G
Gizmo
Guest
Well, I think this deck`s problems can be divided into two types:
1. Consistency
This is a multiple-card combo, and you need to see it before you get beaten to death (and the award for most self-evident comment goes to...) as it also forms your main defense. Fortunately there is a very obvious answer to this problem - Enlightened Tutor.
Enlightened Tutor, W, Instant (Uncommon Mirage/Classic)
Search your library for an enchantment or artifact and put it on top of your library.
With a couple of Enlightened Tutors in the deck it will become much easier to search out the combo parts you need.
And even though the combo is cheap I think that 19 land is far too few, and I would try to step that up to 22/23, this also gives you the opportunity to play with some interesting lands from different sets, such as:
Flood Plain (Mirage Uncommon)
Stalking Stones (Tempest Uncommon)
Forbidding Watchtower (Urza`s Legacy Uncommon)
And it would also be a benefit to be able to draw extra cards from sources other than Howling Mine in case you don`t draw one. The best options are:
Whispers Of The Muse (Tempest Uncommon)
Jayemdae Tome (Basic Set Rare)
Armistice (Masques Rare)
2. Hardness
By which I mean just how effective the lockout is when it hits play. In this case the combo is still vulnerable to:
1. Non-combat damage.
2. Enchantment removal. (and in multiplayer everybody will be using their Disenchants on the guy who threatens to stop them all with a single combo)
The solutions are:
1. More direct creature removal, such as Wrath Of God (a hard to get rare unfortunately) would be absolutely ideal, although Wrath is hard to find there is also Wave Of Destruction (Masques Rare) which does something similar. This also suggests using some standard defensive cards like countermagic, Disenchants etc where you currently have the additional combo of Mind Bend + random hoser.
With another 4-8 countermagic in the deck it will be harder for your opponents to break it up, but in multiplayer you cannot hope to protect it from everybody for ever so you`ll probably need some really good fallback strategies such as Fat Motties and Sarah Angels. These are fine but something hard to kill like a Rainbow Efreet (Visions Rare), Ivory Gargoyle (Alliances Rare) Morphling (Urza` Saga Rare) would make your creature offense all the more certain to kill people.
2. There are a few ways to protect or retrieve artifacts and enchantments, but most of them are rare. The best one is probably going to be Fountain Watch:
Fountain Watch, WW3, Summon (Masques Rare)
Artifacts and Enchantments you control cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
2/4
But in multiplayer this guy has a HUGE crosshair on his chest and so you then need to protect HIM, and it all comes down to having enough countermagic to survive until everybody else dies. In multiplayer the strongest player is usually the one who ends up biting it first so it doesn`t do to look too threatening until the other players have burnt themselves out a bit fighting each other.
Overall, I think your decklist simply plays with too many conditional spells, in other words cards "that are really good when..." or are "good when used with...", by which I am thinking of your Douse, Conversion, Mind Bend etc.
I would try to play spells that are always going to be able to do a job for you as I think you will often have one half of a particular mini-combo and be sat witing for the Mind Bend to show up whilst your opponents are blowing your combo to pieces.
1. Consistency
This is a multiple-card combo, and you need to see it before you get beaten to death (and the award for most self-evident comment goes to...) as it also forms your main defense. Fortunately there is a very obvious answer to this problem - Enlightened Tutor.
Enlightened Tutor, W, Instant (Uncommon Mirage/Classic)
Search your library for an enchantment or artifact and put it on top of your library.
With a couple of Enlightened Tutors in the deck it will become much easier to search out the combo parts you need.
And even though the combo is cheap I think that 19 land is far too few, and I would try to step that up to 22/23, this also gives you the opportunity to play with some interesting lands from different sets, such as:
Flood Plain (Mirage Uncommon)
Stalking Stones (Tempest Uncommon)
Forbidding Watchtower (Urza`s Legacy Uncommon)
And it would also be a benefit to be able to draw extra cards from sources other than Howling Mine in case you don`t draw one. The best options are:
Whispers Of The Muse (Tempest Uncommon)
Jayemdae Tome (Basic Set Rare)
Armistice (Masques Rare)
2. Hardness
By which I mean just how effective the lockout is when it hits play. In this case the combo is still vulnerable to:
1. Non-combat damage.
2. Enchantment removal. (and in multiplayer everybody will be using their Disenchants on the guy who threatens to stop them all with a single combo)
The solutions are:
1. More direct creature removal, such as Wrath Of God (a hard to get rare unfortunately) would be absolutely ideal, although Wrath is hard to find there is also Wave Of Destruction (Masques Rare) which does something similar. This also suggests using some standard defensive cards like countermagic, Disenchants etc where you currently have the additional combo of Mind Bend + random hoser.
With another 4-8 countermagic in the deck it will be harder for your opponents to break it up, but in multiplayer you cannot hope to protect it from everybody for ever so you`ll probably need some really good fallback strategies such as Fat Motties and Sarah Angels. These are fine but something hard to kill like a Rainbow Efreet (Visions Rare), Ivory Gargoyle (Alliances Rare) Morphling (Urza` Saga Rare) would make your creature offense all the more certain to kill people.
2. There are a few ways to protect or retrieve artifacts and enchantments, but most of them are rare. The best one is probably going to be Fountain Watch:
Fountain Watch, WW3, Summon (Masques Rare)
Artifacts and Enchantments you control cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
2/4
But in multiplayer this guy has a HUGE crosshair on his chest and so you then need to protect HIM, and it all comes down to having enough countermagic to survive until everybody else dies. In multiplayer the strongest player is usually the one who ends up biting it first so it doesn`t do to look too threatening until the other players have burnt themselves out a bit fighting each other.
Overall, I think your decklist simply plays with too many conditional spells, in other words cards "that are really good when..." or are "good when used with...", by which I am thinking of your Douse, Conversion, Mind Bend etc.
I would try to play spells that are always going to be able to do a job for you as I think you will often have one half of a particular mini-combo and be sat witing for the Mind Bend to show up whilst your opponents are blowing your combo to pieces.