TCG Player says this deck can be put together for $13!
Comments, suggestions and ideas are greatly appreciated. If I make any changes to the deck based on someone's suggestion, I will acknowledge them here in the description with a link to their profile. Don't forget to +1 if you like it!
UPDATE: 03/14/2011 -- Dropped
Drain Power
from the MB and threw in 1x Traumatize. The SB has been greatly changed. 2x
Crawlspace
were replaced with 2x Propaganda. A single
Drain Power
remains in the SB to play against anyone who thinks they can win by sitting. The SB now packs grave hate as well in the form of 2x Faerie Macabre and 2x Tormod's Crypt. 1x Gaea's Blessing has been put in the SB in case I face another mill deck and Seal of Power, Wash Out and Reins of Power help me fight against aggro.
New changes: Swapped 3x Brainstorm for 3x
Spy Network
. Still considering Brainstorm, it's just nice to be one step ahead of your opponent by seeing their hand and also setting up your draw. Also moved 2x
Drain Power
to the SB and 2x Cursed Totem to the MB.
This is my variation of former, extended pro player Manuel Bevand's Orb Control deck. Now that this deck is no longer Extended legal, I took the liberty of improving and tweaking it using the wider selection of cards offered in Legacy.
This deck has a slow clock but is quite powerful because of the incredible synergy of the cards. There's no one card in this deck that is super powerful, everything just works together really well. Orb Control easily has the most synergy of any deck I've built and while it might not be tournament worthy in the legacy scene, it seriously kills in casual play.
It works by getting out Mesmeric Orbs to mill your opponent while stalling them by bouncing back their cards with Boomerang and Echoing Truth. Cards like Rhystic Study, Fabricate,
Impulse
and Brainstorm (while also protecting your hand) help you get up and running and keep you moving through your deck smoothly.
Vision Charm
can speed things up a bit as well as do a couple other potentially useful things while Counterspell and Muddle the Mixture help protect you. Muddle the Mixture also serves as an additional way to tutor up more Mesmeric Orbs and bounce cards. Finally,
Drain Power
and
Ensnare
speed the process up among other things.
At first look, this deck seriously doesn't look that powerful or even effective. However, I've play tested this one quite a bit recently and it's surprising just how well it works. Guess Bevand knew what he was doing when he built the original; he is an experienced pro tour player after all.
This isn't going to be powerful enough for legacy tournaments most likely, but that doesn't mean this isn't a very powerful deck. It will play well in casual or other settings and it's just a lot of fun to play.
You can find the original build here:http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=5158
Card Strategy:
Why use Vision Charm over something like Tome Scour?
I can see a question like this coming up a lot. I mean, Tome Scour mills the opponent for five cards and Vision Charm only mills for four. Wouldn't Tome Scour be better? My personal opinion is that Vision Charm is significantly better for a number of reasons.
First, Vision Charm is an instant, not a sorcery. In a deck that hinges on having mana available on your opponent's turn to bounce their stuff is incredibly important. If you play Tome Scour, you //have// to use it on your turn and this forces you to make the decision on your turn whether you will need that additional mana or not for bouncing or countering your opponent's stuff. With Vision Charm you can sit back while your opponent does their thing and then, once they've finished, before your turn drop Vision Charm if you want. This reduces your chances of having it countered, as well, because they may tap out their lands on their turn.
Second, there is a lot of synergy with Vision Charm and Drain Power. For example, you can drop Vision Charm to turn your opponent's mountains into islands until end of turn then drop Drain Power and use his mana more effectively for your own purposes.
Third, Vision Charm serves as artifact protection. For example, if your opponent tries to Naturalize your Mesmeric Orb or Elixir of Immortality, simply play Vision Charm and phase your artifact out of danger.
Finally, even Vision Charm's artifact phasing ability is situationally useful outside of artifact protection. There was a game that I played with a friend where he put a Door to Nothingness into play. That was a close game. I had nearly milled out his library but if that artifact remained in play, on his next turn I was going to lose. Thankfully I had a solution to that little problem. I had Vision Charm to phase his artifact out, if needed (didn't actually have to because I drew a Echoing Truth on my turn). I then proceeded to tap his creatures with Ensnare for the win.
