[Developing] U/W Venser Control

[mtg_girl]

okay... i'm wondering if this idea can work in the hands of a better deckbuilder.

the main idea is to stall, until you get venser online with a mnemonic wall. once that happens, you can bounce the wall forever, getting you a silence (or condemn, worst case scenario)

so this would give you a permanent silence lock

so venser is combo piece and win-condition. after you lock them out for a few turns, you use venser's ultimate. any potential here? this list i'm posting obviously needs work or maybe even changed completely.

the basic idea seems good on paper. i mean, everything in your deck can revolve around "turtling" and surviving.

Deck
// Lands 4 Glacial Fortress 3 Tectonic Edge 7 Plains 7 Island 4 Seachrome Coast // Creatures 4 Wall of Omens 4 Mnemonic Wall 4 Kor Hookmaster 4 AEther Adept	// Spells 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Silence 4 Venser, the Sojourner 2 Jace Beleren 4 Condemn 2 Everflowing Chalice

other cards to consider.... mana leak, frost titan, day of judgement, more spot removal, more ramp, call to mind?

[surian]

Any of the Proliferate cards could help you get Venser's ultimate off quicker, plus you could recur some of them with Mnemonic wall.

Ratchet bomb + Sun titan + Venser's +1 is always a good combo to deal with some of the agro you might come up against.

Chalices are a good idea since you can use them to ramp into Venser or the Mnemonic wall; they also work well with Trinket mage as a tutor.

You might think about Elspeth 2.0 as well. Once you get her ultimate off and start to get the Mnemonic wall + Venser + Silence lock going it would be game over.

[MyBlackPlague]

Hmm really cool. And ugh...dont run Elspeth 2.0 (bad card, seriously, okay just overated), are looking to blow up all of your combo pieces? Chalice is not a great idea because your tapping out to play them, so your blue spells cant react to that and white has no spell that merits ramping into to play it early, like Martial Coup for instance.

-4 Hookmaster + 4 Day of Judgement, the lockdown is useless if your staring down resovle threats/creature artifact making things
- Everflowing Chalice has no synergy anywhere, you dont need to ramp, this isnt tap out for Martial Coup or Iona, Shield of Emria, add +1 Land to get to 26, drop those lands and play Venser turn 5 anyway. You dont need to cheat him in early.
+Mana Leaks somewhere Dispelfor Silence backup, this could be SBD stuff. Mana Leak main deck would be good. I'd go -1 Venser - 2 Chalice - 1 Jace 1.0
- Jace Beleren, used as an anti Jace 2.0 nuke?, i say run more Negates or counters instead, more flexible. Or +1 Jace 2.0 and + Mana Leak
-No need for Call to Mind, Memonic Wall is the combo
- Aether Adepts im not so sure, i like Into the Roil for its flexibility. I know all of these are good bounce combos but what if Koth resvoles, what if they have a haste creature etc...
- I would run 3 Venser. He has one (ultimate) purpose, Memonic Wall/Silence (and its a great combo), so having one constantly in your opening hand is bad. You have to find the pieces but more importantly control the board before you play him. Like the Pyro Ascention deck, you combo off the graveyard. Your looking to combo off late game because you have 2 5 mana cards you need to protect.

Okay i'll make my own, luckily my friend cracked some Vensers, this will be awsome.

Lands

Deck
4 Glacial Fortress 4 Celestial Colonade 3 Tectonic Edge 7 Plains 8 Island Creatures 3 Wall of Omens 4 Mnemonic Wall Spells 4 Silence 2 Condemn 4 Mana Leak 2 Negate 1 Turn Aside 2 Into the Roil 2 Jaces Ingeunity	3 Day of Judgment 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Venser, the Sojourner	Sideboard 2 Dispel 2 Negate 4 Flashfreeze 1 Day of Judgment 4 Journey to Nowhere 2 other cards

Here is how i see it playing out ---

- Liberal use of Silence to control the tempo of the game. Use it early to stop creature threats, this will make up for your lack of instant speed removal. Use Wall of Omen/Mana Leaks/Silence early, control the pace of the game. Use Day of Judgment mid game. Get your combo pieces into play, protect with negates/turn aside, then use your graveyard as a toolbox too lock down. Sideboard in Dispel/Negate against control, Flashfreezes against Ramp/Red Anything, +1 Day of Judgement against aggro, Journey against Vengvine/Titan like creatures.

