quite powerful in the meta that is the game. It does have some pretty awful cards in the list you are not allowed to take out. Unlike a regular magic deck, you can only add cards you unlock and the game adds in land to help keep the deck rolling. Some of the cards I removed are 2 Megrim, 2 Dusk Imp, some 5 mana version of Infest that is a joke from Lorwyn block, and added a few other cards that you "unlock" or increased the count [such as 2 the rack up to 4] of cards in the standard build as if I were to make this in real life to play casual with.
It is more or less just a mono black build, but the use of Ravenous Rats, Mind Rot, and Abyssal Specter gives this deck a discard theme. The use of Rats as a chump blocker to keep some damage of of your face is nice, Drudge Skeletons is a long term blocker and this deck typically win by stalling out the board and letting The Rack take care of the long term damage.
-More Budget decks will be posted here as this thread moves along-
Casual: These decks don't care about budget so much as they care about card interactions and the "casual" meta game.
While I am not a fan of Multicolor discard decks, here is a Black and White build I have played with in some form or another since Guildpact came out. It has seen many changes and trial cards, but here is a solid build I curently use.
With this build I wanted to make an anti-agro build with a discard theme. The Ravenous Rats and the Shrieking Grotesque provide early discard along with the Castigate while the Faith's Fetters and the Pillory of the Sleepless are fun casual answers to creatures. While I could play with cards like Doom Blade and Swords to Plowshares, the Faith's Fetters are great for dealing with anything from creatures to Planeswalkers, from artifacts to enchantments with activated abilities like Survival of the Fittest and Glare of Subdual. The Pillory of the Sleepless is just a lot of fun to place on creatures because of the bleed mechanic. Not only have I neutralized a threat, but now that very creature is hurting it's owner. Okay, the enchantment is, but casual players hardly ever run artifact or enchantment removal, so they often use a kill spell on their own guy just to stop the bleeding which in itself is a two for one. Finally, the Throat Slitter and Okiba-gang Shinobi have great interaction with the other 12 creatures in the deck and their comes into play abilities. you likely won't be attacking much with a Ravenous rats, but with 8 flying creatures, you should get in unblocked from time to time. Also, with Throat Slitter and the 8 enchantments, the road should be clear to get some unblocked Okiba-Gang Shinobi damage in.
The Gerrard's Verdict is in the sideboard to help deal with control decks while the Mortify and Disenchants are there to deal with decks that abuse enchantments and artifacts and lastly the Cremate is in there to help stop grave yard combo decks.
-I will post more Casual builds here in time.-
Competitive
I'll start things of with my Vintage deck that has given me a few top 4s and even a Mox Ruby in the past.
The game plan was pretty simple. Leyline was there to stop graveyard shenanigans such as Ichorid and Yawgmoth's Will combo. Mean Deck Gifts was one of the best decks at the time. Later Flash became huge and there was no reason to change. Leyline also helped me in my Stax match up and against Fish's Jotun Grunt. Lastly, in the Fish match up Leyline also served as a simple permanent to sac to Phyrexian Negator. Also, Leylien combos with Helm of Obedience, so I can just suddenly "go broken" and win. Null Rod turns artifacts off which kills Moxen, Goblin Charbelcher, Time Vault and many many other broken things Vintage likes to do. I cannot count how many times I have hear something along the lines of "I would have won if it weren't for that stupid Null Rod." Uh, yeah, that's why it's in there. Also, if the try to bounce/kill my Null Rod, I can just activate the Helm and exile their library. The use of heavy discard along with LD pretty much keeps the other guy from winning and you finish them off with Hippie and Negator beats while Dark Confidant "Bob" draws you cards.
The sideboard choices are fairly obvious as well. Fish, GobLINES [Goblins with Leyline of the Void and other black stuff created by team ICBM (I Can Beat Mean Deck)] and other creature based decks are a bad match up for this deck so game one is typically lost. In games two and thre you just move out the Null rods, Phyrexian Negators at the least to make room for Masticore and something else like Edict. The Dystopia were there to fight Fish which ran a heavy W or UW creature base. Kataki, Meddling Mage, Jotun Grunt, Savahna Lions, Isumaro and Aven Mind Censor are all white and die to Dystopia. you also use Dystopia against Oath to deal with both of it's Angles and the Dragon and the Oath itself. Lastly you used Dystopia to fight GaT which relied not on the Tog anymore, but rather the Dryad. Plague was in the deck to deal with goblins and to name "Wizard" agaisnt fish builds. Even today Fish uses almost a 100% wizard build. You lose your Dark Confidants, but it is worth it because everything other than Meddling mage on their side dies to Plague. Currently they are running Dark Confidant, Aven Mind Censor, Meddling Mage, and Vadilion Clique or what ever it is called, all creatures who are Wizards and have 1 toughness [again, except Meddling Mage.]
-If anyone has other competitive discard lists they would like to share, I will post them here. I have a few other old standard builds I have played with in the past that took me to top 8 and or top 4 but that is all. I'll post them later as well.-
I'll give you credit for the effort sir. Now, if you are willing, some constructive criticism:
I. Why Play discard?
You play discard as a viable way to stop combo decks and disrupt control decks. Agro is the primary weakness to discard because it already wants to empty it's hand and attack you. Discard can deal with agro and like an empty hand, however, combo and control are it's true targets. Oh, and it is fun.
II. The Cards
Duress is the grand daddy of discard spells. It can't hit creatures like Thoughtseize, it can't hit many cards like Mind Twist, but at one mana to see their entire hand and force them to discard the best non-creature spell, this card is arguably the best discard spell in your deck. it is with out a doubt the best one drop discard spell.
Thoughseize A great card that many will tell me is better than Duress I am sure. Having played both cards though, I hardly find myself discarding a creature with it anyway. There are few creatures I care about at all that I am willing to spend the two life on. On the other hand, when you see a hand with only creatures and land it is nice i can get something. When that happens though, it usually means I am winning any way. Noncreature spells are normally the game winners in magic anyway.
Blackmail is fun and I played it in 9th edition standard for a while. There is just no reason to own a set of Duress though. It is a common and it's cheep to own. If you are going to play discard, just buy 4 Duress already.
Funeral Charm Now this is a card with a special use. Instant speed discard is rare, and this may be he only one of it's kind. It also has two other uses as well. Hardly the best card to put on Isochron Scepter, but you can.
Dark Ritual a 4 of. Four of them. Always 4. Four. FOUR. Not three. You can't paly with 5. Four. Unless you are playing a retro vintage build of Mean Deck Gifts that only runs one Dark Ritual to fetch with Gifts Ungiven, you play with 4 of these. How many? F-O-U-R!
Hymn to Turach I sometimes feel that this is even better than Duress, but it costs double black and Duress is so versatile at one black that it can fit in a ton of decks. Hymn gets my vote as the 2ed best discard spell in the game and just like with Duress [or even you Thoughseize fans] this is another must have for anyone playing casual discard. Beware of the Misdirection. That card will do to you what Rick James did to Charlie Murphy's couch. I know. I've been there. in a vintage tournament no less.
Mind Rot Just liek with Duress, Hymn is just better and there is really no reason you shouldn't be playing it. The only reason you should be playing a card like mind rot is because your play group thinks Hymn is too strong or you can find any.
Mind Shatter is not a 2 drop, it is an X drop. you never play turn two Mind Shatter unless you went nuts mana acceleration turn one/two with sol ring and mana crypt. Oh, and Mind Twist is way better.
Mind Twist This card was restricted for a long time in vintage for a reason. I don't know if I would play 4 in a deck, but I know that resolving one is typically GG, so I think that is reason enough to play 4. you'll likely draw one this way and if they some how recovered from a mind twist, you can do it again.
Megrim I cannot disagree more. This card is god awful. "Turn 1 Megrim is the best possible play you can make" is so wrong. Turn one Hypnotic Specter is. Megrim is so bad. It is a 3 mana investment that doesn't do a darn thing on it's own. The Rack is way better than this card. I have played against discard decks running this thing and laugh when they cast it. It is nice to get some extra damage in, but when you play spells in discard, you need them to work for you. You don't care about life totals in discard, you care about board control. Players that see the difference between why Megrim look good and really isn't is the difference between well made discard decks and bad discard decks.
The Rack A great finisher for discard. As a one drop you can go turn one swamp, ritual, Hymn, the Rack. What is really funny about the rack is how it makes people play against discard. Often times the idea is to just empty their hand as soon as possible with the idea that they are going to lose it anyway. With the Rack in play you not only punish that thought process [which also hurts Megrim. Hard to make them discard and lose two life if they have no had] because no they are taking 3 or more a turn, but they actually change it up and try to keep 3 or more cards in hand instead of playing stuff. This keeps your discard spells relative over the long haul.
The thing is, discard isn't the only thing a discard deck should be doing. The point of discard is a form of disruption. Discard also needs ways of answering threats that make it into play as well.
