I knew I wanted a control deck in the battle box, but budget concerns (and fairness concerns) make building most of the classic control decks nigh-impossible. However, I eventually settled on an Old School version of a deck I played in various forms in the Old Extended format long before “Modern”: Artifact Prison.

Note: Because it contains Icy Manipulator, which has recently exploded in value, this deck is no longer a budget build unless, like my playgroup or like ChannelFireball (whose ruleset is compatible with sanctioned events and allows any printing), you allow reprints without the original art. As I’ve said elsewhere, the Ice Age Manipulator is one of my reasons for preferring an environment where that rule is relaxed, because I actually like the Ice Age art better! (Even though I own a playset with the original art, lucky me.) I think Icy Manipulator is a strong argument argument that the original art requirement under Eternal Central rules will become unjust and even ahistoric, as the value of a single printing is completely out of step with that of its tournament-legal printings after buyouts. I will try to provide some alternatives later for a version without Manipulators for budget constraints in EC.



The family tree of prison runs the gamut from relatively “aggressive” prisons to what I’ll call The Full Turtle. I would consider Turbo Stasis to be aggressive, believe it or not. Edwin the Magic Engineer has done some videos on his build and emphasizes its proactive nature. (I haven’t mentioned Edwin before now, but I should have since this is a budget-focused series: His budget mono-colored decks are mostly very good, so go check out his videos!) Generally it’s not looking to gain small advantages over time by playing around its own prison but to kill the helpless opponent with several Black Vices, so the Stasis is played as early as the pilot thinks they can keep playing Islands to pay for it. For The Full Turtle, my touchpoint is Parfait, a white control deck from Type 1 in the late 90s/early 2000s that used enchantments and artifacts to make all the opponent’s plays irrelevant, Land Tax and Scroll Rack as an absurd draw engine, and mopped up the cards that mattered with spot removal like Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant. But apparently Parfait doesn’t have to be a white-based deck anymore, if this build from Wak-Wak is any indication!

Stephen Menendian’s a fantastic breakdown of prison both in historic Type 1 and Old School is most definitely worth a read. He focuses exclusively on a blue-based strategy with its origins in the very first World Champion deck. I’m going to take a slightly different tack.

The essence of prison is Winter Orb and the ability to turn it off with Icy Manipulator. In that sense, once again we have a deck whose bones were in Alpha. An important piece of the puzzle comes from Legends, and Antiquities gives us the win condition I decided to use:

and mana for me, but not for thee.

A Budget(-ish) Starting Point

4 Howling Mine

4 Relic Barrier

4 Icy Manipulator (Ice Age for budget)

3 Winter Orb

1 Black Vice

2 Jayemdae Tome

2 Fellwar Stone

1 Ivory Tower

1 Meekstone

1 Sol Ring

4 Swords to Plowshares

2 Disenchant

2 Wrath of God

2 Titania’s Song

2 Avoid Fate

1 Island Sanctuary

1 Balance

1 Regrowth

4 City of Brass

4 Desert

9 Plains

3 Forest

1 Strip Mine

1 Maze of Ith

I suppose calling this a “starting point” is a little misleading — it’s basically the version I have sleeved right now:

Since this deck is more complicated than the aggro decks in the battle box, I wanted to look more closely at some of my choices before examining further options for brewing. One cool thing is that with a few changes, you can actually build this deck purely from core set (Revised and Unlimited) cards!

At a minimum, the deck is going to run multiple copies of Relic Barrier, Icy Manipulator, and Winter Orb, and usually a full playset of Howling Mine.

Although Howling Mine here is not quite as critical as in Stasis, where it’s used to ensure that you keep finding Islands to pay for the upkeep on Stasis, we’re still playing a deck with some cards that may do little to nothing on their own against some decks, so we want to filter past those and get to the more relevant stuff. You need a very good reason to run fewer than four. Sylvan Library and Land Tax are both good reasons, but of course both can strain a budget (even with recent reprints). Another good reason is if you are playing blue without a budget and can cast Transmute Artifact to find what you want instead of hoping to draw it.

