Pack 1: Disagree. Dreamspoiler Witches is the best common faerie. Pestermite is good, but doesn't come close. Pack 2: I think this comes down to your tribal preferences. I would take Eyeblight's Ending, but I don't see Merrow Reejerey as being wrong either. I'll draft from here on out as a Merfolk drafter, not a faerie drafter. Pack 3: You picked Veteran of the Depths, but then secondguess yourself. I think that it is the right pick in a merfolk deck. Pack 4: Just like pick 3, I agree with your pick, Deeptread Merrow. Not your secondguess. Pack 5: Tideshaper Mystic over Wanderwine Prophets. Yeah, prophets are bad.
I think you are being too hard on the picks you made. It's so much more important to be cutting an archetype (particularly one of the GOOD ones) than it is to be maximising card quality from each pack. Deck synergy is more important IMHO.
Pack 18: Aethersnipe is the most powerful card in the pack, but Avian Changeling is right for Merfolk. I don't understand. Your evaluations with hindsight seem so much worse than your evaluations at the time of the draft. Pack 21: Warren Pilferers over Surge of Thoughtweft
Pack 37: Plover Knights over Merrow Commerce
And like others have said, you can't really secondguess how a draft like this would have turned out differently if you'd gone down a different path after the first pack.
while i love draft articles.. no way am i highlighting every pick.. so i quit reading at the end of the first line. and i'm not going to go scroll all the way over.. it should have been justified in article editing a little better (I know mine arent be best but this was hard to read)..
OK P1 I. Growth is a beatign as stated already, but for flexability for me it came down to Pestermite vs. Witches. Could go either way, with slight edge to witches(though I feel like black is being overdrafted these days)
P2: Eyeblight over Reejery(again not committing)
P3: Vetern(over Glarewielder if first 2 picks are Black)
P4: Weedstrangle is correct
P5: Baloonist over Wanderwine
P6: Harrier
P7: Fallowsage(this is very late for this quality of card and a signal to move into merfolk)
P8: Stlagtite from a weak pack
-From here on out I looked at the packs as if drafting U/W/b? merfolk
P9: Oaken Brawler(I like big butts)
P10: Wellgabber
P11: Wispmare(SB)
P12: K. Healer (SB)
P13: Rootgrapple
P14: Shields
P15: Heal
P16: Angler out of a weak pack
P17: Sentinals is correct
P18: Aethersnipe
P19: Summon the School-ding!
P20: Magistrate for possible splash, yes it is that good even by itself
P21: Pilferers
P22: Paperfin
P23: Fallowsage(again late)
P24: Heatshimmer (rare draft-nothing here will make the deck)
P25: Forgetender(SB)
P26: Quillslinger
P27: K. Healer
P28: Ego Erasure(SB-very good in certain situations-like Thundercloud CIP)
P29: Bubble
P30: Brawler
P31: Inversion(removal over utility)
P32: Mulldrifter(almost always correct)
P33: O. Ring
P34: Springleaf Drum(so good with Fallowsage and Vetern)
P35: Cloudgoat Ranger(bomby goodness)
P36: Whirlpool Whelm
P37: Plover knights
P38: Plover Knights
P39: Hillcomber(SB)
P40: G. Nap(SB)
P41: Sentry Oak
P42: Footbottom Feast
P43: Needle drop
P44: Dawnfluke
P45: Paperfin(thx!)
It is a shame that none of the Judge of Currents tabled as they would have been a VERY nice addition. withe the above you can build.....
Creatures(16)
Harrier
Angeler
Pestermite, x2 Paperfin
x2 Fallowsage, Vetern of the Depths, Sentinals, Balloonist
I'm not sure it's possible to effectively predict the "other deck" beyond the first pack, as the picks you make or don't make influence what you will see in the rest of the draft. I also really didn't like the spoiler masking, though I understand why it was there.
Pack one, pick one gives you a tremendous chance to cut green and draft a bomb. Incremental Growth is a colossal beating and arguably the best card in the pack. Sometimes "not liking green" is not really a good enough reason.
(Even without the Growth, I think Pestermite vs. Dreamspoiler Witches is not that close either. Pestermite is a good guy but Dreamspoiler Witches can wreck combat math, kill pesky X/1 creatures, and if all else fails, hit for two through the air.)
Just to say, you can't let color preference dominate your draft. If you don't like green in Lorwyn, then don't play elves in block constructed. If you open Incremental Growth, you take it.
