M:tG: The Brewhaus (RTR/THS) - Commander deck == link only!

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YeehawMcKickass: Jan 2, 2003; WE WELCOME THE OPPRESSORS

Welcome to Year Three of the Brewhaus! Now with the DON�T POST YOUR ENTIRE COMMANDER LIST IN THE loving THREAD rule in the title. Year two went really well, with lots of discussion on standard stuff and the invention of the Breakfast Burrito. The biggest problem we�ve run into --as you can probably guess-- has been a rash of people ignoring the Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH DECKS rule. Complete Commander lists are annoying to scroll past, just post a link to the list or a MODO screenshot if it�s online.

Click here to go to the Main Discussion Thread! Headed by BJPaskoff
Click here to go to the Limited Thread! Headed by Vanilla Bison
Click here to go to the Eternal Formats Thread!

Some important things to note before you post your deck:

DO include what you're building your deck for, be it casual, FNM, or a Grand Prix. Also, mention if this is for a specific format (Standard, Extended, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Commander, Pauper, Theme Deck, etc.).
DO mention if your deck has a budget associated with it.
DO READ THIS ARTICLE BY CONLEY WOODS! Your deck and some of your choices are going to be questioned, and you're likely to feel insulted. We're not out to hurt your feelings and make you go all on us. Even some of the best deck builders get their work blown up by other people. You might even be ignored, don't take it personally.
If you're searching online for cards, I can't recommend using Wizard's website, Gatherer. It tends to be slow and difficult to use. Magiccards.info is a better bet.
For Sixty-Card constructed decks, please try to use deckstats or tappedout's deck building tools, and use the full embed code if you can.
For Commander/EDH decks, use only a link to deckstats/tappedout. If your deck is on MODO, go ahead and give us a screen shot of it.

I can�t repeat this enough (and I�m going to repeat this all over this post) use only a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH DECKS.

Enough with the notes, on to some of the deck building basics.

Before you build:

Decide what your deck's win condition or conditions will be. Try to have a plan B when you can.
Decide how your deck will achieve that goal.
For competitive play, never exceed the 60-card minimum (99+general in commander).
Don't be afraid to net deck. It's not a bad thing. If there's a pre existing deck out there that does what you want to do, feel free to copy it. It's likely going to be optimized already. Star City Games keeps a list of all of the top decks from its events, as does Wizards in their event section.
If you don't want to build a pre-existing deck but want to use its archetype, still view the deck lists. That will provide an excellent starting point to build your mana base. This is the start of what's called, "Going Rouge".
Speaking of the Internet, consider using one of the deck building tools out there, such as https://www.deckstats.net and https://www.tappedout.net. Also, use something like magiccards.info to search out cards you may want to use. See the second post of the main discussion thread for more online resources.

Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH Decks

Now that I've mentioned them...

Deck Archetypes

Aggressive; Hit them hard and fast. If you haven't won by turn four or five, you've probably already lost. Historically, these are Red, Green, and Black; but can exist in all colors. Examples include Red Deck Wins. Pure aggro decks tend to have low amounts of land, sometimes as few as 19-20 and rarely have utility lands.
Stompy: Rides the border of Aggro and Midrange. Usually appears to be an aggro shell with buffs. Examples would be SOM/INN R/G Aggro (because of swords buffs and having a bit of a late game) and Tempered Steel. Land count in Stompy decks tend to hover in the 21-23 range, sometimes include a couple of utility lands, and will often include some Ramp elements (usually mana producing creatures).
Midrange: A variable type of deck that can play the aggro role against control, or the control rol against aggro. Jund circa ALA/ZEN standard is a good recent example of midrange. Land count for midrange decks tends to hang in the 22-25 area with a decent amount of utility lands.
Control: Built to take the game long and outlast an opponent, usually through mass removal, card advantage and counter spells. This type of deck usually runs few actual threats. Historically, these decks are Blue based with White or Black. Caw-blade and The Deck are examples of control. Control decks will run 25+ lands, and will include numerous utility lands.
Tempo-Control: This deck type blurs the line between Aggro and control by using tempo cards like Vapor Snag and other unsummon variants along with small, evasive beaters and other value cards to control the game. Recent examples being Caw-Blade from ZEN/SOM and Delver from SOM/INN
Ramp: Decks built to hit a certain point on their mana curve as fast a possible (ramping up through land search or mana producing creatures) then crushing their opposition before they can react to their massive threats. This archetype can suffer with out of order draws, (not drawing land search sorceries or mana producing creatures early, etc.) but tends the be extremely explosive. Valakut decks in late ALA/Zen and early ZEN/SOM and the various Wolf Run variants from SOM/INN are examples. Very rarely do Ramp decks run less than 25 lands, with upwards of 28 not being unheard of.
Combo: While combo isn't hugely prevalent in standard, it's quite frequent in modern, legacy, and vintage. These decks are generally non-interactive, and sometimes do nothing, until they go and win in one fell swoop. Examples inclue thopter/depths (which could generate a 20/20 flying indestructible on turn two), hive mind, and the first major combo Channel/Fireball.

Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH Decks

Next up, Building!

While you build:

Remember that consistent decks with a clear plan to victory (and a backup plan) win the most.
Mono-colored or two-colored decks tend to be the most consistent and least vulnerable to disruption. You can fan out to a third if the format's mana base allows it (RTR/THS manabases aren�t expected to be able to support three color aggro decks, true control seems to be likely if a bit shaky.)
You generally want somewhere around 22 to 26 lands in your deck, depending on format or archetype. Your Mana Base should generally skew similar to the amount of colored mana in your spells. More on this after this list.
Give this article by Alexander Shearer a read and check out the spreadsheet.
Be mindful of your Mana Curve. As an example, if you're playing an aggressive deck with the goal of simply going at your opponent, your mana curve should terminate at a converted mana cost of NO HIGHER than four and the majority of your spells hovering around the CMC 2 range. There's no hard and fast rule for what a mana curve should look like. This is the 2010 Worlds top standard deck, note that the mana curve has a huge amount of things to do at CMC 1 and 2

I can't stress enough how much you have to consider your mana base. Click here to see a list of all the lands available in Standard as of Theros
Your main breakdowns on the lands:
Basic Lands: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountian, Forest.

Shocklands (Blood Crypt, Temple Garden, Breeding Pool, etc): Typed Duals that enter the land tapped unless you pay two life (Shocking yourself).

Temples: Duals that enter the field tapped, upon entry, you get to Scry 1 (look at the top card of your library and choose to keep it there or put it on the bottom of your library) In Theros, these cards match the colors of the Shocklands released in Gatecrash. We�ll get the Return to Ravinaca colors through the rest of the Theros block.

Guildgates (Azorious, Orzhov, Boros, etc.): These operate similar to Shocklands, but give you no option to have them enter untapped, are typed gate, and have some interactions with a few other things.

Maze�s End: The most prominent of the cards that cares about Gates. This is the win condition in the deck of the same name.

Grove of the Guardian: Generally isn�t incredible, but when you need a huge dude, you need a huge dude.

Mutavault: The only available manland in the format, an absolute all star of a card.

Shimmering Grotto and Unknown Shores: These are purely around to fix your mana, primarily in limited.

Transguild Promenade: Another land used primarily in limited. It�s not a very good option for constructed.

Thespian�s Stage: You should be running this in Commander/EDH

Rouge�s Passage: An odd utility land that tends to be too slow to be useful in standard. It�s good fun in casual and limited.

Encroaching Wastes: Relatively weak in terms of non-basic land destruction, but the only land based way to do so in standard.

Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH Decks

After it's built:

Test it out a little bit! You can even use the hand generators on deckstats.net to get a feel for what kind of opening hands you're going to run into. Goldfishing (solitare play) helps as well, but if you have friends or Magic Online, go to it.
If the deck seems like it might have some merit, post it here! Use the deckstats.net or tappedout.net builders. (I recommend deckstats, as it will give you the proper BB code with links to individual cards on magiccards.info as well as all the mana curve data and even pricing.)
Take the advice you get here, and make your first tweak. Only change one thing about a deck at a time so you understand the changes you've made function in relation to your deck's previous incarnation.
Test it out again! Then continue to make your changes.
Play your deck against every kind of deck you can. If you're going to a tournament, build a gauntlet of expected decks and play as many games as possible against those decks.
Don't forget your sideboard!
And don't forget to play post-sideboarded games!

One other thing to note when you're building your deck is that there's a good chance you're going to have a "pet card" you want to try to shoehorn into every deck you build. For Conley Woods and myself, it's Acidic Slime. Be aware of this card and make absolutely SURE it fits into your deck.

Alternatively, the OP of this MTG Salvation thread does an excelent job of going over all of this.

Some questions you may ask:

Can I post the full list of my Commander/EDH deck?
Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH Decks
DON�T POST FULL LISTS OF COMMANDER/EDH DECKS
Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH Decks

How many of each card do I want in my deck?
Here's a good way of looking at it (this excludes basic lands):
Four of a specific card: I want this card in my opening hand and/or want to see as many copies of it as possible (Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel)
Three of a specific card: Having this in my opening hand isn't bad, but I generally only want to see one or two copies of it during the course of a game (Legendary Creatures, Planeswalkers)
Two of a specific card: I'd like to see this card on occasion, but never really want it in my opening hand.
One of a specific card: I NEVER want to see more than one of this card or something I'll be searching for with a tutor effect or drawing through massive amounts of draw. (Singletons are often a deck win condition in vintage or legacy, and frequently a win condition in a combo deck.)

Why does my deck keep getting slaughtered by this other type of deck?
Your deck may have an inherent weakness to that deck. As an example, a creature ramp deck can be stalled out horribly by a mono-red burn deck. A deck with no flyers can be completely out of luck if your opponent drops a large flyer like a Baneslayer Angel. That mono-red burn deck has a huge weakness to life gain and shroud/hexproof creatures. You have three options to deal with this. First, you can make main deck changes. Second, you can dedicate slots in your sideboard to shore up this match. Third, you can just accept that your deck is bad against that type of deck.

What's a sideboard?
That's 15 extra cards you can use to modify your deck between games in a tournament. You can use this to solidify your deck against a bad match up, or transform your deck into something else. It's a good idea to consider your sideboard options in parallel to your main 60.

How do I tune my deck for my local metagame, what about my sideboard?
Well, thats a bit of a doozy and specialized. You'd need to tell us what your expected metagame is, then we can help you.

I'm running a Mono-color deck and would like to include Fetch Lands for deck thinning. Is this a good idea?
The short answer is No. The long answer is, "for purely deck thinning purposes, it's not a good idea since the life cost for the deck thinning effect is too high." That said, there are OTHER reasons to use Fetch lands in any kind of deck.
A. You need lands in the graveyard for something
2. You need a shuffle effect (for ponder, brainstorm, other things that require certain cards on top)
D. Landfall triggers (from Zendikar and Worldwake)
eff. Mana Fixing in multi-color decks.

I want to build a mill de--
Stop right there. There's something you need to know about Mill decks. Outside of limited, there's only ever been ONE time a Mill deck has been constructed tournament competitive, and that was only because the metagame had developed into numerous slow decks. Mill decks are essentially slow burn decks, but instead of having to do 20 damage to your opponent, you have to do somewhere around FIFTY THREE DAMAGE while simultaneously trying to ignore you dwindling life total. If you want to build one, have fun, but you're going to be at a disadvantage outside of a casual FNM.

Why did you rip my awesome deck to shreds? It was the best thing in the world! You have no idea what you're talking about!
While there's a decent chance that someone commenting on your deck may not have the best deck building sense (including me), the same holds true for you. Also, I warned you this would happen, and even gave you this link earlier. Put your ego aside, we're trying to help.

Hay guyz! I just got given a bunch of new cards from someone and I want to post my deck list. Should I do it?"
JerryLee put it pretty succinctly in the first thread, but I'll sum it up here: Probably not. If your card pool is really tiny what you can put together isn't going to be of much interest to us, and you're likely to be ignored. If you want to list out a fully fleshed out deck (include cards you want to acquire for it) BASED ON what you currently have, that's fine.

My deck didn't get commented on. :smith:

This is likely to happen for any number of reasons. More often than not this tends to happen for Legacy and Vintage decks posted, but don�t worry if you want to talk older formats, Go here and post the list. Another reason your deck may have been ignored is because you didn't specify what format it's for and/or your budget. You could have also posted in the middle of a fury of decks being posted and it was just missed. Don't take it personally, this just a single thread in a sub-forum of a sub-forum that's doesn't exactly have a huge amount of traffic.

That said, If you want to get competitive, don't hesitate to go to Star City Games top deck lists from their open series and use that as a place to start on the type of deck you want to use.

I'd like to remind everyone to INCLUDE WHAT FORMAT YOU'RE BUILDING YOUR DECK FOR! The format a deck is built for is key to getting help.

If you'd like to get a hold of me in regards to something with the thread, talk Wizard Poker Deck building, or berate me for being a jackass, feel free to PM me or use the contact information in my profile. I also have an account on MODO at LLJKYeehawMcK, but I'm not on with any regularity.

Happy Brewing.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 00:30

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# ? Apr 16, 2024 22:33

YeehawMcKickass: Jan 2, 2003; WE WELCOME THE OPPRESSORS

BlueInk Alchemist's Deck: Safety Dance v3.0

//10 Creatures
4 Syndic of Tithes
3 Fiendslayer Paladin
3 Heliod, God of the Sun

//21 Spells
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Blind Obedience
4 Sphere of Safety
3 Spear of Heliod
2 Assemble the Legion

//4 Planeswalkers
2 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

//25 Land
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Mountain
18 Plains

Display deck statistics

AlternateNu's Deck: U/B Devotion

//Lands
10 Island
7 Swamp
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Watery Grave

//Spells
4 Thoughtseize
4 Triton Tactics
4 Doom Blade
4 Dissolve
2 Whip of Erebos

//Creatures/Planeswalkers
4 Frostburn Weird
2 Omenspeaker
2 Agent of the Fates
4 Nightveil Specter
2 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Jace, Architect of Thought

//Sideboard
2 Illness in the Ranks
2 Syncopate
4 Tidebinder Mage
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Lifebane Zombie
1 Bident of Thassa

Display deck statistics

Boco_T's WW Ethereal

//Lands
21 Plains

//Spells
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
3 Brave the Elements
3 Chosen by Heliod
2 Dauntless Onslaught
2 Divine Favor
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Gods Willing
2 Pacifism
2 Spear of Heliod

//Creatures
3 Fabled Hero
4 Favored Hoplite
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Phalanx Leader

//Sideboard
4 Avenging Arrow
3 Banisher Priest
3 Celestial Flare
2 Congregate
3 Smite
3 Soldier of the Pantheon

Display deck statistics

Malgrin's Deck: Bug Control

//Main
1 �therling
4 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Vraska the Unseen
3 Essence Scatter
2 Syncopate
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Doom Blade
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Opportunity
2 Dissolve
4 Divination
3 Far // Away
2 Gaze of Granite
1 Curse of the Swine
3 Temple of Deceit
3 Temple of Mystery
4 Breeding Pool
4 Watery Grave
4 Overgrown Tomb
5 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp

//Sideboard
4 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay

Display deck statistics

And I want to repost this one because it's probably the best balance of funny and consistent I've seen:
My variant of bhsman's Deck: MURDER GOATS!

