Happy to help and Welcome to Magic! Now, looks like you've already got a solid Golem base. What specifically attracts you to the idea of Artful Destruction? The more I know about why you like it, the more I can help you make a deck you'll enjoy.
Thanks so much for your quick reply!
I basically like the idea of amassing powerful creatures and attacking. I enjoy being able to add buffs (like the +1/+1 and regen.. etc) and eventually just overpowering the other player. I like being like: "Yea.. I attack you with 5 7/7 golems with trample, vigilance and regen."
Erm.. I think that's about it. I also bought a flying based intro pack, which I didn't like as much.. and I tried out a buddies' infect deck. I just ended up liking the playing style of artful destruction the most.
Hopefully that'll help get insight on what I like.
Hey there im new to the forums can u help me on a deck using Bloodbond March? Mt freinds tell me it sucks but i like its effect anyways. We use cards from every set including banned stuff but not unglued or any of the joke cards so i thought it would be easy but my deck is super slow and i end up at like 2 life once i get rolling. any ideas?
Bloodbond March is a super interesting card. I'll be happy to help you out. Your friends are almost correct about it. It would be a very weak card if not for two things...
1) Elementals.
snip
Elementals can be cast for their Evoke cost, provided you sacrifice them the moment they hit play. This will quickly fill your graveyard with creatures. You can then cast OR evoke guys with Bloodbond March in play to bring all creatures that share a name with it back from the grave. Live the dream... You have three Mulldrifter in your grave with the March in play. Then you Evoke another Mulldrifter (which counts as casting it). You get the 2 cards of your evoked drifter, then return all three others from your grave t play... Getting you 3, 2/2 fliers plus SIX more cards!
You need a grave filled with creatures? Try dropping your whole deck into your graveyard! Then how will you get a copy into your hand so you can get 4 creatures for the price of one?
Hmm... Well...
snip
Yeah, that'll do it.
Both ways are legitimate options for your deck, but you shouldn't do both at once. Note, if you do go the Iname route - Haunting Misery works well with her too. I'd say elementals will be a more consistent deck, but Iname with spirits is just so, so cool.
Sweet! I knew that there must be a way to use Bloodbond March! Spirits look totally cool but....I missed Kamigawa and never learned to play them. Do they cost alot of $? Are they strictly tribal? Should I keep the deck Black and Green or add in another color? or 2? or 3!? I have only been playing for about two months now and there is a ton of stuff I still havent learned yet, and if you could help me with a basic outline it would be totally appreciated. But more importantly thanks a ton for the idea even if you can no longer help me. I was about to give up on the first rare I ever pulled, but at least now I im a little more knowledgeable on how to use it. (Insert Huge Thank You Smiley Face)
Sweet! I knew that there must be a way to use Bloodbond March! Spirits look totally cool but....I missed Kamigawa and never learned to play them. Do they cost alot of $? Are they strictly tribal? Should I keep the deck Black and Green or add in another color? or 2? or 3!? I have only been playing for about two months now and there is a ton of stuff I still havent learned yet, and if you could help me with a basic outline it would be totally appreciated. But more importantly thanks a ton for the idea even if you can no longer help me. I was about to give up on the first rare I ever pulled, but at least now I im a little more knowledgeable on how to use it. (Insert Huge Thank You Smiley Face)
Sure thing.
1) Kamigawa spirits are, for the most part, dirt cheap. Iname herself only costs $0.25 on Channelfireball - you can grab a playset of her for a dollar. Spirits are also a very supported card type across Magic. You can find lots of cool ones from lots of sets - thought not all will be cheap too of course, but that means you have lots of opportunities to keep adding cool cards to your deck.
2) Spirits in Kamigawa have few tribal interactions outside of soulshift. Outside of Kamigawa they aren't a tribe at all, just a relatively common creature type. You will find many different spirits out there.
3) Spirits come in all five colors. However, black and green are some of their better colors - and fit perfectly with the March you'll be playing. Also, Iname is black and Time of Need, a great way to fetch her or any other legendary out of your deck, is green. This makes a good base for you. You can also use green as a base to cast spells like Rampant Growth and Elder Pine of Jukai to get many different lands in play.