What is funny is that the Xbox live game "Duals of the Planewalkers" gives the player a very nice mono black discard deck to play around with. It has two Megrim in it, but I try my best to not cast it unless I have nothing else to do that turn. It runs Ravenous Rats which are a lot of fun because they are a 2 for 1 and can act like a chump blocker when needed; Drudge Skeletons which are a really good at providing much needed regenerating defense for a discard deck; Mind Rot which does it's job for a casual deck made by wizards. Hymn would be a lot better but what ever; Abyssal Specter which is a poor man's Hypnotic Specter; Two The Rack; and Underworld dreams along with other beat down threats with fear and what not. The main goal is to force discard and use The Rack and Underworld dreams as win conditions while Drudge Skeletons hold down the fort. You can unlock other cards like Mortivore and Royal Assassin that really do a good job as well.
A nice example game of mono black discard would begin with either turn one: Swamp-ritual-duress-Hymn, Swamp-ritual-Hymn-Rack, o the best play, swamp-ritual-Hypnotic Specter. Even Turn one Swamp-Duress isn't bad. Turn two Hymn or Ravenous Rats is nice. Turn three Hypnotic Specter, Drudge skeletons, ninjitsu a Okiba-Gang Shinobi, or some hymn the rack combo are all great. At some point you should have them pretty handless with defenders keeping damage off of your face while you crash in unblocked in the air or with creatures that have fear.
In Vintage i used to play and have won with a mono black build that looked like this:
The goal is to have leyline out to stop graveyard shenanigans like Flash, Ichorid, and Yawgmoth's Will Tendrils combos; use discard to shut down the contol/combo cards with Duress, Hymn, and Specter; limit their resources through Null Rod, Sinkhole, Wasteland and Strip Mine; draw cards with Dark Confidant and my tutors; and one win condition other than Specter beat down was Negator beat down because very few decks ran creatures. those that did like Fish and GobLINES, that is why you have a sideboard.
Anyway, in casual you still need to follow a similar idea of using discard as a main force of disruption while having answers to threats that get though early on or while they are top decking, and some sort of finisher.
Also, before I go, some fun cards I enjoy are Geth's Grimoire with any kind of discard, especially Words of Waste when you are playing multiplayer. Words of Waste is normally a terrible card but with Geth's Gimoire and multiple opponents you suddenly become the most hated player on the table. Draw step, pay one you all discard a card I draw three, for my first third draw i'll choose to pay one again and make you all discard so i can draw three more... etc etc etc.
I would think about maybe going 4 Vampiric tutors and less merchant scrolls. I assume there are no proxies allowed. I would build with what I own myself obviously. I used to have Flash, Gat, Mean Deck Gifts and a few other vintage decks from about two years ago that were a lot of fun adn very very fast. 4 Ritual Gifts with 4 demonic tutors would be nuts. 4 Ritual gifts was a lot more explosive than mana drain gifts, but mana drain gifts was more consistent.
I honestly recommend you play the fastest and most consistent broken deck you have the cards for. I can think of a lot that I could build, but flash would have to be one of the better ones IMO. It has a good chance at winning turn one with the low casting cost and all the tutor effects. Summoners Pact is free to find your Hulk and Flash costs only 2 mana. One of the strong points with Flash back in the day was that you had access to 12 free counter spells to assit you with force of will, Pact of negation and 2 Misdirection and 2 Daze. While the Vintage build uses mox, most people don't own them. With no restricted rule, using 4 lotus petal and chrome mox should be fine. Side boards are mostly all Leyline of the Void removal spells like echoing truth and Chain of Vapor.
@Drain Life: There's a third 2cc hard counter you haven't said a word about: Arcane Denial.
Together with Rhystic Study, it shines
Honestly I forgot about it. I didn't do a Gatherer search for 2cc counters and I didn't play back then. I like Arcane Denial but when I play it I get that "why am I letting them draw cards?!?" creepy feeling.
@blutsau
I think I have sai all I need to. Remand has proven it's value despite it's critics no mater if it is in MUC all the way up to 5cc. Each 2cc counter is different in it's own way. The only strictly better 2cc counter is Mana Drain followed by Counterspell. Negate is different than Remove Soul which is all different than Mana leak which is different than Rune Snag which are all different than Memory Lapse and Remand. They all serve different purposes. If I were asked to pick a 2cc counter early game to be sitting on with two mana and I can't choose Mana drain or Counterspell I would chose Remand. I have already said why. We disagree obviously and I respect that. I would like to see what other MUC players think about the use of Remand in a casual deck like this as well.
@aglanmg
I disagree with cunning wish because this is casual. No sideboard or anything like that. I used to play Extended stick so I know what you are talking about. I may not post here a lot but I have had my share of success in competitive magic over the years and am more of a Vintage player in the long run, though over the last two years I have played EDH almost exclusively. I prefer nuts broken cards, but casual is nice to tone things down a bit and play with newer players and other casuals. I actually originally wrote rewind, then erased it and put dismiss, and then finally put the dismal failure. I have not made this deck yet or anything, just a mental build.
@Blutsau
I hear you man. I was trying to come up with a list on the spot and work from there. I agree with you about Dismal Failure in Mono Blue. I remember many people playing it as a one or two of in Dralnu and other TSB standard and block and how good it was in the control match up. Also, I play with it in EDH and it is really good. I don't know if you have ever played with it or against it, so I cannot speak for you, but one thing that drives me nuts about this forum as a whole is how often people will dismiss a card based solely on "logic" only to find out "it" [what ever "it" is] is actually good. In the end though I only own one dismiss and that is in EDH, so I am thinking when i build this deck I will end up using rewind.
Also Blutsau, I have to totally disagree with you about remand. Short answer, did you even play back in Ravnica/CS/TSP days? Remand has proven it's worth time and time again. It is that good. It is not like *** in Agro. Why would I play it over a hard counter? Because Mana Drain is too expensive, I don't use proxies, and the only "hard counter" that can hit any spell for two mana is Counterspell which is in the deck. Mana leak, Rune Snag, Memory Lapse and other are all not hard counters. Mana leak is not as good as Remand, Rune Snag is already on the list, and I am thinking about using Memory lapse on the stick. I am open to that idea. Your argument that i should run better card draw than remand shows why you don't get why it is so good. Remand on turn two or three is a virtual time walk. It has so much versatility. Simply put your argument against the card is the same one people made when Ravnica came out and it was a 50cent card that stores couldn't sell. Then some pros started playing it and suddenly it became a $5+ card that no one could find. Did it suddenly get better? Has it gotten worse? No. People in Vintage even use it from time to time at events. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you a lot in these threads, but I had to say my peace about Remand at the least.
Finally, on the issue of Spell Burst, I never really listed a mana base. In casual you can play a Sol Ring, Tolarian Academy, and other fun cards as singletons. If I am going mono blue it is likely going to have an Academy, Seats, a Sol Ring and mind stones or something. There should be plenty of mana, or you are doing something wrong.
EDIT: So I read you bit about Capsize and ItR and Boomerang and all that and also just have to skae my head and disagree with you. Keep in mind I come from the perspective of an avid EDH player so my view is a little different than yours may be, but going first and using boomerange their land during their upkeep, and the next turn a remand, etc give you such a tempo advantage and a chance to set up your late game you should have already won. The point of MUC is to get to the late game and destroying someones early game will certainly do just that. I agree with you that ET is a great card and can hit tokens. It is a great debate between the two cards. In casual you are likely to face a token swarm and that is good cause to use ET. Depending on the meta I may even move over to ET, but on a first build, Boomerang is a house. I do agree that ItR is a great card and I am willing to try it out. an ItR on the stick witch kicker would be a lot of fun. To say though that not every turn you would want something to bounce with capsize or a boomerang on a stick is silly talk. If all they have are lands to bounce, then you are winning so hard right now. That, and again, with mana accelerators, you could and should be able to bounce several things with a single capsize. You talk about 8-Post or Tron, that is a lot of mana to abuse a multi shot capsize. Also, as an EDH palyer, Capsize wins games. I'm not saying you should play with mana crypt in casual, but a game of island sol ring go followed by land mana crypt go, upkeep capsize w/ buyback is GG. No MUC needed. An early game boomstick does the same thing.
I read the first few pages of this thread and wanted to chime in and ask some questions.
I was looking to build either a MUC, UW, or a UB control deck. Since this is a MUC thread I'll start there. Instead of looking for specific cards I was interested in asking what the numbers should look like. I have been told that MUC decks should look for 26 mana sources when including mana artifacts, 16 to 20-ish counters, around 4 win-con cards, and utility cards like CA and removal should make up the last 10 to 14 slots.
*I prefer to never use proxies myself, however, I respect the fact that others are okay with them. Not to get off topic, but I can understand people wantign to proxy to see if they want to buy a card, but to proxy FoW or Mana Drain just make me shake my head. These are cards you should just buy anyway. They are great and the only reason not to buy them is that they cost a lot. Anyway, back on topic.