//Land
4 Blood Crypt
2 Rakdos Guildgate
11 Mountain
7 Swamp

//Creatures
4 Tymaret, the Murder King
4 Young Pyromancer

//Spells
3 Purphoros, God of the Forge
3 Dreadbore
3 Mizzium Mortars
3 Molten Birth
2 Rakdos's Return
3 Read the Bones
4 Magma Jet
3 Rakdos Keyrune
4 Trading Post

//Sideboard
2 Duress
2 Pithing Needle
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Slaughter Games
3 Peak Eruption
3 Burning Earth

Display deck statistics

YeehawMcKickass fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 30, 2013

# ? Sep 30, 2013 00:30

YeehawMcKickass: Jan 2, 2003; WE WELCOME THE OPPRESSORS

A topic of conversation we had was the 'Optimal Agro Deck' simulator that Frank Karsten on Channel Fireball was working on and AnacondaHL was continuing with.

quote:

Okay, well first an introduction

The Articles:
Part 1 - http://www.channelfireball.com/arti...ter-simulation/
Part 2 - http://www.channelfireball.com/arti...ldfish-formats/

Key global concepts to consider when reviewing his results:
- Manabase changes
- Creature drops vs. Burn
- Mana cost vs. Power
- Interaction with opponent
- How to fill in the slots beyond 4x Goblin Guide

quote:

Control Experiment #1: How about the All Goblin Guide deck?

Surprisingly simple: 40 Goblin Guide, 20 land, 3.70 avg turn kill.

Attempting to mirror the 16-Land Lightning Bolt deck with Goblin Guides gives a slower 3.73 avg turn kill, which is equivalent to trying to run 36 Guides and 24 land.

[quote}Speaking of basic questions, Progress Report #2:

Question: How much slower is Savannah Lions versus Goblin Guide?

Control Experiment #2: In a format with only Savannah Lions and land, the optimal build (mulliganing 0, 5, 6, and 7 landers) is:
40 Savannah Lion
20 Land
Average turn kill: 4.70

Excellent. We could have guessed everything was a turn slower, but it's nice to see the simulations agree, and confirm the optimal build for a 6 Lion/3 Land game.
For those of you enough to remember the days without the 4 card limit, this should spark some nostalgia for the 40 Kird Ape + 20 Taiga deck.[/quote]

quote:

Control Experiment #3: In a format with only Grizzly Bears and land, the optimal build (mulliganing 0, 1, and 6, 7 landers) is:
36 Grizzly Bear
24 Land
Average turn kill: 6.037

Okay that's fine. Everyone is used to the 24 land decks (40% land), and seeing as how you can't get turn 5 kills and have to get really screwed to get a turn 7 kill, this seems about right.

But, you get slightly different numbers if you also mulligan 5 land hands:
34 Grizzly Bear
26 Land
Average turn kill: 6.037

Uh-oh. Just by changing one thing, keeping or throwing away 5 land hands, we get different answers for deck construction. I was honestly not expecting something like this so early. In addition, this suggests that in order to "avoid" 5 land openers you should be adding more land to your deck.

quote:

Control Experiments #4 and #5: In a format with only Watchwolfs, and with only Putrid Leeches, the optimal decks (mulls of 0, 1, 6, and 7 landers) are:
30 Watchwolf
30 Land
Average turn kill: 5.26

31 Putrid Leech
29 Land
Average turn kill: 5.0038

Again, the difference between 30 and 31 and even 32 Putrid Leeches is so small. The important thing to note is here turn 5 kills are the goal, and we see how much harder it is to accomplish this with Watchwolfs (4 Watchwolfs, 4 Land) versus Leeches (3 Leeches, 2 Land)

To wrap things up, note that these 2-drop results are still a full turn away from the normal 1 and 2 drop decks discussed in Frank's articles. Putting on the pressure to turn 4 goldfish kill versus turn 5 seems incredibly important when designing and balancing your aggro decks. This is why we talk about "nut hands" or "god draws", and why top pros have always said "if your aggro deck doesn't have a god draw, then it's not good".

quote:

Control Experiment #6: In a format with only Geist of St Traft and land, the optimal build (mulliganing 0, 1, and 6, 7 landers) is:

22 Geist of St. Traft
38 Land
Average turn kill: 6.018

Interesting. Going from 20 Land to 29 to 38 kinda looks like a reasonable pattern, and here you only really need 2 Geists and 3 lands to get the job done by turn 6.

For the final control experiments, we'll look at our friend Gnarled Mass, and run an additional one for Loxodon Smiter since I already know I'm going to be analyzing if it's worth running 0-8 copies of a four power 3-drop in my decks.

Control Experiment #7 and #8: In a format with only Gnarled Masses, or Loxodon Smiters, and Land, the optimal builds (mulliganing 0, 1, and 6, 7 landers) are:

23-24 Gnarled Mass
37-36 Land
Average turn kill: 7.024

A turn faster than LSV's Fierce Empath format! Anyways, as it was going from Goblin Guides to Savannah Lions, we see the Gnarled Mass deck being an entire turn behind the Watchwolf deck for the same reasons but for 1 mana more. Without a turn 6 kill, you only need 2 Gnarled Mass and 3 Land to get the job done.

23-24 Loxodon Smiter
37-36 Land
Average turn kill: 6.026

Interesting. First, the reason this is just as fast as the all-Geist deck is because doing 30 damage on turn 6 is the same as doing 20, given our goldfishing conditions.

But if that's true, then why the different deck construction? Is it variance in the simulation again? Honestly, I don't know. The simulation is very, very adamant about running only 22, sometimes 23 Geists but not 24. And it's not like I programmed the simulation to know about shocklands, making 18 damage way, way different from 12 on turn 5.

The other topic of conversation going on was about just how wild and wacky Bestow creatures are and how craaaaazy the Theros gods are. Here's the deal with bestow creatures:

quote:

You don't "cast" the card and then choose to pay its bestow cost, rather you make that decision as part of the casting process.

You announce a spell, place it on the stack, choose modes (splice, bestow, kicker, ect) choose targets, declare how things are going to be distributed if necessary, determine total costs, activate mana abilities, pay costs, and then the spell is cast and we do the priority dance to see if it resolves.

So for a bestow creature you announce, place it on the stack, and when choosing modes can elect to use the bestow ability and if you do choose that ability it loses the card type Creature and gains the Aura subtype. Then continue through the rest of the steps. So while I am almost certain you know better and we're just simplifying things the cost you pay isn't what determines the type of spell a creature with bestow is on the stack, it's determined by the choices made during the steps involved in casting a spell as per 601.2 of the comprehensive rules.

It's also important to remember that the change from Enchantment Aura, back to Enchantment Creature that occurs when a bestow'd creature no longer has a legal target doesn't occur until the spell begins resolving and the spell can no longer be responded to so for example you cannot use removal on its chosen target to change the spell on the stack back to a creature and counter it using Essence Scatter. (saw someone try that during playtesting)

As for the gods (since this came up for me yesterday in a win a case tournament)
I cast Purphoros playing MURDER GOATS against w/u control and my opponent tried to essence scatter. I called the event judge to check and see exactly what the hell is going on with this since it does have creature type in the line. The call the judge made was that Essence Scatter couldn't even target the god due to the fact it's ability to be a creature is defined by the intervening if devotion clause. The other reasoning for this is that Swansong was specifically printed as an answer to the gods, and swansong can't counter creature spells.

The nut shell of this: Gods have the type creature because it's needed for their devotion clause. Everywhere but the battlefield, they're enchantments.

I'm not saying this was the right call, but it was the call made.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 01:01

Shrecknet: Jan 2, 2005

YeehawMcKickass posted:

Welcome to Year Three of the Brewhaus! Now with the DON�T POST YOUR ENTIRE COMMANDER LIST IN THE loving THREAD rule in the title. Year two went really well, with lots of discussion on standard stuff and the invention of the Breakfast Burrito. The biggest problem we�ve run into --as you can probably guess-- has been a rash of people ignoring the Use a link to deckstats/tappedout for your Commander/EDH DECKS rule. Complete Commander lists are annoying to scroll past, just post a link to the list or a MODO screenshot if it�s online.

