I Play MUDdy

Hello everyone!

As I previously mentioned I haven't been able to play much paper magic since I got to school, so I have been playing a ton on Cockatrice. One deck I have been working on in particular a lot is MUD or Mono-Brown Control. The deck is very interesting to say the least. On one hand the deck has a strong mana-denial plan that can completely lock opponents out of the game. On the other hand it can attack with Blightsteel Colossus on turn 2 and win out of completely nowhere! Yes, the deck is as bizarre as it sounds! Here's my current list:

1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Duplicant
4x Goblin Welder
4x Kuldotha Forgemaster
4x Lodestone Golem
4x Metalworker
1x Platinum Emporian
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Sundering Titan
3x Wurmcoil Engine

4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Grim Monolith
2x Lightning Greaves
1x Staff of Domination
1x Staff of Nin
3x Trinisphere

4x Ancient Tomb
4x Cavern of Souls
4x City of Traitors
4x Great Furnace
4x Wasteland

Sideboard:
3x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Tormod's Crypt
1x Trinisphere
4x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Silent Arbiter
1x Wurmcoil Engine

Woah, what is going on here? This is easily the most fun deck you will get to play if youre looking for a competetive deck that offers amazing stories. This deck has some pretty simple parts: Mana ramp, Fatty Boom-Booms, and disruption.

Mana Ramp:
Ancient Tomb + City of Traitors
Grim Monolith
Metalworker

Fatty Boom-Booms:
Blightsteel Colossus
Kuldotha Forgemaster
Lodestone Golem
Platinum Emporion
Steel Hellkite
Wurmcoil Engine

Disruption:
Wasteland
Chalice of the Void
Trinisphere
Staff of Nin
Duplicant
Sundering Titan

Well.... These grouping aren't completely correct. See, the Fatty Boom-Booms all happen to double as either more Mana Ramp or Disruption. Blightsteel Colossus is an exception, but we have him because flying Tentacle Monsters are dumb and overrated. But Kuldotha Forgemaster can easily be put in the mana ramp section as it cheats on mana costs of cards (usually grabbing Blightsteel). The other guys can be put into the Disruption section because they attack the opponent's mana or board. Lodestone in addition to the other disruption can prevent the opponent from casting any spells. Platinum Emporion stops any attack cold. Steel Hellkite completely overtakes the board, even after just one hit! Sundering Titan can lead to some complete blowouts when you do a one-sided Armageddon. Wurmcoil isn't disruption, however unless if you're playing Swords to Plowshares, there really aren't any good ways to deal with this Phyrexian Wurm in legacy!

There are other cards in the deck too that I did not list, but those are mainly support cards. The central piece of the deck is the fatties, ramp, and disruption that I just listed above. Slow the game down, prevent your opponent from casting many spells, land a fatty, go to game 2. Sounds pretty easy to me!

Now there is a bit of a combo element of this deck too! With one of the support cards - Lightning Greaves - you can kill your opponent as early as turn 2! Check this line out:

T1 - Ancient Tomb, Lightning Greaves
T2 - Cavern of Souls, Metalworker. Equip Metalworker with Lightning Greaves. Tap Metalworker revealing 3-4 Artifacts. Cast Kuldotha Forgemaster + 1 other artifact. Equip Kuldotha Forgemaster with Lightning Greaves. Use Forgemaster's tinker ability sacrificing Forgemaster, Metalworker, and the other artifact you cast tutoring up Blightsteel Colossus. Equip Blightsteel with Lightning Greaves. Attack for 11 infect trample. GG

No, this isn't likely to happen every game. However, knowing you have that kind of raw power feels great! Using Metalworker, you can also combo it with Staff of Domination to produce infinite mana like I explained in the first infinite mana article. From there you gain enough life to make your life equal to your birthdate then draw the the deck until you have Lightning Greaves + Blightsteel. Cast both + profit. The icing on the cake is that if your opponent has 3000 blockers, Staff of Domination proves why it's named as such and taps down your opponent's entire board, clearing the way for the kill.

Sometimes you don't get those rediculous openers. Sometimes it's a lot more tame, like this one game I had:
T1: Ancient Tomb, Chalice of the Void X=1
T2: City of Traitors, Metalworker
T3: Reveal 5 artifacts in hand, cast Blightsteel Colossus

Turn 3 Blightsteel? Sounds fair to me!

