Drawbridge, during the times of the original Pandeburst and Trix was a rather large competitor deck when playing these types of decks. I had never thought it would ever make a comeback until my friend mentioned that for what many people play in my area, a white control deck that utilizes cards like Ensnaring Bridge or STory Circle may actually work but would be more of a funny thing to see. Most people did not take the boy seriously about the deck, but I thought it might work and proceeded to build a mock up deck. Once I built and changed everything around alot of times, it finally worked and has done well against everything but Trix, Tradewind, and STasis. My style does not have shard phoenixes, hammers of bogardan, or cursed scrolls, but wins through the opponent decking themselves or perhaps via a pegasus army if I Sideboard. So far, this is the third version . Please try it and tell me what you think after you try it out. It does EXTREMELY well against ALMOST EVERYTHING.
4 Scrubland
4 Savannah
12 Plains
4 Mox Diamond
4 Tithe
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Story Circle
2 Island Sanctuary
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Null Brooch
1 Overgrown Estate
1 Peace of Mind
2 Millstone
1 Jester's Cap
4 Seal of Cleansing
3 Wrath of God
1 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
Some reasons for cards I did not pick:
1. Cursed Scroll: It costs more than twice as much as any dual land and is only so-so in my opinion damagewise. Also, cards like Worship and Peace of Mind nullify the scroll's potential.
2. Shard Phoenix: It can easily be a dead card unless you have at least 4 red mana sources out especially going against Oath, anything with graveyard removal like Pox, or any deck that is creatureless control like mine.
3. Hammer of Bogardan: For a recurring sorcery, it can cost you the game versus B or W Weenie and Stompy. Its expensive to buy, costly to recurr, and must stick in the hand until it can be cast again
4. Thawing Glaciers: Seems to do okay, but LD seems to be dominant where I play and I do not want to waste this card on getting a mere plains
5. Earthquake: If I was playing red, this would not do to bad in my deck, but there are enough flyers like Serra Angel and Morphling as well as regenerators like Spiritmonger and Masticore that it would seem dead against all but weenie
6. Rout: I had one of these in my deck where Vindicate is, but decided that it is a bit too situational and slow.
7. Aura of Silence: Too slow to bring out and it hurts me more than it does the opponent almost always
8. Erase: So many choices, so few good enchantments to worry about. I could cycle, but I wouold prefer to have nothing in my hand
9. Grindstone: Just didn't think about it at the time that I made this deck. It might do better than a millstone.
10. Vampiric Tutor: Not enough black on my mana curve and I would prefer to stay alive so I can see the opponent deck themselves and laugh at the confused look on their face as to tho the ^$%^# I won.
11. Duress: Same reason as the tutor. My initial version used this, but I think it is better replaced with land search like Tithe or Enlightened Tutor for my crazy lockdown
12. Gerrard's Verdict: once again, I do not get much black in the deck, making this a rather dead card. I used it in my initial version, but it seemed awkward to play
13. Nevinyrral's Disk/Pernicious Deed: Two of my favorite cards, but if I use them, they will hurt me more than the opponent.
REasons for some cards I did pick:
1. Tithe- When in need of land, you can stack the deck, but there is a big risk of getting caught. HAHAHA! IMHO, it is the better, more legal alternative that can put up to 2 lands in my hand.
2. 2 Millstone: For some odd reason, people tend to ignore these kill buttons and go for the bigger goodies like my bridges or story circles. Besides, the look on their face is priceless when they realize they have lost to a lump o' crap card like this.
3. Ensnaring Bridge: Card disadvantage is the advantage that lets this deck win. It greatly annoys almost any creature deck including but not limited to: reanimator, stompy, and weenie
4. Story Circle: Burn is bad. Morphlings that slip under my bridge are worse. Enough said.
5. Overgrown Estate: Sometimes, you blew your last card in hand to peace of mind and you arre up the creek with no paddles. Luckily, this little life raft will provide some help against many sources of direct damage
6. Jester's Cap: This deck does not like another deck to be able to have a gaea's blessing, morphling, or pernicious deed in their deck. Those can be really bad.
7. Seal of Cleansing: These could be disenchants easily, but I think it is better to get one you can tutor for.
8. Null Brooch: Counterspell and hand emptying can be a good combo here. It works especially well when the opposition tries to bring out a deed or living death.