I made this for you:

Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Sep 30, 2013

# ? Sep 30, 2013 01:08

AlternateNu: May 5, 2005; ドーナツダメ！

YeehawMcKickass posted:

Boco_T's WW Ethereal

//Lands
21 Plains

//Spells
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
3 Brave the Elements
3 Chosen by Heliod
2 Dauntless Onslaught
2 Divine Favor
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Gods Willing
2 Pacifism
2 Spear of Heliod

//Creatures
3 Fabled Hero
4 Favored Hoplite
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Phalanx Leader

//Sideboard
4 Avenging Arrow
3 Banisher Priest
3 Celestial Flare
2 Congregate
3 Smite
3 Soldier of the Pantheon

Display deck statistics

Wooooo. New thread! First off, thanks to Yeehaw for posting the last few decks from the last thread.

To the deck: I would actually mainboard the Soldiers of the Pantheon. He's a huge one drop and even if your opponent doesn't throw out Rakdos Cackler or Dryad Militant turn 1, it is big damage for a fast heroic deck. That having been said, I would either throw in a second Ajani or sideboard him. Planeswalkers don't do much for you. (It would be nice if he triggered heroic but sadly...)

I would also swap out the divine favors for Act of Valor (or better...two more Dauntless Onslaughts) since sorcery speed 2-for-1-able pumps are pretty shaky.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 01:33

suicidesteve: Jan 4, 2006; "Life is a maze. This is one of its dead ends.

YeehawMcKickass posted:

As for the gods (since this came up for me yesterday in a win a case tournament)
I cast Purphoros playing MURDER GOATS against w/u control and my opponent tried to essence scatter. I called the event judge to check and see exactly what the hell is going on with this since it does have creature type in the line. The call the judge made was that Essence Scatter couldn't even target the god due to the fact it's ability to be a creature is defined by the intervening if devotion clause. The other reasoning for this is that Swansong was specifically printed as an answer to the gods, and swansong can't counter creature spells.

The nut shell of this: Gods have the type creature because it's needed for their devotion clause. Everywhere but the battlefield, they're enchantments.

I'm not saying this was the right call, but it was the call made.

Yeah I'm pretty sure this is wrong. He's only not a creature when he's in play and you don't have the devotion. I heard a level 1 judge say casting an Aura on a creature doesn't target that creature. I wasted 10 minutes looking it up so I could draw my card off of the Triton card draw heroic guy. :colbert:

# ? Sep 30, 2013 01:36

AlternateNu: May 5, 2005; ドーナツダメ！

suicidesteve posted:

Yeah I'm pretty sure this is wrong. He's only not a creature when he's in play and you don't have the devotion. I heard a level 1 judge say casting an Aura on a creature doesn't target that creature. I wasted 10 minutes looking it up so I could draw my card off of the Triton card draw heroic guy.

Yeah. Gods are creatures in every zone EXCEPT on the field w/ less than 5 devotion.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 01:38

Deckit: Sep 1, 2012

Thank you Yeehaw for the new thread. :toot:

Made a BUG control deck.

Deck: BUG Control

//Lands
4 Breeding Pool
6 Forest
3 Island
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
1 Temple of Deceit
4 Watery Grave
1 Temple of Mystery

//Spells
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Essence Scatter
3 Gaze of Granite
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Syncopate
3 Urban Evolution
1 Opportunity

//Creatures
2 Progenitor Mimic
4 Prophet of Kruphix
3 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 �therling
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver

Display deck statistics

My LGS has a lot of control players, so Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver has been main boarded. He feels pretty decent against aggro as well. Sylvan Caryatid plops down for defense, then Ashiok stealing an early creature has been going well. Stole a Fiend-Slayer Paladin, Voice of Resurgence, and a Loxodon smiter.

Feels weird playing Opportunity on my turn with Prophet of Kruphix, but I like drawing counterspells. I might up Gaze of Granite to 4 of, because its been pretty instrumental in winning against multiple decks. I've only had to kill my own Ahsiok with Gaze of Granite once in about 14 games, but Ashiok feels like a good distraction to aggro.

Any suggestions would be helpful! I've considered taking out creatures like Progenitor Mimic and Reaper of the Wilds for more cards like Far // Away and Simic Charm to keep things more control and my Prophets alive.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:10

YeehawMcKickass: Jan 2, 2003; WE WELCOME THE OPPRESSORS

Yeah, I mean I was the guy who profited from the call and I didn't even think it was right.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:12

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Still looking for a little more feedback on my mono-black idea for Standard, particularly in the sideboard where Lifebane is the only card that I'd for sure include:

Deck: The Rat Pack

//Lands
4 Mutavault
20 Swamp

//Spells
3 Dark Prophecy
4 Doom Blade
3 Hero's Downfall
3 Liliana of the Dark Realms
4 Read the Bones
4 Thoughtseize
3 Whip of Erebos

//Creatures
2 Abhorrent Overlord
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2 Ogre Slumlord
4 Pack Rat

//Sideboard
4 Cremate
4 Dark Betrayal
4 Far // Away
3 Lifebane Zombie

Display deck statistics

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:14

TheLawinator: Apr 13, 2012; Competence on the battlefield is a myth. The side which screws up next to last wins, it's as simple as that.

Hey, I've been messing around with this as my first standard deck. I'm not sure I have enough card draw and also I have no idea how I would deal with a critical mass of creatures besides splashing another color which I'd rather not do.

Deck: Dimir Control

//Main
2 �therling
4 Far // Away
4 Desecration Demon
2 Dissolve
2 Doom Blade
2 Essence Scatter
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Read the Bones
2 Syncopate
2 Ultimate Price
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Opportunity
2 Whip of Erebos
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Dimir Guildgate
4 Watery Grave
8 Swamp
7 Island

Display deck statistics

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:16

Mikujin: May 25, 2010; (also a lightning rod)

I have a buddy who really enjoys playing Dimir, and wants to bring a control-y list to game day. He put together a glob of cards that didn't use enough permission/removal, because he was really hellbent on playing Agent of the Fates + Hidden Strings to try and be cheeky.

I modified his list to try and strengthen the core of his theme (removal and permission). Managed to keep his Nightveil Specters in there for funsies.

Deck: Dimir Control v2.0

//Land
4 Watery Grave
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Dimir Guildgate
5 Swamp
9 Island

//Creatures
2 �therling
4 Nightveil Specter
3 Returned Phalanx

//Planeswalkers
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Jace, Architect of Thought

//Instants
4 Doom Blade
3 Far // Away
3 Psychic Strike
3 Dissolve
2 Triton Tactics
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Syncopate

//Sorceries
2 Read the Bones

Display deck statistics

I goldfished it a bunch and didn't really ever have any terrible hands. Holding up T2 Syncopate on the play or being able to respond with T2 Phalanx on the draw actually felt pretty solid, and I held back Nightveils in favour of holding up permission/removal on T3-T4. Incidental Scry on the temples and on Dissolve went a long every time. Definitely felt like I could use something a little more to smooth draws/get more card advantage, since Read the Bones - while good - isn't enough. That said, I could definitely see dropping T3 Specters against opposing control decks and having it be really good. Ashiok has been pretty solid in every playtest I've run him since at his absolute worst he's 1UB gain 5 life in a control deck. Jace also gets to serve double-duty being a continued stall while you wait for answers OR digging for your answers.

Not even sure what this sort of things wants in a sideboard.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:21

Night Danger Moose: Jan 5, 2004; YO SOY FIESTA

Hated my white deck, decided to build this for shits and/or giggles.

