What about Venerated Teacher? If you really want the level up theme to work, you could go for a control angle with Training Grounds and the Teacher, along with the new Flash Leyline. The problem would be when you have to level up at sorcery speed, but if you play with the right counters to protect your deck along with a way to level up with minimal mana, leaving your mana open for countermagic to protect your board position, then it seems like it would play somewhat like a weak Faerie deck. Lighthouse Chronologist seems like a definite in a deck like this, as well as the Guul Draz Assassin. Joraga Treespeaker might help with a secondary "Training Grounds" with the mana accel it offers. Enclave Cryptologist could help generate card advantage in addition to the Assassin.
Makes me want to play around with the idea. I'm not convinced it'll be competitive, but it would be neat to tinker with.
EDIT: Quick something I threw together. It's pretty fast, but isn't consistent enough yet I think.
what happens if you energy tap it while it's still morphed?
EDIT: nevermind. "The phrase "Morph [cost]" means "You may play this card as a 2/2 face-down creature, with no text, no name, no subtypes, no expansion symbol, and a mana cost of [0], by paying [3] rather than its mana cost.""
You could also go with Fireblast, Mogg Fanatic, and Guerrilla Tactics, but I'm just trying to keep mine with the new card layout theme. The only versions of the Fanatic and Tactics with the new layout are shown as Uncommon, and I don't want to have to try to explain it to the casual people I play with.
I played a MBC build a while back in a local tourney, got 2nd. While Jitte and Bob rotated, there may be enough to rebuild it with other things? I ran the following cards:
Again, I also ran Jitte and Bob. I feel Nighthawks may be a good addition to it. It may feel a little clunky at first, with retrace cards and Bloodghast being in the same deck, but it just requires smart play to do well. Isn't Damnation still legal?
Is there a downloadable version of this site, search engine and all? I'm not sure how it would work as I'm not all too familiar with the software side of things, but I don't always have access to the internet, and I've found that this site is the best/fastest search method for finding cards for just about any purpose.
The reason Dark Ritual is sub par in Pox is because Pox is more of a control deck with a very good tempo. Dark Ritual just speeds it up slightly.
As an example, let's say you start with a Duress, Hymn, and Dark Ritual in hand. If you first turn Rit, Duress, Hymn, you have used three cards to get rid of three of their cards. You *might* (1/3) chance hit one of their lands or a first turn drop, if you Duress first to reduce their hand down to 6. You just spent three cards to get rid of three cards, which is an even trade in card advantage, plus the slight chance of hitting a land or first turn drop. So, it's decent. I feel that this slight possibility for advantage is traded off by those late game, dead, Dark Rits you draw.
Now let's say you just play Duress first turn, then followed by turn two Hymn. You have traded two cards for three of theirs, plus you have allowed what may be a creature to hit play (which you want so that you can get even more card advantage with Smallpox/Pox). You also don't draw late game, dead, Dark Rits.
To explain why you want them to play a creature early, you want your Smallpox/Pox to take out the cards in their hand, which you can more easily recover from when you are using cards like Nether Spirit, Bloodghast, or Tombstalker, while they are having to sacrifice their creature, plus discard the same number of cards as you. That creature they sacrifice makes the card advantage of a Smallpox/Pox even, and then puts it in your advantage if you discard a Nether Spirit or Bloodghast, or helps accelerate you if you're holding a Tombstalker. Again, with this method, you don't draw the late game, useless, Dark Rit. This is why Dark Rit underperforms in Pox.
Pox_You:
2.Nether Spirit - I'll be 100% honest I've never play tested with him, no idea how good he is, I simply hate the mechanic. I prefer 4 blood ghast The reason I say this is like you said this deck goes into top deck mode a lot and you can be in a position where you and your opponent both have little land and no cards. well now if you have blood ghast in graveyard you are either drawing more disruption or a solution guaranteed and even extra land isn't bad. But, the trade off is that blocker that buys you time. So something to toy around with I think I'm not sure what is better though.