Relic Barrier at first seems like it’s only good with a few of your own cards, but remember that almost every deck in the format plays Mishra’s Factory. You can tap the factory when it’s activated to save yourself some damage. Since it’s also important to be able to shut off your Howling Mines to prevent your opponent from drawing an extra card until you have them locked down, it just makes sense to me to play four Barriers. Relic Barriers are still very affordable, and they aren’t a staple in any format except Old School. They got a reprint in the new border with different art, so if your playgroup allows any printing you can probably pick them up for less than a dollar.

You can go to up or down on Winter Orbs. While they are not useful in multiples, you also want to be prepared if your opponent can destroy them. I have had a very difficult time deciding between a second and a third.

Titania’s Song is my choice for a win condition. I find it to be a fairly hilarious way to win, and sometimes it can just turn you into a beatdown deck. It kills Moxes and there’s even a combo deck, Power Monolith, that might have a tremendously hard time winning if the Song is in play. And although some people might consider this a minor concern, it seems to cause opponents less grief than waiting out several turns of Black Vice damage.

Although Jayemdae Tome isn’t as good here as it is in blue control decks, it’s still solid. The second Tome is a flexible slot, but I think one copy is important simply because it guarantees that you have five 4/4 creatures available when Titania’s Song comes down. The main reason I play a second tome is to make it easier to hit the magic number 20.

Originally I didn’t play Black Vice, but it serves several purposes here. One is that your opponent will scramble to keep their hand size down. Wrath of God becomes better against creature decks in that situation. It’s also more likely that your opponent will tap out before you play Winter Orb, and, simply by playing around your Black Vice, they play right into the Prison plan. However, in general, it can be “chip” damage throughout the game so that you don’t have to wait until you have 20+ casting cost of artifacts on the table to win with Titania’s Song. Finally, it is an answer to an opposing Ivory Tower.

The single Ivory Tower probably isn’t going to win you the game against a red deck, but, like Black Vice, it can force some less-than-optimal decisions from your opponent, and if nothing else it counters an opposing Black Vice.

Maindeck Meekstone is a concession to the battle box, which is mostly aggressive decks. It’s particularly strong against White Weenie once a Crusade is on the table if you can constrict them to one mana each turn or have Avoid Fate for their Disenchants. Zoo, Merfolk, Black Rack, and Goblins won’t as much care, since they usually have a glut of 2-power creatures, but it feels really bad to have Serendib Efreet locked down under a Meekstone, and the near-omnipresence of that creature in Old School means Meekstone does more work than you might expect.

Now we get to the colored spells. Wrath of God, Disenchant, Swords to Plowshares should need no explanation: They are the best at what they do. Titania’s Song is the namesake, and Regrowth is there for insurance. Balance is of course there to save your bacon against the most aggressive starts, although since this deck doesn’t play Moxes you aren’t doing completely unfair things with it.

Island Sanctuary has always been the “Poor Man’s Moat,” but consider how minimal the drawback is in this deck: You have Howling Mine and Jayemdae Tome to keep the cards flowing. Also considering the low casting cost and the fact that, well, you want to attack with non-flying creatures to win.

Finally: Avoid Fate. This is a card that is significantly better in old school than it was historically. Once all instances of the word “interrupt” are replaced with “instant,” the card went from basically unplayable to maindeck material in many different strategies. That’s change I can get behind! Originally this would maybe counter Control Magic and that’s it. Now it counters Disenchant, Dust to Dust, Divine Offering, Crumble, Shatter, Detonate, Steal Artifact, and more. While it can’t do anything about Shatterstorm, it handles almost every other answer you’ll see.

Lastly I have some comments about the manabase. I’ve been a little greedy, and in an environment where I expect to face 4 Strip Mines all day, I would try to get at least one more mana source in, and maybe skip the Maze of Ith for literally any other land.

Yes, that’s Desert instead of Mishra’s Factory. The main reason for its presence is that I love Desert, so into the deck it goes! In the Prison deck that can untap all its own lands, your own Mishra’s Factories would, of course, be better than your opponent’s. I’ve caught some grief on previous posts about not jamming Factories, so just to be clear: if your idea of fun isn’t the same as mine, run the objectively more powerful card.