Deck: Mono-Blue Devotion

//Lands
2 Mutavault
21 Island
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

//Spells
2 Biomass Mutation
2 Curse of the Swine
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Dissolve
2 Divination
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Swan Song
3 Triton Tactics
3 Voyage's End

//Creatures
4 Master of Waves
4 Nightveil Specter
2 Thassa, God of the Sea
3 Wavecrash Triton

Display deck statistics

Medomai is just in there for the WTF factor, I'm not stuck on splashing white just for him. Kinda iffy about running so few creatures. Comments, questions, criticism welcome. Haven't playtested it yet, waiting for halftime on NE @ ATL.

Edit: Couple changes made

Night Danger Moose fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Sep 30, 2013

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:24

Boco_T: Mar 12, 2003; la calaca tilica y flaca

AlternateNu posted:

To the deck: I would actually mainboard the Soldiers of the Pantheon. He's a huge one drop and even if your opponent doesn't throw out Rakdos Cackler or Dryad Militant turn 1, it is big damage for a fast heroic deck. That having been said, I would either throw in a second Ajani or sideboard him. Planeswalkers don't do much for you. (It would be nice if he triggered heroic but sadly...)

I would also swap out the divine favors for Act of Valor (or better...two more Dauntless Onslaughts) since sorcery speed 2-for-1-able pumps are pretty shaky.

I think I can live without Ajani. That was the only card I wasn't able to trade into today based on this deck list, and I think you're right.

I also think you're right about getting rid of the Divine Favors, even if Ethereal Armor is the major theme that'll still leave 16 enchantment cards in the deck. Having those Hopeful Eidolons helps.

I need to try and figure out where the Soldiers of the Pantheon will go, but now that I think about it with Phalanx Leader and Fabled Hero I'm don't think I'd ever really plan to target the Favored Hoplite unless it was a last resort.

Also, how do you feel about the removal, that's the biggest question I have. I guess it's an aggro deck so I'm okay with the Brave and Gods Willing as "avoidance" to sneak damage through, and then the Pacifism and Spear of Heliod and combat tricks for bigger threats. Should I upgrade Pacifism to Arrest? Sideboard's a blank slate, everything in there now is a "possible/placeholder."

Finally, would Mutavault fit in this? I pulled a Stormbreath in this week's draft and I also have an M14 Chandra so even if it's a budget deck I could trade those for 3 Mutavaults if there's a possibility for value in doing 3 + 18 Plains instead of 21 Plains.

Thanks for the help!

Deck: WW Ethereal

//Lands
21 Plains

//Spells
3 Brave the Elements
3 Chosen by Heliod
4 Dauntless Onslaught
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Gods Willing
2 Pacifism
2 Spear of Heliod

//Creatures
4 Fabled Hero
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Phalanx Leader

//Sideboard
4 Avenging Arrow
3 Banisher Priest
3 Celestial Flare
2 Congregate
3 Smite
4 Glare of Heresy

Display deck statistics

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:25

AlternateNu: May 5, 2005; ドーナツダメ！

TheLawinator posted:

Hey, I've been messing around with this as my first standard deck. I'm not sure I have enough card draw and also I have no idea how I would deal with a critical mass of creatures besides splashing another color which I'd rather not do.

Deck: Dimir Control

//Main
2 �therling
4 Far // Away
4 Desecration Demon
2 Dissolve
2 Doom Blade
2 Essence Scatter
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Read the Bones
2 Syncopate
2 Ultimate Price
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Opportunity
2 Whip of Erebos
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Dimir Guildgate
4 Watery Grave
8 Swamp
7 Island

Display deck statistics

I don't think you need 4 x Guildgates AND 4 x Temples. Eight dual lands should be enough with just the temples and shock lands.

That having been said, I would go for more Read the Bones to replace the Opportunities. You don't want to need 6 mana just to draw. And drop 2 x Hero's Downfall for 2 more Doom Blades. You can sideboard them out if necessary and you won't be killing Planeswalkers as much as you'll be killing creatures.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:25

Deckit: Sep 1, 2012

TheLawinator posted:

Hey, I've been messing around with this as my first standard deck. I'm not sure I have enough card draw and also I have no idea how I would deal with a critical mass of creatures besides splashing another color which I'd rather not do.

Deck: Dimir Control

Display deck statistics

Hi. I'd go with what AlternateNu said on the Gates and Opportunities for Read the Bones.

Are you mainly running Whip for the life link? Because it doesn't feel like you have a lot of creatures to whip back for great effects. Only six, and neither of them has a triggered ability when entering play. The desecration demon can also be tapped out if you bring it back by the enemy sacc'ing a creature to it. Which could be helpful!

Maybe you're expecting a lot of aggro in your LGS but maybe trade out Essence Scatter for Syncopate, since you're running so many main board creature hate.

For a critical mass of creatures, do a combo of baconization. Curse of Swine followed up by Ratchet bomb for zero. :3:

Or run Cyclonic Rift and hope you get enough mana to overload it.

Mikujin posted:

I have a buddy who really enjoys playing Dimir, and wants to bring a control-y list to game day. He put together a glob of cards that didn't use enough permission/removal, because he was really hellbent on playing Agent of the Fates + Hidden Strings to try and be cheeky.

I modified his list to try and strengthen the core of his theme (removal and permission). Managed to keep his Nightveil Specters in there for funsies.

Deck: Dimir Control v2.0

Display deck statistics

I goldfished it a bunch and didn't really ever have any terrible hands. Holding up T2 Syncopate on the play or being able to respond with T2 Phalanx on the draw actually felt pretty solid, and I held back Nightveils in favour of holding up permission/removal on T3-T4. Incidental Scry on the temples and on Dissolve went a long every time. Definitely felt like I could use something a little more to smooth draws/get more card advantage, since Read the Bones - while good - isn't enough. That said, I could definitely see dropping T3 Specters against opposing control decks and having it be really good. Ashiok has been pretty solid in every playtest I've run him since at his absolute worst he's 1UB gain 5 life in a control deck. Jace also gets to serve double-duty being a continued stall while you wait for answers OR digging for your answers.

Not even sure what this sort of things wants in a sideboard.

Looks like Thoughtseize would have a good home in a control deck.

As for card draw, quicken is a cheap cantrip that could be paired well with Read the Bones while leaving you open to keep your mana untapped for turns 3 and 4.

Deckit fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Sep 30, 2013

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:38

AlternateNu: May 5, 2005; ドーナツダメ！

Boco_T posted:

I think I can live without Ajani. That was the only card I wasn't able to trade into today based on this deck list, and I think you're right.

I also think you're right about getting rid of the Divine Favors, even if Ethereal Armor is the major theme that'll still leave 16 enchantment cards in the deck. Having those Hopeful Eidolons helps.

I need to try and figure out where the Soldiers of the Pantheon will go, but now that I think about it with Phalanx Leader and Fabled Hero I'm don't think I'd ever really plan to target the Favored Hoplite unless it was a last resort.

Also, how do you feel about the removal, that's the biggest question I have. I guess it's an aggro deck so I'm okay with the Brave and Gods Willing as "avoidance" to sneak damage through, and then the Pacifism and Spear of Heliod and combat tricks for bigger threats. Should I upgrade Pacifism to Arrest? Sideboard's a blank slate, everything in there now is a "possible/placeholder."

Finally, would Mutavault fit in this? I pulled a Stormbreath in this week's draft and I also have an M14 Chandra so even if it's a budget deck I could trade those for 3 Mutavaults if there's a possibility for value in doing 3 + 18 Plains instead of 21 Plains.

Thanks for the help!