So just to make a deck off of the top of my head while typing this, here is what I will come up with:
Rune Snag - I always loved this card. Force Spike, Mana Leak and other cards all have their use. I don't think any one of those cards is better or worse than Rune Snag, I jsut liek Rune Snag. Oh, and I have 4 foil ones
Remand - Just like Run Snag, I started playing right before Ravnica came out and "grew up" on these two counter spells in standard so they have a special place in my heart. Remand is darn good too. It has a second use to this day people are unaware of. In a counter war, a remand can target your original spell you are fighting for to your hand and draw you a card to recast it next turn. Watch your opponant face when they realize what just happened.
Dismal Failure - I know people like Dismiss. Dismiss is a great card because it draws you a card and when you play multiplayer Dismiss is a far better card. Also, when you play agaisnt agro, who is dumping their hand, they may not even have cards to discard to Dismal Failure. Despite all of this, and being player who prefers mono black above all other decks, I really like the discard effect and this is casual.
Spell Burst - Simply put, when you stablize, you win with this card. Nothing is getting through. Early on you can often use it as a desperate counter, but late game is where it really shines.
Boomerang - Self explanitory. A short term answer to things that slip by.
Accumulated Knowledge - Same mechanic as Rune Snag and a fun card to play. Not the best card to put on the stick because that means one less card in your GY, but not terrible. Also a good home for my 4 AKs that haven't seen play in a few years.
Isochron Scepter - With Counterspell, boomerang, and the less than optimal choice Accumulated Knowledge, you should be able to abuse the stick.
Win Cons - I wanted to go with 4 different win-con creatures to keep the games from feeling stale. Oh, and I don't own a Guile. Oh, and having a Boomerang on a stick with Draining Whelk is fun.
P.S. I would love to see a Primer Decks: UBW Control thread. Talking about all sorts of fun budget and non budget builds would be nice. I remember playing UBW Evoke control with Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Momentary Blink, Makeshift Manniquin, and other fun stuff; a deck about O-Ring and Vedalkin Mastermind and other interactions; a version of Dralnu Control that used Vodistone Gargoyal and some multi colored cards with white in the cost; etc. I may even make one jsut to get the ball rolling if no one else will.
I have been playing MtG since right before Ravnica came out and shortly after I started I was beat down by a nasty elf deck. I had a lot of respect for what that deck could do and built a version of my own based on my memory and a little help from my friends. A short time later and to this day it has become infamous at our local venue. I am always looking for help on how to improve it, yet I am not sure if there is much more that should be done to it. Part of the fun is that all the girls who come in and want to learn how to play I let them use it and they fall in love with it and MtG. You can imagine, that helps keeping people from hating the deck ;).
P.S. Oh, and giant Forest Elves in the red zone for the win is always fun thanks to Ambush Commander and Coat of Arms. "Now attack him with your forests!" always puts a smile on new players faces.
I like the change, but from reading some of the DvD threads from when it first released, it seemed like the overwhelming majority thought the Demons were the more powerful deck. I haven't personally played either, so can't say. Icy Manipulator is a great card for this deck though.
I can't seem to get the search function to work here, and as a result I cannot find older threads about the Divine vs. Demonic decks. I would love to see what reasoning people have that makes them believe the Divine deck is worse than the Demons.
None of the Demonic creatures are a serious threat to the Divine deck with exception to Stinkweed Imp and the Demons themselves. The divine deck packs 2 Faith's Fetters and a Pacifisim along with a pair of Otherworldy Journies as combat tricks and in responce to dark banashing or an edict/barter in blood. Oh, and Akroma. While Black can deal with her, amny games result in "play my 8th land, play Akroma, attack, gg." You cannot block her and you have zero instant sped answes for her. Also, even if you didn't lose on that turn, you only have one turn to answer her, after that and 12 damage from akroma alone, it should be gg. If it isn't, something horrible must have happened. It's not like I'm some noob Also ,i am not the only one sayign this, my local venue is filled with veteran players who all feel the same.
P.S. I often wonder how often at MTG Salvation players base their opinions off of theory and not actually play testing. It drives me nuts when I read people saying "oh, you should have a problem with such and such" except people do because theory is all well and good until you get to practice.
Divine versus Demonic, the Demonic spells look nice, but the demonic creatures are terrible. Even the booklet of the DvD booklet and box tell you how bad the deck is. It says teh Demonic deck should try and strike quickly before the Angle deck can get defenders out. The problem is the creatures in the Demon deck start arounf 3 mana for a 2/1 flyer while the Angel deck has a 2/4 flyer with a pump ability for 4 mana. The demon deck doesn't even have fast agressive creatures to start the attack with and it has terrible "control" cards to deal with threats once the Angel deck gets to 4 or more mana. Oh, and while I love Barter in blood, you don't play that in a creature heavy deck like Demons is. There are very few creatures worth a darn that are even a threat to the Angel build and the Angel deck gets Pacifisim, Faith's Fetters, and other answers to get rid of the few Demons that are a real threat. You know how nice it is to power out a Lord of the Pit via Dark Ritual only to have them play Pacifism on it? Mmm mmm mmm.
Next take a look at the Jace vs Chandra. Jace gets Fact or Fiction, Guile, Mulldrifter and all sorts of other great cards than can dominate a game while Chandra gets Flametongue Kavu and some burn spells as it's only good cards. It can't outrgiht burn BLue's face off likea real red deck and it's creatures have a slow mana curve and are marginal across the board. Add in that cards like Willbender can turn a removal spell into a two for nothing against red, and all the card advantage Jace and his deck can provide, Chandra should roll over and die. Unless the player using Jace is a total scrub or has terrible luck anyway.
What I suggest is just make some flavor/theme decks and test them agaisnt each other. If you have some balance between them, then they should be fun for everyone. That's the point of casual.
I have all the planechase decks and I knew before we plyed our first game that the Red White one was going to be nuts and should win most of the games and in our group and the ther tables playing 4 way games with them it was the same thing over and over again. the Green red deck has some beaters, the Artifact deck is pretty bad, the Zombie deck has a few nice cards but a lot of jank and the red White one is filled with nice agressive early game creatures along with solid finishers and more importantly Planes that work better with it's deck than any of the other ones do. One game a guy rolled into the Furnace of Rath plane and then cast one from his hand and swung for leathal across the board. A 5/5 Haste Vigilance creature, 2 boros swift blade, 2 lightning helix, and razia alone are insane. Add in te Red White liege that turns adds lightning helix to all your multi colored spells [including lightning helix] and you should tear people apart. Games end up turning into 3 on one and then finish each other off. that's not what multiplayer casual should turn into. That is a total lack of blaance.
I'll explain the combo first and then the deck.
You get Worldgorger Dragon into your graveyard and use Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead or Necromancy to bring it back to life. When the Dragon comes into play you have to remove everyting else you own in play from the game causing the enchantment to leave play. This in turn causes the Dragon to leave play. This in turn causes everything you made leave play come back into play including your lands and the enchantment. Now, your lands come into play untapped which is important and he enchantment just came into play looking for a target. tapping land for mana does not use the stack so now you float mana and then chose the Dragon to come back and you repeat this until you have infinte mana. After you have infinite mana you chose Oona, Queen of the Fae and remove everyone's decks from the game. You can also choose Caller of the Claw instead of floating mana and just make infinte bear tokens at the end of your opponents last turn by using the flash ability of Necromancy and swing at everyone.
A sample deck list would look like this:
4 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Entomb
4 Animate dead
4 Dance of the dead
2 Necromancy
4 Duress
4 Toughtsize
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
1 Caller of the Claw
I can work on this deck from here, but the goal is to use Duress and/or Thoughtsize to remove counterspells from his hand while you try to combo off. You use Bazaar of Baghdad for two reasons. The first is it is a great way to discard a Dragon In your hand. The second is that if you use Entomb or discard to get the dragon into the yard, you can use the bazaar to mill yourself into the Oona as you combo off.
You said you can use proxies so I just built a busted list off of the top of my head. I used to run a version like this before entomb was unrestricted. Turn one Swamp, Dark Ritual [3 mana], Dark Ritual [5 mana], Buried Alive [2 mana, find win-con], Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead - GG. This deck likes to win turn two msot of the time, three at the slowest.
Honestly, the question is how busted to you really want to get here? How many proxies can you play with? There are pleanty of stupid broken multiplayer combo decks that can wreak face quickly and protect itself. Painter's Servant with GrindStone, Leyline of the Void with Helm of Obedience, Flash with Protean Hulk, Rings of Brighthearth with Basalt Monolith for infinte colorless mana, the list goes on and on with two card combos that win games for very little mana. The question is this how you want to win?
The trick in my opinion is to take the genaric theme of the decks and colors and just build your own decks to play against each other. I have a nice size collection of my own, as do a lot of magic players, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do this instead. I get the impression when talking to other magic players that they like the idea of theme decks but all theme decks "suck." The real trick is to create your own balanced theme decks to play against each other.