I'd say you have just about zero chance against any control deck with counterspells. They can ignore all but a handful of spells in your deck until they have complete control. You said you had trouble with trick, tradewind, and stasis. Add to that list drawgo, forbidian, oath, dumbo drop, etc. Your lack of duress really hurts you against anything blue.
You just scoop pretty much to any deck with gaea's blessings (most of whom have counters, too). 1 cap won't get the job done. Phyrexian Furnace is a better bet to stop recursion and it helps against reanimators and zombie decks, too.
You should handle creature rushes well enough--though there isn't much you can do about sligh's occasional I-win draws. The slower, more controlling creature decks like junk and rock will take your hosers with duress and destroy your board with deed.
Read Aura of Silence again--it doesn't hurt you, and it's your only defense against deed.
3 colors is too many for this deck. If you want to make this into something that has a shot against control, turn it into brooch/bridge/pit if you want w/b or go check out Tracer Bullet's enchantress deck if you like w/g.
For 1 Millstone is not a 'lump of crap'.
Millstone is cool.
Why would you play this deck? It dies to practically everything. Stompy could race it for crying out loud!! Damn it. I hate seeing good cards in crappy decks. Cap gets 3 cards. What happens if they have 4 blessings\deeds\disks?
Do you enter scoop phase or pray?
Go play enchantress. That at least looks fun.
Seriously, counter protected disk is pretty much game.
well, it looks like my post did not work so let me state that after many games, I have been almost undefeated playing this deck. I think millstones are cool, but decided to increase the coolness by subbing in grindstone for these. Also, for all you tomato tossers and booers of my deck, these are the usual results of games with it:
Stompy: Tons of giant growth, rancor, etc.... my life is reduced to the single digits, but I get a bridge and they curse, followed bythem scooping.
Reanimator: Sure they get a few creatures out that are awesome at first, but I swords to plowshares the win things like Krovikan Horror and then Story Circle and win
Black Weenie: They get their cursed scroll around, but get that as about the only source of damage for use until I get/tutor for a seal
The Rock and His Millions (Yet another reanimator): They do the deed, but after all, they only have 4 of them. Perhaps they get out a first turn Duress, but there are many ways around that.
White Weenie: This time, the deck that is being played has a better chance of winning. Usually they blow my bridge and get a cirst turn scroll out, but I come back swinging with a Wrath of God
Sligh: Story Circle: Red. I win although, like stompy, I get down to the single digits of life.
Rogue Decks without counters/disenchants: They like the way my deck wins despite its UGLY LOOKS and usually quit after my combo gains board control
Stasis: These are quite popular decks from what I hear, but I have only gone against 4 people that have used them. I can only pray that they have mercy or that I first turn Duress followed up by a seal of cleansing
Tradewind: That frickin bounce gets on my nerves and I lose
Trix: Like Stasis, I have to pray for a first turn durress and seal to win
Draw-Go: Games go about 50/50 here. Can't really complain but neither can they for the slowness fo the game.
Oath tyes: This goes nowhere and I usually draw, with each of us doing another game with different decks.
LAnd destruction: Never seen anybody play any good LD decks in 1.x and seem to have always won against these decks
Creature Theme decks: Depending on the deck, I almost always am successful. I once played a rogue wizard deck that did surprisingly well for its theme.
Killer Bees: A new, rather odd deck that I win against as soon as the bees BEE gone from the board (Usually 3rd turn, with wraths late game)
Phoenix Decks: This was what this deck was intended to be, but I can not find dual lands but once in a blue moon, cursed scrolls are a ripoff that are impossible to get, and thawing glaciers are only owned by 1 guy where I live and he only has 1 copy that he will not trade. Other than that, I have yet to test this kind of deck. I would not be surprised if i win against this deck.
oh yeah, almost forgot to add this deck:
Pox: Like black weenie, it can only really do any good with the scroll until an overgrown estate/peace of mind hits the board. Usually, these guys get a great start, but late game, it has always turned in my favor
one final thing: deck tweaks (61 cards, but big woop)
4 Bayou
4 Savannah
4 Scrubland
8 Plains
4 Mox
4 tithe
4 StP
4 E. Tutor (vampiric???)
2 Island Sanctuary
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Null Brooch
1 Overgrown Estate
1 Peace of Mind
2 Grindstone
4 Seal of Cleansing
3 Wrath of God
4 Duress
2 Story Circle
3 Bridge
SB: Still being tweaked.
