----- Original Message -----
From: "Hanno Terbuyken"
To:
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 5:24 AM
Subject: Article on NG (Handelmann School)
> http://www.neutralground.net/Forums/ForumItem.asp?NewsID=1593&BackupLink=Main.asp
>
> Hey Rakso,
> I found this on the NG-Homepage. Below I pasted the first part of the
> article. I think this could be interesting for the Type-1-mill on Beyond
> Dominia, but I was reluctant to post it myself because the article itself
> deals more with IBC than Type 1 (and I did not want to paste the whole
> excerpt into a posting).
> Maybe you can post it, however you like, although the theory itself is not
> really special but a rather basic one of Magic. At least the article shows
> that some people remember T1... :-)
> One comment: Four cards are missing in the decklist. I think it must be the
> Red Blasts that Handelmann refers to.
>
> Hanno aka Dozer
>
> >(Article by Brian L. Plumb)
> >
> >Handelman School and it's current applications....
> >
> >The Handelman School, while specifically credited to Sam "Garry Handelman,
> >was actually a group project, designed to combat the presence of the
> >popular, and very powerful Weissman School decks at the time. Handelman
> >was in a group consisting of several players, including also Frank
> >Trollman, who has created other thriving decks of that time.
> >The deck in discussion is a Bleu and Black based deck, using also Green to
> >smooth out and accelerate the mana, as well as provide bigger threat
> >cards, contained with green's massive creature ability.
> >The Handelman deck revolves around several main ideas that make it
> >function, they are as follows:
> >1.) Hard to deal with threats.
> >2.) Early card advantage with discard.
> >3.) Offensive lock using overkill, and what is called the Offensive
> >Balance Theory.
> >Offensive Balance Theory:
> >The Offensive Balance Theory is as follows, if every defensive card takes
> >out one offensive card, then the defensive player has not advanced towards
> >winning, since he is only nullifying, or matching the offensive player. As
> >the game goes on the offensive player will reduce the number of defensive
> >cards available to the opponent.
> >The theory hopes to eventually get out a creature that will not be
> >destroyed, or cannot be destroyed in time. Global ant-creature cards, like
> >Moat, Wrath of God, or the Abyss, are a problem, often, since they disrupt
> >the theory of Offensive Balance, by stopping more than one Offensive card
> >with a single Defensive act. The Handelman decks will have to either stop
> >those cards before they happen or have a counter action available at the
> >time, by counterspelling it, or having another plan set up.
> >1996-Handelman-
> >"Speed, while nice if you can get it, is not the important thing. The
> >important thing is to keep your opponent defenseless over turn seven and
> >eight. The ideal draw is a Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Swamp, and a bunch of Hymns
> >and Red Blasts. Never lost a game with that draw."
> >
> >Handelman Deck, Type I, circa 1996.
> >4 Hymn to Tourach
> >4 Juzam Djinn
> >4 Hypnotic Spectre
> >2 Necropotence
> >1 Demonic Tutor
> >
> >4 Mana Drain
> >1 Ancestral Recall
> >1 TimeWalk
> >
> >4 Birds of Paradise
> >4 Ernham Djinn
> >
> >4 Disenchant
> >
> >1 Mox Ruby
> >1 Mox Jet
> >1 Mox Pearl
> >1 Mox Emerald
> >1 Mox Sapphire
> >1 Black Lotus
> >1 Sol Ring
> >1 Library of Alexandria
> >4 City of Brass
> >4 Underground Sea
> >3 Bayou
> >2 Scrubland,
> >1 Tropical Island,
> >1 Tundra
> >(It was quite vulnerable to blood moon, however.)
> >
> >After viewing this nowadays, it almost seems improper to have less than 4
> >Necropotence when available. Due to colour restrictions, as well as
> >knowledge to card power, meaning that before the first Pro Tournament,
> >most people didn't realize how great of a card it really was.
> >Deck-specific points:
> >Uses powerful creatures in many ways, the Juzams are quick and high
> >power/toughness, the Spectres are beating because they do hand-damage and
> >come down quick, plus they fly. The Ernham Djinns are a 4/5 for 4 mana
> >with a minor drawback.
> >Disruption with Hymns. At the time, Mind Twist had already been banned,
> >and that keeps it out. The Hymn to Tourachs were the most powerful discard
> >ability to use, especially considering how inexpensive to cast they are,
> >that leaves out the Disrupting Scepter as the other option.
