The ability to deny your opponent resources while developing them yourself is a successful and potentially powerful concept. From artifact sources of lockdown like Icy Manipulator, Winter Orb and Static Orb, to enchantment sources like Stasis and Opposition, to just plain Sorceries like Armageddon, the classic Stone Rain and Pillage. Even creatures like Desolation Angel can help along the way. Mana denial is a concept that has survived throughout the years.

With the reprinting of Opposition in 7th edition, Prison decks were quite popular during the Nationals and Worlds scene, with Mono-Blue Merfolk decks and Blue/Green decks based on Spontaneous Generation both being very popular choices. However, there was one card that stopped this strategy from being dominant - Plague Spitter. Incidentally, this happened to show up in fours in World Champion Tom van de Logt's winning Standard deck. In a field full of Opposition decks, Plague Spitter went the distance.

Now, with Masques block rotating out soon, we lose a few key elements. First and foremost, the ever-present Spontaneous Generation makes a departure. This leaves Prison decks hard-pressed to find an efficient creature generator.

The deck also loses key countermagic, including Thwart and Foil. Thwart was a very important element in Blue/Green Prison's strategy, as they would often against a control player tap out to Spontaneous Generation, and if it was met with a Counter, they would Thwart (returning three Islands to their hand) and add three more creatures to the mix. There is no free countermagic any more.

All that being said, U/G Prison is still a very viable archetype. Its worst enemy, the first-turn Plague Spitter, exists no more thanks to the lack of Dark Ritual. This means that it can control when Mr. Spitter comes into play. Of course, without Spon Gen, Prison won't be playing as many 1/1s in the first place.

So now, we're left with a deck that, in comparison to the most viable archetypes, didn't lose much. So I present to you my choice Type 2 deck of the moment.

4 Counterspell
4 Opposition
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Syncopate
3 Memory Lapse

4 Mystic Snake

4 Call of the Herd
2 Bearscape

4 Static Orb

4 Yavimaya Coast
7 Forest
13 Island

I'll now go over every card choice.

Seriously though, this deck is solid and I definitely think that we will be seeing a LOT of decks that are derivatives of this one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by meyouus:
Squirrel Prison with no squirrels huh?

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Let's just call this deck Prison then

Any Wayne: You got it, any time.

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-DA king

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BTW: where's the engine, I know the Looter is one but what about Fact or Fiction, they also give a full GY and Standstill also is good enough.

I also have a G/U Orbosition deck, maybe we can apprentice some time

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quote:

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Originally posted by *Tedman*:
Well, there she is. In recent testing, it's been doing extremely well (our own dear Wayne can attest to that).

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LOL, poor poor Wayne, getting Squirrel Beatings left and right I won't play my Army Of Darkness deck vs him anymore, so only one person can beat him Squirrel senseless.

quote:

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Originally posted by Qu@$!modo:
Finally, somebody who also thinks Bearscape is good

BTW: where's the engine, I know the Looter is one but what about Fact or Fiction, they also give a full GY and Standstill also is good enough.

I also have a G/U Orbosition deck, maybe we can apprentice some time

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