Steve Gargolinski
Now that the entire contents of Master’s Edition III has been spoiled, I want to talk a bit about one of the most exciting cards to enter Classic in quite some time: Mana Drain. Not only am I going to discuss some fundamentals of Drain some ways it could fit into future Classic, but also take a historic perspective to talk about some past and present Mana Drain decks.
Hopefully this article will give you some idea of the history of the card Mana Drain, but also more importantly the history of decks and strategies built around Drain. In order to give you an idea of what exactly Mana Drain means to a format, I’m going be discussing a few different decks throughout history that have used the powerful Counterspell variant as a centerpiece. But first, let’s look at the card itself.
There’s not a whole ton to say about the functional aspect of Mana Drain. In short it’s just a really good way to prevent your opponent from resolving spells while simultaneously providing a mana boost for yourself. Sound good?
In a game stuffed to the brim with Counterspell variants, Mana Drain is simply a strict upgrade over the original interrupt. Not only does successfully countering your opponent’s spell provide you with a mana boost during your next turn, but with the removal of mana burn with the M10 rules update there’s no downside whatsoever. In the past, countering something like Yawgmoth’s Will (for example) with Mana Drain carried the risk of three points of damage via mana burn in the cases where you lacked a way to spend the mana.
In Magic today they’ve decided that Counterspell is too powerful, so we get get cards like Cancel. Not only is Mana Drain a strict upgrade to a card that’s too powerful for current day Magic – but Mana Drain is, depending on your heuristic, either the best or second best Counterspell variant ever printed. While Mana Drain is tops in terms of pure power at an affordable price, you can’t deny the versatility of being able to Force of Will a key spell even while tapped out.A playset of Drain is almost always accompanied by a playset of Force, although not necessarily the other way around.
History
When it comes to the Eternal formats, Mana Drain has been contributing to the shape of the metagame pretty much every step along the way. This card has never been legal in Legacy due to the ridiculous power level, and hasn’t existed in Classic until now – so our study is going to necessarily focus on Vintage. To get us started, let’s take a look at the original deck.
“The Deck”
by Brian Weissman
| Creatures 2 Serra Angel 2 cards Other Spells |
Lands 4 City of Brass 4 Island 3 Plains 4 Tundra 15 cards Sideboard
2 Circle of Protection: Red 2 Dust to Dust 1 Zuran Orb 2 Blood Moon 1 Tormod’s Crypt 2 Mana Short 1 Amnesia 1 Feldon’s Cane 12 cards |
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“The Deck” by Brian Weissman is widely credited as the first great deck in Magic’s history. Not only was The Deck a great way to win tournaments, but it was also used early on in the development of Magic theory to teach us all about card advantage. Given the knowledge we have today, it can be hard to accept that there was once a time when the strength of drawing a bunch of cards off of Braingeyser or Ancestral Recall was not widely understood. Nowadays it’s generally known that in a game of Magic, the player with more cards has a serious advantage.
In order to exploit this fact, The Deck’s game plan was to use a variety of one-for-one removal cards to stay in the game long enough to bring powerful card advantage tools online: Ancestral Recall, Library of Alexandria, Braingeyser, Amnesia, Jayemdae Tome, Disrupting Scepter. Known affectionately as “the stick” and “the book”, reusable artifacts Jayemdae Tome and Disruptive Scepter ensured that in a stabilized game, The Deck would gain serious card advantage.
The win conditions contained in The Deck are pretty few and far between. You’ll notice two copies of Serra Angel and a single Mirror Universe – that’s it. Winning via Serra Angel was pretty straightforward, it’s basically the old school version of winning with something like Simic Sky Swallower, Skeletal Vampire, or Meloku. Serra Angel was a reasonably difficult to remove, defensive and evasive win conditional that wasn’t stopped by Moat.
Mirror Universe was another win condition that didn’t care about Moat, and relied on multiple old rules to function. Back in the day, losing at zero life wasn’t checked until the end of a phase. Mana burn also existed. Not only was it possible to mana burn yourself down to zero, but you could then use Mirror Universe to trade life totals with your opponent and watch him die at the end of the phase. Mirror Universe was a staple finisher of control decks for quite some time, up until the rules were updated to check for zero life as a state based effect.
So what does Mana Drain do for you strategically in The Deck? Well not only is it a fantastic way to control what happens in the game, but it also helps quite a bit to accelerate into one of these two win conditions. Let’s say that your opponent tries to cast Erhnam Djinn. If you successfully Mana Drain the 4/5, then the four additional mana will likely allow The Deck to play either Serra Angel or Mirror Universe with plenty of mana backup for counter magic.
If you don’t happen to have a finisher, then chances are there will be something like Disrupting Scepter or Jayemdae Tome to pour the mana into. You could even use this mana to cast Moat with counter magic backup. Of course, now that mana burn doesn’t exist there’s really no loss if you don’t have anything to cast with your Drain Mana other than a missed opportunity.