Nether Spirit is amazing. I put him in my Pox and haven't looked back. Also, you mentioned that Pox goes into topdeck mode extremely quick. We can agree that topdeck mode is a bit bad because we are then put into "answer" mode, where if the opponent topdecks good stuff, then we must topdeck the answer, which doesn't always happen. The card that I've found gets me through this is Raven's Crime. Every card I draw gets rid of that card that they just drew, and forces them into permanent topdeck mode with me, except my lands become Raven's Crimes. Your land disruption should be enough to ensure that they aren't able to play that topdeck card immediately in most cases, so you should get the chance to Raven's Crime just about every card they draw when you both hit topdeck mode. It is because of this addition in my deck that I prefer Nether Spirit over Bloodghast, as Bloodghast wants me to play my lands while Raven's Crime wants me to discard them. I suppose if you are playing Crucible of Worlds then you should be fine with both, but that's too much if for me (*if* Crucible of Worlds is in play, it works). I also play two Divining Tops for those games that go a bit longer than normal, to help my topdecks get even better.
I did the same thing, and ended up hating it. I built decks like en-Kor, Rebels, Wonderdog...simple aggro decks with basic themes. It ended up being extremely boring.
So I did something new not too long ago. I decided to take apart all of those decks, and all of my other combo/aggro decks, and build nothing but control decks. It's much harder to build a good control deck that can stabilize against all that is out there. I feel that it tests my deckbuilding abilities, and it takes longer for me to tune the decks to be consistent and efficient. It also encourages the non-competitive magic players that I play with to try to make their aggro decks a bit more efficient, slightly faster, and more reliable in order to get around my control cards. It encourages them to make their combo decks less susceptable to being shut down by a single counter or answer and more consistent. It gives them an idea as to how a control deck should work, rather than just throwing counterspells in a deck.
Naw, but it's kind of neat. It's kind of similar, in that it uses good cards and combos, but the plan with my deck is to actually search out for the combo with Gifts.
So, after lots of testing, this is the deck so far. The Extended rules changes are going to make it short lived, but I'm going to keep it together afterwards anyways because it's so fun to play.
So, yeah, I know there's only 1-of of some of the combo cards, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. Through lots of playtesting I've found that there are threats coming from so many different angles that taking out one of the many combos certainly doesn't shut down the deck, and there are plenty of other ways to cripple the opponent, or at least maintain until one of my win conditions pulls through. After the Extended rotation I'm keeping it together to play for casual against some of the non-tourney locals here. It's just too fun to take apart. =)
I personally define the value of human life to be equivalent to the contributions that the particular life offers towards the advancement of the society as a whole, with consideration towards potential contributions (as in a child's case).
From a recent debate I had, I think it may help...
As far as the debate about the existence of a god, I think we have to define three things first. One, we must define what it is exactly that god is; what characteristics are we defining and what occurrences are we attributing to this concept of god. Two, we have to come to an agreement as to what the rules of the debate are. Three, we have to determine what exactly we are siding with. Are you attempting to debate that a god, as defined, exists? I would prefer, as my side of the debate, to state that the existence of a god, as defined by the normal definitions and attributes (all-knowing, all-present, eternal, and most importantly, self-aware) is a less logical belief, if not irrelevant to our every day lives, than acceptance of reality and science for what it is. In addition, the acceptance that we simply do not know some things, and to disdain the attribution of these things that we do not yet know to a god as we define it.
For the first thing, I will let you define the god that you wish to prove exists, because the burden of proof is with you anyways, and it would be illogical for me to try to prove that something which you believe in, but I define, does not exist. For the second, I propose that we agree not to use any fallacies of reason in our arguments for our particular sides of the debate
( http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm ), and three, I need to know what point exactly you wish to prove (is it simply that a god exists, or possible, or likely, or that a particular religion's god exists....).
This website helps to explain the misunderstanding
about scientific theories, and why the belief that a god exists is not
one of them:
Of particular note is the "... especially one that has been tested and
confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict
natural phenomena."
It appears that your idea of proving that a god exists rests on the
some of our current and previous generations' beliefs in the idea,
particularly when you mention that mankind feels drawn to it (appeal
to tradition and the bandwagon fallacy). Stating that the reality
that you observe causes you to believe in a certain faith, or any
faith at all, without any sort of scientific method for proving that
the particular faith, or any faith, is to be assumed to be truth does
not truly follow any logic at all. We can infer a truth about
something based off of observation, but the trick is to be able to
prove it using facts at hand, and then to be able to test it. The way
that scientists prove their theories is by creating situations in
which they could try to prove the hypothesis' incorrect, and letting
the data sway their judgement, rather than attempting to seek out data
in order to support the hypothesis. That is the true scientific
method.
