by Johnny Cycles, February 5th, 2024
Welcome to my second spoiler article about Murders at Karlov Manor. Today I’ll be discussing the cards from Magic’s latest set that should, could, and might could be played in my Mono Blue Control deck. Before getting to the new cards, here’s the deck as it currently is:
Decklist – Mono Blue control with Urza, Lord High Artificer
| Urza, Lord High Artificer |
Creatures (9)
| Snapcaster Mage | |
| Cemetery Illuminator | |
| Spellseeker | |
| Consecrated Sphinx | |
| Torrential Gearhulk | |
| Hullbreaker Horror | |
| Scourge of Fleets | |
| Stormtide Leviathan | |
| Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger |
Planeswalkers (11)
Artifacts (13)
| Chrome Mox | |
| Mana Crypt | |
| Mishra’s Bauble | |
| Mox Opal | |
| Commander’s Plate | |
| Expedition Map | |
| Relic of Progenitus | |
| Shadowspear | |
| Soul-Guide Lantern | |
| Pithing Needle | |
| Sapphire Medallion |
| Coalition Relic | |
| The One Ring |
Enchantments (7)
| Frogify | |
| Search for Azcanta | |
| Imprisoned in the Moon | |
| Propaganda | |
| Rhystic Study | |
| Frozen Aether | |
| Shark Typhoon |
Instants (17)
| Brainstorm | |
| Mystical Tutor | |
| Counterspell | |
| Cyclonic Rift | |
| Mana Drain | |
| Archmage’s Charm | |
| Disallow | |
| Dissipate | |
| Fierce Guardianship | |
| Force of Negation | |
| Aetherize |
| Cryptic Command | |
| Aetherspouts | |
| Desertion | |
| Force of Will | |
| Spell Swindle | |
| Mystic Confluence |
Sorceries (5) with 1 mfdc
| Ponder | |
| Preordain | |
| Lórien Revealed | |
| River’s Rebuke | |
| Sea Gate Restoration |
Lands (39) with 1 mfdc
Academy Ruins
Fabled Passage
Flooded Strand
Ghost Quarter
Maze of Ith
Misty Rainforest
Mystic Sanctuary
Polluted Delta
Reliquary Tower
Rishadan Port
Rivendell
Scalding Tarn
Strip Mine
Urza’s Saga
Wasteland
Island (22)
Should Be Included
Lost in the Maze
What a fantastic addition to our deck! This card does so much beyond a cursory reading of it. First, and most obvious, it gives us another way to stall our opponent, make our land drops, find more answers, and turn the corner from surviving to thriving. Sure, it’s not a bounce spell, but the stun counters buy us 2 turns, which will often be enough.
Second, this card doubles as a protection spell against targeted removal. Since our tapped creatures have hexproof, we can cast this in response to Swords to Plowshares or Terror or whatever targeted removal our opponent has. Fizzling a spell this way can be the difference between winning and losing.
Finally, and most sneakily, this card, while having flash, is an enchantment! That means all of our tapped creatures for the rest of the game have hexproof! And you know who lets us tap our artifact creatures at instant speed? That’s right, Urza, Lord High Artificer. With Lost in the Maze and our commander out, our Constructs will effectively always have hexproof.
Without both halves of the text on this card, Lost in the Maze would probably be in the Could Be Included section. As is, I think it’s a super powerful addition that does something for our deck none of our other cards do.
Could Be Included
Intrude on the Mind
The big appeal of this card is the creature we get at instant speed. Blue has lots of ways to draw cards and another worse Fact or Fiction is not where we want to be at. However, creating a flying chump blocker to protect a Planeswalker while also drawing some cards makes this an interesting possibility for our deck. If the creature we got was a Construct, this card would be in the Should Be Included section. I see this card having more of a home in a Control shell with a different commander at the helm, or in an Izzet deck that cares about Thopter tokens or artifacts in general (decks running Pia and Kiran Nalaar, for example).
Might Could Be Included
Case of the Ransacked Lab
I think in evaluating the Case as a card type, we should judge its playability solely on the unsolved portion of the card. There will be some exceptions, but, in general, if the mana investment isn’t worth the ability we get from the first part of the Case, I don’t think it’s playable.
Here are some analogs for Case of the Ransacked Lab. For more we get half of Baral, Chief of Compliance on a more difficult-to-deal-with permanent type. For less, we get the same effect as Primal Amulet. Arcane Melee is on another level, both in cost reduction and mana cost, but I’m including it as a frame of reference.
Now, let’s talk about potential. Solving the Case is obviously extremely powerful and strictly better than the other half of Baral, Chief of Compliance. Is it better than a flipped Primal Amulet? Maybe. The real question is, how likely are we to solve the Case in our current build. I think it’s unlikely to be honest. I think this card has a home in a Spell Slinger deck, but not in ours, where we aren’t looking to chain together a bunch of cheap cantrips. If we do have a turn where we cast 4 instants or sorceries, we’re probably already winning or about to.
Reenact the Crime
If we based our choices on flavor alone, this card would be an auto-include! And this is no doubt a powerful effect in the right spot. In some cases, it’ll function as a counter spell or bounce spell, in so much as it can give us a copy of a Planeswalker our opponent managed to kill. In other cases, we’ll make a copy of our opponent’s best permanent enroute to fizzling a reanimation effect.
However, seeing as we play no hard removal to put permanents in the yard, our mostly likely use of this will be to target something we have countered. That’s a lot of mana. And a lot of Blue mana. Sure, in the late game, we should be snagging one of our opponent’s best spells in this scenario, but, more often than not, I see us wishing this was a counter spell or bounce spell so as not to die, or realizing we can win without it.
Sad face. I love this card.
Conclusion
That’s all the cards from Murders at Karlov Manor that I think are relevant for our Mono Blue Control deck with Urza, Lord High Artificer. Per usual, the hard part still awaits: finding room for the new hotnesses! At least we only need to find one card to cut.
Thanks for watching and reading! What cards from Murders at Karlov Manor are you most excited about? Which ones do you think should be in this deck? Let me know in the comments!