I thought of a cool deck idea today. Using lands that animate into creatures and beating your opponents face with them. The idea I came up with was nuke the field as much as necessary with maybe some spot removal and animating my lands to deal damage after the board is wiped. I was looking to incorporate Terra Eternal and Day of Judgment. I'm interested to see what kind of deck you would put together.
I'm not against other potential creatures that my lands would benefit from. I also take note, a deck like this would be super mana intensive and I was thinking something like Doubling Cube. I'd like to see your version of an animated land deck.
You're getting a lot of cool suggestions. I'll suggest an overlooked card for this type of deck called Trace of Abundance. Slapping it on a man-land to give said man-land shroud in addition to its other abilities is pretty great.
Muddle the Mixture is not only a way to find Grimoire Thief, it's also a counterspell than can protect your combo. Trinket Mage finds a Paradise Mantle no sweat (as well as blocking like a champ) - plus can also be transmuted for via Drift of Phantasms. That's pretty sweet.
Grimoire Thief is your coolest and smoothest way to win - so you should focus your deck on putting together that combo (run 4 of the thieves for example). The rest of the decks should be focused on staying alive as you assemble it and protecting it from hate (via black disruption like inquisition of kozilek to look at their hand and take the cards that could stop you, or just more blue countermagic).
That give you some ideas?
Ok, well this is hard for me to do since I don't usually play mono-blue and have a hard time accepting tutor effects for combo pieces.
Here is a revised mono-blue list I made up after reading your comments.
I used Brainstorm as some card draw as I thought that would be a good choice with using Transmute abilities to cycle cards I don't need back into the deck.
Thoughts? Do I have good means of finding the cards and using them in a mulitplayer environment?
I used Brainstorm as some card draw as I thought that would be a good choice with using Transmute abilities to cycle cards I don't need back into the deck.
Thoughts? Do I have good means of finding the cards and using them in a mulitplayer environment?
This looks quite solid. It's worth noting by the way that coretapper/scepter can work great in other builds - it just doesn't fit into this one perfectly. Surge Node and such loves those cards.
This should work very well for duels (might want to see a bit more early defense) but in multiplayer you could have a hard time getting your combo out despite multiple opponents attempting to disrupt you. However, if you aren't worried about that, you can focus on the good - that your combo can kill any number of players with ease. And that's a very cool thing.
Hey! I recently got my 4th m12 Mesa Enchantress in addition to my bazillion others, and I have been looking to do something fun with her sans- the whole Enchantress-ish deck from legacy. My budget is not too high, maybe around $2 a card, and I would enjoy something that works to radically alter game states (ie I love casting Limited Resources or Cruel Ultimatum) The only other problem is keeping the Enchantress alive. Also, I am a big fan of combos, but infinite combos are banned in my metagame. (Multiplayer and Duals [moreso multi]) Please accept this challenge! Also, I too would like to offer my help to you if you need decks made here!
Regards,
MagicProfessor28
Hey Magic, I'm insanely busy this week - but I have good news!
As I was doing some research on enchantments for the no-less-than-three requests I've gotten for them, I came across this article. Looks like it'll fit you very nicely.
Okay, so I have always wanted to see a deck around Necromancer's Covenant, but when I tried to make one it failed miserably. (It was 2 years back, I never bothered to write it down)
Now, there's a lot of ways you can go with this card. Look at how cool it is. You make a huge amount of 2/2 zombies, all with lifelink. If you can get 4-5 of those tokens on the board, your opponent is going to have a very hard time winning. Now, things to keep in mind when building with this card are...
It wants guys in the graveyard
he more the better. We can't always bank on our opponent having tons of creatures, so we'll want to be able to fill our own grave with them somehow.
It gives zombies lifelink
Not just the tokens, but all zombies you control have lifelink as long as the covenant is in play. This screams 'zombie deck'... But that wouldn't be about the Covenant specifically - the Covenant would just be another cool card in a deck full of them. Plus, zombies don't like to be removed from your grave - so let's explore other areas for the deck.
It costs 6 mana
No two ways about it, we're going to have to find a way to keep ourselves alive in the early game while we head up to enough mana to cast the Covenant. This means we're either playing mana acceleration or control - perhaps a bit of both. With our colors, mostly control and defense is our strongest option - though we'll include some ramp elements too (Orzhov Signet makes me happy).