If you don't get the turn 3 Blightsteel, it's far more reasonable to expect something simple and plausible  like double Wurmcoil Engine. Or Wurmcoil + Lodestone Golem. Or basically any mix of fatties and you win!

Ok, so that's the combo side of the deck, now lets take a look at the mana denial portion. Chalice of the Void is one of the most powerful cards in Legacy because the rest of the format is so quick. Remember that card Mental Misstep that got banned because it completely warped the format? This is an infinite amount of Mental Missteps and can completely lock some opponents right out of the game before they take a first turn! RUG Delver, for example, can only play Tarmogoyf, Daze, and Force of Will. While those are good cards, thats simply going to lose to a full deck of robots.

Trinisphere is another card that many decks simply can't beat. Trinisphere + Wasteland can completely lock opponents out from casting spells, and provides free wins against most combo decks. I remember one crazy game I had against Dredge when I curved a turn 1 Tormod's Crypt into a turn 2 Trinisphere and he found himself completely locked out of the game. He couldn't cast any spells because he only has 13 lands in his deck (and I wastelanded one), and he couldn't just draw-discard-dredge because of the Crypt. 2 turns later I was swinging in with a Wurmcoil Engine and he quickly scooped it up.

Lodestone Golem is actually one of your best pieces of disruption because he is also a completely legitimate win condition. With 2 Sol Lands you can play him on turn 2 and push your opponent's entire game plan back a full turn. How good is a difference of one turn? How good is Remand?

Bringing everything together we have Goblin Welder. Talk about an insane card! A turn 1 unmolested Goblin Welder can completely take over a game! Thoughtseize goes from game breaking to laughably bad. Counterspells don't matter any more. Disenchant is pretty shameful. But besides making those cards worse, there are lots of other interesting uses:

Exiling lots of creatures with Duplicant
Destroying tons of lands with Sundering Titan (triggers when it dies too!)
Tons of value with Wurmcoil Engine
Shoot for 2 a turn with Staff of Nin (when you have 2 Welders)
Rebuying Tormod's Crypt
Manipulating combat by getting rid of Silent Arbiter/Ensnaring Bridge then putting it back (when you have 2 Welders)
Changing the target for Phyrexian Revoker
Saving creatures from removal spells or Swords to Plowshares

Basically the guy is the stone cold nuts! I have so many great stories with Goblin Welder I don't even know where to start!  I remember I was playing against Reanimator with Show and Tell, so game 2 I played a first turn Tormod's Crypt and Goblin Welder. 3 turns later her cast Show and Tell so I dropped in a Duplicant. Then for the rest of the game I was able to exile every creature he had as I flip flopped between Duplicant and Crypt with the Welder without investing any cards! One thing that is worth pointing out is that he is a 1-drop so he doesn't play well with Chalice of the Void on 1. However if you cast Welder with a Cavern of Souls it can't be countered so it does right through.

In the sideboard we have a couple interesting cards that are with noting. Obviously Tormod's Crypt is to stop any graveyard strategies. The extra trinisphere is there for combo decks (it makes any spell cast off Omniscience cost 3 colorless, so it shuts down that deck). The extra Wurmcoil Engine is there for deck tuning. In matchups with lots of creatures or burn Wurmcoil completely shuts down their game plan. Phyrexian Revoker is there as a tool whenever you need to beat certain cards. For example there is the Death and Taxes deck which is reasonably popular. Naming Mangara of Corondor removes their only viable manner of them beating you because you go so much bigger (If you get multiple Phyrexian Revokers it's usually right to have them all name Managara of Corondor in case of Flickerwisp or Swords to Plowshares). Finally the sideboard rounds out with 3 Ensnaring Bridge and 2 Silent Arbiters. These are both used to beat creatures, but of different varieties. Silent Arbiter beats Goblins, Merfolk, Zoo. Enscaring Bridge can also beat those decks, but is also good vs reanimator where Silent Arbiter is pretty poor.

Overall this deck has been really good to me, and I have been very impressed with it! I am currently working on acquiring the cards to actually construct it for myself, and when I do hopefully I can win some money IRL. That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack