Mud's Cards And How They Interact: The Tricks
Winter Orb
While playing Black/Green Nether Void, I've been wrecked pretty hard by this card a few times. This alone proved it was a good card, if played in the right deck - and, of course, against the right deck. About the metagame I wrote somewhat earlier, but in general Winter Orb would be good against any form of control. This would be against Blue-based control, Keeper, Void-decks, and also slower combo decks. This seemed like a big portion of the metagame - and after the first game, it provided three slots for sideboarding against other decks.
About this card being played in the right deck - that deck is a deck with more than one-third of the mana sources as artifacts instead of lands, and with lands producing three mana on their own. Also, Tangle Wire alongside of it provides a perfect synergy against every deck. This will keep the opponent shut down for sometimes even four turns.
Tangle Wire
Simply a great card in almost every deck, since you always have one less fade counter less than your opponent. Also, in a deck with a lot of artifacts that do the same thing whether they're tapped or not, it seems like a card all to your advantage.
And as I said above, this has a perfect synergy with Winter Orb.
Ensnaring Bridge
An ideal card to stop creatures. In a fast artifact deck like this one, you'll get your complete hand on table fast anyway, and you need some way to stay alive while achieving control. Also with Grafted Skullcap, it is made sure you won't have any cards at hand in opponents turn, as long as you won't be forced to draw any cards then.
Grafted Skullcap
A perfect card for creating card advantage on its own, although not until two turns later than the one in which it comes into play; it costs you a card to play this. Its second function won't often matter, since you have enough resources to get both drawn cards in play, usually. Also you'll usually won't prefer to keep any"doubles" in your hand, such as a second Ensnaring Bridge, since you can sacrifice them to Smokestack. The second function even turns into a positive one with Ensnaring Bridge in play.
This card also allows you to constantly keep your Smokestack at least at one counter most of the time.
Smokestack
Smokestack gives you the possibility of getting rid of every permanent an opponent has in play. Since you only play permanents in the artifact deck, you're likely to have enough choices to sacrifice well. And once cards like Ensnaring Bridge become a pain and are preventing you from attacking the opponent, you can sacrifice them to Smokestack.
Still, its primary function is disrupting the opponent in one of the best ways, with at least one counter on it. Usually, it forms the first step of achieving control, by forcing the opponent to sacrifice all of its permanents and thus resources. Once an opponent has no permanents left, and you get one or even two Spheres of Resistances in play, you're likely to win. You have to hold the lock, though, so you need to be able to play the cards drawn each turn as well in order to have permanents to sacrifice.
Sphere of Resistance
All the following is as said before. A card annoying you and the opponent, but you'll face the least disadvantage of the Sphere of Resistance in comparison to the opponent. On top of that, Sphere of Resistance just rips apart the perfectly-tuned mana bases of so many decks. The artifact decks just wouldn't have that much trouble with it.
By disrupting many perfectly-tuned decks, combo usually dies when this card resolves. Against all decks, once the opponent has no permanents left with you having a Smokestack in play with at least one counter, and you get one or even two Spheres of Resistance in play, you're likely to win.
Powder Keg
A great cheap card, to still kill a lot of targeted permanents, played and used at the right time. Ultimately provides a great stop against aggressive decks, which usually play a lot of low-costed creatures, all with a mana cost of one or two mana. It's also targeted kill against single threats, like a lone Morphling, or just to disrupt some mana sources of the opponent, like Moxen.
Memory Jar
The Jar is likely to cause massive card advantage, provides you with seven cards to play in one turn, while opponent is likely to play none of his seven.
It usually gives you a few artifacts which you can use or need at the moment, along with some mana sources. The casting cost of five mana is easily overweighed in this deck by its advantages. With a Metalworker in play, it's likely you have emptied your hand in your second main phase.
An extra possibility of Memory Jar is that you can use it under an Ensnaring Bridge to suddenly attack with all of your creatures.
Strip Mine/Wasteland
Both are excellent uncounterable, zero-mana targeted land destruction cards. Usually, there are also enough non-basic land targets for Wasteland to be as good as Strip Mine in a matchup; it's only useless against Mono-colored decks.
The cards also provide mana, but are mainly in the deck for the second ability. The mana ability is needed as well, though; the fact that the two lands only provide colorless mana is, of course, no problem at all.
Petrified Field
An uncounterable card to reuse your Strip Mine/Wastelands, or for example to get back a to-its-ability-sacrificed City of Traitors, or in general any land destroyed or sacrificed. As with Strip Mine and Wasteland who provides mana but mainly in the deck for the second ability. The mana ability is needed as well though; the fact that the two lands only provide colorless mana is of course no problem at all.