The wonderful world of typos. That should be post-board. This is what I get for taking breaks mid-sentence. As far as Grudge, personally, I would not run it as I feel there are better options in the RG vs MUC match up. However, I was trying to provide examples of the style of card neccessary to combat MUC. Grudge is one such card, as it has an inherent form of card advantage, being two spells in one card.
No, not unless Affinity makes a strong come back. However, most PDC players, in my observation, do not care about their sideboards and simply put together a package of cards rather than targeted answers. The Grudge falls into this latter category.
What Spike (and Flores) said is basically right, but in practice in PDC there's a slight twist.
There should basically 3 Phases in Burn Range (and many similar deck)'s plan to beat MUC.
Phase 1 is when you use your curve advantage to resolve as many key spells as you can before MUC can get a strong hand. This is mostly about pure speed but can include some tricks (trying to play burn during MUC's end step, etc...)
Pretty much everybody understands this phase correctly, but incorrectly assume it's the whole game plan.
The limit between phase 1 and phase 2 is when you have run out of most of your gas and MUC can probably easily stop any of your threat if you cast-as-you draw.Now obviously in some cases, Burn can win in phase 1 and then the whole point is moot.
Now what Flores and Spike are saying concerns phase 2 and 3.
Phase 2 consists of amassing your ressources (mostly cards in hands and lands in play, can include some lands in hand depending on deck), until you can go to phase 3.
Phase 3 could be called "the overload". Now in Flores (and Spike's more or less) explanation, this is because you overload the number of cards of MUC, by having 8 cards. Now even this isn't theoretically fail proof (they could have a cantrip counterspell or whatever). But in PDC , in my experience, there is much easily achievable "MUC Overload", in any case: the mana overload.
For example, in Burn Range, the relevant spells average a CC of around 1 or so (a few 2s, a few 0s), while MUC's average counter is closer to 2. Of course MUC has card drawing and can often get a few more lands (even that's not that true, recently a lot of MUC's drawing came at the cost of lands in play because of fathom seer) but not twice as much, and using end turn tricks, you get two uses out of each of your lands compared to their one.
Say MUC has 5-6 lands, then they can counter probably 3-4 spells if they have a pretty good hand. Then as soon as you have 5-6 relevent spells, you can resolve one or two EVEN IF THEY HAVE 7 CARDS IN HANDS.
This is what I meant by the small twist on the Flores theory. He is basically correct that waiting is the correct strategy but in our particular example, he is wrong about what the breaking point is.
Now granted this will not always work. Sometimes you won't draw your threats fast enough and MUC will draw too many cards and get too many lands and kill you too quickly. That's the whole point of MUC.
But this is almost always a superior strategy to "cast as you draw" once the initial rush is over.
This goes for many similar extremly low curve decks too. Angel Stompy went 2-0 in matches against my MUC last event by sideboarding into lots of threats and I think using more or less this strategy.
I don't disagree with you, not at all. What I'm pointing out is, 1) until WotC takes the R&D against blue more seriously, there will always be a new MUC to plan against, they get the cards designed to keep it alive much much more frequently than cards that would give it trouble, and 2) that designing decks to take it on and keep it from being the monster it can be, can sometimes backfire on you when you still need to keep ito play against 3 to 5 other deck archetypes that aren't MUC.
Fundamentally, the problem is that there is very little you can do to return the favor on MUC without going into the deck construction with only that on your mind. Its a vicious cycle that I have seen many a time in paper tourneys, and I just wanted to point it out here. I'm a HUGE fan of any blue control decks, but I'm also smart enough to understand why that is the case.
Ahhh, the days of the Wiesmann decks... memories...
Except this article goes to pains to explain how Blue is not an all powerful being- it is not the Alpha and the Omega. More than anything else, Blue decks rely on the psychology of being Blue, and the fear associated with the color, to win.
I advocate this mode of play because, as you say, the beatdown deck should have reduced MUCs life total significantly, to the point where one burn spell should seal the deal. It is hard to provide a real world example without being redundant, but let's take the example of a deck with 40 Lightning Bolts and 20 Mountains against a deck with 20 Islands and 40 Counterspells. Lightning Bolt.dec has the early advantage, able to eat life until the Blue deck stablizes. If this happens with the Blue deck at 6 life,the Red deck simply needs to draw a hand full of Bolts to the point where it has 8 burn spells on its own turn. The Blue deck cannot possibly have 8 counters, so one spell is a lock to resolve. The process then repeats as many times as neccessary to ensure the Red decks victory. Long? Yes. Effective? Yes.
one could argue that no one... always pilots effectively even if its built properly... Burn decks are just Control decks of a different color.. at least thats why I see it. Burn decks need to run cards that let them "buy time" too.. its why they run small fast quick beat creatures.. to put threats on the board.
