Hi everyone,
I've been mucking around with various Forbiddian builds for the past few months, and here's the current decklist that I'm playing.
I'd like to hear your thoughts about how it could be made stronger/better.
I'll give some justification for card choices after the list.
Permission:
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Forbid
3 Mana Drain
Creatures:
2 Morphling
2 Masticore
4 Ophidian
Utility:
4 Rushing Rivers
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Impulse
2 Nevy's Disk
Land:
4 Fairie Conclave
4 Wasteland
16 Island
I want to keep the deck mono-blue. For quite a while, I ran 4 Kegs and 2 Misdirection but I took the Kegs out for Rushing Rivers and the Misdirection for Disk.
I felt like the Kegs were a bit slow, and didn't offer me enough in terms of dealing with all variety of permanents once they hit the table, and Rushing Rivers helps to remove permanents long enough to get the Phid through a couple of times and possibly establish the Forbiddian lock. In the current build, Keg would probably be a sideboard card for use agains stompy or sligh.
I also ran 3 Morphlings for a long time, but chose to cut it to 2/2 with Masticore to have more of a way of dealing with weenies.
With Masticore in, I chose to run 2 disks instead of Misdirection, becase the Core can live through the disk and without the Kegs maindeck, there isn't really much of a mass kill card.
When the disks went in, I decided to swap 4 Thawing Glaciers for the 4 Conclaves, and I've found that I really like the Conclaves. I'm trying to go with a slightly more aggressive control deck, and Conclave fits that more than Thaw does.
Anyway, enough of me. What do people think? Is this viable? Does it include sufficient permission? Is Forbiddian even viable in Extended at all anymore? I recently got my butt kicked at two GPT's at NG San Francisco with similar decks. Your advice is much appreciated.
Regards,
Max
First of all, I am going to guess that since you mentioned extended, you meant mana leak instead of mana drain.
I don't think fact or fiction is good enough to play in 1.x It is too slow and the cards from ophidian should be enough. In place of it, I would try to slip in force spike, but there are lots of other cards that could go there if you want additional card drawing.
Back to Basics should be crushing against quite a few decks this extended season. That alone makes the deck viable if it wasn't already. It isn't too good against sligh, stompy, trick, and reanimator, so I would put it in the sideboard. I do know some people who run up to four in the maindeck and hope to play a lot of oath, finkula, and 4c control.
The only other thing I will mention is the possibility of running city of traitors in order to cast an earlier ophidian or BtoB. I am trying it with two right now and have not decided yet whether I like it.
In extended, I have been sideboarding the Ophidians to run Fact or Fictions maindeck in their place, since Phids don't tend to get through all that often anymore.
I assume this deck is for Type 1.5, since Mana Drains are illegal in Extended (unless that's supposed to be Mana LEAK). If this is the case, why not use Mishra's Factories instead of Convlaces?
I really don't think you will need bth FoFs and Phids in the maindeck, being something of an overkill. I'm not too sure what type 1.5's like, but in Extended, playing Blue without Force Spikes is considered rather suicidal. I would also consider going with 2 Rivers, 3 Kegs and 1 Disk, since Kegs just wipe out decks like Stompy, Sligh and White Weenie.
Sorry for the confusion. That is supposed to be Mana Leak, not Mana Drain. This deck is for Extended.
Thanks for all the advice. I particularly like the idea of Rivers and Kegs.
I really don't think that Rushing River is a good card. Its 3 mana to bounce one target, and a land to knock out another. Considering Mana and card advantage are the true strengths of this deck, I don't think it can give up that mana just to halt a weenie rush.
You can't beat aggro simply by drawing more cards than they do. First you need to gain board control, and Keg does that a whole lot better, by coming out quicker, not costing you land drops, and by actually destroying threats. You aren't just trying to push a Phid through against aggro, you are trying to stop threats.
Remember that Phid can block, and a Keg followed by a Phid is a decent way to put a halt to an aggressive front.
-Eric
This is the Deck:
10 Island
4 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Feari Conclave
2 Treetop Village
2 Morphling
2 Masticore
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
2 Gaea’s Blessing
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Powder Keg
4 Duress
4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
Sideboard:
4 Annul
4 Bottle Gnomes
3 Perish
2 Nevinyrral’s Disk
1 Masticore
1 Morphling
In my area, there are a lot of Trix, Oaths and REanimator. The deck easily wins to a trix or Oath but i'm having problem with reanimators, but WHY? Can you help me?
I was thinking in moving 2 Powder kegs to the sideboard and adding 2 Nevinyrral's disk, and moving the two morphlings to the sodeboard and main deck another masticore. The treetops and faeris are to play against Osth and Trix, they can easily win the game for you.
If ur running black u might wanna add finkels... though they dont have much synergy with the deeds...
How about Rainbow efreet? been running a deck version of CMU Blue. Am having a hard time with sligh decks though. Am considering to add kegs
In Forbiddian decks, I find that running anything less than 16 counterspells isn't enough. Nev's Disks are far too slow, run 4 powder kegs, against almost every non-control 1.5 deck, you'll need a powder keg or Force spike first turn. I had opted for the powder kegs because Sligh generally uses 1 mana creatures and it drops a lot more than what Force Spike can deal with. Running phids, Facts and Impulses is over kill if you ask me. I would drop the Impulses and run phids and Facts. I have found that in the 1.5 environment you need to run 3 masticores to clear the board early enough for your phids. Running Masticores and Forbids, I have found that running 4 Squees is the best way to go. You don't lose card advantage to Masticore, and you can buyback Forbids for free. This is the Squeebiddian deck that I have titled MastiMorph:
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob (14)
4 Ophidian
3 Masticore
3 Morphling
4 Counterspell (16)
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Forbid
4 Fact or Fiction (8)
4 Powder Keg
19 Island (23)
4 Soldevi Excavations
Whoops, my bad, I didn't read the post about how this deck is for Extended, not 1.5.