So if they are weakening counterspells, and if there is a good reason for it, then I would like to know what answers Blue will have now. Blue's new identity cannot be mediocre midrange creatues, weak combat tricks, and bounce.
Every other color has some form of board control, Blue's is counterspell. It's more powerful in hand but cannot react once things have been played. The other colors all have a sphere of things they can deal with:
White: Creatures, Enchantments, Artifacts
Green: Enchantments, Artifacts, Lands
Red: Artifacts, Lands, Creatures, Direct Dmg
Black: Lands, Creatures, Direct Dmg, Discard
Blue: ......
So if they are going to transition Blue to be less dependent on counterspells they better come up with some really inventive and useful mechanics for Blue cause what they have now does not cut it without counterspells. Blue without counters is like red without burn, useless.
When I saw Mizzuim Mortars it seemed like a redemption for Overload. I am not a very big fan of Street Spasm and Overload seemed like it had a lot of possibility but that with Spasm it wasn't really useful.
My first impression of Street Spasm was, "it's a bad Heat Ray with a terrible sweeper attached". Paying 6 for a ground-based Volcanic Fallout is really bad.
I probably would never use Street Spasm in constructed, but it is still a pretty good removal/sweeper in limited. Mizzium Mortars however I think is quite excellent. It's not the perfect red damage card, but it is good in several ways. I'm not going to compare it to Bonfire of the Damned because that card is exceptional and also costs $50. Mortars is almost as good at cheaply removing creatures as Flame Slash and is almost as good a sweeper as Flame Wave. The great thing about Mortars is its not a dead card in your hand early game like a Flame Wave, and its good late game cause it can sweep small/med ground/fliers. If this card was an instant it would be amazing, as a sorcery its just really good.
I find myself unable to mill the opponent fast enough. I will test some more, but I am not sure this is feasible.
Like I was saying earlier in this thread, the current batch of mill cards isn't good enough to mill race. You are right it isn't fast enough that is why some control/disruption elements are needed. The deck stripping effects (Extirpate/Surgical Extraction) are necessary for disrupting their strategy. This deck won't make any sense goldfishing, its dependent on what your opponent is doing. Add in some creature kill and discard and you have a chance.
I like green control decks, mostly because it is so challenging to get them working well. A couple things I see with your deck that could be upgraded a bit.
Elvish Spirit Guide - This is really only good in combo or ten-land type decks. Any type of mana elf (Llanowar Elves) would be better here. I understand you are going for first turn Trinisphere, but the rest of the game that card is dead.
Grazing Gladeheart - this guy is also pretty weak for legacy. Either add in a bunch of fetch lands to power this guy up or ditch him for some stronger creatures with life gain like, Thragtusk, Obstinate Baloth, Kitchen Finks. These guys can at least fight.
Dryad Arbor - This guy is neat but I am not sure how he really helps you. If its anti control or something I would really recommend Treetop Village instead.
Its close for sure. They keep reprinting that Mark of Mutiny/Threaten effect and no one ever uses it. Making it a little more agressive might make it playable. It could be a rare I suppose.
It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if nothing was reprinted though. There is so much room for exciting new stuff in these sets, why bother with reprints.
I am hoping for mostly all new cards. Some guilds got some pretty sweet two color spells (i.e. lightning helix), I am hoping for some good hybrid and two color spells for other guilds too. I would love something for my favorite color combo R/U like:
Displace UR Instant (U)
Gain control of target non-enchantment permanent until end of turn. Untap it. It gains haste until end of turn.
or
Fireproof UG Enchantment - Aura (U)
Flash
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has hexproof
or
Singe Sanity BR Sorcery (U)
Discard a card.
Singe Sanity deals 2 damage to target player, that player discards two cards.
Obviously none of the cards with the previous keyword abilities will be back, so that leaves a lot of room for reprints of a highlight or two from each guild, with lots of room for new stuff.
Red/Blue has always been my favorite color combination since I started playing in the mid 90's. Izzet, which I feel is not the embodiment of R/U but a version of it, I like a bit less. That it seems to be the bandwagon Guild right now makes me even less interested in it, and bums me out. I really hope some Timmy/Spike spoilers for other guilds make the fairweather fans move to another guild. I have always just kept playing R/U through all the fads and cycles of top decks because it is my favorite.
For Winter Orb to be at all effective you must have:
3-4x Propaganda or the White equivalent
3-4x Root Maze
With how fast most legacy decks are if you let them untap one land a turn and play a land then they will barely be slowed down. Their lands have to come into play tapped.
In addition you need a way to tap their land to keep them from building up lands. Icy Manipulator type effects help in this way. You really need 4x Rishadan Port or something else fast to tap down their lands though.
I have played mono-green stax for years, which has a similar goal but a different method than you are suggesting.