I disagree that one needs to go into mental games with mono blue players, it goes against quick effecient beats. maybe in some situations it is correct to stand pat and fill your hand.. but because of how blue cards work, they create card quality and card advantage. Red cards use damage to create card advantage (meaning your burn card that gets through is equal to +1 draw or +1 turn)
Maybe I'm not "understanding" the point of waiting until you have 8 cards and they have 7.. you only get to play one card if all 7 of the other cards counter each other out... and if that happens you are giving the advantage to the control player (as they'll continue to have more cards than you until critical mass) which by that time you have given him 8 turns to find a way to beat you.. is that really the correct route?.. I didn't quite understand when Flores said it, and I'm not sure why you are are advocating it here.
Please give a real world example on this!.. not only am I not "seeing it" obviously I'm not the only one.
Good article about a deck type that you don't see much in the tourney practice rooms or at the 8mans or PEs. It's too bad about the Sonic Boom matchup however, as it's getting a lot of play recently. I would be interested in a matchup against Pickles, since it is similar but doesn't have the same counter wall that Boom has.
Also - the matchup in Game 2 sounds like the opponent was running Mannequin.dec variant to me. They just love evoking their mulldrifters.
MUC has been a complete pain since the beginnings of Magic. As new sets were released, it became apparent to me then, and seems to be a relevant argument now with this argument, that WotC has always favored this archetype. Back in the day, many of us complained to actual WotC R&D people, that blue was way over-represented in its archtype, that being counter and bounce spells. Though they have addressed this issue in some respects, they completely disregarded our suggestions to keep the theme playable while continuing to produce even more counter and bounce cards.
It may seem as if I am rambling, and I am a bit, I've always had a problem with blue being almost unstoppable with the counter/draw/bounce combinations, and cause players to design decks to specifically take out that deck (and thus screwing the decks metagame). In PDC, it is even worse, because of WotC's preference for the archetype. How do I know? Some of them actually told me, to paraphrase, "We aren't likely to make too many commons that screw with the counterspell environment." Huh? When all other archetypes DO have that, with tons of commons to deal with the mess? It's a crazy idea.
So, look at blue, and see you need to out spell him, and hope he doesn't do alot of bouncing, or ... use cards that specifically keep that from happening. Barring cards that can choose a color, there is only one common that I know has Protection from blue. Of the cards that will mess with the counter environment, there is ONLY 1 card with Protection from blue, Split Second, or "can't be countered" effect that is also common. Yavimaya Barbarian. Though I stepped away from the game for almost 7 years, I can see that they have continued to hold onto this philosophy.
Oh, and common counterspells and bounce, still being made. Go figure.
I have talked to Spike Many times about this subject and i must say he has done a wonderful job of putting the advice/lessons learned that most of us have learned facing MUC.
This article is a must read in today's classic enviroment. Not only does it show a little (i'm sure Lulthyme could butt in to give us all more insight) of how MUC operates, but this also shows ways to beat it.
Like i said this is an informative article and i will reference it to people interested into classic as long as it remains viable
While your plan makes perfect sense for the start of the game, there comes a time where the Red deck might run out of gas and have to reload on burn spells. By this time, the Blue player should have taken a significant amount of damage, if the Red deck is A) built properly and B) piloted effectively. It is at this point that the Red deck wants to amass spells in order to overcome the countermagic available to MUC.
Just wanted to chime in and say,
Spike, this is some of your best work. Good job!
Pack 1: Disagree. Dreamspoiler Witches is the best common faerie. Pestermite is good, but doesn't come close.
Pack 2: I think this comes down to your tribal preferences. I would take Eyeblight's Ending, but I don't see Merrow Reejerey as being wrong either. I'll draft from here on out as a Merfolk drafter, not a faerie drafter.
Pack 3: You picked Veteran of the Depths, but then secondguess yourself. I think that it is the right pick in a merfolk deck.
Pack 4: Just like pick 3, I agree with your pick, Deeptread Merrow. Not your secondguess.
Pack 5: Tideshaper Mystic over Wanderwine Prophets. Yeah, prophets are bad.