> >The ideal situation is when a few hymns and early play leaves the
> >Handelman deck with a few more cards in hand, maybe some extra life from
> >having Djinns and Spectres plowed. Then it simply drops down a Necro and
> >wins. It's that simple.
> >The Handelman deck has significant anti-permanent abilities, relying on
> >discard and permission for defense.
> >Well diversified forms of damage make it more difficult to stop.
> >Important deckbuilding note from Handelman-
> >"I do have this little tidbit to offer those who wish to win tournaments:
> >play percentages. Don't worry about beating the best deck at the
> >tournament. Chances are significantly less than 25% that any particular
> >deck is making it to the finals, numbers overpower skill everytime. If
> >there is an army of land destruction deck there, and one of the best
> >editions of the deck you've seen (lets say it's Brian [Weissman] himself),
> >don't worry about beating Brian. Chances are excellent that he'll get
> >unlucky and eliminated. Worry about beating the land destruction decks
> >instead."
>
>
> MfG & GP
> Hanno
> ________________________________________________________________
> n***o@n***t.de | Dozer on ICQ
> Member #13 of "Lim-Dul's Pals", the One and Only Lim-Dul's Paladin fan club.
I just saw this posted on here, I'm catching up from my trip to Denver for the Grand Prix.
I'm the one who wrote it, I just wanted to see something different on the net, and got sick of waiting so I did it myself.
a/x
wow. This has to be the Rakso's Choice that's received the least amount of attention ever.
It's probably cause the original was in the "Schools of Magic" at www.thedojo.com, which sadly has stopped altogether 
I have read those articles with great fascination, and liked them a lot, so I recognized the article.
Oh well, since this approach to Type 1 seems a bit out of date(4/5 color aggro decks are on the losing side of a BtB) ánd Necro is restricted, the chances of this decktype coming back are small.
just my $0.02
Yeah... that article was a real trip down memory lane: I remember playing against this deck numerous times. Considering the fact that I'm getting sick of control-on-control matchups I might take a look at modernising the old Handelman (aka "Handle-Weis-man) deck (I have some frequent playtest partners who don't like playtesting "newer" formats). Necro IS restricted these days, and reducing the number of colors and/or giving it some resistance to BtB is definitely necessary (maybe a UGB or UB deck).
We've been thinking of U/x decks like U/R.
Okay: how does this look for a start (thanks must go to Chris Allen whose type 1 Counter-Core deck I used for a starting-point)
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mind Twist
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Necropotence
2x Fact or Fiction
4x Serendib Efreet
2x Masticore
4x Juzam Djinn
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
3x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
5x Swamp
5x Island
3x Mishra's Factory
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
Any other suggestions? (I have yet to test this against a full spectrum of decks, but it does fairly well against Keeper so far - 2 matches)
Negator?
The initial disruptive deck designs from "back in the day" (94-95) faced far less obstacles then the current disruptive deck does. when i initially built my death in the void deck it was a direct response to blue/white/splash control decks which were far less likely to explode then the modern keeper or mono blue deck. no misdirection/force was huge, and having 4 strips and 4 vises was huge ... seems like the offensive disruption cards have not quite kept pace with the U drawing and control cards (or have recieved harsher treatment from the DCI ... ex. FoF ?!??!). I'm never cared for discard as a disruptive tactic, i always liked mana depravation. The deck list above looks neat but i think opposing wasteland/strip mines will hose it up pretty good. I feel the key to a good disruptive deck is to play 100% offense, and very little defense. so the 8 counterspells would have to go ... the other aspect is consistancy, if you are going to lack defense then at least be consistant which of course means a solid mana base and as little colored mana as possible. and especially avoiding double color mana on more then one color ... how about something like this ...
-- Disruption (19)
4 Nether Void
4 Sinkhole
2 Icequake
4 Duress
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
-- Offensive Threats (14)
3 Urza's Rage (can't be countered under the Void)
4 Juzam Djinn
3 Cursed Scroll
4 Mishra's Factory
-- Broken Cards (only 2 ?!?!!?!?)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
-- NL Mana (10)
3 Dark Ritual
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
-- Land Mana (15)
4 Badlands
4 Sulpurous Springs
7 Swamps
oof ... i'd like another swamp ... you may be wondering about the lack of broken cards, necro, consult, miner, gorilla shaman ... etc. it's just a draft and could probably change out 4-5 cards ...
regards,
Sean O'Brien
hmm... I remember Nether Void as well as the Handelman deck, and they are definitely different decks with very different win conditions. I'm also not a very big fan of Cursed Scroll in a NV deck since you often have a lot of cards in your hand.