Other comments ---

- Dont worry about Day of Judgment nuking your own wall. Venser exile it, mainphase nuke their dudes, then reutrn it EoT! So friggin cool....sooo sooo good, so very cool, well done ma'am(?). I can acutally respect U/W depsite my hatred for it! In my eyes you've made a White deck cool/interesting... without o-ring or path to exile!

- I wouldnt worry about much instant speed removal, control is meant to take damage and with the abilitly to lockdown/use DoJ every turn mid game you'll be very stable. I wouldnt run Condemn as a 4 of to replace path to exile. It can't deal with Fanua Shama/activated abilities so i dont bother with it. Day should be your creature answer.

- One problem i foresee will be keeping your Wall alive game 2 when they realise what's going to happen. Turn Aside (not stoic rebuttle) is good Dispel it depends on the deck your facing, Negate it costs 2 mana meaning your pretty delayed if you want to protect it. I still dont think Chalice ramp is worth the slots but in light of this it might be considered, the ramp is not to get in early but to have enough open for protection.

-Perhaps Khalni Gem, because it leaves counter magic open, mana fixes, ramps the turn after and lets you have enough to play the wall and back it up, which you would otherwise surely tap out to play Everflowing Chalice

[supermoo9999]

No Day of Judgment? Seems like an auto-include (especially with Mnemonic Wall recursion). Just bounce Wall, then nuke your opponent's dudes (and maybe a Wall of Omens, but oh well.) As mentioned, both Sun and Frost Titans also seem potentially excellent here, as well as Elspeth Tirel. And can't be in white without mentioning Baneslayer Angel. Preordain is an early option to filter for your combo pieces.

Sample decklist:

Deck
Spells 4 Preordain 4 Silence 2 See Beyond 4 Day of Judgment Artifacts 2 Everflowing Chalice Creatures 4 Wall of Omens 4 Mnemonic Wall 3 Baneslayer Angel	Planeswalkers 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Elspeth Tirel 4 Venser, the Sojourner Lands- some amalgam of 25 here

Edit: Agree with Plague, counterspells would be nice for early-game and protection. Actually pretty much all of his(?) post hits the nail on the head.

Edit2: This deck makes me want to play Standard. Here's hoping Venser tanks in price so I can pick him up for $10. And lol, meant Venser, the Sojourner, not Venser, Shaper Savant >.<

[mtg_girl]

oh so if you zap wall with venser, you're free to wrath.. good call!

and good call on dispel, to protect your walls, etc. would dispel or turn aside be better?

i'll try out everything you guys suggested.

also, more sorceries/instants could be included, because at the very least, if you're getting back say, a condemn every single turn, and adding +2 to venser to boot, that's gotta be pretty good

[Xover]

MTG girl weren't you the one complaining about control decks the other day. anyways

My friend has a Venser deck abusing Mnemonic Wall + Silence + Venser, as well as other control staples

His only creatures are the walls and Sun titan. He has 10 counters in the deck as well as 2 Jace, The mindsculptor, 2 Gideon's, 2 Venser, and 1 elspeth. Runs 4 board wipes and runs condemns and Arrest. It is a pain in the ass to play against. Basically if he gets venser and Mnemonic wall on the field he goes nuts. Every turn getting his Silence or DOJ's out, and basically just locking me down the hole game. He beats face with sun titan, Celestial Colonade, and gideon and can reliably get Jace to his ultimate.