Don't underestimate the power of Vision Charm. It is a great card in this deck!
Why use Rhystic Study over Howling Mine?
Several other Mesmeric Orb decks run Howling Mine, including the original list that I built mine off of. So why is it that I prefer Rhystic Study? There are a number of reasons.
First, Rhystic Study doesn't help your opponent. Howling Mine, on the other hand, lets your opponent build his or her hand and potentially draw something which could be your downfall. Rhystic Study either slows your opponent down or gives you card advantage.
Second, Rhystic Study does more than just draw you extra cards. It puts your opponent on edge and gives him or her just one more thing to think about on their turn. They have to choose between paying one extra mana or letting you draw an extra card. Either choice hurts them considerably too. If they pay the mana, they are not only slowed down but they are also forced to tap more lands which means you get to mill more cards off their library with Mesmeric Orb.
Third, you are drawing cards on your opponent's turn rather than during your draw step. In a deck that runs 26 instants, this is huge. You never know what useful card your opponent might let you draw. In a game I played with a friend, this actually saved me. He played something (can't remember what it was now) and he let me draw. I drew into a Disrupt (which has since been swapped out with Muddle the Mixture) and then he tapped out to play Suffer the Past to finish me. Instead, I countered his spell and proceeded to win on his next untap step.
Fourth, in my experience, players generally tend to run more artifact hate than they do enchantment hate. Opponent's also tend to underestimate how powerful this card is for you and instead focus on trying to nuke your Mesmeric Orbs
So what are the downsides to running this card instead of Howling Mine?
Well, it costs an additional mana to play which also means it can't be tutored up by Muddle the Mixture. It's also not an artifact so it can't be found by Fabricate and since it's blue rather than colorless, it can be countered by cards like Red Elemental Blast.
Why run Elixir of Immortality instead of Gaea's Blessing?
Many other Mesmeric Orb decks run Gaea's Blessing because it is a great anti-mill card. There are several benefits to running a card like this.
First, once you've got a few Orbs out, you're likely to mill one of your Blessings into your graveyard at some point which then conveniently shuffles your grave back into your library. This way you can play aggressively with confidence that you are not going to mill yourself out before you take out your opponent.
Gaea's Blessing is a great card so why would I want to run Elixir of Immortality instead? The answer is simple. Control.
With Blessing, you have no control over when your grave is shuffled back into your library. Whenever one gets milled into your grave, its ability triggers. It's as simple as that.
What I find with Elixir is that I am given a small measure of extra control. With the Elixir, you decide when to shuffle your grave into your library. Many times, I want to draw specific cards out of my library and it's beneficial to have a smaller library to go through. In other words, if there are cards in your library that you still want to draw, you may not want to dilute your library by shuffling your graveyard back in. With Elixir, you can drop it for 1 and wait until you are ready to crack it.
Elixir's second ability is also useful in a deck that has no creature defense. No matter how much bouncing you do, you are bound to take some damage because this deck has no other defense. There have been many games where gaining five life has been crucial to my survival.
So the only concern comes down to, what if I don't draw an Elixir? I only run two in the list but between the Fabricates and the draw spells, there hasn't been a game yet where I've needed to draw an Elixir and haven't. I've played games where I've gone through my library twice and have drawn an Elixir both times.
The only real downside then is the mana cost. It requires you to keep mana free so you can crack it when you need to. Gaea's Blessing costs nothing. However, Blessing is also a dead card in your hand.
Really it is a matter of personal choice. I personally find the extra control I get from Elixir to be crucial to how I pilot the deck. Other players might think differently.
Why Impulse?
Impulse not only lets me grab a card I may need but also helps me stack the deck, in a sense. Because the deck mills through itself pretty quickly, it's actually important to take into consideration the order of the deck. For instance... Let's say I've got a Muddle the Mixture or Fabricate in my hand. I play Impulse looking for some creature bounce but I also run into another Orb. I'll grab my Echoing Truth or whatever and then conveniently place my Orb on the bottom of the deck where I won't have to worry about it getting milled until I can tutor it up. Cards like Ponder, on the other hand can't do this for me.