An example of this is when Einstein developed his theory of relativity.
"... it was read by Arthur Stanley Eddington, Britain’s leading
astrophysicist. Eddington realised that Einstein’s theory could be
tested. If space really was distorted by gravity, then light passing
through it would not travel in a straight line, but would follow a
curved path. The stronger the force of gravity, the more the light
would be bent. The bending would be largest for light passing very
close to a very massive body, such as the Sun."
From history, we know the rest (or you can read the full article).
So, the problem with using the "thoery" argument is that the
misconception of what a theory is. The problem with using the
argument that mankind feels drawn, and has for a very long time,
towards the idea of the existence of a god, is that that is the
combination of two known fallacies. The problem with arguing that we
can logically infer the existence of a god through the reality we see
around us is the lack of falsifiability. Because of this, it can be
nothing more than a hypothesis.
Taylor: "As fair as I know, there is no evidence against the existence of God. Both the atheist and the theist bring nothing to that table."
- http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm , "proving non-existence" usually goes in hand with "confirmation bias"
It would be best to define exactly what morality is, to solve this. I feel that morality is best defined as popular opinion of what is right and wrong. The reasoning for this definition is how morality changes from region to region in the world. What is considered moral in the middle east is different from what is considered moral in Asia, and in the Americas, and so on.
To actually claim that a belief, or that an existence of a god, is required for morality to exist is to perverse the definition of morality, and to claim that there is a universal moral law, solely defined by a particular faith's beliefs, and is in itself a fallacy of reason.
I was working on a Pauper Eldrazi deck a while back that you might like. The drawbacks of using the Call of the Wild type stuff is that you are more likely to flip land and another card like Call before an Eldrazi. There is a much more reliable and safe way to get them into play.
Makes me want to play around with the idea. I'm not convinced it'll be competitive, but it would be neat to tinker with.
EDIT: Quick something I threw together. It's pretty fast, but isn't consistent enough yet I think.
4 Verdant Catacombs
6 Forest
6 Island
4 Swamp
4 Guul Draz Assassin
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Lighthouse Chronologist
4 Venerated Teacher
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Quest for Renewal
EDIT: nevermind. "The phrase "Morph [cost]" means "You may play this card as a 2/2 face-down creature, with no text, no name, no subtypes, no expansion symbol, and a mana cost of [0], by paying [3] rather than its mana cost.""
4 Burst Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Staggershock
4 Flame Jab
4 Shard Volley
4 Incinerate
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Spark Elemental
16 Mountain
You could also go with Fireblast, Mogg Fanatic, and Guerrilla Tactics, but I'm just trying to keep mine with the new card layout theme. The only versions of the Fanatic and Tactics with the new layout are shown as Uncommon, and I don't want to have to try to explain it to the casual people I play with.
Smallpox
Raven's Crime
Thoughtseize
Vampire Hexmage
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Syphon Life
Bloodghast
Again, I also ran Jitte and Bob. I feel Nighthawks may be a good addition to it. It may feel a little clunky at first, with retrace cards and Bloodghast being in the same deck, but it just requires smart play to do well. Isn't Damnation still legal?
As an example, let's say you start with a Duress, Hymn, and Dark Ritual in hand. If you first turn Rit, Duress, Hymn, you have used three cards to get rid of three of their cards. You *might* (1/3) chance hit one of their lands or a first turn drop, if you Duress first to reduce their hand down to 6. You just spent three cards to get rid of three cards, which is an even trade in card advantage, plus the slight chance of hitting a land or first turn drop. So, it's decent. I feel that this slight possibility for advantage is traded off by those late game, dead, Dark Rits you draw.
Now let's say you just play Duress first turn, then followed by turn two Hymn. You have traded two cards for three of theirs, plus you have allowed what may be a creature to hit play (which you want so that you can get even more card advantage with Smallpox/Pox). You also don't draw late game, dead, Dark Rits.