Deck: WW Ethereal

//Lands
21 Plains

//Spells
3 Brave the Elements
3 Chosen by Heliod
4 Dauntless Onslaught
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Gods Willing
2 Pacifism
2 Spear of Heliod

//Creatures
4 Fabled Hero
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Phalanx Leader

//Sideboard
4 Avenging Arrow
3 Banisher Priest
3 Celestial Flare
2 Congregate
3 Smite
4 Glare of Heresy

Display deck statistics

Here's the kicker. You should decide on two major things: 1. how fast you want your deck to be and 2. how important is the heroic mechanic for you. Right now, you're looking to be lower-mid-range-ish. You have 8 x 1-drops, but Eidolon is better used as an aura. It appears your big damage is going to be Gods Willing or Brave the Elements a Fabled Hero and pump him all to hell for massive double-strike.

You're not looking to be on the defensive at all. (And mind you, the Gods Willing and Braves are just as good offensive options as defensive, so they don't really count.) Therefore, I would take out the Pacifisms and Chosen by Heliods. They don't up your attack, and you can ignore defenders with GWs and Braves.

This is one of those decks that wants consistency more than anything. You want 4 x of's for everything you're expecting to draw multiples of.

But, if you're willing to make your deck a little slower, and you want enchantments to help with Ethereal Armor and screw with your opponent, you could throw in Blind Obedience. It kills hasters, leaves your opponent open at extra turn, and lets you use random stray mana to ping your opponent with Extort. (That does mean you'd probably want to bump the top of your mana curve to 4 or 5 though.)

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:40

bhsman: Feb 10, 2008; by exmarx

Glad to see Murdergoats made the cut. :getin:

I was able to pick up most of the easy stuff over the weekend (including a playset of Tymaret - one of them foily in case I ever want to give him a shot in EDH), and I've decided to work on making a B/R control deck while I gather the material for Murdergoats.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 02:42

Boco_T: Mar 12, 2003; la calaca tilica y flaca

AlternateNu posted:

Here's the kicker. You should decide on two major things: 1. how fast you want your deck to be and 2. how important is the heroic mechanic for you. Right now, you're looking to be lower-mid-range-ish. You have 8 x 1-drops, but Eidolon is better used as an aura. It appears your big damage is going to be Gods Willing or Brave the Elements a Fabled Hero and pump him all to hell for massive double-strike.

You're not looking to be on the defensive at all. (And mind you, the Gods Willing and Braves are just as good offensive options as defensive, so they don't really count.) Therefore, I would take out the Pacifisms and Chosen by Heliods. They don't up your attack, and you can ignore defenders with GWs and Braves.

This is one of those decks that wants consistency more than anything. You want 4 x of's for everything you're expecting to draw multiples of.

But, if you're willing to make your deck a little slower, and you want enchantments to help with Ethereal Armor and screw with your opponent, you could throw in Blind Obedience. It kills hasters, leaves your opponent open at extra turn, and lets you use random stray mana to ping your opponent with Extort. (That does mean you'd probably want to bump the top of your mana curve to 4 or 5 though.)

I'm gonna run some tests with both of the options you've laid out here, but I'm leaning toward the faster one. If I cut Pacifism and Chosen, that leaves 5 spots. I put Brave up from 3 to 4, that leaves 4 slots. I didn't see any worthwhile Enchantments or Heroic creatures in the block at this point.

Looking at white Instants available, Battlewise Valor and Shielded Passage look like possible options, and I also see Show of Valor and Swift Justice.

I'll play around with it this week and see what I can come back with, thanks so much for giving me some direction from my unfocused starting point. Just looking at it now it feels better than where I started.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:01

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Also I was asking about Commander towards the end of the last thread and someone linked me to this EDH guide, which seemed pretty good to me even if it's a little old. It might be worth putting in the OP. My LGS is having a Commander free-for-all to "draft" a FTV: 20 in a couple weeks and I'm going to try building my first EDH deck so I can participate. How much will people hate me if my general is Crosis? Looking at my card stockpile he's probably my best Commander choice right now.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:05

Jabor: Jul 16, 2010; #1 Loser at SpaceChem

Deckit posted:

The desecration demon can also be tapped out if you bring it back by the enemy sacc'ing a creature to it.

Just wanted to address this, because it could be relevant - if you play it right, they can't tap down the demon by sacrificing a creature.

If you whip it back in the Beginning of Combat step, it won't have been in play "at the beginning of combat", and so the demon's trigger won't ever go on the stack.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:16

Deckit: Sep 1, 2012

You can only Whip as a sorcery though. :smith:

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:22

Night Danger Moose: Jan 5, 2004; YO SOY FIESTA

Jabor posted:

Just wanted to address this, because it could be relevant - if you play it right, they can't tap down the demon by sacrificing a creature.

If you whip it back in the Beginning of Combat step, it won't have been in play "at the beginning of combat", and so the demon's trigger won't ever go on the stack.

Whip can only be activated as a sorcery though.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:23

BlueInkAlchemist: Apr 17, 2012; "He's also known as 'BlueInkAlchemist'."
"Who calls him that?"
"Himself, mostly."

Back in the old thread, it was suggested I swap gods:

quote:

Deck: Safety Dance v3.0

//Lands
3 Mountain
18 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry

//Spells
2 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
2 Assemble the Legion
4 Blind Obedience
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Ethereal Armor
3 Spear of Heliod
4 Sphere of Safety

//Creatures
3 Fiendslayer Paladin
3 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Syndic of Tithes

Display deck statistics

I do like winning without swinging, as it feels more control-ish to do so. There's also the fact that I only need to leave three mana open for the Spear once it's in place. Sure, it's vulnerable to enchantment removal, but that's one less card that can kill a Sphere, Assemble, or Purphoros.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:38

Elephant Ambush: Nov 13, 2012; ...We sholde spenden more time together. What sayest thou?; Nap Ghost

OK you guys helped me out in the last thread, so now here's the next revision of my Master of Waves devotion deck:

quote:

Deck: Big Blue Violence

//Creatures
4 Master of Waves
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Clone
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Judge's Familiar
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Omenspeaker

//Spells
4 Dissolve
1 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Claustrophobia
2 Bident of Thassa

//Lands
4 Mutavault
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
16 Island

//Sideboard
3 Tidebinder Mage
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Cyclonic Rift
3 Domestication
3 Gainsay

Display deck statistics

I know someone said Clone was a bad idea but I find it way too useful as a defensive measure as well as offensive. I can copy someone else's god or some other nasty creature I wouldn't normally be able to deal with. I'm keeping it in until playtesting proves that it's bad.

I was going to put Syncopates in, but I'm going to roll with Judge's Familiar for now instead. I decided that even though it might not be an optimal build, I'm going to lean way towards devotion. If I feel like I need to scale back the devotion for more counter magic or different forms of battlefield control (like Voyage's End) I'll make those adjustments after some testing. For now I want as many elemental tokens as I can get on the field to swing for lethal the next turn.

edit: I showed this to a friend who is working on a similar deck and he said that he's been running sims with Cloudfin Raptor in place of Clone. He said it can get up to 3/4 or 4/5 with no real problems as long as Thassa hits the table as a creature. I might give that a try since it speeds up the deck a ton. Any thoughts on that?

Elephant Ambush fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Sep 30, 2013

# ? Sep 30, 2013 03:58

YeehawMcKickass: Jan 2, 2003; WE WELCOME THE OPPRESSORS

bhsman posted:

Glad to see Murdergoats made the cut. I was able to pick up most of the easy stuff over the weekend (including a playset of Tymaret - one of them foily in case I ever want to give him a shot in EDH), and I've decided to work on making a B/R control deck while I gather the material for Murdergoats.

I ran that variant in a tournament yesterday, here's the notes I can give you about it.

This thing has an amazing control matchup. It's doing stuff most control players don't expect in the slightest and occasionally just cums huge, sloppy, gobs of damage to their face and they lose. Sphinx's Rev draw ends up doing less for them over the course of the game, and it all ends up pretty awkward for them. Sweepers don't matter, this doesn't attack all that often so A. Charm gets relgated to cycling, half the deck barely feels like it should be counterspelled.