[supermoo9999]

Ooh, Arrest is nice with Sun Titan. Thanks for the info, Xover.

Dang, Gideon Jura is good in here, too. 60-cardslot syndrome...

[DannyG]

sounds like this deck could be very competitive. i will make up a list and post

[barcafan95]

turn aside main deck not a perfect lock but it can counter your opp trying to destroy the combo

[Aitrus]

Too convoluted to be effective.

A 3 card combo that is a soft lock and requires immense amounts of protection is not efficient.

liliana's spectre + mimic vat is a 2 card similar lock, way easier to pull off and probably more reliable.

Your combo requires:

a 5cc otherwise-unplayable wall.
a 5cc mediocre planeswalker
a 1cc terrible spell

Not that there isn't synergy between the 3, but if you only get 2 of your 3 pieces your deck is just going to be very bad. And two of your pieces require 5 mana, meaning you will need 7 mana just to protect it with a mana leak.

[MyBlackPlague]

Deck
4 Glacial Fortress 3 Celestial Colonade 3 Tectonic Edge 7 Plains 9 Island Creatures 4 Wall of Omens 3 Mnemonic Wall Spells 4 Silence 2 Into the Roil 4 Mana Leak 2 Negate 2 Cancel	2 Foresee 4 Day of Judgment 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Venser, the Sojourner	Sideboard Dispel Negate Flashfreeze Celestial Purge working on it

This is the deck at current.

-3 Vensser, 3 Wall because in testing 2 was to few. Memonic Wall is okay at 3 anyhow because its a good utility.
- Foresee added for combo digging
-4 Jace because i)hes a fat distraction ii)harder to remove now iii)at worst he is brainstorm for 4 and he eats some of their cards away
-Still no ramp, still debating it, still undecided wether to include or not, but definatly not Khalni Garden it messes with Tempo to much and more artifact removal is likely so
-Took a more permission route, got to see if minimal creatures works.
- Silence is such a fun annoying card to use btw, getting two in hand or drawing into them one after the other is gold

No major testing done yet, mostly fishbowl, drawing and a only a few basic games v causal decks. Will let yall know how it goes.

Sure its convulted but Venser can do lots of stuff. More Tokkens for Triskeleon, Frost Titan tap down, any enter the battlefield effects. Its worth exploring, this is the current form.

[faith_star83]

I really like the deck idea, mostly because I really like Venser.

I tested the deck a little bit against some casual decks. Well, once Venser and the Mnemonic Wall are out I could stall my opponent completely with silence recursion and it was easy to pull off venser's ultimate.
Also with the DOJ I was equipped against flyers and other suff. But since the deck is quite mana intensive I felt the need for everflowing chalice to speed things up.

As for the finisher: I didn't play arrest so I preferred BSA over SunTitan but I think the idea intriguing to focus more on removal using arrest and SunTitan and recurse those two with Venser's first ability.

[Sayokyoku]

I think this deck has some potential. I'm currently testing the following:

Deck
Lands: 24 7 Island 6 Plains 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Tectonic Edge Creatures: 7 4 Mnemonic Wall 3 Wall of Omens Other Spells: 29 4 Into the Roil 4 Mana Leak 4 Negate 4 Silence 3 Day of Judgment 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Venser, the Sojourner 2 Gideon Jura 2 Jace's Ingenuity	Sideboard: 15 4 Flashfreeze 4 Ratchet Bomb 3 Baneslayer Angel 3 Revoke Existence 1 Day of Judgment

[MyBlackPlague]

Originally Posted by Sayokyoku

I think this deck has some potential. I'm currently testing the following:

You want 4 WoO not 4 Memonic, WoO stops some of the early aggro shenanigans and smooths out draw. Memonic is combo and very expensive to cast.

[Sayokyoku]

I actually hold off aggro quite well already, although it's true that more Omens won't hurt. Thanks.