Now, with that in mind let's get to work!
+3 Necromancer's Covenant. It's the card we're building the deck around. However, you only want one at a time and we're going to have lots of ways to find the card - so three is probably the right number. After all, we're splashing black in order to run blue.
... Wait, what?
Yes, you heard me - I want blue in this deck. Blue is great at drawing/discarding, deck manipulation and control. While it might seem odd to splash black when there's two black mana symbols in the covenant - with the amount of fixing we'll be running it'll be easy as pie to get two black mana by turn 6. Could you run the deck straight black/white? Certainly! But, as you'll see, there's some nifty things we can do with Esper colors. Which leads us to the following... How to get a graveyard filled with critters?
The easiest solution is to run Time of Need to find Iname Death Aspect and giggle. You can definitely go that way, but since I just suggested a similar plan for a different strategy let's branch out a little. We need something to ensure our creatures fill the grave fast, as well as ways to find our Necromancer's Covenant.
Well, that's looking nice! Some solid defense and more card-draw than you can shake a stick at. Now, we have seven more slots in the deck and it's worth noting that all that cycling can be done at instant speed... So we can spend most of our time untapped. You could run most any white or black removal here, but to me this sounds like a job for Mana Leak!
+4 Mana Leak
+3 Remand
Mana Leak is a great and easy-to-find spell, plus my love for remand is well known (it's a time walk!), but for some reason opponents often mind it less than a hard counter - making it more fun for them to play. You'll love the card draw here too, letting you stay untapped to counter something of theirs or, if they don't play anything worth countering, cycle something away at the end of their turn. You basically never have to tap out in the deck if you don't want to!
However, if you're one of those folks that really likes solid removal or really hates counterspells there's lots of good options. Path to Exile is a champ, Swords to Plowshares, Condemn, Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Dismember... All fun spells and there's lots more where those came from. But, since I love the counterspells here since you can so often leave your mana open and only cycle during their end step if you don't need to spend your mana on something else, those are what shall fill the deck.
Now that looks fun! A great and unusual... As well as wicked powerful way to abuse the Covenant. You can throw in a secondary win condition too, not a bad idea (and Open the Vaults is similar in style) but that's up to you. If you want to be extra evil, you could avoid the defense creatures entirely and run nothing but cyclers and counter-spells - keeping your opponent from ever doing anything until you win with a Necromancer's Covenant. I'm not sure if it would be stronger or not... But it would sure be evil!
I'm a sucker for themes and flavor and having played since Ice Age/Alliances were around, I immediately fell in love with the snow theme in Coldsnap when the series hit the shelves some years ago. Since then I've wanted to build a cool snow-themed deck using snow-covered lands and a bunch of snow cards, but I haven't been able to find a descent build.
As a player I like flavor, but not to the point where I loose most games. Therefore it is very important to me that my decks both "feel right" and play well. I play both 1v1 and multiplayer games, so it doesn't really matter which format the deck is for.
My budget is somewhat limited, I'd say around $50 tops for the entire deck.
I'd really appreciate it if you could help me finally create a cool, relatively efficient snow deck. As I said earlier its a magic dream of mine.:)
I'm a sucker for themes and flavor and having played since Ice Age/Alliances were around, I immediately fell in love with the snow theme in Coldsnap when the series hit the shelves some years ago. Since then I've wanted to build a cool snow-themed deck using snow-covered lands and a bunch of snow cards, but I haven't been able to find a descent build.
As a player I like flavor, but not to the point where I loose most games. Therefore it is very important to me that my decks both "feel right" and play well. I play both 1v1 and multiplayer games, so it doesn't really matter which format the deck is for.
My budget is somewhat limited, I'd say around $50 tops for the entire deck.
I'd really appreciate it if you could help me finally create a cool, relatively efficient snow deck. As I said earlier its a magic dream of mine.:)
Sure thing! I might have just what you're looking for...
What is Snow? It is ice and wind, the swift flurry before the biting chill. Fighting it is like walking uphill through white sand, dragging you back, freezing you for brief moments... Making you expend more energy than normal to do what are usually trivial tasks.