Again, this isn't just Liliana versus Garruk, but all theme decks WotC makes. The Planechase decks are no different. I recommend that you just take a look at what each color wants to do and find nice cards that help you with those goals. For example, if you are making a black deck, I would include creatures that kill other creatures like Nekrataal along with graveyard recursion like Grim Harvest or Recover when playing casual. I would also look for cards that were bombs in limited formats for the mid and late game, cards like Midnight Banshee and Sengir Nosferatu.
Instead of making four of decks, I would recomend making a "sampler" deck that is closer to singleton, if not totaly singleton. Magic has been around for a long time. There are a lot of cards to choose from. You shouldn't have a hard time finding good fun cards that represent the colors you are playing. In red, for example, I would say you should get a copy of Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt, Incinerate, and maybe Volcanic Hammer along with the many other burn spells out there. Your opponant wont know what is comming, but most all these cards are "the same." I know lightning Bolt is the best on this list. I'm not stupid. I know how to play the game. I don't need Trolls telling me that Volcanic Hammer and Lightning Bolt shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. The point is that you can get the same effect of 3 damage for a reasonable cost out of a lot of different cards in red. the same is true for a lot of what this game does. Take a basic mechanic or idea of a card already printed, give it a new name and a new drawback and poof you have a new card. From time to time you can even make cards better than the old versions. Look how long Shades were in Magic until they printed Nantuko Shade.
I was thinking the same thing here. If you are hell bent on Horse creature type then i don't think there is much that can be done. However, if you are willing to do a theme deck instead of tribal, there is a lot more that can be done.
Also, don't be afraid to do a Gathere search for "//gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?type=+[horse">||subtype=+[horse]"]Horse."
I will address those issues later in another update. Thank you for asking. Short answer: Against blue, a turn one hippie can win the game, but bounce will slow you down. The real key against blue is to keep the pressure up and try and bait a counterspell with one card and follow up with a Hymn to Tourach, not the other way around. The control match up is a long game to play, but quite winnable.
Removal is pretty much assumed and I will have to post that in the Support section later.
Finally, in casual, you really have to understand your meta and like I wrote, because agro and creatures are popular in casual, you almost have to go in a different direction than where Discard wants to go. You just about have to reverse the sideboard and main board. Discard is intended for a combo and control heavy meta and casual is mostly an agro and combo format.
Lastly, I did do an update and I likely won't be doing another one until Sunday. I have things to do tonight [Friday] and tomorrow [Halloween] I have work in the morning and a party to go to at night.
Take care everyone!
Good analysis and I am glad to read a new opinion. I agree with the late game idea of Blackmail over Duress, however, Duress offers up so much more from the start of the game. In high levels of competitive play this becomes key. Knowing everything in their hand is vital in your plans moving forward. You also don't just throw a Duress at someone holding a single card or two. I was really hopping to get the point across why I like Duress better than Hymn and that is because Duress is more versatile in the decks it can fit in. Hymn is likely the better card in a discard deck, but Duress is the better Magic card.
Regarding Blackmail in you Pox deck, I agree with you, but that is a Pox deck rather than a discard deck. There is a reason Vintage never ran Blackmail, and the only reason they replaced Duress with Thoughtsize was because they don't care about life totals and forcing your opponent to discard a win-con creature is strong. The same is true for Raven's Crime. We really are talking two different decks. I have not played a lot of Pox decks, but when I do build them I know what you mean. They are just a whole different kind of animal and deserve their own Primer honestly.
This thread will focus on the less popular but still potent archetype, Discard. We will analyze card selection, objectives, and generally how to play these very fun decks.
IMPORTANT: Before I even begin, it is essential you read this article written by Magic great, Brian Wiseman, regarding Card Advantage written in 1996. I don't care if you are a novice or a veteran at Magic, this is a great article that no magic player should miss out on. It has everything to do with our topic.
The Archetype
Discarding your opponents cards, however, is not the only thing a discard deck needs to do to assure victory. Disruption is the name of the game when playing discard, and in this vein, we tend to look to land destruction. Many people have argued that Black should never have even gotten LD. That Land Destruction doesn't fit the theme of the color. I disagree. Black is the color of death and even in the fiction of Magic the Gathering, Black is the color of true evil power. While Red will destroy land in it's chaotic rampage, Black destroys land methodically in a much more cold and calculated manner.
In summary, discard's ideal match ups are combo first and control second. The weakness of a discard deck is agro.
Lands: Here I will discuss the lands typically found in discard builds.
Strip Mine - LD is a tool for discard to disrupt their opponents and Strip mine is the best LD card ever printed. It is restricted, but it is also cheep to buy. Get yourself a copy when you get the chance. Even if you don't play discard a lot, you'll be putting this card to good use for years to come. EDH anyone?
Wasteland - Just a smidgen below the power level of Strip Mine, but still a great card. These are more expensive though and you can live with out them if you are on a budget. The only downside of this card is it produces colorless. I have a personal history of having 2 or 3 wasteland opening hands as my only mana source. If you have them, use them, if you can afford them, buy them. They are another great staple in most any collection.
There are not a whole lot of lands that discard plays. If you are going with a Red/Black build or a Black/White build you should play with mana fixers such as duals and fetches, but I recommend staying away from two or more color discard decks. A strength of mono black discard actually is it's basic land base. People who run Lake of the Dead or Cabal Coffers actually run the risk of getting targeted with a Wasteland. Having tried two color discard in competitive and casual formats, I have to say from my experience the advantage they give you does not out weigh the risks you take.
Duress is the grand daddy of discard spells. It can't hit creatures like Thoughtseize, it can't hit many cards like Mind Twist, but at one mana to see their entire hand and force them to discard the best non-creature spell, this card is arguably the best discard spell in your deck. it is with out a doubt the best one drop discard spell. Also, because it is a common, you should have ZERO problem finding these somewhere.
Thoughtseize A great card that many will tell me is better than Duress I am sure. Having played both cards though, I hardly find myself discarding a creature with it anyway. There are few creatures I care about at all that I am willing to spend the two life on. Morphling and Psychatog come to mind, but that is about it. On the other hand, when you see a hand with only creatures and land it is nice i can get something. When that happens though, it usually means I am winning any way. Noncreature spells are normally the game winners in magic anyway. I am not going to say this card is bad, it's amazing, but I just think it is overpriced and wouldn't recommend you buy them to play in a casual deck.
Cabal Therapy This is more of a niche card. It is a great card that has found a home on a lot of decks over the years. Vintage Ichorid decks use it to pull double duty as a means of fishing out Force of Wills and a sacrifice outlet for Bridge From Below. Cabal Therapy can also be a lot of good with cards like Ravenous Rats. I'll get more into the Rats later, but I am sure you can already understand why these two cards like each other. The real way to play this card is after a Duress, or with a creature in play to sacrifice. When you have both, you can really go to town on your opponent. In the end though this card isn't cheep to buy, so unless you plan on using it in a constructed deck too, don't worry about it.
Blackmail is a card that is fun to play with, but just lacks the power needed to be a staple card. I will say this again and again, there is no reason you shouldn't be playing Duress in 4 copies unless you are playing singleton. In that case you shouldn't be playing discard, but instead use discard as a form of support. To be fair, I did play blackmail in Ravnica/Timespiral standard because it was in 9th edition, but that is the only reason. It still lets you see three cards and you can choose any one of them, so you can get land this way.
Funeral Charm this card is a lot of fun to play with, it has many uses, and is one of the only two instant speed discard spells I know of. I would put this in a discard deck, but I would put it in a casual deck as a support card. I have for visions ones that took me a while to find so I could play them in standard after it was reprinted in Timespiral, but that is the only time I ever used it or saw it used by anyone else.
Raven's Crime isn't terrible. Okay, it is, but at least it is a nice draft card. In limited, turning needless land into discard spells isn't bad.
Skull Fracture The flashback makes this card worth mentioning, but that's it. Basically a two for one, but delayed. Not really worth deck space in my opinion, but fun to put into singleton. I guess the argument of "budget" falls on def ears for me because Duress and Hymn to Tourach are so cheap to purchase and are possibly the best discard spells ever printed. After all, part of the appeal to discard for a lot of people is how cheap it is to build a deck.
2cc
Hymn to Tourach I sometimes feel that this is even better than Duress, but it costs double black and Duress is so versatile at one black that it can fit in a ton of decks. Hymn gets my vote as the 2ed best discard spell in the game and just like with Duress [or even you Thoughseize fans] this is another must have for anyone playing casual discard. Hymn is very cheep [under $2 each on average, and on ebay you cand find "buy it now" for around $3 for a set of four plus shipping] and has 4 different back border pictures to choose from. I prefer the wolf picture, but it doesn't really matter. I have 4 of each picture anyway. Beware of the Misdirection. That card will do to you what Rick James did to Charlie Murphy's couch. I know. I've been there, in a vintage tournament no less.