I have modified the decklist I posted above, replacing the Hymn to Tourachs and Mana Drains with Misdirections and some faster mana and quicker threats (I had also forgotten the Time Walk!). Here it is now:
2x Fact or Fiction
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mind Twist
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Necropotence
4x Serendib Efreet
3x Phyrexian Negator
2x Masticore
4x Juggernaut
4x Force of Will
2x Misdirection
4x Duress
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
5x Swamp
5x Island
2x Mishra's Factory
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
It still has trouble wining around Moat, though The Abyss is rarely a problem (Juggernauts are great in this situation). I'm considering a Disk or two to help handle the Moat problem. Negators are generally very good, only proving troublesome against Sligh where their burn spells start to punish you. With 4 Duress and 6 free counters you can slow your opponent's strategy for long enough for the fast beats to win. Problems? Suggestions? (I'm having a little trouble gettng Apprentice opponents for type 1 (everyone's madly testing IBC or Extended) so haven't had a chance to test it against a good range of decks as of yet.)
The one thing about NetherVoid is that it COUNTERS SPELLS. Therefore, if you want to use Scroll, just throw the spells you don't want out there to get countered and use the Scroll afterwards.
My bf plays a 3 color void deck thats somewhat like what your talking about. I'll post the decklist when I get home I'm at work now, I think his deck is dated tho he still plays Juzam. when ever I borrow the deck I take those juzams out for foil masticores.
If anyone has the schools of magic article from like 96 or so could they please email it to me I remember reading it way back. Thank you
Mako Satou
Here is the deck my bf plays sometimes I really find it annoying
Artifact (9)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Powder Keg
1 Sol Ring
Black (27)
3 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
3 Hymm to Torach
4 Hypnotic Spector
1 Icequake
3 Juzam Djinn
1 Mindtwist
1 Necropotence
3 Nethervoid
1 Rain of Tears
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
Blue (4)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
2 Fact or Fiction
Red (1)
1 Gorilla Shaman
Land (20)
4 Badlands
4 City of Brass
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
2 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
Sideboard
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Dystopia
2 Nevy's Disk
2 Powder Keg
4 Red Elemental Blast
It used to have white for awhile for balance but someone around here started playing monoblue so
When ever I play it I take out the 3 Juzam for 2 Masticore and 1 Juggernaut
Mako Satou
(Wow, Sean O'Brien posted...cool)
I think, IF you play multi-colored Void it ought to be straight up R/B. Miner, while amazing, is not so good when the best deck is not Keeper but mono-U. My current Nethervoid deck is back to Null and Void (because it can imitate Suicide Black against mono-U), but I'm toying with this...
Matt's possible new Void Deck...
4 Ritual
4 Duress
4 Sinkhole
2 Icequake
2 Rain of Tears
4 Hyppies
4 Juzam (damnit, I own 4...I want to play them in something!)
3 Void
3 Mox Monkey
1 Demonic
1 Yawgwill
1 Vamp Tutor
1 Strip
1 Lotus
1 Sol
5 Moxen
4 Badlands
4 Sulphurous Springs
7 Swamps
Basically, I figure, if (if) you play all the moxen an Icequake costs the same as a Hymn and since this is a mana-denial deck at heart. Also Juzam then almost (almost...I realize he's BB2 not B3) costs the same as Negator and is better against control.
Also Shaman, although I think he's nothing but a little pest in Keeper, is a BEATING in Void. He's so nasty because opponents Keeper the moxen/sol/lotus in their hand...and then Void comes out making them cost three (which they shouldn't have).
The only problem is mono-U is very strong against deicated mana denial. It has 28 mana sources (well it SHOULD), and all basic land. So all it REALLY needs to do is stop the first couple of landkill spells (easy to do with manaleak, mis-D, and FoW) and sit back and take it easy. Sink my 5th island? Well.....okay...go ahead.
--Matt
One note...
I don't like REB/Pyro in the sideboard of a R/B void deck. I'd, just this once, prefer something like 4 Boil.
Basically, you will spend a lot of time, effort, and resources/cards to push one stupid sinkhole through...only to see him lay another basic land next turn. It is much better to simply play with more bombs. Boil isn't the best card of course, but it certainly fits the theme of the deck and, if it hits (quite possible if they counter early landkill and threats, and duress snags a counter or two) they die.