Mud's Cards And How They Interact: The Kill
Karn, Silver Golem
Using this creature obviously forms a great way to kill the opponent, since once you have a lockdown with some expensive artifacts, just turn all of them into creatures and kill your opponent in one or two turns. It can also cause an aggro-like game. Once in play, it's nicely able to disrupt the opponent by turning his zero-mana cost artifacts into 0/0 creatures, or for getting rid of your Mana Crypt once it's served its purpose.
Mud's Cards And How They Interact: Mana Sources
Mishra's Workshop, Black Lotus, The Five Moxen, and Sol Ring
These cards are all logical inclusions as mana sources conducive to abuse.
Mana Vault/Grim Monolith
Mana Vault and Grim Monolith are usually both easily played first-turn, and give you both three mana on the next. Mana Vault also really succeeds on the first turn by giving you two mana; the damage isn't really a problem. Grim Monolith is not that good - usually it's a card which isn't really bad to have, but it's not particularly good. It's probably worth playing when you don't own a Black Lotus in order to replace a missing mana source with a mana source - like Koen does still. However, both cards have a positive ability - after providing mana, they remain in play to be sacrificed to Smokestack.
Mana Crypt
This card provides you two mana each turn, for no cost. Since you're determined to take control, and likely to get control earlier with this in play, the damage it probably does really doesn't matter that much. Once it becomes a pain you have Smokestack and Karn, Silver Golem's activated ability to get rid of the Mana Crypt. (You can also use Powder Keg as a backup plan.) We didn't use this in Mud at first - however, after we realized we had at least eight cards to get rid of it, we realized it would be all right to play.
Metalworker
Although usually preventing you from playing other permanents on turn 1, this lets you empty your hand (or nearly) on turn 2 most of the time. Later, when it's tapped it provides at least two mana for artifacts you want to play from your hand, and it's great with Grafted Skullcaps since it provides more mana the more artifacts you draw. Insane with Memory Jar, this lets you play your entire freshly-drawn hand... Especially when you don't have a Sphere of Resistance in play.
And it being a creature and with less creature hate in the metagame, it's more likely to stay alive. More than one can really kill an opponent.
Tolarian Academy
This land can provide a lot of mana when tapped usually starting turn 2, and most of the time it's not bad on turn 1 as well. The Academy is a natural inclusion in any deck playing a lot of cheap artifacts, so it's certainly good in this deck.
City of Traitors
A good mana-producing card, giving you at least two mana for two turns, if played well. If possible, just play it as the last land in your hand, and it will remain in play for a longer time to abuse it.
Tested Cards
Next I'll be summing up all the cards tested, seriously thought of, or previously played in Mud, most of it as sideboard options. Almost all cards in the list can function as sideboard cards under specific conditions, in specific environments. The list is sorted alphabetically, artifacts first, followed by some lands.
Aeolipile
A card first considered in the time when TnT started to appear in our environment, in the beginning of 2003. It was a direct way to especially kill Goblin Welder. However, Cursed Totem and Cursed Scroll proved better options, since they could take care of multiple Welders or multiple creatures in general.
Ankh of Mishra
Ankh of Mishra would be an option against Gro-A-Tog in its prime time, since GAT abused Fastbond the most. But GAT really never was a problem, and Ankh doesn't give any real security, since GAT didn't need its Fastbond. Furthermore, in this deck, because of the few damage dealing cards, it's normally useless to have cards that only deal damage - or at least if the cards won't deal lethal damage very soon. Ankh of Mishra usually can't kill on its own - unlike Karn, Silver Golem.
Bottle Gnomes
A good sideboard option against Sligh, since it provides a chump blocker and gives you some life - but just worse than Crumbling Sanctuary. Nowadays, it should be reconsidered, since it also blocks Goblin Sligh's Goblin Vandal, while Sanctuary does nothing except get destroyed. After sideboarding, though, neither card is optimal, since red now has Pulverize. Maybe an Ensnaring Bridge, Crumbling Sanctuary, or Bottle Gnomes alongside of a Null Brooch would be the best option nowadays.
Candelabra of Tawnos
This card was considered in the beginning for abusing Mishra's Workshop, a City of Traitors, or the lone Tolarian Academy. But it proved to be not useful enough most of the time.
Caltrops
A possible sideboard card against aggressive decks. It is comparable to Ensnaring Bridge, which also costs three and stops attackers - though like Bridge, it doesn't stop every attacker. The problem with Caltrops is that you can't predict how much it will stop, and it seems almost certain that it won't stop all the creatures in an opponent's deck.