@TraderJoe: the problem with Traumatize is that it is a mill card that has anti-synergy with other mill cards. The more other mill cards you play the weaker it gets. If it is the first mill card you play it does high 20's worth of mill for five. Since it costs five you can't play it till mid-late game. By that time you have played 3+ other mill cards (hopefully) in which case Traumatize will be on par with a hardcast Archive Trap, milling in the low teens. edit: A really strong 5 cmc card for a deck like is Haunting Echoes, which is expensive but destroys their library when there are a bunch of cards in the graveyard.
Jace's Phantasm almost seems too good not to play. In this deck its a dragon for one U. It gives them something else to worry about besides the mill and can block, kill, delay their ground strategy to give you some extra turns, or just wins the game outright. I play Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013, and play the Jace deck quite a bit and I have to say that the Phantasm is a powerhouse and wins me twice as many games as the milling. This is obviously not the same as Legacy but it makes me think that its worth a try.
If you have Extirpated their STP from the game then what are they going to do about a 5/5 flyer. I know the goal is to win by mill, which is more fun, but hes pretty strong in many ways.
Ratchet Bomb is good but may be a bit slow sometimes. What about Engineered Explosives. Since its a two color deck its easy to put it out for 2 and then you can blow it up that same turn or the next turn. Both cards may be handy for taking care of 2 cost creatures as well.
Another option for taking out Wheel of Sun and Moon is Consign to Dream. Not quite as good as destroying it but things on the top of their library are very vulnerable to being milled, which is as good as dead.
Just to reinforce the pure greatness of Extirpate and Surgical Extraction, my list is currently undefeated by S&T (in about 4 matches or so) and Dredge (6 or 7 matches), two otherwise dreadful matchups for Mill. I still have yet to go up against Reanimator however, and they may prove to be too fast and have too much variety to handle in such a way. Obviously this amount of matches doesn't prove those MUs strong or even favorable, but I think it does show the necessity of the two cards for this deck to even hope to be competitive.
You are right, those matchups would be auto losses if not for the graveyard exile. With all the graveyard manipulation in Legacy milling your opponent often helps them. But by stripping the best cards out of their deck you eliminate their advantage.
Mill is slowly coming together as a viable strategy (and only in legacy with the deck stripping). Occasionally they print a decent mill card, but if there were just a couple great mill cards in RtR then this deck could be pretty consistent.
I'm really curious to try Brain Freeze out. It seems great against a bunch of decks that play multiple spells each turn, especially Elves and the like. Even if the deck you're playing against doesn't play that many spells, it can still be a heavy play. After just two spells it's comparable to Glimpse the Unthinkable with instant speed, and after three it's better. Definitely gonna try this one out.
I don't know if you have tried out Brain Freeze yet, but you could swap out a couple Tome Scour and try it. Brain Freeze is nice because it is an instant. If they cast two spells its an instant Glimpse the Unthinkable (like you said), or if they cast one and you play a cheap instant (or Archive Trap - trap cost) then it also goes for 9. Often they may cast two spells and you can cast a Thought Scour and then Brain Freeze for 14 and draw a card, seems pretty decent.
I agree that Brainstorm is worth a try if you haven't yet.
Have you been having any problems with decks with too many singletons or 2-ofs messing up the strategy?
-If you say that the Extirpate and Surgical Extraction are really working, then I will jump on board with 4 each.
-Mind Funeral is a bit slow for Legacy I suppose. I am going to continue advocating some cheap discard, especially if it lets you look at their hand (Thoughtseize, Duress, Ostracize, Inquisition of Kozilek). If you know whats in their hand then your Extirpates and Surgical Extractions can double as discard, by exiling things in their graveyard right out of their hand as well. Might also try 2 Haunting Echoes, a little slow but devestating.
-Against combo, if Force of Will isn't working for you I have always liked Mindbreak Trap.
My mates is gonna laugh at my using of Polluted Delta and Underground Sea (especially I had a hard time getting a set of NM Underground Sea recently) for a mill deck, wait till I mill them FTW!!!:D
That looks like a pretty strong list to me! My only advice is that Dream Twist and Thought Scour are pretty weak mill cards, I would rather play Tome Scour or Mind Sculpt, they just have a lot more bang for the buck and are really solid when flashed back with Snapcaster.
4 Devastation Tide seems excessive. It might be worth throwing in a couple Gitaxian Probe into this deck. I think this card has really good synergy with the Extirpate effects. You look at their hand, and if there are any cards in their graveyard same as in their hand you can Extirpate that. Their hand goes down one you draw a card.
Visions of Beyond is hampered a bit by all the exiling of graveyard cards, plus it does not play well with Devastation Tide, so I would probably only run three.
I still would like to advocate putting in a couple discard or creature kill. 3 Ostracize, for example, gets that early threat out of their hand and into the graveyard before they can play it. It also lets you Extirpate their best creature early in the game, plus as stated above in the Gitaxian Probe example, you get to see their hand. When you look a their hand and see they have 2 Kird Ape and you just milled one, you Extirpate that and they are basically finished.
I am with copenhagen1221 on the cantrips. I would much rather draw a Tome Scour than a Ponder. Cantrip cards provide no card advantage, they just make your draws better. Brainstorm is good with fetch lands but you are not running that many lands so it is not quite as good, but still could be a keeper.
I also agree that if you are not putting in any creature kill or discard that Snapcaster Mage is less useful. But I really think that adding maybe 3 creature kill and 3-4 discard spells and keeping the Snapcasters would be much more effective. Snapcaster Mage actually does generate some card advantage and lets you reuse your mill spells, draw spells, kill and discard.
I am unsure about Visions of Beyond. When it works its incredible, but you don't want dead cards in your opening hand. I might only run three. Also I think that Mind Sculpt may actually be pretty decent, it mills 7 for 2, which is similar to Tome Scour (5 for 1) and better than Dream Twist (3 for 6).
I am not a very big fan of walls unless they have a specific helpful ability, I would rather be proactive and strip the creatures from their hand our kill them outright. Depending on your manabase you might also consider Hymn to Tourach or Wrench Mind. These give your opponent negative card advantage and power up your Visions a bit faster. If you can get your opponent top decking then you are in a really strong position.
For the sideboard, maybe some Spell Pierce, Tormod's Crypt, couple more Damnation for creature heavy decks, an extra creature kill or two and some meta help.
Counter target creature spell. Essence Backlash deals damage equal to that spell's power to its controller.
So I suppose that "spell's power" is the new rules text for CMC?
Every other color has some form of board control, Blue's is counterspell. It's more powerful in hand but cannot react once things have been played. The other colors all have a sphere of things they can deal with:
White: Creatures, Enchantments, Artifacts
Green: Enchantments, Artifacts, Lands
Red: Artifacts, Lands, Creatures, Direct Dmg
Black: Lands, Creatures, Direct Dmg, Discard
Blue: ......
So if they are going to transition Blue to be less dependent on counterspells they better come up with some really inventive and useful mechanics for Blue cause what they have now does not cut it without counterspells. Blue without counters is like red without burn, useless.
My first impression of Street Spasm was, "it's a bad Heat Ray with a terrible sweeper attached". Paying 6 for a ground-based Volcanic Fallout is really bad.
I probably would never use Street Spasm in constructed, but it is still a pretty good removal/sweeper in limited. Mizzium Mortars however I think is quite excellent. It's not the perfect red damage card, but it is good in several ways. I'm not going to compare it to Bonfire of the Damned because that card is exceptional and also costs $50. Mortars is almost as good at cheaply removing creatures as Flame Slash and is almost as good a sweeper as Flame Wave. The great thing about Mortars is its not a dead card in your hand early game like a Flame Wave, and its good late game cause it can sweep small/med ground/fliers. If this card was an instant it would be amazing, as a sorcery its just really good.
A few things that may be worth trying:
-Jace's Phantasm
-Haunting Echoes
-Ostracize/Duress
Elvish Spirit Guide - This is really only good in combo or ten-land type decks. Any type of mana elf (Llanowar Elves) would be better here. I understand you are going for first turn Trinisphere, but the rest of the game that card is dead.
Grazing Gladeheart - this guy is also pretty weak for legacy. Either add in a bunch of fetch lands to power this guy up or ditch him for some stronger creatures with life gain like, Thragtusk, Obstinate Baloth, Kitchen Finks. These guys can at least fight.
Dryad Arbor - This guy is neat but I am not sure how he really helps you. If its anti control or something I would really recommend Treetop Village instead.
I like the Master or the Wild Hunt and Garruk Relentless wolf control though. Since you have all the Green Sun's Zenith , you might want to add some toolbox creatures depending on your meta.
It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if nothing was reprinted though. There is so much room for exciting new stuff in these sets, why bother with reprints.
Displace UR
Instant (U)
Gain control of target non-enchantment permanent until end of turn. Untap it. It gains haste until end of turn.
or
Fireproof UG
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Flash
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has hexproof
or
Singe Sanity BR
Sorcery (U)
Discard a card.
Singe Sanity deals 2 damage to target player, that player discards two cards.
Obviously none of the cards with the previous keyword abilities will be back, so that leaves a lot of room for reprints of a highlight or two from each guild, with lots of room for new stuff.
3-4x Propaganda or the White equivalent
3-4x Root Maze
With how fast most legacy decks are if you let them untap one land a turn and play a land then they will barely be slowed down. Their lands have to come into play tapped.