Scepter of Fugue is a card that is growing on me. A 2cc version of Disrupting Scepter that is faster to activate as well. I haven't built a discard deck with this in it yet, but that is because both of my copies are in EDH decks right now. Any time you can get "free discard" it is worth it. Yes it costs mana, but you are not expending your cards to get rid of theirs. I would make this at least a two of in a discard deck, though the more I think of it, activating one than one a turn isn't a bad idea either. Tell me what you all think.
Ravenous Rats Another staple of classic discard decks. While not a super strong creature or anything, the rats are simple and to the point. Play a guy, force the opponent to discard a card, and now you have a warm body to sacrifice to an effect or act as a chump blocker. When the rats come into play they have done their job, anything beyond that [such as sacrifice effects] and they become a bargain. I have played with and against decks that have equipped Umezawas Jitte to the rats or even used the ninjitsu mechanic ala Okiba-Gang Shinobi and Throat Slitter to further break them off.
Augur of Skulls is a really, really good creature for discard decks. This guy plays double duty in a discard deck because of his regenerate effect. While his discard effect is slow, it is worth it. 2 for 1s are always good. I'll repeat that for magic players out there who are new to the game or have been living under a rock all these years. 2 for 1s are ALWAYS good. If you don't know what 2 for 1 means, look it up.
Dimir Guildmage While a lot better as a support card in a multicolor deck, this creature isn't too bad. It is basically a [card]Disrupting Scepter[cad] with a 2/2 body. I like this card and use them in EDH, but the 2/2 body is also it's weakness. Agaisnt agro this guy is bound to die. However, against Combo and Control which is what you want to play against, this guy can be a game winner beating in for two and forcing discard whether you attack or not.
Distress WotC wanted you to play this card for a few years, even reprinting it in 10th edition. Thank goodness they finally broke down and just reprinted Duress in 2010. 2 mana Thoughtseize with out the life loss. Let's put it this way, there is a reason why no one played with Distress and why Thoughtseize is a $20 card. [whispers: It's the converted mana cost] Why spend 2 mana on Duress when you could get Hymn's ability for the same price?
Headhunter This card is fun in a morph deck and would be bad if you are going for a morph theme. Against combo and control he also works as a simple 2 drop as well. When making cuts though, I don't see myself keeping him in a deck. Honestly, how often will he get through after the first attack?
Hypnotic Cloud Simply put this card isn't worth playing at only 2 mana, and at 6 mana Mind Twist, Haunting Hymn and many others are far better. Thumbs down outside of limited.
Rotting Rats Much better in multiplayer, this card is another example of a strictly worse. The only time i want to self discard is if I want to play madness or reanimate, in which case Small Pox is so much better.
Small Pox One of the best disruption spells I have ever played with. A friend of mine is playing a casual deck that uses Grim Discovery and Eternal Witness to go nuts. Small pox is also abused in two well known decks "Pox," which gets it's name from the card Pox, and the old type two deck Solar pox that abused Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. In a discard deck, Small Pox can also shine as a form of heavy disruption. This is more recommended for an agro meta to get the full effect, you obviously play it early before you play a creature, or later on when you have a ravenous rats or something to throw away.
Nezumi Shortfang is a nice creature with a cheap activation cost. Unlike Dimir Guildmage though, you have to choose between attacking or using it's ability. Still, it is a good card and worth exploring if you already have some. I just wouldn't go out and buy them for this deck yet.
3cc
Mind RotA poor man's Hymn to Tourach. A really, really poor man. Like a guy so poor he cant afford Hymn to Tourachs. Unless you are playing standard, which makes me ask why you are here in the casual forum, you shouldn't be playing Mind Rot. At one more mana and not being able to hit cards at random, Mind Rot is a perfect example of strictly worse magic cards. Okay, to be fair it only requires one black, but seriously... play Blightning or Gerrard's Verdict if color matters to you. At least those two cards are good.
There are a lot of cards you can find in gatherer similar to Mind Rot when you search for black cards that have the text "//gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[discard">+[two]+[cards]&color=+@%28%29"]Discard two cards." The same breakdown works for them as well. You will also notice that with the exception of Hymn and Auger of Skulls, cards that force two cards to be discarded for one mana cost a lot of mana.
Now please note that while I said that 2 for 1s are ALWAYS good, this still applies to Mind Rot. Mind Rot's effect is good and that is why I am talking about it here, however, when there are better options out there and ones that cost less mana, you should ignore worse cards like this one and those like it.
Hypnotic Specter The greatest discard creature ever printed. Not much needs to be said about this guy that hasn't already been said before. I own 9 foils, 4 10th edition and 5 DCI promos [1 for an EDH deck] and 4 revised and 2 10th edition non foils myself and use every one of them. They are that good. Buy at least 4 of them and thank yourself for it every time you attack. If you can't afford them, save your money instead of buying cheaper replacements. They are legal in every format and there area lot of them about. They used to be an uncommon. Turn one Dark Ritual into a Hypnotic Specter is one of the best turn one plays you will make playing Magic. I'm not saying it is the best play, but it is among them. It is also a play that has been made since Magic was first printed, as both cards could be found in Alpha.
Delirium Skeins Now, I like this card in multiplayer, however, unless you are abusing Geth's Grimoire, losing 3 cards yourself makes this card difficult to justify casting.
4cc and above
Persecute Another one of the best discard spells ever printed. Even when your opponent is playing multicolor decks, the fact that multicolor cards share colors, you have a good chance of forcing them to discard almost their entire hand upon resolution. Not much more needs to be said about this card, however, when I am tight for deck space, I can't really justify keeping this card in over Mind Sludge or Mind Twist. I know people will disagree with me, but both of the other two cards I mentioned normally force the entire hand to go away while Persecute can't guarantee that. I have played with Persecute and love it, but it isn't in my top 5 favorite discard spell list.
Mind Twist My third favorite discard spell, resolving a mind twist almost always means GG. The only draw back to mind twist isn't really a draw back at all. In order to crank off a mind twist you have to use mana accelerators like Sol Ring, mana Vault or mana crypt. Yeah, that's right, in order to make Mind twist broken, you should use broken cards. What ever am I to do?!? Oh, if you twist my arm, I guess I'll use a bunch of broken fun cards to break off Mind twist and win the game. [/dry sarcasm]
Mind Shatter One more mana for a Mind twist. Did you know Mind twist was unrestricted a year or so ago? Did you know Mind twist is only like $5 for a revised copy? If you have Mind Shatters laying around, they are good enough, but if you are going to spend money, just buy the Mind Twists. Just like Strip Mine and other staple discard spells, you will be using them a lot more than Mind Shatters IMO. After all, you are in the casual forums.
Mind Sludge We can debate if Persecute or Mind Sludge is better until we are blue in the face, the real difference is that Persecute is great in any deck and Mind Sludge costs one more and requires swamps. However, since Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth has been printed, that isn't much of an argument. I like Mind Sludge because it pretty much always discards their entire hand upon resolution in mono black with out playing the guessing game. In the end tough, Mind sludge is at best a 2 of and played in MBC more than discard.
Okiba-Gang Shinobi This card is a lot of fun to play with and works great with Ravenous Rats and other comes into play abilities. Combine this with Throat Slitter or Nekrataal that kill creatures your opponents play to keep the path clear and Okiba-Gang can double as a win condition much like Hypnotic Specter.
I am sure there are a lot of cards I am missing, and if you want my opinion on them, or you feel they should be in this list, let me know.
Multicolor Options
I will start off by saying that I recommend staying away from a multicolor discard theme for a few reasons. Firstly is the mana base. The objective is to force your opponent to discard their hand as quickly as possible and keep it that way for as long as possible. There are very few multicolor cards or off color cards that really help you do that. the other big reason is that you can play discard cards in multicolor decks, you just won't be playing a discard deck. You would just be using discard as an additional tool to hinder your opponent.
Esper Charm This is a great example of using discard as an additional tool in your UWB deck. Instant sped discard is nice. "EOT, you discard 2?"
Gerrard's Verdict This is a really fun card. It is a appropriately priced at two mana to force two cards to be discarded. the life gain effect is just in there for kicks and makes your opponent think about what they want to to pitch.
Castigate Now I love this card. We have two nicknames for this card at our shop and among our friends. The first is obvious, Castrate because this is what you are doing to their hand of cards, and the second is because of the picture and color "Infernal Nuggy/or Nuggy of the Damned." This card may appear similar to Distress, however, removing the chosen card from the game makes it worth it. Gerrard's Verdict and Castigate should find a home in B/W discard, possibly the only multicolor discard deck I would have you make.
Shrieking Grotesque Read Ravenous Rats and add the word flying. See how much better it gets? This is also the final piece I am aware of for BW discard.
Blightning A great card, but I wouldn't shift over to red just to play with it. This is a great card if you are building a red/black deck already. Too often I see casual players say things like "Oh, if I add in this color I can play Xxxx." This isn't always bad thinking, as sometimes making a color shift/addition will improve a casual deck, doing this with discard is a bad idea. Once you add red you are really making a new deck altogether.