Now, a control deck would be easy to build - but snow is not ice... It does not exist to freeze the opponent forever. It strikes in rushes and flurries - the harried presence of a blizzard. So, we will go aggro-control - dropping cheap threats and protecting them under counterspells, striking quickly and then stymying their spells just long enough to bury them under a snow drift.
We will need one more piece of counter-magic, and as the deck will be running solely blue... Let us summon the true, withering power of the blizzard.
That is enough of that, we can feel the rush of the wind. Now it is time for our aggressive creatures.
Vexing Sphinx is deadly, highlighted by Ben Bleiweiss once. As he pointed out - as the age counter goes on before you choose to pay the cumulative cost, you can actually use the sphinx to your advantage. You play it, then put a counter on it during your next turn - discarding a card and attacking. Then you put another counter on, discard two cards and swing again. Then you put a third counter on and decline to pay, drawing three cards for the age counters on it. You dealt eight damage and discarded three cards, then drew three new ones. All for 1UU. Now that's value.
Now, we must call the cold to us as well, flashes of ice and snow drifts locking down our enemies. A creature must fill this role, and he shall be known as Rimewind Taskmage.
Now, as the snow many of our own most powerful machines are frozen solid, requiring thawing... But when they do their power is enormous. We require another powerful 3cmc creature. Let us thaw the phyrexians.
With that, I would use Ben Bleweiss' own suggestion of ninjas here. They have the feel of the snow, striking in flurries then vanishing in the white blur of the blizzard. Ninja of the Deep Hours is incredible, an aggressive body with a card draw engine attached.
A ninja needs an enabler, and as more counterspells are always appreciated, let us turn to the soul of the snow - a wizard so devoted to the blizzard that he will give up his life, Martyr of Frost. A cheap creature to enable Ninjutsu and counter opponent's spells? Glorious.
Now, card draw is always appreciated. Let's explore Azure Mage. A 2/1 for 1U is pleasant in an aggressive deck - and the ability to draw you additional cards at the end of your opponents' turn if they have played nothing worth countering is excellent. Wisdom waits within the snow for those who pay attention.
+2 Azure Mage
Now, let us explore the lands. We can go a bit below 24 lands, but I'd rather not 22. The good news is that the deck is currently so cheap we can easily afford two copies of one of the best lands around for this deck - Scrying Sheets. Being able to pay two mana and get a chance at a free card is truly incredible value. Of course, the deck doesn't need them but they are quite the gems if you can pick them up and only a few dollars.
Okay, so I need some help. I have been wanting to make a deck that punishes my opponent (this will be a 1 on 1 deck) for having an hand (or not having one) or drawing cards. This is my deck so far, I hope you can help.
Okay, so I need some help. I have been wanting to make a deck that punishes my opponent (this will be a 1 on 1 deck) for having an hand (or not having one) or drawing cards. This is my deck so far, I hope you can help.
I thought of a cool deck idea today. Using lands that animate into creatures and beating your opponents face with them. The idea I came up with was nuke the field as much as necessary with maybe some spot removal and animating my lands to deal damage after the board is wiped. I was looking to incorporate Terra Eternal and Day of Judgment. I'm interested to see what kind of deck you would put together.
I'm not against other potential creatures that my lands would benefit from. I also take note, a deck like this would be super mana intensive and I was thinking something like Doubling Cube. I'd like to see your version of an animated land deck.
I understand the amount of requests but just incase you may have overlooked it, I was wondering if you would mind giving this one some thought. Thanks.
I understand the amount of requests but just incase you may have overlooked it, I was wondering if you would mind giving this one some thought. Thanks.
Sure thing. I think I mentioned something about Trace of Abundance earlier (good to give man-lands shroud!). As for the deck itself, if I get an inspired moment I'll definitely take a crack at it. So far I've been prioritizing other ideas because you've gotten a lot of other people suggesting things (at least I thought you did) and because the strategy so far looks rather similar to the Greater Harvester deck I built - just with different colors. Not that that's a bad thing - just nudged it behind other options. After all, my heart does go out to newbies and those who have been banging their heads trying to get junk rares to work.