I'm a firm believer that all landkill decks need some significant source card advantage in some way.
Look at Type II Ponza (when Urza Block was legal). That was the first time since the old days that a landkill deck was a force in the general field. Look at how much card advantage was in the deck: Avalanche Riders, Keg, Core (yes, it is a card advantage not DISadvantage is you mow down a horde of weenies for one measly card a turn and leave who knows how many threats dead in their hand), Tech Break (or sometimes Rain of Salt). Some even used Temporal Aperture.
The old O'Brien decks ran Twister (okay since Vise was unrestricted) and Ancestral and Necro. Null and Void (see primer) ran Necro and Hymn. Minor Setback (see primer) ran Shaman, Necro, Mindtwist, and Dwarven miner.
Even Nethervoid itself is almost a virtual card a
advantage since it nullifies three lands in play. Yes, it does 'kill' three of yours, but you're equipped to handle that.
--Matt
um, guys... isn't this more suited to a topic on Nether Void? As I pointed out, Nether Void decks and Handelman school decks are completely different archetypes.
Yeah, I suppose you are correct although the original post was pretty much done with as far as responses--I don't believe anyone is being hurt by this shift in topic. BtW Correction I said Juzam is better against control...I meant to say burn.
--Matt
Matt hit the nail on the head. At least 75% of the time blue is able to fend off LD to prevent a void lockdown. But, if you play your cards right (pun?)a void deck that is heavy on the mana denial (8-10) can usually hold blue just under FoF/Morphling range long enough to get something in for a quick kill.
Another viable strategy which Matt also touched on was being able to imitate sui-black with 1st turn specters/negators/juzams/scutas to try and kill before blue can even get going. This is pretty much the most common way a void deck will beat blue.
Below is the version of nether void i've playing lately and it's actually been doing rather well vs. blue. Although I would I would say it has less to do with the actual build of the deck and more to do with the two play stategies listed above. Also, sideboard chokes + rishadan ports have been very helpful a time or two.
4 phyrexian negator
2 phyrexian scuta
3 nether void
4 sinkhole
3 icequake
2 reign of tears
3 pernicious deed
3 duress
2 diabolic edict
1 necropotence
1 demonic tutor
1 yawgmoth's will
1 regrowth
1 phyrexian arena
4 dark ritual
1 black lotus
1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
4 bayou
4 llanowar wastes
10 swamp
1 strip mine
4 wasteland/rishadan port (with so much being mono color these days I wonder which is better sometimes)
Damn, I hate typos.
Please forgive me for that last section right above the decklist.
Actually, Matt, after a rather long period of inactivity the origianl point of this thread was picked back up again with 5 on-topic posts within 24 hours before NetherVoided mentioned the NV deck. When I brought the thread back to topic, Kirdape and Mako decided to continue discussing Nether Void. While I would be quite open to discussing Nether Void with all of you on a thread dedicated to that topic, Nether Void has nothing at all to do with the Handelman deck-building "school". I have taken some time to test a deck which uses those same theories and found them to be quite valid in the current type 1 environment, though in need of a lot more tuning. I had hoped that some more of the responses would have been on-topic, but if you say this topic's dead...
>>Offensive Balance Theory:
>>The Offensive Balance Theory is as follows, if >>every defensive card takes
>>out one offensive card, then the defensive >>player has not advanced towards
>>winning, since he is only nullifying, or >>matching the offensive player. As
>>the game goes on the offensive player will >>reduce the number of defensive
>>cards available to the opponent.
>>The theory hopes to eventually get out a creature that will not be destroyed, or cannot be destroyed in time.
Everything a nether void deck casts from turns 1-4 is pratically a must counter for control if they hope to keep developing. If they let the wrong things go through, they lose the ability to cast their spells but if they do counter everything thrown at them, they can be left in a situation where they have mana on the board, but nothing in hand to play when a threat is dropped.
Is this always the case? Certainly not, but it does tend to follow the theory at least a little bit.
I think you've completely missed the point of Offensive Balance Theory there. It's not just about playing cards which the opponent will want to counter, but rather about reducing the opponent's ability to counter all your threats threats (either by 2-for-1 discard, stripping countermagic, or drawing extra cards). In a longer game, a Nether Void deck will lose horribly against a Control deck since the Nether Void deck has so few cards dedicated to winning the game, and so many dedicated to controlling the game (LD and Nether Voids itself). NV is almost as far from Handelman theory as decks get (without being true Weisman school decks). Honestly, playing Control I've almost never had your said situation of HAVING to counter everything from turns 1 to 4 from a NV deck. If you get a "Suicide Black" start then you get close to Offensive Balance theory, but not even as close as a Suicide Black deck does (probably the deck in type 1 which gets the closest).