On the other hand, it works immediately, so when you drop it the first turn no nasty Goblin Lackeys or Goblin Vandals will bother you. Ensnaring Bridge orders you to empty your hand before it works against these cards. To go further in the GoblinSligh comparison, Caltrops won't stop heavy hitters like Goblin Piledriver and Mogg Flunkies unless you have two Caltrops in play.
It seems like a possibility to combine Caltrops with Ensnaring Bridge in the Goblin Sligh matchups, or maybe even when you face other aggressive decks. However, other decks usually don't really play creatures with abilities triggered by attacking, so the need to play Caltrops decreases... And even in the Goblin Sligh matchup, I would favor a Cursed Totem / Ensnaring Bridge combination.
Crumbling Sanctuary
An excellent sideboard card against Sligh decks - especially against the ones without artifact hate. In that case, this card theoretically means a game win. Especially against older Sligh decks that don't play artifact hate.
Cursed Scroll
Cursed Scroll is great card to destroy more nasty small critters after each other, especially those with nasty abilties like Goblin Shaman, Quirion Ranger, and of course Goblin Welder. However, it takes some time to be able to use it, since you need to lower the number of cards in your hand, and have two non-Workshop mana available. We tested this for some time against TnT.
Cursed Totem
A great card to just shut down lots of creatures being played for their abilities, like all small critters in TnT. Also worth playing against any deck with Goblin Welder, as long as you don't play them yourself. Kills Karn, Silver Golem's ability as well - but sometimes Totem is just necessary. Often you need Cursed Totem to neutralize an opponent's Karn.
Defense Grid
An excellent card to take down Blue-based Control; once the opponent lets this spell resolve, you'll probably get other threats in play. Definitely a must-counter.
Feldon's Cane
This artifact could be an option, to play sideboard or maindecked, when you expect to play a lot of long games - or maybe need to shuffle your Karn, Silver Golems back. Also, it can empty your graveyard, making opponents' Goblin Welders useless against you.
Feldon's Cane is comparable with Thran Foundry. It's questionable which card you would want to play, since Thran Foundry also lets you shuffle back nan opponent's graveyard filled with goodies, if you want. The activation cost can bother you though.
Fire Diamond
See the earlier stages of development.
Forcefield
Forcefield was (and is) an option against Psychatog decks, and especially against GAT when it still existed - but you also have Ensnaring Bridge. It usually does its work the same way as Bridge, as long as you have the mana. The only problem against Psychatog-based nowadays, is that you'll lose anyway when it gets to generate enough mana and is able to Cunning Wish for artifact destruction. Keg also does its work as a mainboard answer against Psychatogs, or the formerly-played Quirion Dryads... So Forcefield always seemed unnecessary.
Grinning Totem
It seemed nice to steal someone's Karn in the mirror, since it's a Legend and you want to get it into play first... But this is exactly the same cost as a Jester's Cap, which probably removes all of an opponents Karn's. However, Grinning Totem was never really tested; usually it's more a battle for control in the mirror, and it would be a waste of space in the sideboard to play these - especially in a time of WelderMuds, against which you have better threats to side in. The little advantage of Jester's Cap above this card is that it doubles as a great card against combo/control. But I would probably play the also"in function doubling" Null Brooch over either Totem or Cap,. For exact sideboarding, take a look at the Metagaming section.
Helm of Awakening
See the development section.
Howling Mine
See the development section.
Jester's Cap
This is one of the best cards against combo and control. Often enough it removes the only possibility to kill in these decks. In some metagames it's even really worth playing mainboard. It's quite useless against aggro, though still able to remove sided in sideboard cards.
Mind Stone
See the development section.
Mirror Universe
This could be a great card against Sligh, but the six-mana casting cost demands quite an effort - especially since Sligh can burn away your Metalworkers, and destroy your Workshops or other lands with Wastelands and Strip Mine. Also, although it's hard, opponent can burn through your life again after switching, depending on his life total. And a Sligh player has a habit of not caring about his own life total, as long as his opponent dies as soon as possible.
Mishra's Helix
Helix was played in earlier versions of Mud, though it was somewhat slow. Also, it only stops lands, while most Vintage decks also play other mana sources like Moxen. It ended up being too little effect for a too high cost.
Null Brooch
This card provides you a big change in your control matchups once this resolves. Against combo, it usually can stop some of the combo pieces. In my opinion Jester's Cap would be the better card most of the time against these types of decks, but sometimes four hate cards isn't enough.