Things to notice about Terra Eternal: 1) It affects all lands- Not just your own, so a one sided land destruction with some man lands is a no-go. 2) It has a CMC of 3- meaning that it is right on the line where aggressive decks will be pummeling face in both duals and multiplayers. 3) It is an enchantment which opens itself up to all sorts of removal.
So let's figure out how to win with this deck, since the key thing to note is that man-lands require a ton of extra mana despite being lands, so permanent/static effects become extra important.
Step 2: Decide on what you want to win with
A particularly strong man-land and favorite of mine is Inkmoth Nexus since it can come out of nowhere to win.
snip
Things to note-
a) It's an artifact creature so it will benefit from effects like Tempered Steel and Glorious Anthem. snip
b) It is a blinkmoth, so it is boosted by Blinkmoth Nexus as well. snip
Step 5: A way to deal with some indestructable monsters that may stand in your way
+4 Path to Exile
Step 6: A way to kill any annoying enchantments or artifacts that stand in your way
+4 Disenchant
Step 7: An alternate win condition
See all the lovely enchantments that help make the deck pump your lands? Let's make some friendly tokens for them to pump as well.
Step 8: Let's finish the lands off
+4 Mishra's Factory (Artifact and creature so it benefits from your pumps)
+2 Urza's Factory (some permanent tokens)
+10 Plains(We do need basic lands)
Just won a game with it versus a very aggressive Depths combo deck, this deck is legit fun to play!
Please note that my decks tend to be a bit more difficult to play than most decks... oftentimes they require more practice than others so do not be disheartened if they seem awkward or not working at first, because I assure you that the risk is worth it and after a couple of games, you will be slinging cards and winning games all the time!
Best of Luck,
MagicProfessor28
I'll see if I have some time for another deck later
Finished the Terra Eternal deck! Let me know if it is to your liking!
Looks sweet. Being able to use the 1/1s as indestructible fliers, Blinkmoth pumping the infect inkmoths, gives you lots of mileage without you ever needing to play a spell. Provided you don't mind getting playsets of those lands (the moths are rather pricey) then this interaction like a ton of fun.
The only sad thing is that you can't use the worldwake lands in here (too color-hungry considering the 8 colorless lands) - but considering how good the moths are here that hardly seems like a loss.
-
Seems like fun to me, if you have access to the playsets of the Inkmoth and Blinkmoth - not to mention the factory (and if so, awesome - those cards are sweet!)
One thing I should mention though, is that the manabase is WAY white-light. You've got Tempered Steel out there for 1WW in a deck with 10 white sources and that's asking for trouble. Also, since you have no ramp spells, I doubt Urza's Factory is really worth the slot. You might want to find some cards that can, for colorless mana, help you fix your colors. A signet (like Azorious Signet) or something like Sanctum Plowbeast perhaps.
Now, what I like most about the deck is its resilience to various strategies. If you run extra mass removal/defense you'll have a great game against aggro. As you do everything with man-lands you have a great game against control. If you could slip some counterspells into the main or black disruption (like memoricide) you could hate on combo too and make it complete.
In short, nice work Magicprofessor - there's a ton of cool potential here.
Edit - On another note, isn't anyone going to request a Melira deck? Look at the lady!
snip
There are so many amazing combos you can pull off with her, she'd be great even if all she was was a 0/2 for 2G who only provided the, "creatures you control can't have -1/-1 counters placed on them" ability!
And right now she's going at bulk rare prices, with the foil at $2.50 on channelfireball. Pick up your copies now guys, because she can't get much cheaper and she might well become a loved johnny gem eventually.
I mean, come on, combine her with Glen Elendra Archmage to counter every non-creature spell your opponents play (keeps coming back as a 2/2 each time with no -1/-1 counter!), or with Aerie Ouphes to deal infinite damage to creatures with flying, or with Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap/Woodfall Primus + Spawning Pit/Ashnod's Altar/Altar of Dementia to gain infinite life, deal infinite damage or destroy infinite non-creature permanents (including lands and plainswalkers)... All while making infinite charge counters for 2/2s, infinite mana, or milling for infinite cards.
Stairc's recruited me for taking on backed-up requests, so I'll be a frequent visitor to the thread. Unfortunately, I'm retiring for the day, but I'll gladly start building some decks tomorrow!
