@Darkness1835 - Yeah, I thought it would be a lot better, but I was surprised how often it became a dead draw late.

especially because Tragic Slip is only good when a creature dies. she doesn't have any creatures. which means she would have to play a Dreadbore for instance, THEN Tragic Slip on the same turn. making her have to have and use more mana, and making it less likely to happen.

That's also true, but mainly the problem was that I wouldn't even HAVE a Dreadbore or whatever late, having already expended it. I really wanted to use Tragic Slip, too, but I think I had unfair expectations of it being like my old 1 CMC workhorse Wretched Banquet , the Most Underrated Card In Alara.

Holy cow - I took a break from Magic for all of Lorwyn and missed most of Alara in the process. Wretched Banquet is pretty rad.

@GureiSeion - I built this deck because I had a REALLY killer Bolas deck back in Alara block that had more or less the same idea - no creatures, kill, kill, kill, Bolas. Wretched Banquet just hosed the RDW decks (and the super popular Jund deck) of the day, and I miss it badly.

@KrazyCaley - I can respect that. Always had a soft spot for creatureless decks since running an Underworld Dreams deck back in Kamigawa/Ravnica Standard (B/U, more bouncing than killing), and bringing it back with Alara/Zendkar Standard (B/R for old Bolty, Quest for Pure Flame , and an exception to the rule, Kederekt Parasite ).

I'll admit some disappointment with what M14 seemingly fails to offer Lord Bolas. Only thing I really see is the possibility of a Diabolic Tutor or two.

Curious to hear others' thoughts on M14 here.

The main problem with M14 for Bolas is that he's not in it. :\

Maybe there will be a cooler version of him (is that possible?) printed in Theros.

Yeah, but that still means three months of dispensing calculated chaos with him.

thoughts on Opportunity ? its in m14.

its draws alot of cards but does nothing else...like Sphinx's Revelation but it can be used with Mystic Retrieval for a huge amount of cards.

still to me it seems Opportunity unless you play white for revelation.

It's pretty expensive.

have you ever thought about putting creatures in the sideboard so for game two they board out all their removal and you have some creatures in the deck?

@rickthebrave - It used to work that way; I used Lone Revenant for the purpose, and it worked fairly well. In the end though, the strategy just didn't seem to really win me any games, and a lot of stuff was clamoring for inclusion in the sideboard.

Mystic Retrieval really isn't a good card. If you really need that sort of ability, Snapcaster Mage is leagues better.

@Formortiis-

I respectfully disagree. While I don't deny that Snapcaster Mage is a fantastic card, and perhaps even better than Mystic, I wouldn't say it's by leagues better. Mystic Retrieval 's capacity in the late game is immense. The presence of Mystic Retrieval basically wins all my matches against other control decks.

Where it hurts me, though, and where Snaps would be better, is against aggro decks, of course. Snapcaster is a 2/1 body with half the card advantage (or less, since you have to cast it that turn), but that's a considerable advantage against an aggro deck.

Mystic Retrieval , in the year-long run of this deck, has really been an all-star for me.

I think a lot of that might have to do with the fact that this is even slower than the average control deck seeing how your only win conditions are Bolas and Staff of Nin. You probably wouldn't have that problem if you added in another faster win-con like, say, AEtherling .

Part of the idea of the deck is to gain large amounts of card advantage by rendering all enemy removal a dead draw (by not having any creatures), but AEtherling is so hard to kill that it has that effect anyway, perhaps.

The deck's win condition is pretty slow, yeah. But when it comes to taking down other control decks, having Mystic Retrieval and Counterflux is very nice, as is having the Mystic Ret. and Slaughter Games . Both options let you keep control of the game and pick 'em apart nice and slow.

Unless you're intentionally trying to go to time, that's not a good thing.

Eh, the deck rarely goes to turns, but it does happen sometimes. Usual cause is Pithing Needle s everywhere naming everything that's a win condition in both decks.

It also doesn't help you when Midrange and Aggro make up far more of the meta right now than control.

It also really, REALLY doesn't help you when Mystic Retrieval is a sorcery.

Very true re: the meta, especially when it comes to aggro. Actually, midrange is part of the reason why Snapcaster ended up out of the deck. Without a wrath, I found myself needing still more card advantage than even he provided. What with Voice of Resurgence , Thragtusk , et. al., it's tough to get by without a wrath these days. Weakness of the whole Grixis archetype.

That makes no sense as the Mystic Retrieval argument only seems to work for really slow games. Midrange may be slower than aggro, but even it works fast enough that Snapcaster is far more preferable to Retrieval and (most importantly) works at instant speed.

Also, while I'm not sure why I didn't notice it until now, why in God's name are you running Chromatic Lantern? Is your mana base really that weak that you need to run a card meant for 4 color and 5 color decks?

+1 from me. I actually meant to do that a LONG time ago. Haha. I can't wait for you to post Behgz's next Standards and Practices article. He let me check out the fully formatted write up (with thoughts and anecdotes), and it was looking awesome. I think it could be a great article series.

i feel like this would lose a control vs control battle