I think you are being too hard on the picks you made. It's so much more important to be cutting an archetype (particularly one of the GOOD ones) than it is to be maximising card quality from each pack. Deck synergy is more important IMHO.
Pack 18: Aethersnipe is the most powerful card in the pack, but Avian Changeling is right for Merfolk. I don't understand. Your evaluations with hindsight seem so much worse than your evaluations at the time of the draft.
Pack 21: Warren Pilferers over Surge of Thoughtweft
Pack 37: Plover Knights over Merrow Commerce
And like others have said, you can't really secondguess how a draft like this would have turned out differently if you'd gone down a different path after the first pack.
while i love draft articles.. no way am i highlighting every pick.. so i quit reading at the end of the first line. and i'm not going to go scroll all the way over.. it should have been justified in article editing a little better (I know mine arent be best but this was hard to read)..
OK P1 I. Growth is a beatign as stated already, but for flexability for me it came down to Pestermite vs. Witches. Could go either way, with slight edge to witches(though I feel like black is being overdrafted these days)
P2: Eyeblight over Reejery(again not committing)
P3: Vetern(over Glarewielder if first 2 picks are Black)
P4: Weedstrangle is correct
P5: Baloonist over Wanderwine
P6: Harrier
P7: Fallowsage(this is very late for this quality of card and a signal to move into merfolk)
P8: Stlagtite from a weak pack
-From here on out I looked at the packs as if drafting U/W/b? merfolk
P9: Oaken Brawler(I like big butts)
P10: Wellgabber
P11: Wispmare(SB)
P12: K. Healer (SB)
P13: Rootgrapple
P14: Shields
P15: Heal
P16: Angler out of a weak pack
P17: Sentinals is correct
P18: Aethersnipe
P19: Summon the School-ding!
P20: Magistrate for possible splash, yes it is that good even by itself
P21: Pilferers
P22: Paperfin
P23: Fallowsage(again late)
P24: Heatshimmer (rare draft-nothing here will make the deck)
P25: Forgetender(SB)
P26: Quillslinger
P27: K. Healer
P28: Ego Erasure(SB-very good in certain situations-like Thundercloud CIP)
P29: Bubble
P30: Brawler
P31: Inversion(removal over utility)
P32: Mulldrifter(almost always correct)
P33: O. Ring
P34: Springleaf Drum(so good with Fallowsage and Vetern)
P35: Cloudgoat Ranger(bomby goodness)
P36: Whirlpool Whelm
P37: Plover knights
P38: Plover Knights
P39: Hillcomber(SB)
P40: G. Nap(SB)
P41: Sentry Oak
P42: Footbottom Feast
P43: Needle drop
P44: Dawnfluke
P45: Paperfin(thx!)
It is a shame that none of the Judge of Currents tabled as they would have been a VERY nice addition. withe the above you can build.....
Creatures(16)
Harrier
Angeler
Pestermite, x2 Paperfin
x2 Fallowsage, Vetern of the Depths, Sentinals, Balloonist
CloudGoat Ranger, Mulldrifter, Pilferers, x2 Plover Knights
Aethersnipe
Spells(7)
Springleaf Drum, Runed Stlagtite
Nameless Inversion, Whirlpool Whelm
Eyeblights Ending, O. Ring
Summon the School
Land(17)
x2 Swamp
x7 Plains
x8 Islands
Not great, but try to stall the ground and win with your fliers, and the deck should be solid. Deck is even better if you have Rejeery as P2.
regards,
Andy
I'm not sure it's possible to effectively predict the "other deck" beyond the first pack, as the picks you make or don't make influence what you will see in the rest of the draft. I also really didn't like the spoiler masking, though I understand why it was there.
Pack one, pick one gives you a tremendous chance to cut green and draft a bomb. Incremental Growth is a colossal beating and arguably the best card in the pack. Sometimes "not liking green" is not really a good enough reason.
(Even without the Growth, I think Pestermite vs. Dreamspoiler Witches is not that close either. Pestermite is a good guy but Dreamspoiler Witches can wreck combat math, kill pesky X/1 creatures, and if all else fails, hit for two through the air.)
Just to say, you can't let color preference dominate your draft. If you don't like green in Lorwyn, then don't play elves in block constructed. If you open Incremental Growth, you take it.