Support: Discard is already a form of disruption, but not the only way a Discard decks gets the job done. This is a list of the other support cards Discard uses to lock in a game.
Leyline of the Void is possibly the best RFG card printed. When you play discard, you should be aware of your opponent abuseing their graveyard and actually thanking you for the work you are doing. Leyline stops them from thanking you, and in some match ups, they will just scoop. See Ichorid decks. This card has become expensive and not an auto include though, so if you don't own them, you don't have to play with them. This was main board for me in my vintage deck back before Flash just to deal with Yawgwin combo. I ended up giving it the nickname Mainline of the Void because at the time I was the only non-ichorid player running it in the main and people were shocked to see it game one. "I'll start the game with Mainline of the Void in play."
Planer Void The original Leyline of the Void. this card is not a replacement effect, however that rarely matters. the only real down side to Leyline or Planer Void is after the first one is in play you don't really need another. One way to look at it though is as fodder to a Small Pox forced discard or something.
Cremate A personal favorite of mien for casual. Removing a card in a grave yard and drawing a card is nice when you expect grave yard shenanigans which you should in casual games. Not really an auto include either though.
Withered Wretch In regards to creatures, this is one of the best graveyard hate cards you'll ever see. Obvious weakness to agro, but against agro you shouldn't really need him. Against agro you'll just have a warm body for 2 mana.
Nezumi Graverobber I would argue that this guy is even better than Withered Wretch, however, WW only costs one colorless to activate. The flip ability is what really puts the Graverobber over the top, literally.
Null Rod More of a legacy and vintage card than a casual card, it is still amazing. Note that if you play with Null rod, don't play with Scepter of Fugue or risk getting slapped upside the head through the internet.
Crucible of Worlds Just a great card. the real use of this card is to abuse Strip Mine and/or Wasteland to lock your opponent out of the game. this isn't cheep either and also not a mandatory card for discard decks.
Sinkhole Expensive to purchase but amazing. As I said earlier, LD is a tool of disruption for discard and combined with Strip Mine, Wasteland, and the possibility of hitting lands with Hypnotic Specter and Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole can be back breaking.
Rain of Tears Budget Sinkhole. Good enough to play with still. I don't know if i would use this along with Small pox, but it is worth a try.
Dark Confidant A bit more expensive card, and it depends on what kind of curve you are playing with, but Dark Confidant is one of the best card draw support cards along with Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena.
Graveborn Muse Not as good as Dark Confidant, but still a nice budget card.
Necropotence The best card draw spell not named Ancestral recall ever printed. Restricted for obvious reasons. You don't have to play with this card, but I recommend it with out hesitation. Card draw is as important to a discard deck as the discard spells them selves. Think of it this way, why are you playing discard? Losing cards is bad for your opponent, so then, in turn, drawing cards must be good for you.
Phyrexian Arena Little Necropotence. Less broken, more balanced, REALLY good. If you can't afford 4, that's okay, but try and get them at some point.
Sign in Blood he polar opposite of Hymn to Tourach, just not as good. Really good, don't get me wrong, but there are a lot better card draw spells out there. If you are on a budget though, these aren't bad.
Skeletal Scrying A nice card draw card for mid or late game. Doesn't work with Yawgmoth's Will, but if you are laying on a budget you likely aren't playing with with Yawgwin anyway. Good 2 of.
Promise of Power Cheep rare that is very good. 5 mana, 5 life, draw 5 cards. That's a solid deal to replenish your hand. Kick it over by paying the entwine cost and get yourself a 5/5 or larger flying creature. Another 2 of.
Dark Ritual You play with four of these
Drudge Skeletons One of the things discard needs is some form of defense and Drudge Skeletons is a classic blocker in Black. Drudge Skeletons also help to give Discard game against agro decks. Putting a wall of two or three Drudge skeletons can be agonizing for your opponent to get through.
Royal Assassin Another classic support card for discard, Royal assassin does a number against agro decks. Expect this guy to be the target of removal early and often.
Geth's Grimoire An amazing card for a discard deck. It isn't one of he better card draw sources in magic, but it is amazing in a discard deck. Use this card with Words of Waste and or Scepter of Fugue and you have a nasty combination. This is one of those cards that rewards you for playing your deck.
Liliana Vess Pretty self explanatory. Force discard every turn, tutor up what you need, like The Rack, and even a built in win condition of her own.
Honden of Night's reach A shrine. Not a great card by itself, but it is cheep to purchase and does force a card every turn to be discarded, so even alone it is a nice card to have in play. Another card that when played with Geth's Grimoire can get silly fast.
Other support ideas are welcome. Support and disruption cards shouldn't make up more than 12 cards in a 60 card discard deck though. I recommend you run some sort of grave yard hate because you should be filling it up and don't want that to be your downfall. After that it really depends on what your meta looks like.
Win Conditions: Self explanatory.
There are a lot of win-cons that Discard decks can use. Classics like Ihsan's Shade to more modern ones like Kokusho, the Evening Star. Not all win-cons in discard have to be creatures though.
The Rack is possibly the best win-con discard has. They are very cheep to purchase and cast. As a one drop you can go turn one swamp, ritual, Hymn, the Rack. What is really funny about the rack is how it makes people play against discard. Often times the idea is to just empty their hand as soon as possible with the idea that they are going to lose it anyway. With the Rack in play you not only punish that thought process [which also hurts Megrim. Hard to make them discard and lose two life if they have no had] because no they are taking 3 or more a turn, but they actually change it up and try to keep 3 or more cards in hand instead of playing stuff. This keeps your discard spells relative over the long haul. If you want to play discard, buck up and spend the $8 to buy 4 of these.
Phyrexian Negator A meta game card if there ever was one. Primarily a Vintage only card, this fatty's sole purpose is to hit the board fast and strike hard while you are spending the next four turns finishing the job of disruption. Only recommended for a creatureless "combo" heavy meta, you know, like Vintage used to be.
Nyxathid A really cool looking creature and great against an agro deck. My only real problem with this creature is that when you are not winning, he wont do anything to help turn the game back in your favor. The obvious plus side is that he will help you close a game quickly giving your opponent a short clock to deal with him. The idea here si to force hard discard and strike quickly before they can recover.
Ideas for great win-cons welcome. I will always recommend Kokusho because he is not just a bomb, he's a freaking NUKE! When it comes to discard, you typically win but obliterating your opponents ability to do anything and then the rest becomes a formality rather than some epic conclusion. In Vintage, for example, my goal was to have Leyline out to prevent graveyard shenanigans; Null Rod out to stop moxen and other broken stuff; and hate on their land with Sinkhole, Wasteland, and Strip Mine while Phyrexian Negator, Hypnotic Specter and Dark Confidant beat in.
Budget
20 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
Spells
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Doom Blade
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Auger of Skulls
4 Nyxathid
4 The Rack
2 Scepter of Fugue
2 Geth's Grimoire
From there on it is pretty straight forward. You just keep hammering away at thier hand until it is empty, remove a nasty threat with the Doom Blade and try to beat face with Nyxathid or stall with the rack in play. Scepter of Fugue will give you consistent discard even with a dead Hippie.
24 Swamp
Spells
4 Mind Rot
4 Terror
Artifacts
4 The Rack
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Drudge Skeletons
4 Severed Legion
4 Abyssal Specter
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Nightmare
1 Royal Assassin
1 Ascendant Evincar
It is more or less just a mono black build, but the use of Ravenous Rats, Mind Rot, and Abyssal Specter gives this deck a discard theme. The use of Rats as a chump blocker to keep some damage of of your face is nice, Drudge Skeletons is a long term blocker and this deck typically win by stalling out the board and letting The Rack take care of the long term damage.
-More Budget decks will be posted here as this thread moves along-
While I am not a fan of Multicolor discard decks, here is a Black and White build I have played with in some form or another since Guildpact came out. It has seen many changes and trial cards, but here is a solid build I curently use.
4 Terramorphic Expanse
10 Swamp
10 Plains
Creatures
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Shrieking Grotesque
4 Blind Hunter
4 Throat Slitter
4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 The Rack
Enchantments
4 Faith's Fetters
4 Pillory of the Sleepless
Other Spells
4 Castigate
4 Disenchant
4 Cremate
4 Gerrard's verdict
3 Mortify
The Gerrard's Verdict is in the sideboard to help deal with control decks while the Mortify and Disenchants are there to deal with decks that abuse enchantments and artifacts and lastly the Cremate is in there to help stop grave yard combo decks.
-I will post more Casual builds here in time.-
I'll start things of with my Vintage deck that has given me a few top 4s and even a Mox Ruby in the past.