City of Brass is used because this is a two-color deck without dual lands. Obviously Savannah is strictly better if you never plan to cast anything other than white, green, and artifact spells. However, it does give you some interesting options, where you could splash a couple off-color spells in the sideboard, particularly if you’re on a Land Tax build and can fit a basic in the ‘board. When building a budget deck, I always try to think of the best outcome for budget constraints, and a surprise Red or Blue Elemental Blast might be one of them.

Play as many Strip Mines as you believe are necessary. Most versions I’ve seen of similar strategies don’t play four. I’ve been happy enough with one or two. Not playing four is in part as a concession to this being a battle box deck, and must be balanced against decks without Moxes. (The White Weenie deck’s out to the lock is to sacrifice Ruins of Trokair to cast Disenchant on a Winter Orb, so running 3-4 Strip Mines would likely make that match hopeless.)

Here’s another unpowered version — with the Sylvan Library – Land Tax engine — from Eternal Central, which also posted a fully-powered version of Titania’s Prison here. Note that Mirror Universe and multiple Mishra’s Workshops allow the deck to be extremely aggressive with Sylvan Library, so some of the “core” cards can be trimmed. Nathan Mullen also recently placed 3rd in the Bootlegger’s Ball with a three-color fully-powered version.

Icy Manipulator with the Original Art Is No Longer Budget. What to Do?

This is a real bind for people who might want to play something similar to this deck in a tournament under the original art restriction (current EC rules). Manipulator is a unique card, and a Swiss Army Knife since it can act as a combo piece, mana denial, and battlefield control. There is certainly no direct replacement, and without it, the lock is far less secure.

One solution, I think, is to stop thinking of the deck as a prison deck and instead think of Winter Orb and Howling Mine as some early incremental advantage on time and cards. Relic Barrier is still good enough to break their symmetry, and the white battlefield control cards are still good. Once you’re a little ahead and you’ve stabilized the battlefield, Titania’s Song and some big creatures like Serra Angel will let you play out more like a midrange deck. Ivory Tower and Black Vice are easy cuts to make some room, and I’d also want to go up to four Fellwar Stones and three Winter Orbs.

A Little Bit of Matchup Analysis

I’ve played just enough matches with this deck and similar decks both in Old School and old formats to make some useful points.

First, your main opponent will sometimes be the clock. If you’re going to play this sort of deck, have a mental (or literal) checklist of your actions so that you can keep track of all your triggers and tap effects and breeze through your turns, because there will be a lot of them.

Second, prison decks are often good in a small metagame where you can choose your tools surgically. In a more open metagame, there are usually too many strategies to try to lock down, so I would say that the more diverse the metagame, the less successful any prison deck is likely to be.

Burn is your worst enemy game 1, maybe more so than “true” control decks. Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings are always available even under a Winter Orb – Icy Manipulator lock, and 8 x 3 = 24 damage. There’s not much room for taking any damage from whatever else sneaks through before the lock is in place, and with only a single Ivory Tower you can’t rely on getting it into play before they see enough bolts to kill you. You can either plan to forfeit the first game and gain a serious advantage out of the sideboard with Circle of Protection: Red, Conversion (just be careful about having the white mana to keep it in play after a Strip Mine), more Ivory Towers, and the like, or you can retune the maindeck to give up advantages against other types of aggro decks, perhaps with more maindeck Ivory Towers or even a maindeck COP: Red in place of, say, Island Sanctuary.

Against most other creature decks, even if they have artifact destruction maindeck, prison is advantaged before sideboarding. In particular, I would say that the typical Black Deck, with or without The Rack, is hugely lopsided in Prison’s favor. After sideboarding, you want to figure out how much hate they can bring in against the lockdown, and work out whether you want to diversify your effects or overload their removal and take advantage of them diluting their own threats.