Midrange matchups are a bit tougher but winnable if you get board position first. Aggro rolls it over, hard. Still, the deck is a god damned riot to play.

Some specific cards:
Read the Bones got sided out against everyone, even control decks. In a vacuum it seems good, but my experience was that the life loss wasn't worth the trade.

Dreadbore initially it seemed like this was going to be too slow, but being able to just pop a Jace or Desecration Demon was incredibly helpful.

Mizzium Mortars wasn't incredible, I was getting slapped around by red base decks, so something like lightning strike or doom blade might be better for now.

Purphoros: You having it at four of initially wasn't a bad thought, but I was stuck with one in hand for a lot of time even dropping to three. I just slotted in another Molten Birth to cover for it and holy crap it worked.

Trading Post: Does huge amounts of work, but the metagame has a bit too much aggro at this point to really work with four of these. I might drop to one or two main deck to cram something in that helps with the aggro matchup. Their spot in the 75 is well earned.

My sideboard was different. Peak Eruption and Burning Earth did huge amounts of work. Duress was functional. Slaughter Games made control matchups even more of a joke. Rakdos charm was primarily there for dealing with artifacts, but I did slap someone for half their life one game. Pithing Needle never got used.

I may even give something funny like Showstopper a shot in here as a two of at some point, but it really needs more effective ways of dealing with aggro, reckoner, and bigger things like Desecration Demon.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 04:58

YeehawMcKickass: Jan 2, 2003; WE WELCOME THE OPPRESSORS

Elephant Ambush posted:

edit: I showed this to a friend who is working on a similar deck and he said that he's been running sims with Cloudfin Raptor in place of Clone. He said it can get up to 3/4 or 4/5 with no real problems as long as Thassa hits the table as a creature. I might give that a try since it speeds up the deck a ton. Any thoughts on that?

This may be wrong (because the gods are a pain in the rear end), but I've heard an explanation that says that the gods DON'T trigger evolve because they land as enchantments.

Any rules gurus to clear things up?

# ? Sep 30, 2013 05:05

Oldsrocket_27: Apr 28, 2009

YeehawMcKickass posted:

I ran that variant in a tournament yesterday, here's the notes I can give you about it.

This thing has an amazing control matchup. It's doing stuff most control players don't expect in the slightest and occasionally just cums huge, sloppy, gobs of damage to their face and they lose. Sphinx's Rev draw ends up doing less for them over the course of the game, and it all ends up pretty awkward for them. Sweepers don't matter, this doesn't attack all that often so A. Charm gets relgated to cycling, half the deck barely feels like it should be counterspelled.

Midrange matchups are a bit tougher but winnable if you get board position first. Aggro rolls it over, hard. Still, the deck is a god damned riot to play.

Some specific cards:
Read the Bones got sided out against everyone, even control decks. In a vacuum it seems good, but my experience was that the life loss wasn't worth the trade.

Dreadbore initially it seemed like this was going to be too slow, but being able to just pop a Jace or Desecration Demon was incredibly helpful.

Mizzium Mortars wasn't incredible, I was getting slapped around by red base decks, so something like lightning strike or doom blade might be better for now.

Purphoros: You having it at four of initially wasn't a bad thought, but I was stuck with one in hand for a lot of time even dropping to three. I just slotted in another Molten Birth to cover for it and holy crap it worked.

Trading Post: Does huge amounts of work, but the metagame has a bit too much aggro at this point to really work with four of these. I might drop to one or two main deck to cram something in that helps with the aggro matchup. Their spot in the 75 is well earned.

My sideboard was different. Peak Eruption and Burning Earth did huge amounts of work. Duress was functional. Slaughter Games made control matchups even more of a joke. Rakdos charm was primarily there for dealing with artifacts, but I did slap someone for half their life one game. Pithing Needle never got used.

I may even give something funny like Showstopper a shot in here as a two of at some point, but it really needs more effective ways of dealing with aggro, reckoner, and bigger things like Desecration Demon.

What kind of midrange did you run up against? Since sweepers don't really matter, would Anger of the Gods be a good play against aggro, and if not Flames of the Firebrand?

I'm thinking about building this because it looks so fun, but A) my local meta is pretty aggro-heavy with a fair bit of midrange and nonexistent control and B) building a new deck for me means trading off all of my current playable standard cards, because I don't make a ton of cash and when I spring a lot of cash for cards, I spend it on eternal format staples.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 05:08

Olothreutes: Mar 31, 2007

YeehawMcKickass posted:

This may be wrong (because the gods are a pain in the rear end), but I've heard an explanation that says that the gods DON'T trigger evolve because they land as enchantments.

Any rules gurus to clear things up?

I'm not making any claims to being a rules guru, but the gods are worded as "if your devotion is less than five, ~ isn't a creature." It would seem that if you have the proper devotion when you land a god it triggers evolve. The card type is enchantment creature and the check is to make it not a creature. Makes sense to me.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 05:08

Dr.Zeppelin: Dec 5, 2003

After mostly successful playtesting I revamped my earlier red deck with some substitutions, mostly white. Here's the current list:

Deck: THS Big Boros

//Land
13 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Plains
2 Temple of Triumph
2 Mutavault

//Creatures
4 Ash Zealot
4 Boros Reckoner
1 Pyrewild Shaman
4 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Fanatic of Mogis

//Artifacts/Enchantments
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Hammer of Purphoros
3 Chained to the Rocks

//Instants/Sorceries
4 Boros Charm
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike

//Sideboard
3 Wear // Tear
4 Burning Earth
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Peak Eruption
3 Skullcrack

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Things I'm not sure about yet:
- Will taplands and plains keep me from hitting Ash Zealot on curve to an unacceptable degree? I have 19 sources but 2 of them are T1 plays only for that and I'm not sure how much shocking I want to be doing
- Is Mizzium Mortars or Ratchet Bomb a better sideboard removal than Anger of the Gods? Mortars does well against midrangey things but bomb feels much better against whip decks
- Is Pyrewild Shaman a useful trick to push through unexpected lethal or would it be better to throw in another Fanatic of Mogis
- I took Chandra out because my creatures never felt like they wanted to be held back to keep her alive when she comes down, and I haven't needed the card draw against control yet
- Burning Earth is fantastic in monored but I don't know if the drawbacks are worth keeping it in given how well it blows up 3-color
- No satyr/cackler/etc at 1-mana, don't think I need any 1-drops but who knows

# ? Sep 30, 2013 05:14

Balon: May 23, 2010; ...my greatest work yet.

I'm torn between Bg control and Br midrange for the upcoming season - help!

Bg control has a good matchup versus aggro and great matchups versus control and midrange.

Br midrange has great matchups versus aggro and control with good matchups versus midrange.

The issue is that Br cannot deal with enchantments at all unless it discards them preemptively. Where Bg control has less answers to planeswalkers and relies on creatures to win.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 05:25

Coucho Marx: Mar 2, 2009; kick back and relax

Balon posted:

I'm torn between Bg control and Br midrange for the upcoming season - help!

Bg control has a good matchup versus aggro and great matchups versus control and midrange.

Br midrange has great matchups versus aggro and control with good matchups versus midrange.

The issue is that Br cannot deal with enchantments at all unless it discards them preemptively. Where Bg control has less answers to planeswalkers and relies on creatures to win.

You could just bump up your Hero's Downfall count in BG if you think you'll miss Dreadbore. Abrupt Decay will take out Ajani, Ashiok and Domri, and Vraska can blow up planeswalkers too (though these aren't ideal solutions).