4 Wasteland
14 Swamp
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Null Rod
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
4 Masticore
4 Dystopia
4 Diabolic Edict
3 Engineered Plague
The sideboard choices are fairly obvious as well. Fish, GobLINES [Goblins with Leyline of the Void and other black stuff created by team ICBM (I Can Beat Mean Deck)] and other creature based decks are a bad match up for this deck so game one is typically lost. In games two and thre you just move out the Null rods, Phyrexian Negators at the least to make room for Masticore and something else like Edict. The Dystopia were there to fight Fish which ran a heavy W or UW creature base. Kataki, Meddling Mage, Jotun Grunt, Savahna Lions, Isumaro and Aven Mind Censor are all white and die to Dystopia. you also use Dystopia against Oath to deal with both of it's Angles and the Dragon and the Oath itself. Lastly you used Dystopia to fight GaT which relied not on the Tog anymore, but rather the Dryad. Plague was in the deck to deal with goblins and to name "Wizard" agaisnt fish builds. Even today Fish uses almost a 100% wizard build. You lose your Dark Confidants, but it is worth it because everything other than Meddling mage on their side dies to Plague. Currently they are running Dark Confidant, Aven Mind Censor, Meddling Mage, and Vadilion Clique or what ever it is called, all creatures who are Wizards and have 1 toughness [again, except Meddling Mage.]
-If anyone has other competitive discard lists they would like to share, I will post them here. I have a few other old standard builds I have played with in the past that took me to top 8 and or top 4 but that is all. I'll post them later as well.-
I. Why Play discard?
You play discard as a viable way to stop combo decks and disrupt control decks. Agro is the primary weakness to discard because it already wants to empty it's hand and attack you. Discard can deal with agro and like an empty hand, however, combo and control are it's true targets. Oh, and it is fun.
II. The Cards
Duress is the grand daddy of discard spells. It can't hit creatures like Thoughtseize, it can't hit many cards like Mind Twist, but at one mana to see their entire hand and force them to discard the best non-creature spell, this card is arguably the best discard spell in your deck. it is with out a doubt the best one drop discard spell.
Thoughseize A great card that many will tell me is better than Duress I am sure. Having played both cards though, I hardly find myself discarding a creature with it anyway. There are few creatures I care about at all that I am willing to spend the two life on. On the other hand, when you see a hand with only creatures and land it is nice i can get something. When that happens though, it usually means I am winning any way. Noncreature spells are normally the game winners in magic anyway.
Blackmail is fun and I played it in 9th edition standard for a while. There is just no reason to own a set of Duress though. It is a common and it's cheep to own. If you are going to play discard, just buy 4 Duress already.
Funeral Charm Now this is a card with a special use. Instant speed discard is rare, and this may be he only one of it's kind. It also has two other uses as well. Hardly the best card to put on Isochron Scepter, but you can.
Dark Ritual a 4 of. Four of them. Always 4. Four. FOUR. Not three. You can't paly with 5. Four. Unless you are playing a retro vintage build of Mean Deck Gifts that only runs one Dark Ritual to fetch with Gifts Ungiven, you play with 4 of these. How many? F-O-U-R!
Hymn to Turach I sometimes feel that this is even better than Duress, but it costs double black and Duress is so versatile at one black that it can fit in a ton of decks. Hymn gets my vote as the 2ed best discard spell in the game and just like with Duress [or even you Thoughseize fans] this is another must have for anyone playing casual discard. Beware of the Misdirection. That card will do to you what Rick James did to Charlie Murphy's couch. I know. I've been there. in a vintage tournament no less.
Mind Rot Just liek with Duress, Hymn is just better and there is really no reason you shouldn't be playing it. The only reason you should be playing a card like mind rot is because your play group thinks Hymn is too strong or you can find any.
Mind Shatter is not a 2 drop, it is an X drop. you never play turn two Mind Shatter unless you went nuts mana acceleration turn one/two with sol ring and mana crypt. Oh, and Mind Twist is way better.
Mind Twist This card was restricted for a long time in vintage for a reason. I don't know if I would play 4 in a deck, but I know that resolving one is typically GG, so I think that is reason enough to play 4. you'll likely draw one this way and if they some how recovered from a mind twist, you can do it again.
Megrim I cannot disagree more. This card is god awful. "Turn 1 Megrim is the best possible play you can make" is so wrong. Turn one Hypnotic Specter is. Megrim is so bad. It is a 3 mana investment that doesn't do a darn thing on it's own. The Rack is way better than this card. I have played against discard decks running this thing and laugh when they cast it. It is nice to get some extra damage in, but when you play spells in discard, you need them to work for you. You don't care about life totals in discard, you care about board control. Players that see the difference between why Megrim look good and really isn't is the difference between well made discard decks and bad discard decks.
The Rack A great finisher for discard. As a one drop you can go turn one swamp, ritual, Hymn, the Rack. What is really funny about the rack is how it makes people play against discard. Often times the idea is to just empty their hand as soon as possible with the idea that they are going to lose it anyway. With the Rack in play you not only punish that thought process [which also hurts Megrim. Hard to make them discard and lose two life if they have no had] because no they are taking 3 or more a turn, but they actually change it up and try to keep 3 or more cards in hand instead of playing stuff. This keeps your discard spells relative over the long haul.
The thing is, discard isn't the only thing a discard deck should be doing. The point of discard is a form of disruption. Discard also needs ways of answering threats that make it into play as well.
What is funny is that the Xbox live game "Duals of the Planewalkers" gives the player a very nice mono black discard deck to play around with. It has two Megrim in it, but I try my best to not cast it unless I have nothing else to do that turn. It runs Ravenous Rats which are a lot of fun because they are a 2 for 1 and can act like a chump blocker when needed; Drudge Skeletons which are a really good at providing much needed regenerating defense for a discard deck; Mind Rot which does it's job for a casual deck made by wizards. Hymn would be a lot better but what ever; Abyssal Specter which is a poor man's Hypnotic Specter; Two The Rack; and Underworld dreams along with other beat down threats with fear and what not. The main goal is to force discard and use The Rack and Underworld dreams as win conditions while Drudge Skeletons hold down the fort. You can unlock other cards like Mortivore and Royal Assassin that really do a good job as well.
A nice example game of mono black discard would begin with either turn one: Swamp-ritual-duress-Hymn, Swamp-ritual-Hymn-Rack, o the best play, swamp-ritual-Hypnotic Specter. Even Turn one Swamp-Duress isn't bad. Turn two Hymn or Ravenous Rats is nice. Turn three Hypnotic Specter, Drudge skeletons, ninjitsu a Okiba-Gang Shinobi, or some hymn the rack combo are all great. At some point you should have them pretty handless with defenders keeping damage off of your face while you crash in unblocked in the air or with creatures that have fear.
In Vintage i used to play and have won with a mono black build that looked like this:
4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
3 Null Rod
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
14 Swamp
Anyway, in casual you still need to follow a similar idea of using discard as a main force of disruption while having answers to threats that get though early on or while they are top decking, and some sort of finisher.
Also, before I go, some fun cards I enjoy are Geth's Grimoire with any kind of discard, especially Words of Waste when you are playing multiplayer. Words of Waste is normally a terrible card but with Geth's Gimoire and multiple opponents you suddenly become the most hated player on the table. Draw step, pay one you all discard a card I draw three, for my first third draw i'll choose to pay one again and make you all discard so i can draw three more... etc etc etc.
4 Protean Hulk
3 Summoners Pact
1 Elvish Spirit guide
4 Virulent Sliver
1 Heart Sliver
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation
2 Misdirection
2 Daze
2 Duress
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
I would think about maybe going 4 Vampiric tutors and less merchant scrolls. I assume there are no proxies allowed. I would build with what I own myself obviously. I used to have Flash, Gat, Mean Deck Gifts and a few other vintage decks from about two years ago that were a lot of fun adn very very fast. 4 Ritual Gifts with 4 demonic tutors would be nuts. 4 Ritual gifts was a lot more explosive than mana drain gifts, but mana drain gifts was more consistent.
I honestly recommend you play the fastest and most consistent broken deck you have the cards for. I can think of a lot that I could build, but flash would have to be one of the better ones IMO. It has a good chance at winning turn one with the low casting cost and all the tutor effects. Summoners Pact is free to find your Hulk and Flash costs only 2 mana. One of the strong points with Flash back in the day was that you had access to 12 free counter spells to assit you with force of will, Pact of negation and 2 Misdirection and 2 Daze. While the Vintage build uses mox, most people don't own them. With no restricted rule, using 4 lotus petal and chrome mox should be fine. Side boards are mostly all Leyline of the Void removal spells like echoing truth and Chain of Vapor.
Honestly I forgot about it. I didn't do a Gatherer search for 2cc counters and I didn't play back then. I like Arcane Denial but when I play it I get that "why am I letting them draw cards?!?" creepy feeling.
I think I have sai all I need to. Remand has proven it's value despite it's critics no mater if it is in MUC all the way up to 5cc. Each 2cc counter is different in it's own way. The only strictly better 2cc counter is Mana Drain followed by Counterspell. Negate is different than Remove Soul which is all different than Mana leak which is different than Rune Snag which are all different than Memory Lapse and Remand. They all serve different purposes. If I were asked to pick a 2cc counter early game to be sitting on with two mana and I can't choose Mana drain or Counterspell I would chose Remand. I have already said why. We disagree obviously and I respect that. I would like to see what other MUC players think about the use of Remand in a casual deck like this as well.