I've also been recruited by stairc, so ill be visiting here quite frequently as well. I dable more so in standard than anything else but always happy to help with anything. If anyone needs help with any standard casual/fun/competative, post it.up here or PM me with what cards choices you'd like and if its budget or not and ill put work in. Lookimg forward to helping out and seeing some fun ideas come together
Thanks a lot for the snow deck. Im very grateful for your help, but its not really what I was looking for. Its pretty "snowy" and all, but I'm afraid its not strong enough to compete against my friends. Furthermore I'm not much for mono-blue decks and too much countermagic.
My only problem with the deck is, that it might not be strong enough to compete with the decks of my friends. Is it possible to improve it? I would really appreciate it if you could find the time to try.
Thanks a lot for the snow deck. Im very grateful for your help, but its not really what I was looking for. Its pretty "snowy" and all, but I'm afraid its not strong enough to compete against my friends. Furthermore I'm not much for mono-blue decks and too much countermagic.
My only problem with the deck is, that it might not be strong enough to compete with the decks of my friends. Is it possible to improve it? I would really appreciate it if you could find the time to try.
Why don't we start with you giving us an idea of your friends' decklists?
Hmmm, I've always loved 5-colour control decks, but I've never had the money to buy all the expensive cards you'd need! I've trawled hundreds of 5cc threads and know about most of the relevant lands, so I know it's unlikely (though not impossible) to be Johnny-tastic and combo-based like you seem to like, but if you're interested, I would certainly like to hear your thoughts on the archetype.
*smiles* Don't worry, I've built aggo, combo and control all. It just so happens I've been getting many combo-based requests. Additionally, Hosecloth and Knighti4 are good at all manner of building as well. I'm pretty sure MagicProfessor is pure Johnny though.
One thing - do you have the money to afford a reliable 5 color mana-base? We can budget on the spells themselves, there's lots of options, but you really do need reliable mana in a control deck - and 5 color ones are expensive.
Perhaps someone could take a crack at my Splitting Image deck, I wanted a deck that copied creatures and just made mass shenanigans. Usually I work on my deck extensively to get it running optimally, well... this one is fun, but a little slow.
i'd like to see a deck based around these cards if you have ideas/suggestions (mainly Near-Death Experience):
see cards in spoiler:
This seems pretty interesting, so I thought I'd offer my ideas.
Aside from Fortune Thief, Near-Death Experience loves Worship.
Since you need the Experience and/or Worship to be sticking around, might as well add Greater Auramancy as well.
With that many vital enchantments Idyllic Tutor seems like a good addition.
The best part about your combo is that you don't have to worry about your opponent attacking you, because you want them to attack you. But since you can't trust your opponent to do all the work for you, you'll need some ways to get it done yourself.
Master Warcraft to force an Alpha Strike on their part to drop your life.
The best one though is Volcano Hellion. With this guy you can immediately drop your life total to 1, even without Fortune Thief or Worship.
You'll probably want some more creatures for Worship, perhaps something indestructible like Darksteel Myr.
And finally, a somewhat silly suggestion that could turn out fun; Final Fortune. If you play this the same turn as a Hellion with Near-Death Experience out, you'll win before your opponent gets another turn.
Thanks so much for your quick reply!
I basically like the idea of amassing powerful creatures and attacking. I enjoy being able to add buffs (like the +1/+1 and regen.. etc) and eventually just overpowering the other player. I like being like: "Yea.. I attack you with 5 7/7 golems with trample, vigilance and regen."
Erm.. I think that's about it. I also bought a flying based intro pack, which I didn't like as much.. and I tried out a buddies' infect deck. I just ended up liking the playing style of artful destruction the most.
Hopefully that'll help get insight on what I like.
Thank you again!
Bloodbond March is a super interesting card. I'll be happy to help you out. Your friends are almost correct about it. It would be a very weak card if not for two things...
1) Elementals.
Now that's awesome.
2) Iname, Death Aspect.
You need a grave filled with creatures? Try dropping your whole deck into your graveyard! Then how will you get a copy into your hand so you can get 4 creatures for the price of one?
Hmm... Well...
Yeah, that'll do it.