Sorry for getting off topic
Getting back on topic I think a good counter sliver with duress, hymm, rit, mana leak, force, ancestral, walk , crystaline and winged slivers might follow the offensive balance theory. It has discard to strip countermagic or gain card advantage with hymms or mindtwist, and it has countermagic manaleaks and force to stop the balance or keg. It doesn't have biggie critters but its critters are hard to kill crystaline slivers don't fall in the hole and winged onces fly over the moat.
Artifact (6)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
Black (16)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
4 Hymm to Torach
1 Mindtwist
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's WIll
Blue (10)
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Timewalk
3 Winged Sliver
Gold (4)
4 Crystaline Sliver
Green (4)
4 Muscle Sliver
White (3)
1 Balance
2 Seal of Cleansing
Land (18)
3 Bayou
4 City of Brass
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
2 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
Sideboard: None Yet
Not a bad idea... Consultation and a Hibernation Sliver or two would probably help. I'll have to give it a try, though without a fairly broken draw I get the feeling the Rituals may not help all that much. I also think 4 Muscle Slivers may be too many: I've been only using 3 in Extended lately... The main problem Counter-Sliver tends to face is that it's fairly vulnerable to Powder Keg (and to mana screwing, especially B2B)
I've actually had a Sliver deck for some time. It did fairly well against control, but mono-U due to B2B and Keg (although those Hibernations help--they also rock with FoW) matchup.
4 Winged
4 Muscle
4 Hibernation (really the 2nd best sliver now)
4 Crystalline
4 Duress
4 FoW
2 Edict
2 Vindicate (were seals, may go back...testing)
1 Ancestral
1 Walk
1 Sylvan (really good in offensive decks too BtW)
1 Regrowth
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgwill
1 Balance
1 Strip
2 Wasteland (can't fit more in now)
1 Lotus
4 Moxen
4 City
4 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Choke (so what--it hurts them more)
2 Misdirection
2 StP
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Hydroblast
2 Honorable Passage
2 Compost
1 REB
The manabase needs a bit of an adjustment. Gemstones might go all-together, and some non-U duals probably belong, but the UPs are good and help a lot against B2B.
I also might try and squeeze in 1-2 Acidic Sliver (cutting a Winged and maybe a Hibernation) e deck a lot of removal against weenies and provides you with a way to win despite a Morphling getting in the way.
I think running less than 4 Muscles is crazy--they put him on a faster clock (plus they don't get Pyroed like the others). If anything go down to 3 Winged.
Balance is a card that might, might not beling maindeck. Consult might, but I have a lot of powerful cards that might get lost simply to retrieve a Sliver (also there are less 4s and 3s in this deck than extended).
Another disruption card maindeck would be great, but I'm not sure what. Manaleak is less attractive with 3 strips, REB main is limited and a bit shakey with no Volcs main, Hymn is BB, etc.
Perhaps Mis-D.
I think my main probelm with the deck was the lack of card advantage. Even with the Ancestral, Sylvan, and tutors you were left topdecking far too often with a burnt out hand. I also noticed that the deck tended to win much more when Sylvan hit the table. Perhaps I might run 2? FoF seems a bit expenisive though at 4cc.
--Matt
Well, back to the deck I originally posted above, I've gotten to test it a bit more and have arrived at the following version:
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Nevinyrral's Disk (seriously considering alternatives such as Edict)
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Masticore
4 Juzam Djinn
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Underground River
4 Underground Sea
I've been trying to continue from the basic theory of the old Handelman deck of using cheap discard along with countermagic to be able to hamper the control decks' ability ot handle the big creatures it throws down. These big creatures allows it to out-muscle weenie decks (especially Masticore: a MVP). I gave Negator a try, but the Sligh matchup promptly became an auto-loss (and Stompy not much better). It actually does quite well agaisnt a lot of decks, but faces problems with Back to Basics (I may end up giving Undiscovered Paradise a try.. thanks Matt) and an early Morphling can be a real pain. If anyone has any sugestions for improvement, I'd appreciate it (having played a lot back in the day, I still long to just turn some big critters sideways).
erm.. I really need to read my posts more carefully: there's also 4 Dark Rituals in there... (no it's not a 56 card deck)
I'm thinking that fleshreaver.dec v2.0 could be REALLY good with 4 Chokes in the SB. Seriously, think about it: You have 4 Islands (your Underground Seas) and that's it. B2B doesn't suck as much as you might think because of the Lairs and Undiscovered Paradise.