The Deck is the list that taught me, along with a whole bunch of other people, about the true power of Mana Drain.
Accelerated Blue
| Creatures 4 Morphling 4 cards Other Spells |
Lands 19 Island 19 cards Sideboard
2 Nevinyrral’s Disk 4 Hydroblast 1 Island 7 cards |
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Accelerated Blue decks grew to prominence and ran Vintage from the time Fact or Fiction was printed up until the time Fact or Fiction was restricted in 2001. If you’re familiar with the makeup of the average Vintage deck, you’ll notice that this one is a bit of an anomaly. I mean, what’s with all those full playsets? Does this really run a full four Mana Leaks? Don’t Vintage decks usually look a lot more like singleton decks?
For the most part, Vintage decks generally don’t follow this sort of makeup. Not only does Accelerated Blue run a whole bunch of playsets packed with redundancy, but it doesn’t do anything broken at all. These are not common themes in modern day Vintage. I wanted to highlight Accelerated Blue as an example of how Mana Drain was able to dominate a cardpool as strong/diverse as 2000 Vintage even while surrounded by a contextually mundane control shell.
Meandeck Gifts
| Creatures 1 Darksteel Colossus 1 cards Other Spells |
Lands 3 Island 1 Snow-covered Island 2 Flooded Strand 2 Polluted Delta 3 Underground Sea 3 Volcanic Island 1 Tolarian Academy 11 cards |
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This is the first deck we’re going to talk about that is fundamentally ‘broken’. The Deck and Accelerated Blue are certainly powerful control decks, but nothing about them screams broken the way people think of broken when the topic is Vintage. When Wizards printed Gifts Ungiven during Kamigawa block, they effectively gave Vintage players a way to tutor for two cards at once. Sure there were some rules that needed to be followed, but in such a diverse cardpool there were many ways to exploit this powerful effect.
The way to win with Meandeck Gifts is to resolve Gifts Ungiven and choose the following four cards: Tinker, Yawgmoth’s Will, Recoup, and Time Walk. No matter what your opponent chooses, you are able to win the game. In the easiest scenario you Tinker up Darksteel Colossus, resolve Time Walk, and then Recoup Time walk to get two Darksteel Colossus swings in. Think about the other permutations for a bit and you’ll be able to figure out how these scenarios turn into a win.
One thing you’ll notice about this win condition is that it’s very mana intensive. In order to win with Gifts Ungiven, you will need to generate a bunch of mana for your turn. This generally involves Moxen, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, Mana Vault, etc. What else helps in this situation? Mana Drain of course! It’s pretty sweet to Mana Drain something like Yawgmoth’s Will and then go to town with Gifts Ungiven, Tinker, Time Walk, Recoup, etc.
| Creatures 1 Gorilla Shaman 1 Sundering Titan 1 Inkwell Leviathan 1 Platinum Angel 2 Sower of Temptation 6 cards Other Spells |
Lands 2 Flooded Strand 3 Island 3 Polluted Delta 2 Underground Sea 10 cards |
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As time went on, people playing Mana Drain began to love the idea of draining, Welding, or Tinkering into a Mindslaver activation. As you can imagine, one activation of Mindslaver in a format like Vintage is often enough to completely ruin your opponent’s gameplan. The main takeaway from a deck like Control Slaver is to understand that cards like Mindslaver and Sundering Titan are valid in this type of strategy.
| Creatures 1 Inkwell Leviathan 4 Dark Confidant 1 Magus of the Unseen 6 cards Other Spells |
Lands 2 Island 4 Underground Sea 1 Swamp 2 Flooded Strand 3 Polluted Delta 12 cards Sideboard
1 Pyroblast 4 Leyline of the Void 1 Trinisphere 2 Pyroclasm 2 Arcane Laboratory 1 Darkblast 11 cards |
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This brings us to the current king of Vintage magic: Tezzeret Control. Itou Hiromichi played the above list a week or two ago well enough to win the title of Vintage World Champion.
At it’s core, Tezzeret Control is a Mana Drain control deck. It runs a full playset of Drain, a playset of Force of Will, and almost always runs black as a secondary color for Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Yawgmoth’s Will, and Dark Confidant. The above list runs red for Rack and Ruin, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Pyroclasm, Fire/Ice. Often Tezzeret Control decks are straight black and blue, and the jury is still out on the validity of a third splash color.
There are a few main win conditions in this deck. First there’s the broken play of Tinker into Inkwell Leviathan, which is almost impossible to deal with in the Vintage format – not only does that big guy have shroud, but he has two types of evasion and a huge back end. The second main win condition is actually more of an enabler: Time Vault. Time Vault plus Voltaic Key or Tezzeret allows infinite turns, and I’m sure you can figure out how this deck can win with infinite turns. Tezzeret’s ultimate March of the Machines-esque ability is an another win condition, turning your Moxes and various support artifacts into 5/5 beaters. If all other attempts fail, Dark Confidant beatdown is always an option.
