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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Monoblue Milling deck
August 1, 2007

Hello bemore, My name is Kyle, and I've only been playing magic for a month or so. I had help building a deck, but decided I would try building my own. It has trouble with fast decks, and discard/land destruction decks as well. This decks strengths are against slower green decks (they have no chance). I play with friends who've played MTG for 2-3 years and know the game. I'm tired of being beaten and wondered if you could give me some advice on how to fix my plentiful deck problems.

 

land:

20x Island

 

Creatures:

1x Serendib Sorcerer

4x Raven Guild Master

2x Tidal Visionary

3x Minamo Sightbender

2x Aphetto Alchemist

2x Memnarch

1x Lumengrid Warden

2x Covert Operative

2x Puppeteer

 

Other Spells:

2x Zephids Embrace

4x Counterspell

2x Mana Leak

2x Surestrike Trident

2x Energy Tap

2x Leap

2x Shadow Rift

2x Sword of Kaldra

2x Traumatize

2x Compulsive Research

 

My friends who've played MTG for years say this deck is unique, because they've never seen a blue discard/remove deck made. My main strategy is to use traumatize to make my opponent toss half their library away, then equip raven guild master with leap, shadow rift, zephids embrace, or use minamo sightbender to make my opponent remove their top ten cards. This ddecks win condition is when my opponent runs out of cards. Sometimes I only do 5 damage and win the game, the deck is not about power, but raven guild master's ability. I would like to keep traumatize and raven guild master in this deck. The rest are replaceable, and I have a decent amount of money I can spend, so any help you're willing to give would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks for your insight,

Kyle

When most people are learning how to play Magic, the fact that one loses when one runs out of cards in one's library is often treated as a footnote.  It's true that most decks don't rely on it, but it's a perfectly viable way to win.  If it weren't, Wizards of the Coast wouldn't even print cards like Raven Guild Master.

And they've printed several similar cards as well, my friend.  And the good news is, many of them are blue.  And quite a few of them are going in this deck.  For starters, we're adding in a full playset of Scalpelexis.  That's right, Scalpelexis.  It's just like a flying Raven Guild Master, except it removes cards a little differently.  And it has five toughness, putting it well out of range of Char, Sudden Death, Incinerate, Last Gasp, Sunlance... the list goes on.  Having eight creatures that can take a nasty slice off the top will be a great help, giving you that much more chance of drawing a heavy hitter and that much more potential to get more than one out and swinging.  Another creature you should get a hold of is Ambassador Laquatus.  He doesn't even need to attack unblocked; he just turns your extra mana into cards off the top, in batches of three.  Not bad at all, eh?

To make room for these paragons of piracy, you can take out some of those random Wizards you seem to have filled the deck with.  Aphetto Alchemist?  Tidal Visionary?  Covert Operative?  Not neccesary.  Memnarch isn't too bad here though, as he can randomly steal games (literally), and I suppose Lumengrid Warden works as a blocker  Puppeteer and Serendib Sorcerer are also decent enough to be left in if you don't need the room, or they could come out and hardly be missed.  Minamo Sightbender definitely stays in.

Now then, to your other spells.  Leap, Shadow Rift, Zephid's Embrace, Surestrike Trident, and Shield of Kaldra all seem like they do the same thing: either protect the big RGM, or help him get through for ten cards.  Take out all of them.  I know one card that does both those things, works for more than one turn, and can be moved to another creature if and when RGM dies: Whispersilk Cloak.  This is the card your deck has been begging for.  If you take no other piece of advice I give you, take this one: you need 4 Whispersilk Cloak.  It will MAKE the deck.

So, I took out ten cards and added four.  What to put in for the other six?  Two of them should definitely be Traumatize #3 and #4.  The other four would look good as Twincast: essentially making them Traumatizes #5-#8.  They could also copy a potent spell of your opponent's if you wanted, maybe becoming a Lightning Axe on your opponent's Dragon or a second Plague Wind to keep the board level, but mostly you'll just want to Twincast your Traumatizes.  Remember, if you do that, your opponent ends up with a qurater of her library remaining, not suddenly without the entire thing.  Half of half is a quarter.

That's just about all I can do here, except to say that you might want to think about finding room for a few Millstones.  C'mon, they're classics.  How can you resist?

Good luck!

~BMoor