There's Nothing You Can Really Do

I lost every game I played with Prisoner. Worse: I didn't even feel hopeful when I was playing the deck. The games all felt like I was starting from a disadvantage and nothing I could do was going to even those odds nor give me an edge and the games against Fuz and stonethorn were pretty definitive in the experience they handed out to me.

That is a bad trial run.

I was talking about this run of losses to stonethorn who expressed some sympathy but I shrugged it off. I told him the following:

I think that decks have a personality of their own. If you do something to them they don't like, they'll tell you. 

And the changes I made to Prisoner? Oh, those were not liked at all.

Now, underlying cosmic forces imbuing decks with a persona of their own aside, I think that it's worth taking a look at the other mechanics here.

The core of the deck: I force all spells onto a creature that can counter the ones I don't like, doesn't mesh with the Detain mechanic.

It just doesn't. There's nothing there to get along with, aside from color. I have a soft lock that I need to maintain into a win. With the exception of Martial Law, none of the detain cards I have are repeatable. That doesn't give me enough juice to win over any deck that is even working to half strength.

It's back to the drawing board. I'm starting to think that a card like Somnophore might have a place here. With the removal spells being directed elsewhere, Blinding Angel and Somnophore can keep decks on lockdown and Martial Law can catch whatever they miss. Add in some Supreme Verdict and perhaps even Kismet to allow me to recover and I may just have what I need to win the long game.

It certainly can't be any worse than what I've been doing.