I disagree with cunning wish because this is casual. No sideboard or anything like that. I used to play Extended stick so I know what you are talking about. I may not post here a lot but I have had my share of success in competitive magic over the years and am more of a Vintage player in the long run, though over the last two years I have played EDH almost exclusively. I prefer nuts broken cards, but casual is nice to tone things down a bit and play with newer players and other casuals. I actually originally wrote rewind, then erased it and put dismiss, and then finally put the dismal failure. I have not made this deck yet or anything, just a mental build.
@Blutsau
I hear you man. I was trying to come up with a list on the spot and work from there. I agree with you about Dismal Failure in Mono Blue. I remember many people playing it as a one or two of in Dralnu and other TSB standard and block and how good it was in the control match up. Also, I play with it in EDH and it is really good. I don't know if you have ever played with it or against it, so I cannot speak for you, but one thing that drives me nuts about this forum as a whole is how often people will dismiss a card based solely on "logic" only to find out "it" [what ever "it" is] is actually good. In the end though I only own one dismiss and that is in EDH, so I am thinking when i build this deck I will end up using rewind.
Also Blutsau, I have to totally disagree with you about remand. Short answer, did you even play back in Ravnica/CS/TSP days? Remand has proven it's worth time and time again. It is that good. It is not like *** in Agro. Why would I play it over a hard counter? Because Mana Drain is too expensive, I don't use proxies, and the only "hard counter" that can hit any spell for two mana is Counterspell which is in the deck. Mana leak, Rune Snag, Memory Lapse and other are all not hard counters. Mana leak is not as good as Remand, Rune Snag is already on the list, and I am thinking about using Memory lapse on the stick. I am open to that idea. Your argument that i should run better card draw than remand shows why you don't get why it is so good. Remand on turn two or three is a virtual time walk. It has so much versatility. Simply put your argument against the card is the same one people made when Ravnica came out and it was a 50cent card that stores couldn't sell. Then some pros started playing it and suddenly it became a $5+ card that no one could find. Did it suddenly get better? Has it gotten worse? No. People in Vintage even use it from time to time at events. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you a lot in these threads, but I had to say my peace about Remand at the least.
Finally, on the issue of Spell Burst, I never really listed a mana base. In casual you can play a Sol Ring, Tolarian Academy, and other fun cards as singletons. If I am going mono blue it is likely going to have an Academy, Seats, a Sol Ring and mind stones or something. There should be plenty of mana, or you are doing something wrong.
EDIT: So I read you bit about Capsize and ItR and Boomerang and all that and also just have to skae my head and disagree with you. Keep in mind I come from the perspective of an avid EDH player so my view is a little different than yours may be, but going first and using boomerange their land during their upkeep, and the next turn a remand, etc give you such a tempo advantage and a chance to set up your late game you should have already won. The point of MUC is to get to the late game and destroying someones early game will certainly do just that. I agree with you that ET is a great card and can hit tokens. It is a great debate between the two cards. In casual you are likely to face a token swarm and that is good cause to use ET. Depending on the meta I may even move over to ET, but on a first build, Boomerang is a house. I do agree that ItR is a great card and I am willing to try it out. an ItR on the stick witch kicker would be a lot of fun. To say though that not every turn you would want something to bounce with capsize or a boomerang on a stick is silly talk. If all they have are lands to bounce, then you are winning so hard right now. That, and again, with mana accelerators, you could and should be able to bounce several things with a single capsize. You talk about 8-Post or Tron, that is a lot of mana to abuse a multi shot capsize. Also, as an EDH palyer, Capsize wins games. I'm not saying you should play with mana crypt in casual, but a game of island sol ring go followed by land mana crypt go, upkeep capsize w/ buyback is GG. No MUC needed. An early game boomstick does the same thing.
I was looking to build either a MUC, UW, or a UB control deck. Since this is a MUC thread I'll start there. Instead of looking for specific cards I was interested in asking what the numbers should look like. I have been told that MUC decks should look for 26 mana sources when including mana artifacts, 16 to 20-ish counters, around 4 win-con cards, and utility cards like CA and removal should make up the last 10 to 14 slots.
*I prefer to never use proxies myself, however, I respect the fact that others are okay with them. Not to get off topic, but I can understand people wantign to proxy to see if they want to buy a card, but to proxy FoW or Mana Drain just make me shake my head. These are cards you should just buy anyway. They are great and the only reason not to buy them is that they cost a lot. Anyway, back on topic.
So just to make a deck off of the top of my head while typing this, here is what I will come up with:
4 Rune Snag
4 Remand
4 Dismal Failure
2 Spell Burst
1 Meloku, The Clouded Mirror
1 Keiga, The Tide Star
1 Draining Whelk
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Accumulated Knowledge
26 Mana Sources
Card Choices:
Counterspell - Self Explanitory
Rune Snag - I always loved this card. Force Spike, Mana Leak and other cards all have their use. I don't think any one of those cards is better or worse than Rune Snag, I jsut liek Rune Snag. Oh, and I have 4 foil ones
Remand - Just like Run Snag, I started playing right before Ravnica came out and "grew up" on these two counter spells in standard so they have a special place in my heart. Remand is darn good too. It has a second use to this day people are unaware of. In a counter war, a remand can target your original spell you are fighting for to your hand and draw you a card to recast it next turn. Watch your opponant face when they realize what just happened.
Dismal Failure - I know people like Dismiss. Dismiss is a great card because it draws you a card and when you play multiplayer Dismiss is a far better card. Also, when you play agaisnt agro, who is dumping their hand, they may not even have cards to discard to Dismal Failure. Despite all of this, and being player who prefers mono black above all other decks, I really like the discard effect and this is casual.
Spell Burst - Simply put, when you stablize, you win with this card. Nothing is getting through. Early on you can often use it as a desperate counter, but late game is where it really shines.
Boomerang - Self explanitory. A short term answer to things that slip by.
Accumulated Knowledge - Same mechanic as Rune Snag and a fun card to play. Not the best card to put on the stick because that means one less card in your GY, but not terrible. Also a good home for my 4 AKs that haven't seen play in a few years.
Isochron Scepter - With Counterspell, boomerang, and the less than optimal choice Accumulated Knowledge, you should be able to abuse the stick.
Win Cons - I wanted to go with 4 different win-con creatures to keep the games from feeling stale. Oh, and I don't own a Guile. Oh, and having a Boomerang on a stick with Draining Whelk is fun.
P.S. I would love to see a Primer Decks: UBW Control thread. Talking about all sorts of fun budget and non budget builds would be nice. I remember playing UBW Evoke control with Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Momentary Blink, Makeshift Manniquin, and other fun stuff; a deck about O-Ring and Vedalkin Mastermind and other interactions; a version of Dralnu Control that used Vodistone Gargoyal and some multi colored cards with white in the cost; etc. I may even make one jsut to get the ball rolling if no one else will.
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Wirewood Elves
2 Ambush Commander
3 Winter Orb
3 Slate of Ancestry
2 Coat of Arms
2 Overrun
16 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
As I am sure you can put together the goal of the deck is to use mana elves along with Quirion Ranger and Crop Rotation for massive mana acceleration; Tanglewire and Winter Orb as a form of distruption; Slate of Ancestry for card draw; and finally Wirewood Elves, Ambush Commander, Overrun, and Coat of Arms as win conditions. It's really nice how you can tap Tanglewire to itself with out turning it [off unlike Winter Orb], and that with mana elves and Gaea's Cradle you won't be hurting when Winter Orb is in play and untaped. The obvious problem his deck runs into is mass removal like Infest effects.
How would you alter this deck?
P.S. Oh, and giant Forest Elves in the red zone for the win is always fun thanks to Ambush Commander and Coat of Arms. "Now attack him with your forests!" always puts a smile on new players faces.
I can't seem to get the search function to work here, and as a result I cannot find older threads about the Divine vs. Demonic decks. I would love to see what reasoning people have that makes them believe the Divine deck is worse than the Demons.
None of the Demonic creatures are a serious threat to the Divine deck with exception to Stinkweed Imp and the Demons themselves. The divine deck packs 2 Faith's Fetters and a Pacifisim along with a pair of Otherworldy Journies as combat tricks and in responce to dark banashing or an edict/barter in blood. Oh, and Akroma. While Black can deal with her, amny games result in "play my 8th land, play Akroma, attack, gg." You cannot block her and you have zero instant sped answes for her. Also, even if you didn't lose on that turn, you only have one turn to answer her, after that and 12 damage from akroma alone, it should be gg. If it isn't, something horrible must have happened. It's not like I'm some noob Also ,i am not the only one sayign this, my local venue is filled with veteran players who all feel the same.
P.S. I often wonder how often at MTG Salvation players base their opinions off of theory and not actually play testing. It drives me nuts when I read people saying "oh, you should have a problem with such and such" except people do because theory is all well and good until you get to practice.