Speaking of B/x decks, i've kept working on the BW Midrange Whip deck from last thread, I think High Priest of Penance makes a good addition against aggro and midrange decks, enough to mainboard him. He dodges Doom Blade and triggers on any burn, and other removal used on him is one less used on Blood Baron or whatever. I've also put in a few Alms Beast as extra beaters, they can't be locked down like Desecration Demon can, and I think the enemy lifelink is a manageable tradeoff for another 4CMC 6/6. Vizkopa Guildmage could find a home here too, her second ability basically an instant win with Whip and a few beaters out, no idea what to switch out though.

Deck: Obzedat & Friends: 2 Legit 2 Whip

//Lands
4 Godless Shrine
5 Plains
12 Swamp
4 Temple of Silence

//Spells
2 Devour Flesh

3 Doom Blade

3 Hero's Downfall

3 Read the Bones

3 Thoughtseize

2 Whip of Erebos

//Creatures
2 Alms Beast

3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

4 Desecration Demon

4 High Priest of Penance

2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

4 Sin Collector

//Sideboard
1 Alms Beast

3 Dark Betrayal

1 Devour Flesh

1 Doom Blade

2 Illness in the Ranks

3 Pithing Needle

2 Ratchet Bomb

2 Underworld Connections

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Could use Elspeth though.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 06:05

Shrecknet: Jan 2, 2005

I had a terrible thought when I saw M14, that Accorder's Shield is the card High Priest of Penance was looking for. High Priest as a 1/4 is way, way scarier.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 06:10

Coucho Marx: Mar 2, 2009; kick back and relax

Gift of Immortality? Indestructibility? They also work. Hmmm...

# ? Sep 30, 2013 06:19

Pygmy Pyrosaur: Jun 29, 2007; Welcome to
Kitty City

C-Euro posted:

Also I was asking about Commander towards the end of the last thread and someone linked me to this EDH guide, which seemed pretty good to me even if it's a little old. It might be worth putting in the OP. My LGS is having a Commander free-for-all to "draft" a FTV: 20 in a couple weeks and I'm going to try building my first EDH deck so I can participate. How much will people hate me if my general is Crosis? Looking at my card stockpile he's probably my best Commander choice right now.

Crosis is an awesome general / color to be in. Seeing as how this is a tournament with a $$ Jace on the line, I wouldn't care about getting dirty looks, as long as you don't draw all of the table's ire at the same time you'll be fine. If somebody rolls in with a mono-blue permission deck, wait till you have nine mana for crosis + counter backup, hit him and name blue and the rest of the table will give you enough leeway for a few turns to practically place a crown of laurels on your head as game-winner. Grixis not having green can make mana kind of iffy unless you have 5+ fetches and shocks / original duals, so you'll probably want to go big with as many mana rocks as possible. I run Crosis, and named a couple of cards in my build in the last thread but I don't have a decklist. Try to play Academy Ruins + Oblivion Stone if possible (with Tolaria West and Fabricate to grab em - actually Muddle the Mixture and Grip of Phantasms are really good because transmute is dope and the latter can grab your early game Phyrexian Arena as well). Crosis' combat damage ability may be important enough to play Whispersilk Cloak. Play Mystical Teachings. I play Trinket Mage in mine so I can grab Artifact Lands for mana fixing, as well as the obvious Sol Ring / Top. Rite of Replification and Recurring Insight are really, really good in this format. Also Overwhelming Intellect. If you want to go balls-to-the-walls competitive, throw some extra turn effects in there. I run old-school Niv-Mizzet and Ophidian Eye in mine (as a win-con that can be partially tutored with Mystical Teachings; I also run an elixir of immortality so when I'm going off if my cards in library < collective life total of opponents I can dump my hand EoT and end it on the next upkeep, and I keep my Sensei's Divining Top out so they need two instant kills after untap to stop me). Pls wreck all of the faces, I can't sing the praises of Grixis EDH enough.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 06:35

Steely Glint: Oct 29, 2011; Dinosaur Gum

I took a silly WBR gates deck that used High Priest of Penance (with Hold the Gates) to FNM a month or so ago. It went 1-3, but turning a Flames of the Firebrand into 3 almost-Vindicates was totally worth it.

The loss of Lingering Souls hurts, but maybe I'll tinker with it. Gods Willing and Spark Jolt might be good? Hrm.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 06:35

Malgrin: Mar 16, 2010

Great thread, Yeehaw.
I've done a good bit of editing on my bug deck. I'm not convinced that green is worth it in this deck, except Abrupt Decay really evens up the UW matchup (think detention sphere), and it gets good 1 for 1 value against aggro decks. Green also gives us more sideboard options. I completely forgot about Ratchet Bomb, while brewing this deck (it was like 1am, it happens). The Gaze is definitely too slow in some matches, and worthless in others, so I think it needs to go to the sideboard, which means that green can be significantly reduced, if kept for Abrupt Decay.
It's also possible this deck just wants to be UB. Here's my current test list:
http://deckstats.net/deck-2894377-7aa469e8737d955f8156b898b867f738.html

# ? Sep 30, 2013 06:58

RC Cola: Aug 1, 2011; Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

I made a silly R/B/W deck with only obzedat, chandra, and elspleth asw win cons. Everything else is removal. Its working pretty well so far. I'll post a list when I get home.

# ? Sep 30, 2013 09:10

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Pygmy Pyrosaur posted:

Crosis is an awesome general / color to be in. Seeing as how this is a tournament with a $$ Jace on the line, I wouldn't care about getting dirty looks, as long as you don't draw all of the table's ire at the same time you'll be fine. If somebody rolls in with a mono-blue permission deck, wait till you have nine mana for crosis + counter backup, hit him and name blue and the rest of the table will give you enough leeway for a few turns to practically place a crown of laurels on your head as game-winner. Grixis not having green can make mana kind of iffy unless you have 5+ fetches and shocks / original duals, so you'll probably want to go big with as many mana rocks as possible. I run Crosis, and named a couple of cards in my build in the last thread but I don't have a decklist. Try to play Academy Ruins + Oblivion Stone if possible (with Tolaria West and Fabricate to grab em - actually Muddle the Mixture and Grip of Phantasms are really good because transmute is dope and the latter can grab your early game Phyrexian Arena as well). Crosis' combat damage ability may be important enough to play Whispersilk Cloak. Play Mystical Teachings. I play Trinket Mage in mine so I can grab Artifact Lands for mana fixing, as well as the obvious Sol Ring / Top. Rite of Replification and Recurring Insight are really, really good in this format. Also Overwhelming Intellect. If you want to go balls-to-the-walls competitive, throw some extra turn effects in there. I run old-school Niv-Mizzet and Ophidian Eye in mine (as a win-con that can be partially tutored with Mystical Teachings; I also run an elixir of immortality so when I'm going off if my cards in library < collective life total of opponents I can dump my hand EoT and end it on the next upkeep, and I keep my Sensei's Divining Top out so they need two instant kills after untap to stop me). Pls wreck all of the faces, I can't sing the praises of Grixis EDH enough.

I don't think I own any of those cards :v:

But I still want to try it, there are a few useful things that I did find on a first pass through my collection like Rhystic Study and Tsabo Tavoc (which seems pretty good in this format if you can get it out)

# ? Sep 30, 2013 12:55

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# ? Apr 16, 2024 22:33

Pygmy Pyrosaur: Jun 29, 2007; Welcome to
Kitty City

C-Euro posted:

I don't think I own any of those cards But I still want to try it, there are a few useful things that I did find on a first pass through my collection like Rhystic Study and Tsabo Tavoc (which seems pretty good in this format if you can get it out)

I run a Tsabo in my Crosis. It's one of those cards where you rarely see it do what it's abilities are listed; rather, it just warps the game around the fact that you have one out, mana ready to merc a general at any time. And it can smash face rather well too

# ? Sep 30, 2013 13:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > M:tG: The Brewhaus (RTR/THS) - Commander deck == link only!

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