The wonderful world of typos. That should be post-board. This is what I get for taking breaks mid-sentence. As far as Grudge, personally, I would not run it as I feel there are better options in the RG vs MUC match up. However, I was trying to provide examples of the style of card neccessary to combat MUC. Grudge is one such card, as it has an inherent form of card advantage, being two spells in one card.
This is what I thought.
But, as you say yourself, Ancient Grudge is a pre-board answer, how does having it in the sideboard help?
What I mean by this is if I'm playing RG with MUC, I'll often side out the Spires to avoid cards like Ancient Grudge.
why no use of draft cap?
Highlight the black with your mouse to reveal the text.
I dont get it.
Whats with all the black
Why are the lines way off to the right?
NOTE:
as spike said, nobody is advocating playing like this from the start!
The beginning of the game is the same as everybody is used to, this is just an improvement on how to beat MUC once it's in control.
No, not unless Affinity makes a strong come back. However, most PDC players, in my observation, do not care about their sideboards and simply put together a package of cards rather than targeted answers. The Grudge falls into this latter category.
No, that's right, it only runs 18 land. It does not need any more.
What Spike (and Flores) said is basically right, but in practice in PDC there's a slight twist.
There should basically 3 Phases in Burn Range (and many similar deck)'s plan to beat MUC.
Phase 1 is when you use your curve advantage to resolve as many key spells as you can before MUC can get a strong hand. This is mostly about pure speed but can include some tricks (trying to play burn during MUC's end step, etc...)
Pretty much everybody understands this phase correctly, but incorrectly assume it's the whole game plan.
The limit between phase 1 and phase 2 is when you have run out of most of your gas and MUC can probably easily stop any of your threat if you cast-as-you draw.Now obviously in some cases, Burn can win in phase 1 and then the whole point is moot.
Now what Flores and Spike are saying concerns phase 2 and 3.
Phase 2 consists of amassing your ressources (mostly cards in hands and lands in play, can include some lands in hand depending on deck), until you can go to phase 3.
Phase 3 could be called "the overload". Now in Flores (and Spike's more or less) explanation, this is because you overload the number of cards of MUC, by having 8 cards. Now even this isn't theoretically fail proof (they could have a cantrip counterspell or whatever). But in PDC , in my experience, there is much easily achievable "MUC Overload", in any case: the mana overload.
For example, in Burn Range, the relevant spells average a CC of around 1 or so (a few 2s, a few 0s), while MUC's average counter is closer to 2. Of course MUC has card drawing and can often get a few more lands (even that's not that true, recently a lot of MUC's drawing came at the cost of lands in play because of fathom seer) but not twice as much, and using end turn tricks, you get two uses out of each of your lands compared to their one.
Say MUC has 5-6 lands, then they can counter probably 3-4 spells if they have a pretty good hand. Then as soon as you have 5-6 relevent spells, you can resolve one or two EVEN IF THEY HAVE 7 CARDS IN HANDS.
This is what I meant by the small twist on the Flores theory. He is basically correct that waiting is the correct strategy but in our particular example, he is wrong about what the breaking point is.
Now granted this will not always work. Sometimes you won't draw your threats fast enough and MUC will draw too many cards and get too many lands and kill you too quickly. That's the whole point of MUC.
But this is almost always a superior strategy to "cast as you draw" once the initial rush is over.
This goes for many similar extremly low curve decks too. Angel Stompy went 2-0 in matches against my MUC last event by sideboarding into lots of threats and I think using more or less this strategy.
Just a small question.
Are you actually advising Ancient Grudge preboard?
Hi SpikeBoyM
Am I missing something, or does that Angel Stompy deck only have 18 lands ???
I don't disagree with you, not at all. What I'm pointing out is, 1) until WotC takes the R&D against blue more seriously, there will always be a new MUC to plan against, they get the cards designed to keep it alive much much more frequently than cards that would give it trouble, and 2) that designing decks to take it on and keep it from being the monster it can be, can sometimes backfire on you when you still need to keep ito play against 3 to 5 other deck archetypes that aren't MUC.
Fundamentally, the problem is that there is very little you can do to return the favor on MUC without going into the deck construction with only that on your mind. Its a vicious cycle that I have seen many a time in paper tourneys, and I just wanted to point it out here. I'm a HUGE fan of any blue control decks, but I'm also smart enough to understand why that is the case.
Ahhh, the days of the Wiesmann decks... memories...
Peace out.
Except this article goes to pains to explain how Blue is not an all powerful being- it is not the Alpha and the Omega. More than anything else, Blue decks rely on the psychology of being Blue, and the fear associated with the color, to win.