In addition you need a way to tap their land to keep them from building up lands. Icy Manipulator type effects help in this way. You really need 4x Rishadan Port or something else fast to tap down their lands though.
I have played mono-green stax for years, which has a similar goal but a different method than you are suggesting.
edit: A really strong 5 cmc card for a deck like is Haunting Echoes, which is expensive but destroys their library when there are a bunch of cards in the graveyard.
Jace's Phantasm almost seems too good not to play. In this deck its a dragon for one U. It gives them something else to worry about besides the mill and can block, kill, delay their ground strategy to give you some extra turns, or just wins the game outright. I play Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013, and play the Jace deck quite a bit and I have to say that the Phantasm is a powerhouse and wins me twice as many games as the milling. This is obviously not the same as Legacy but it makes me think that its worth a try.
If you have Extirpated their STP from the game then what are they going to do about a 5/5 flyer. I know the goal is to win by mill, which is more fun, but hes pretty strong in many ways.
Another option for taking out Wheel of Sun and Moon is Consign to Dream. Not quite as good as destroying it but things on the top of their library are very vulnerable to being milled, which is as good as dead.
You are right, those matchups would be auto losses if not for the graveyard exile. With all the graveyard manipulation in Legacy milling your opponent often helps them. But by stripping the best cards out of their deck you eliminate their advantage.
Mill is slowly coming together as a viable strategy (and only in legacy with the deck stripping). Occasionally they print a decent mill card, but if there were just a couple great mill cards in RtR then this deck could be pretty consistent.
I agree that Brainstorm is worth a try if you haven't yet.
Have you been having any problems with decks with too many singletons or 2-ofs messing up the strategy?
Also have you tried any discard yet?
That is exciting that the deck is working and fun. Having some playtesting feedback is great thanks for sharing.
-My favorite Tarmogoyf killer is Smother.
-If you say that the Extirpate and Surgical Extraction are really working, then I will jump on board with 4 each.
-Mind Funeral is a bit slow for Legacy I suppose. I am going to continue advocating some cheap discard, especially if it lets you look at their hand (Thoughtseize, Duress, Ostracize, Inquisition of Kozilek). If you know whats in their hand then your Extirpates and Surgical Extractions can double as discard, by exiling things in their graveyard right out of their hand as well. Might also try 2 Haunting Echoes, a little slow but devestating.
-Against combo, if Force of Will isn't working for you I have always liked Mindbreak Trap.
That looks like a pretty strong list to me! My only advice is that Dream Twist and Thought Scour are pretty weak mill cards, I would rather play Tome Scour or Mind Sculpt, they just have a lot more bang for the buck and are really solid when flashed back with Snapcaster.
4 Devastation Tide seems excessive. It might be worth throwing in a couple Gitaxian Probe into this deck. I think this card has really good synergy with the Extirpate effects. You look at their hand, and if there are any cards in their graveyard same as in their hand you can Extirpate that. Their hand goes down one you draw a card.
Visions of Beyond is hampered a bit by all the exiling of graveyard cards, plus it does not play well with Devastation Tide, so I would probably only run three.
I still would like to advocate putting in a couple discard or creature kill. 3 Ostracize, for example, gets that early threat out of their hand and into the graveyard before they can play it. It also lets you Extirpate their best creature early in the game, plus as stated above in the Gitaxian Probe example, you get to see their hand. When you look a their hand and see they have 2 Kird Ape and you just milled one, you Extirpate that and they are basically finished.
I also agree that if you are not putting in any creature kill or discard that Snapcaster Mage is less useful. But I really think that adding maybe 3 creature kill and 3-4 discard spells and keeping the Snapcasters would be much more effective. Snapcaster Mage actually does generate some card advantage and lets you reuse your mill spells, draw spells, kill and discard.
I am unsure about Visions of Beyond. When it works its incredible, but you don't want dead cards in your opening hand. I might only run three. Also I think that Mind Sculpt may actually be pretty decent, it mills 7 for 2, which is similar to Tome Scour (5 for 1) and better than Dream Twist (3 for 6).
I am not a very big fan of walls unless they have a specific helpful ability, I would rather be proactive and strip the creatures from their hand our kill them outright. Depending on your manabase you might also consider Hymn to Tourach or Wrench Mind. These give your opponent negative card advantage and power up your Visions a bit faster. If you can get your opponent top decking then you are in a really strong position.
I propose something more like this:
4 Hedron Crab
4 Snapcaster Mage
Mill Spells:
4 Archive Trap
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Tome Scour
3 Mind Sculpt
2 Dream Twist
2 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade
1 Damnation
3 Despise
3 Visions of Beyond
3 Brainstorm
For the sideboard, maybe some Spell Pierce, Tormod's Crypt, couple more Damnation for creature heavy decks, an extra creature kill or two and some meta help.