I have made at least 6 versions of this deck tweaking various cards like putting in the SB my cap and adding in other win conditions in the SB like Dark Suspicions
There's still not nearly enough in the deck that threatens control. You'll have too few threats and too many dead cards that they can afford to ignore. Your playtest results sound more or less accurate--just about anything with blue will beat you very consistently. 50/50 with draw go isn't realistic though unless the drawgo player/deck are very bad. Oath will beat you mercilessly, too--those long games are losses, not draws for you. You lose to miracle gro; trick and deed decks give you fits; sligh will take a few games off you when they get good draws (or if you don't kill in a timely fashion or gain a lot of life, they can beat you with barbarian rings and rages). All in all, this leaves you fairing pretty poorly against the extended field. About the only thing you consistently beat are the little-kids decks--creature decks without much disruption. That may be ok for fun play, but it won't cut it for competitive 1.x. If you want to do well there, you'll need to cut the anti-beatdown spells (16 including wrath, bridge, swords, circle, estate, peace of mind, island sanctuary) in half and replace them with anti-control devices like orim's chant, enchantress etc. Also, for a tourney settting, you'd have to find a faster kill. If you can't win game 3 within the time limit, you'll take draws, which are almost as bad as losses in swiss.
I've been thinking about making a deck like this too. But like what these guys say, you really need something that helps you finish your game quickly and something that continues to threaten blue player. That's why a card like Shard Phoenix is so important because not only it keeps comin back, you can use it slow down the more agressive deck like stompy. I would strongly encourage you to remove Overgrown Estate, Story Circle, Gaea's Blessing, Grindstone and put 4 peace of mind, 4 shard phoenix and 4 ensnaring bridge into your deck. Doing so might give you enough consistency for your ensnaring bridge + peace of mind combo thereby allowing you more time to find either null brooch or shard phoenix.
I myself never play this deck, so I could be wrong. My only experience with this deck was the one time I used classic forbidian against my friend who played with this deck. As I recall, he made quite a good fight although he lost 6 out of 8.
well, its been a long time since i last checked this topic, but with even further playtesting, I have had even more success (try me on apprentice!!! i am misterhankey1234 on AOL instant messenger) by subbing in vampiric tutors for the enlightened tutors, auras of silence for the seals, and cursed scrolls as the new win condition (I can't find these in real life) on my apprentice deck, with most players including Miracle Grow and Oath now under control of being major threats. I finally did rethink draw-go, but have lost 2 out of the 5 or 6 times that I have played against it. Perhaps I will listen to Yokie and add in red (Do I really have the balls/insanity to do so?????) just for the phoenixes. A bit of further revision should see how it works, but for now, I have to get back to studying for my first exams of the semester.
oh yeah... forgot to add in that the only removal for creatures that I have now are the Swords to Plowshares and I subbed in a 4th bridge for the wraths among other changes
The Ugliest Deck in Magic (currently):
4 Bayou
4 Savannah
4 Scrubland
8 Plains
4 Mox
4 tithe
4 StP
4 vampiric tutor
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Null Brooch
4 Cursed Scroll
1 Overgrown Estate
1 Peace of Mind
4 Seal of Cleansing
4 Duress
2 Story Circle
4 Bridge
After playing this deck a few times (And making adjustments to run a phoenix), the deck has won 5 out of 7 times that it has played a complete match. I know that this topic may seem a bit old, but I still believe that Ensnaring Bridge is/should be considered a BROKEN CARD since there are so many ways to abuse it. Currently, blue is still one of the biggest problems, mostly versus Stasis, Draw-Go, and Tradewind, but this deck is progressing like the little hand non blue control engine that it can be. What can I say?????? If the pros have mentioned many times in the past that sometimes the best deck design is you own, you should LISTEN TO THE PROS' ADVICE and try your best on ideas of your own. Hell... if that lump of crap looking Domain deck could pull through, I do not see why others should not be able to do so either
The Ugliest Deck in Magic 1.234:
4 Bayou ~ don't own any actually. this is a test deck that I play on apprentice
4 Savannah ~ "" ""
4 Scrubland ~ "" ""
4 Plateau ~"" ""
4 Plains
4 Mox ~ "" """
4 tithe ~"" ""
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wampiric tutor ~ I had one, but "" ""
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Null Brooch
4 Cursed Scroll ~ "" ""
1 Shard Phoenix
1 Peace of Mind
4 Seal of Cleansing/Aura of Silence ~ need to look through all my stuff to see what I own
4 Duress
2 Story Circle
4 Ensnaring Bridge