Funny the R/B Void deck I posted was 55 cards (forgot the Mindtwist and 4 Wastes).
I think you probably need Edict--the new school of control players just toss out their morphlings as soon as they have the mana. While it SHOULD be a bad play Superman's hard to kill self makes it not as risky. If you want a way to deal with Abyss you could run a lone Nethervoid or Forsaken Wastes to tutor for. Forsaken Wasrtes, (since you don't have Sinkholes) might be better--it shuts down zorb and can finish off a control player at low life if he's hiding behind a Moat or COP.
You might like Chimeric Idols. They are Boltable, but evade Balance (which is most certainly going to get tutored for) and Abyss. Obviously not if you run drains, but if you switch to pure dicard/landkill and/or maybe just use the free counters they rock.
Dumb question...where are the 4 Duress? I realize you want card advantage solutions, but they are the best thing we've got against mono-U since Misdirection was printed.
I think the mana-base is pretty shakey. You have both UU and BB spells, yet no more than 12 land sources of either. Wastelands will eat you alive.
The other question I have is, does the U in this deck adequately compensate you for all the problems multiple colors/non-basics cause for you? My gut, looking at it is no. It looks tlike you could take this exact deck, ditch the blue, add Sinks/Duress/Necro/Consult/Negator/etc. and have a more consitent, yet equally powerful deck. I'm not suggesting a U/B aggro deck based on the Handleman school is a bad idea--just that this design, while I'm sure it works decently enough, isn't doing anything a plain old mono-black deck could do just as well.
--Matt
yeah, that's a major part of the problem: while the Misdirections and FoW's help quite a lot, the required number of Blue cards (and lands to use them) sometimes becomes a problem. I'm probably going to end up removing the Islands for extra Swamps to increase the number of Black sources (the UU spells are rarely hard-cast). You'll notice I've removed the mana-requiring counters altogether, using only pitch-counters, so Idol may indeed be a good idea (though Bolt is a bit of a pain). I ended up cutting Duress in favor of Hymns before adding the Specters, so I agree that I should now switch Duress back in again (Specters do a good job of quickly whittling the opponent's hand and can't be Misdirected!). I'm going to go with Edicts instead of Disks since Disking off Superman just gives the Blue player control of an empty board... not a good thing.
Being able to counter certain key spells really helps at times, and Blue's broken cards are also quite a big help (the life-loss of Juzams and Dibs makes Necro a bit hard to use effectively I found). All the same, I'm starting to doubt whether U/B Discard-based Aggro-control is all that effective these days. I may just end up splashing the Blue power-cards into a mono-black deck if I can't get it to work well enough (though I really feel it's a shame to ditch one of the most fun old decks).
Perhaps then the Handleman deck of 2001 wouldn't be black-based (it'd want duresses though). You are right, FoW is good to stop broken spells or counters. Perhaps it might even run Morphling too--afterall it fits the need for a hard-to-kill threat.
Might Winter Orb be a decent card in the Handelman school of thought? Afterall, timed right, it negates ALOT of cards in hand and land on the table. It's good virtual card advantage and can fit the framework of an aggressive deck. It also works well with 'free' counters.
--Matt
Well, I've given Winter Orb a try, and while I'm still trying to find the right cards to remove, it works quite well (especially with the Rituals). It also does a fair job of nullifying Back to Basics (since Winter Orb doesn't untap the lands in your untap step). I'll get back again after some more testing, though I don't think Morphling and Winter Orb would go into the deck together (they don't exactly have the best synergy).
Winter Orb
2
Artifact
As long as Winter Orb is untapped, players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps.
uh?
what's your point?
I mean that Winter Orb does not nullify BtB (unlike Rising Waters, which untaps lands during the upkeep).
In the same way that Winter Orb takes out multiple defensive threat cards, so does Nether Void, though. Sorry if that brings back all of those rantings again.
Nice to hear from O'Brien again, though, and I want to say that I've really enjoyed reading this post, because it's gone back and forth through many ideas. It's much more lively than most of the information you see for magic.
a/x