“True” control decks are a tough matchup that gets tougher the more savvy your opponent is. They have Counterspells and Disenchant, and you don’t have too many cards that really matter in the end. You do have cards that they need to deal with to avoid falling behind, so it’s possible to overwhelm their countermagic and removal, and they have dead cards that deal with creatures. I would try to prioritize the core cards of Icy Manipulator, Howling Mine, and Relic Barrier, and perhaps use Titania’s Song aggressively in the midgame, especially game 1, rather than trying to lock them down. Black Vice is mostly useful as a way to encourage them to play out cards. A true control deck like The Deck doesn’t need to act first, so you aren’t going to “get them” with Winter Orb (they might not even care, since they probably have nine mana rocks), and your dead cards like Wrath of God and Meekstone will come back to bite you. After sideboard, they almost certainly get more artifact removal. You might toy with a transformation sideboard to take game 2, but they can readjust for game 3. The fact that you can play Tsunami in this version might help, and perhaps something clever can be achieved with City of Brass and Land Tax: Maybe Blood Moon. There are some matchups where I shrug and figure it’s just too hard to win with an unpowered goofy deck like this, so I will lose gracefully and move on.

Other Cards Worth Considering

Given the depth of artifact options in Old School, my consideration list was much longer than usual. Here are some that jump out at me. I won’t waste time discussing Power cards — just remember that Titania’s Song destroys Moxes, so consider whether you want to use the card aggressively before you put in a full set of jewelry.

Candelabra of Tawnos pops up once in a while in Prison decks, and under EC rules their presence might be a little mysterious, since you might get a little mana fixing out of them or untap some lands using a Sol Ring or Fellwar Stone while under a Winter Orb, or maybe you get an extra pump effect out of a Mishra’s Factory. However, Swedish Rules allow multiple Maze of Ith, and with only a single Strip Mine to worry about, the Mazes are much more likely to stick around. In that case, Candelabra can also become a form of creature control! Is it good? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s certainly a neat use for Candelabras outside of a combo deck if you happen to have them on hand.

City in a Bottle: If you aren’t playing City of Brass and Desert, this hits nothing in your deck and becomes a 3/3 at the end of the game after it’s done its job. They’re murderously expensive now for such a niche card, but of course you might just have them already …

Disrupting Scepter can be decent if you’re solidly off the Black Vice plan, and you’re always planning on tapping your own Howling Mine. I need to test that version more to pass judgment on it, but my initial assessment is that without Mind Twist in the deck, unless you have multiple Scepters, even if your opponent is locked under a Winter Orb, you’re never getting their entire hand, and if they are locked under the Orb, the Scepter isn’t helping. But it’s still an option, particularly in a mono-colored build.

The Hive is solid, and it’s kind of fun to win with Giant Wasp tokens, but it can be awkward to generate 5 mana each turn. It’s a card you don’t want until very late in the game, but once it’s very late in the game you might be more inclined to simply drop Titania’s Song rather than make a wasp. I would, however, strongly consider it if I expected to see multiple Moats.

Jade Statue: Four mana is a lot, but the activation cost is low, and it blocks almost any ground creature in the format and lives. It can get in for some damage, and once Titania’s Song comes down, it’s a 4/4. It’s got a quote from Norin the Wary on it, and a goofy bit of art. I chose to go completely creatureless in my version, but this is a good piece to have available, and it’s cheap for an Unlimited card, too.

Land Tax is just a solid card and easily worth a single slot. It makes Sylvan Library absurd and Ivory Tower much better. The trick is finding room for it; the most likely candidates for removal are a Black Vice or the Meekstone. There is some tension in that you really want to hit four mana, so it’s no quite as strong here as it is in White Weenie (for instance) or in a version with more mana rocks. There is a fun mini-combo with Rainbow Vale as well.

Millstone used to be a common alternative win condition forprison decks, but it’s fallen out of favor even in Old School. It’s only two mana, so it’s reasonable against control decks. Some control players might consider it a “must disenchant,” while others might have Regrowth or Recall already in hand (or Demonic Tutor to find one of them), and will thank you for filling up their Graveyard with goodies turn after turn. What I’m trying to say is, if I were playing control, I probably wouldn’t be too worried if my opponent played a Millstone, and given that assessment, I’m not sure it’s the tool I’d want here to help with that particularly difficult matchup.

Mirror Universe: Play if if you’ve got it. Particularly if you’re on a Sylvan Library build. Or just attack people with a 6/6! It’s likely that a single copy of a 6-mana card won’t quite shore up the deck’s worst matchup (red aggro), and you still need a way to win after you’ve swapped life totals, so perhaps this is the least abusive way to run Mirror Universe.

