Card/Deck Prison in Cube

[ahadabans]

Is part of what makes acid-moss good the fact that you can ramp it out turn 3 with an elf? I find it so interesting that it has such a following, while other 4cc LD is basically unplayable.

Might 3 mana LD be too good if you are making the same play?

That is probably part of it. Because it's GG, I almost never see it outside some kind of ramp plan. On the play, if you elf into this on turn 3 and your opponent can't kill the elf, you often go into T4 with 6 mana with your opponent still stuck on 2 mana. I can't remember the last game I lost from that position.

What I think is amazing about this card is the fact that you are doing two very useful things simultaneously - ramp (and fix if you have shocks in your deck which you should) and setting back your opponent a turn. In some cases, it's better than plow under (which is an all-or-nothing version of this card IMO). Acid moss is still very good later in the game too because it usually has a nice target (like man lands or annoying shit like kor haven) and it can very often get you that 6th/7th land for your fattie (especially useful if all your elves have been killed). The card just rocks, plain and simple.

Cards like Stone Rain are strong enough to see play in my cube (very strong on T2/T3 obviously), but are often just dead late game (without a juicy land target). I think too many land destruction affects and LD.dec becomes viable, which I can tell you would not go over well with my group. So I don't run many of them.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

How do you recreate this feeling? I think safra posted an article about a guy softlocking opponent's with a howling mine based control deck.

 

[safra]

How do you recreate this feeling? I think safra posted an article about a guy softlocking opponent's with a howling mine based control deck.

I did indeed! It's one of the cube articles Adam Thomas wrote for MagicMadhouse - he goes into detail here - but the way it's translated to my cube is to use symmetrical draw effects, hit your land drops and draw removal, and then late-game turn your 'target player' draw and incidental mill into a weapon to finish off the enemy. He says this about his version:

The win condition is resilient and powerful, but very slow, and lets the opponent see their entire deck in the meantime. Any answers in the opponent’s deck will come up. Haste, burn, planeswalkers, tokens, large or resilient creatures, and noncreature permanents with strong effects will all be very effective against this deck. All of this means that the blue-red deck very rarely reaches a lock state.

The simple fact that the opponent is drawing two or three cards a turn means that a single counterspell isn’t enough to protect against whatever they might topdeck; having multiple solid answers every turn is both necessary and extremely difficult.

i just finished watching the new bbc adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (excellent, unfortunately no Lord Byron in Venice as of yet) and Norrell in particular is quite a good example of an azorius let's-say-villain. He's concerned with respectability above all else, buys up rare books en masse for himself, and is content to just be let alone. Here's a deck he might play:

Norrell Destroys Another Library

The goal is to stabilize, and stabilize until the game ends. You can win on your own time if you want but it might be academic. Cards like Loaming Shaman are important ways to recur your answers and bide time against a shrinking pool of threats. Your blockers invalidate recursive aggro guys, you use mass removal to restore your card advantage, and you counter the three spells they have that actually matter. You can get tricky combining mill with tuck effects, or winning with Laboratory Maniac, but the major draw engines Thomas runs (Jace's Archivist?? Wheel of Fortune!?) don't fit in my list, so 'target player' draw makes up some of the difference.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Hmmm I had forgotten how effective incidental repeatitive life gain could be at creating a soft lock. What other decks does howling mine go into?

 

[Aston]

I kind of want to draft a Plow Under recursion deck that wins only by frustrating the opponent into quitting, but I'm not quite sure if it's achievable. I might need a Mnemonic Wall.

 

[ahadabans]

Hmmm I had forgotten how effective incidental repeatitive life gain could be at creating a soft lock. What other decks does howling mine go into?

I think it will be effective only against some match-ups (namely aggro or fair midrange/control). Against anything that can ramp into tons of damage (a great number of decks in my cube), 5 life isn't going to be enough. I know you are obviously going to put this in a disruptive shell, and I'm not saying you won't be able to stall long enough to win with decking (and maybe even win a lot). But even if you do, that is going to be a pretty long game. Are guys in your group going to be down with a 90 minute game that ends in decking? And not just one of those games, but every other game against this deck?

I like prison decks as much as the next guy, but I much prefer the more offensive minded versions (where you put them out of their misery quickly once the lock is in place). Just my 2 cents.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think thats what the howling mine is for, and the deck can close out with damage. Its an interesting idea though of using micro fog effects (jace) and incrimental life gain in a control shell.

I dont think these would be 90 minute games, its just a control shell with some soft lock tools. Even with a mindslaver hardlock i dont think thats bad considering how late in the game it goes into effect.

 

[ahadabans]

Fair enough. You can also run Dictate of Kruphix for redundancy. Let us know how it pans out.

 

[MoshiMaro]

As for prison cards I've been running the following cards for a long time

.


I recently removed Sphere of Safety because it was the only "rewarding card" for drafting an enchantment deck. I am however planning to re-insert it again as well as the newly Starfield of Nyx and Sigil of the Empty Throne.

I'd like my players to be able to draft unusual decks and while I agree it would be unfun to see a prison deck every single draft it's usually only one in five/six drafts that someone tries to construct it. Ofcourse many of the cards have some use in other archetypes as well. Glare and Opposition in U/G/W token decks and Ghoslty prison and Propagande in classic U/W control decks. Winter Orb,Tangle Wire, Imposing Sovereign and Thalia in Aggro Decks

Love it when a player puts down an Opposition/Meloku/Winter Orb Lock.


As for CML's remarks :

possibly good:
winter orb (no idea, interested in other experiences)

Love Winter Orb, if you time it right it's imo the best card listed so far. It totally shuts down most non-aggro and non-mana rock decks... Best compared with Armageddon...

too good:
meekstone, manabarbs, glare of subdual, opposition


there is a special circle of hell for people who put opposition in their cubes.

Count me in for a bbq then

I'm curious as why you see the cards as too good as both Glare and Opposition require you to build around just like you'd need to do with a Braids or Smokestack deck. Compared to the average planeswalker I don't see them as stronger especailly in a vaccuum. Imo you'd have to invest in lots of creatures or token producers to make them work - they don't come online that fast and when they do you already need quite a number of creatures.

Maybe Meekstone is less of a build around but it's imo not that straight forward either. When you're playing aggro with Meekstone and you "need" it, it's usually already too late.

When not playing aggro you often have creatures in you're deck which are bothered by the Meekstone as well. In my experience Meekstone has hardly won any games whilst a well timed Winter orb