Mana Drain in Classic
Our journey through the history of Mana Drain brings us here. Now that we’ve covered a bunch of Vintage decks that have used Mana Drain through the years, I want to give an idea of how this powerful counterspell may impact the Classic format moving forward.
Not only do we have the contents of Master’s Edition III to spice up Classic in the near future, but From the Vault: Exiled is going to hit the virtual shelf at around the same time. In my opinion the card that will impact Classic the most out of From the Vault: Exiled is the powerful tutor/accelerator Tinker. The good news for Mana Drain fans is that Tinker is right at home in decks that pack Drain.
If you’re interested in preparing for the future of Classic, I think you’d be CRAZY to not work on a few decks that start out like this:
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Tinker
1 Inkwell Leviathan
This is a ten card shell that packs amazing control, a ridiculous finisher, and two different ways to get the finisher into play. Not only do you have the ability to Tinker an Inkwell Leviathan directly into play, but you can also play the big guy off of a Mana Drain on your opponent’s turn. This shell provides a whole bunch of customization, and there are many different directions to go from here.
Personally I’m really struggling between deciding which deck to shuffle up for the first tournament I play in after all of these new sets go live. I’ve got it narrowed down to two different decks. The first one is Dredge with the sometimes-power-ten enabler Bazaar of Baghdad, and the second would be mono blue Mana Drain/Tezzeret Control. Decisions, decisions!
Here’s one idea if you’re interested in trying out Mana Drain.
| Creatures 3 Trinket Mage 1 Inkwell Leviathan 1 Painter’s Servant 5 cards Other Spells |
Lands 1 Seat of the Synod 1 Academy Ruins 4 Wasteland 4 Mishra’s Factory 11 Island 21 cards |
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This deck may be a little bit greedy (ok, very greedy), but it pretty much has it all. Not only does it run the Counterbalance/Sensei’s Divining Top combination, but also brings the synergy with Standstill and a bunch of potential non-spell action. It runs Trinket Mage along with Tinker and Tezzeret as a way to search up a toolbox of artifacts. Speaking of Tinker, Inkwell Leviathan combos with it to form one major win condition for the deck. Remember that it’s also not out of the question to resolve Inkwell Leviathan legit with the help of Mana Drain.
On top of all of that, this deck runs the Painter’s Servant/Grindstone combo as another way to win once the artifact searching mechanisms are in place. This isn’t quite as good as creating infinite turns via Time Vault, but there’s something really exciting about Mana Draining a bunch of mana for yourself into a big turn Painter/Grindstone win.
So as you can see, this deck packs a whole ton of stuff into one list. It’s almost like five decks in one. I don’t know about you, but this one seems like an absolute blast to me and I can’t wait for Master’s Edition III to hit the store so that I can test this one out. It’s hard to say if playing five decks in one is good or bad, especially without testing, but this seems like a fantastic starting point for testing in the post-MED3/Exiled environment.
Other than the fact that this is a bunch of decks in one, there are a few different things that need to be developed through serious testing. The number of counterspells in the deck is a bit light for a control deck at eight, but there’s also the Counterbalance/Top combination. Testing will determine if we want something like Daze or Spell Snare.
Another main aspect of the deck that I want to develop through testing is the card drawing suite. Currently the work is being done by Brainstorm, Thirst for Knowledge, and Standstill. I’m really curious to do some playtesting and see if this deck wants to run something like Fact or Fiction or Gifts Ungiven. Mana Drain makes these expensive spells easier to resolve, and the power provided is through the roof.
Creating a sideboard for this deck is extremely difficult given how unknown the metagame is. You may want something like Commandeer for more ‘free’ defense, Vedalken Shackles to steal creatures, Ensnaring Bridge to stop creatures, Hydroblast to fight explosive red strategies, Tormod’s Crypt to fight Dredge/Bazaar, or Stifle to fight storm. The set of toolbox artifacts in this list is also high customizable and definitely subject to many different ‘correct’ configurations depending on which decks you come to battle.
The final thing that I would focus on initially during early testing would be potential splash colors. Splashing for black brings tutor power, green for Tarmogoyf is always popular, red gives us artifact control and Pyroblast, and depending on how the metagame shapes out it may make sense to run white for stuff like Balance or Swords to Plowshares.
Plan on another article once this deck is available online and I can do some more extensive testing on the different options available. I can’t wait to see how future Classic shapes out. What an exciting time to be a fan of Eternal formats on Magic Online!
Thanks for reading!
Steve Gargolinski
th1ckasab1ck on MTGO
spgmtg@gmail.com
twitter.com/spgmtg
alivejournal.com
A very nice recap on one of the most iconic blue spells. I am excited to use this powerhouse online soon.
Keep up the good work!