To explain why you want them to play a creature early, you want your Smallpox/Pox to take out the cards in their hand, which you can more easily recover from when you are using cards like Nether Spirit, Bloodghast, or Tombstalker, while they are having to sacrifice their creature, plus discard the same number of cards as you. That creature they sacrifice makes the card advantage of a Smallpox/Pox even, and then puts it in your advantage if you discard a Nether Spirit or Bloodghast, or helps accelerate you if you're holding a Tombstalker. Again, with this method, you don't draw the late game, useless, Dark Rit. This is why Dark Rit underperforms in Pox.
Pox_You:
Nether Spirit is amazing. I put him in my Pox and haven't looked back. Also, you mentioned that Pox goes into topdeck mode extremely quick. We can agree that topdeck mode is a bit bad because we are then put into "answer" mode, where if the opponent topdecks good stuff, then we must topdeck the answer, which doesn't always happen. The card that I've found gets me through this is Raven's Crime. Every card I draw gets rid of that card that they just drew, and forces them into permanent topdeck mode with me, except my lands become Raven's Crimes. Your land disruption should be enough to ensure that they aren't able to play that topdeck card immediately in most cases, so you should get the chance to Raven's Crime just about every card they draw when you both hit topdeck mode. It is because of this addition in my deck that I prefer Nether Spirit over Bloodghast, as Bloodghast wants me to play my lands while Raven's Crime wants me to discard them. I suppose if you are playing Crucible of Worlds then you should be fine with both, but that's too much if for me (*if* Crucible of Worlds is in play, it works). I also play two Divining Tops for those games that go a bit longer than normal, to help my topdecks get even better.
So I did something new not too long ago. I decided to take apart all of those decks, and all of my other combo/aggro decks, and build nothing but control decks. It's much harder to build a good control deck that can stabilize against all that is out there. I feel that it tests my deckbuilding abilities, and it takes longer for me to tune the decks to be consistent and efficient. It also encourages the non-competitive magic players that I play with to try to make their aggro decks a bit more efficient, slightly faster, and more reliable in order to get around my control cards. It encourages them to make their combo decks less susceptable to being shut down by a single counter or answer and more consistent. It gives them an idea as to how a control deck should work, rather than just throwing counterspells in a deck.
I suggest giving this angle a try. =)
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1 Academy Ruins
1 Gargoyle Castle
1 Breeding Pool
2 Flooded Grove
3 Tolaria West
3 Cascade Bluffs
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Steam Vents
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
Other:
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Punishing Fire
4 Firespout
4 Negate
3 Repeal
3 Cryptic Command
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Life From the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Chandra Ablaze
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
So, yeah, I know there's only 1-of of some of the combo cards, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. Through lots of playtesting I've found that there are threats coming from so many different angles that taking out one of the many combos certainly doesn't shut down the deck, and there are plenty of other ways to cripple the opponent, or at least maintain until one of my win conditions pulls through. After the Extended rotation I'm keeping it together to play for casual against some of the non-tourney locals here. It's just too fun to take apart. =)
Taylor: "As fair as I know, there is no evidence against the existence of God. Both the atheist and the theist bring nothing to that table."
- http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm , "proving non-existence" usually goes in hand with "confirmation bias"
To actually claim that a belief, or that an existence of a god, is required for morality to exist is to perverse the definition of morality, and to claim that there is a universal moral law, solely defined by a particular faith's beliefs, and is in itself a fallacy of reason.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm
I believe that claim actually subscribes to a number of fallacies, but the one that pops out to me is "begging the question."
4 Growth Spasm
4 Nest Invader
4 Spawning Breath
4 Hand of Emrakul
4 Kozilek's Predator
4 Emrakul's Hatcher
4 Ulamog's Crusher
4 Raid Bombardment
It's super cheap to build. It can also be extremely quick, especially if you mull to get a Hand or Bombardment into your opening hand.
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=21726
That's one example. Mainly it uses Seismic Assault, Swans of Bryn Argoll, Gaea's Blessing, and Dakmor Salvage to do infinite damage. There's a Swan deck that made top 8 at a local Mox tournament recently.