Phyrexian Furnace
A card tested for some time - even in the main deck, since it cycles. However it had too little of an impact. Against Welders you'd better just destroy or paralyze the Welders. By the way, we thought of this card first when searching for cheap answers against Welder, but against other graveyard-abusing decks it just removed too little. It could work against the Academy Rector decks that came along after we first designed this by removing the Rector at the moment is goes to the graveyard. However, Koen and I never lost to Rector decks in tournaments.
Phyrexian Portal
One thing we missed in this deck was the option to search for specific cards. This card was one of the artifacts that came closest to what we wanted, but after some testing it proved to be not good enough. Also, it could remove your Karns.
Planar Portal
This is obviously the most direct search card between the artifacts. It is far too expensive in casting cost though. The six-mana casting cost is doable - but how are you ever going to get six mana to activate its ability? Mishra's Workshop can't be used for that; the only way is through having too much broken mana, or having a Metalworker with a few artifacts in your hand - which would be a bad thing. Those artifacts could be in play already!
Koen tested Planar Portal in his Mud version with Thran Dynamos; I passed on it form the beginning.
Rejuvenation Chamber
A card comparable to Bottle Gnomes, but instead of giving three life and providing a chump blocker, it just provides six life. The chump blocker can be important though, as for reasons explained with Bottle Gnomes, and when you just want to gain life to outrun Sligh's burn, you're better off playing Crumbling Sanctuary.
Scrying Glass
Scrying Glass forms an option against control - but not one as good as Null Brooch or Jester's Cap form. And for direct card advantage, you already play the better Grafted Skullcap. Also, against Blue-based control Defense Grid provides a better option in my opinion, because it just gets the threats in your hand into play instead of giving you more threats to get as much of as possible into play. The last option is far less controllable by you.
Static Orb
See the development section.
Serrated Arrows
A very usable card against Goblin Welder or other small creatures, with or without nasty abilities... Once you can get it into play. It can wreck Sligh as well.
Temporal Aperture
See the development section.
The Rack
The Rack was a temporary hype, which can kill in the mirror when Skullcap is in play on your opponent's side, or even because your opponent just wants to empty his hand. I played it in my sideboard in a few tournaments; first it worked, later it didn't. It was just luck, but it won me a tournament. Still, the chance for it to work is too narrow... So it was thrown out.
Thran Foundry
See Feldon's Cane.
Time Vault
The Vault is played by some Mud players; it can be a dead (or at least not a really advantageous) card, without a compatible card - but once you have a Smokestack in play, skip X turns to let the opponent sacrifice all of its permanents. Also when you have Tangle Wire in play, let the opponent have two useless turns with the Wire on four or three, and then take two useful turns yourself. These are the only two cards that would make Time Vault worth its place in the mainboard - so it's questionable, but playable.
Tormod's Crypt
Tormod's Crypt was played in the first few tournaments with Mud, sideboard. It's a very cheap card that serves the following options:
It was an option against Reanimator - but that deck died when Entomb was restricted, and you usually would win with Ensnaring Bridge anyway.
It could also stop some painful Yawgmoth's Will moves, but thus would be very limited in its use.
A third option of this card would be to make a Goblin Welder useless by removing your or opponents graveyard - but that's just a temporary stop-gap. You're better off just destroying or paralyzing Welder.
Triskelion
This card serves the same use as Serrated Arrows, although is somewhat more expensive in casting cost, but all -1/-1 counters can be placed at once and thus bigger creatures can be killed easier. Still, Arrows would probably be the better option, if Cursed Totem wasn't already superior to both.
Tsabo's Web
A cheap cantrip artifact is nice, but Tsabo's Web does too little. It would be nicer if it would always shut down Wastelands/Strip Mine - but it does so only if opponent taps them, or if you play Tsabo's Web when they're tapped. And it's even possible that Web kills your own Wastelands/Strip Mine when you need to tap them for mana before sacrificing them to use for targeted land destruction.
Worn Powerstone
Tested at the same time Thran Dynamo was - but the Dynamo is better, and even that card was kicked out. Although the Dynamo costs more to cast, it also provides more mana and doesn't come into play tapped, so it partly gives back the mana it costs to play it.
Lands:
Ancient Tomb
See the development article.
Maze of Ith
An uncounterable defense against certain creatures, however just against one creature at a time. It's usually inferior to Ensnaring Bridge, which is able to stop more creatures at once.
Mishra's Factory
This card provides an extra kill method or blocker, but both are not very useful. Directly disrupting by getting the lock into play has more priority than slow killing.
Rishadan Port
See the development article.
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