Mishra’s Factory: I don’t think I even need to put this on a “worth considering” list, since you usually want an excuse not to play them. I’ve already addressed that this is almost certainly the correct call over Desert, so a more serious version would probably play them. Note that if you have the dual lands to replace the Cities of Brass as well, you can consider playing City in a Bottle maindeck (if you have them).

People who have been playing Vintage for a very long time might already have a Mishra’s Workshop or few. It’s easy to put in a couple of them if you have them. Unlike MUD, you won’t want four, as you still need colored mana to cast your spells.

Moat is a classic control card, but I would reserve it for a version that didn’t want to run Mishra’s Factory or Titania’s Song. Since I wanted to attack people with Icy Manipulators, I wouldn’t run it even if I still had one.

Ring of Renewal: In any situation where you’re hellbent (no cards in hand, for those unfamiliar with the newfangled keywords), it simply says “Draw two cards.” While I’d probably never want more than one, this is a fun alternative to Jayemdae Tome.

Serra Angel is worth considering as a singleton or pair in the main deck. The logic is similar to why The Deck ran her in small numbers: It plays offense and defense, and your opponent either has dead cards. I almost always run it in the sideboard, but the decks it comes in against are typically those that have an easy time with artifacts and a hard time with larger creatures.

Sylvan Library should always be on your radar. I had one in the deck but generally found that it was very hard to cast early without dual lands, and if I made it to the late game I didn’t need it anymore, since I was just building up the battlefield in preparation for casting Titania’s Song. If you can meet the colored mana requirements, or if you’re on a Land Tax build, you definitely want this.

The Tabernacle at Pendral Vale, if you are lucky enough to own one, is clearly a beating against creature decks when you have Winter Orb. Even a single one could probably replace multiple cards in the deck. However, it’s a card that helps against good matchups, and Strip Mine still takes care of it, so I wouldn’t even rush to proxy it.

Weakstone is another anti-aggro card, and another large beatstick once Song is down. If you see mostly small creatures, or White Weenie decks without Crusade, this might be a good option over Meakstone or even Wrath of God.

The art is also super weird, which might be a good reason to play it.

Going Off the Rails

I’ve posted a turtle-y Prison list, but I mentioned that some prisons are more aggressive. What might such a list look like? First, you could play more creatures instead of cards like Wrath of God and Island Santuary, and use Titania’s Song as a midgame drop with the assurance that dropping many 4/4 or 5/5 colorless creatures might just be good enough after getting a little ahead on cards. If they deal with your Song, then fine, you just go back to stalling until you draw another. Such a list might feel more like an ErhnamGeddon list, but with the strategy flipped: Instead of casting Armageddon to reset to the early game, you keep things locked in the early game from the outset and cast Song to end things very quickly.

There are certainly other types of decks that use Titania’s Song purely as a hoser, to murder moxes and turn off any value artifacts an opponent is playing. That’s a bit too far off from any sort of prison list, though, to merit discussion here.

This is also, of course, the option of adding, changing, or removing colors, depending on the lands in your collection. Fireball is never a terrible way to win, particularly if you’re on Mirror Universe, and a red version gives you Earthquake in place of Wrath of God, Blood Moon, and Red Elemental Blast to make the control matchup less miserable. If you have the blue dual lands, you probably want to look at the blue-based strategies in Menedian’s article (linked in the intro). Blue also gives you access to Copy Artifact, which is certainly a fun addition.

An even weirder Titania’s Song deck with some prison elements is this Dingus Egg (friggin’ Dingus Egg!) list from All Tings Considered.

Sideboarding

If you’ve read my other entries in this series, you have probably noticed that I avoid giving sideboards. I did discuss options a little in the cursory “Matchup Analysis” section above, but I want to stress that this deck was mainly built to go in a battle box with other decks of relatively equal strengths for games where sideboarding is unlikely. Certainly if you’re playing at the bar or kitchen table with friends, sideboarding might not be your idea of fun. That said, I would reserve a couple cards to deal with burn, and then make a choice about whether I want to give up entirely on the control matchup, include a transformation (with as many as 12 creatures in the side), or perhaps go whole-hog on Titania’s Songs and a little extra artifact removal (and just play as a beatdown deck).

Hopefully this gave some ideas to brew up your own version of a Titania’s Song or artifact prison deck.