I advocate this mode of play because, as you say, the beatdown deck should have reduced MUCs life total significantly, to the point where one burn spell should seal the deal. It is hard to provide a real world example without being redundant, but let's take the example of a deck with 40 Lightning Bolts and 20 Mountains against a deck with 20 Islands and 40 Counterspells. Lightning Bolt.dec has the early advantage, able to eat life until the Blue deck stablizes. If this happens with the Blue deck at 6 life,the Red deck simply needs to draw a hand full of Bolts to the point where it has 8 burn spells on its own turn. The Blue deck cannot possibly have 8 counters, so one spell is a lock to resolve. The process then repeats as many times as neccessary to ensure the Red decks victory. Long? Yes. Effective? Yes.
-Alex
Is that a burger king hat your wearing?
one could argue that no one... always pilots effectively even if its built properly... Burn decks are just Control decks of a different color.. at least thats why I see it. Burn decks need to run cards that let them "buy time" too.. its why they run small fast quick beat creatures.. to put threats on the board.
I disagree that one needs to go into mental games with mono blue players, it goes against quick effecient beats. maybe in some situations it is correct to stand pat and fill your hand.. but because of how blue cards work, they create card quality and card advantage. Red cards use damage to create card advantage (meaning your burn card that gets through is equal to +1 draw or +1 turn)
Maybe I'm not "understanding" the point of waiting until you have 8 cards and they have 7.. you only get to play one card if all 7 of the other cards counter each other out... and if that happens you are giving the advantage to the control player (as they'll continue to have more cards than you until critical mass) which by that time you have given him 8 turns to find a way to beat you.. is that really the correct route?.. I didn't quite understand when Flores said it, and I'm not sure why you are are advocating it here.
Please give a real world example on this!.. not only am I not "seeing it" obviously I'm not the only one.
anyways.. good article...
Good article about a deck type that you don't see much in the tourney practice rooms or at the 8mans or PEs. It's too bad about the Sonic Boom matchup however, as it's getting a lot of play recently. I would be interested in a matchup against Pickles, since it is similar but doesn't have the same counter wall that Boom has.
Also - the matchup in Game 2 sounds like the opponent was running Mannequin.dec variant to me. They just love evoking their mulldrifters.
MUC has been a complete pain since the beginnings of Magic. As new sets were released, it became apparent to me then, and seems to be a relevant argument now with this argument, that WotC has always favored this archetype. Back in the day, many of us complained to actual WotC R&D people, that blue was way over-represented in its archtype, that being counter and bounce spells. Though they have addressed this issue in some respects, they completely disregarded our suggestions to keep the theme playable while continuing to produce even more counter and bounce cards.
It may seem as if I am rambling, and I am a bit, I've always had a problem with blue being almost unstoppable with the counter/draw/bounce combinations, and cause players to design decks to specifically take out that deck (and thus screwing the decks metagame). In PDC, it is even worse, because of WotC's preference for the archetype. How do I know? Some of them actually told me, to paraphrase, "We aren't likely to make too many commons that screw with the counterspell environment." Huh? When all other archetypes DO have that, with tons of commons to deal with the mess? It's a crazy idea.
So, look at blue, and see you need to out spell him, and hope he doesn't do alot of bouncing, or ... use cards that specifically keep that from happening. Barring cards that can choose a color, there is only one common that I know has Protection from blue. Of the cards that will mess with the counter environment, there is ONLY 1 card with Protection from blue, Split Second, or "can't be countered" effect that is also common. Yavimaya Barbarian. Though I stepped away from the game for almost 7 years, I can see that they have continued to hold onto this philosophy.
Oh, and common counterspells and bounce, still being made. Go figure.
My 2 mana worth.
I have talked to Spike Many times about this subject and i must say he has done a wonderful job of putting the advice/lessons learned that most of us have learned facing MUC.
This article is a must read in today's classic enviroment. Not only does it show a little (i'm sure Lulthyme could butt in to give us all more insight) of how MUC operates, but this also shows ways to beat it.
Like i said this is an informative article and i will reference it to people interested into classic as long as it remains viable
While your plan makes perfect sense for the start of the game, there comes a time where the Red deck might run out of gas and have to reload on burn spells. By this time, the Blue player should have taken a significant amount of damage, if the Red deck is A) built properly and B) piloted effectively. It is at this point that the Red deck wants to amass spells in order to overcome the countermagic available to MUC.
-Alex