Both ways are legitimate options for your deck, but you shouldn't do both at once. Note, if you do go the Iname route - Haunting Misery works well with her too. I'd say elementals will be a more consistent deck, but Iname with spirits is just so, so cool.
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Sure thing.
1) Kamigawa spirits are, for the most part, dirt cheap. Iname herself only costs $0.25 on Channelfireball - you can grab a playset of her for a dollar. Spirits are also a very supported card type across Magic. You can find lots of cool ones from lots of sets - thought not all will be cheap too of course, but that means you have lots of opportunities to keep adding cool cards to your deck.
2) Spirits in Kamigawa have few tribal interactions outside of soulshift. Outside of Kamigawa they aren't a tribe at all, just a relatively common creature type. You will find many different spirits out there.
3) Spirits come in all five colors. However, black and green are some of their better colors - and fit perfectly with the March you'll be playing. Also, Iname is black and Time of Need, a great way to fetch her or any other legendary out of your deck, is green. This makes a good base for you. You can also use green as a base to cast spells like Rampant Growth and Elder Pine of Jukai to get many different lands in play.
You're getting a lot of cool suggestions. I'll suggest an overlooked card for this type of deck called Trace of Abundance. Slapping it on a man-land to give said man-land shroud in addition to its other abilities is pretty great.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Ok, well this is hard for me to do since I don't usually play mono-blue and have a hard time accepting tutor effects for combo pieces.
Here is a revised mono-blue list I made up after reading your comments.
4 Drift of Phantasms
3 Fog Bank
4 Grimoire Thief
3 Trinket Mage
1 Fallowsage
1 Surgespanner
4 Muddle the Mixture
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
(6 Enchantments)
4 Freed from the Real
2 Pemmin’s Aura
4 Paradise Mantle
1 Sol Ring
1 Meekstone
1 Æther Spellbomb
(21 Lands)
2 Tolaria West
19 Island
It was really tough for me to get rid of the Coretappers and Magister's Scepters, just because I thought they were a cool addition.
When I added the Trinket Mages, I wanted to make sure I had a couple targets other than just the Paradise Mantles. Sol Ring, Meekstone, and Æther Spellbomb can also be tutored.
I added 2 Tolaria West to help find Paradise Mantle if need be.
I added 4 Muddle the Mixture and upped the Grimoire Thief by two.
I used Brainstorm as some card draw as I thought that would be a good choice with using Transmute abilities to cycle cards I don't need back into the deck.
Thoughts? Do I have good means of finding the cards and using them in a mulitplayer environment?
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The heck? Spam warning issued.
-Memnarch
This looks quite solid. It's worth noting by the way that coretapper/scepter can work great in other builds - it just doesn't fit into this one perfectly. Surge Node and such loves those cards.
This should work very well for duels (might want to see a bit more early defense) but in multiplayer you could have a hard time getting your combo out despite multiple opponents attempting to disrupt you. However, if you aren't worried about that, you can focus on the good - that your combo can kill any number of players with ease. And that's a very cool thing.
Hey Magic, I'm insanely busy this week - but I have good news!
As I was doing some research on enchantments for the no-less-than-three requests I've gotten for them, I came across this article. Looks like it'll fit you very nicely.
Take a look.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/bb102
This is just too fun not to do.
Okay, so Necromancer's Covenant. Let's take a look at the card.
Now, there's a lot of ways you can go with this card. Look at how cool it is. You make a huge amount of 2/2 zombies, all with lifelink. If you can get 4-5 of those tokens on the board, your opponent is going to have a very hard time winning. Now, things to keep in mind when building with this card are...
It wants guys in the graveyard
he more the better. We can't always bank on our opponent having tons of creatures, so we'll want to be able to fill our own grave with them somehow.
It gives zombies lifelink
Not just the tokens, but all zombies you control have lifelink as long as the covenant is in play. This screams 'zombie deck'... But that wouldn't be about the Covenant specifically - the Covenant would just be another cool card in a deck full of them. Plus, zombies don't like to be removed from your grave - so let's explore other areas for the deck.
It costs 6 mana
No two ways about it, we're going to have to find a way to keep ourselves alive in the early game while we head up to enough mana to cast the Covenant. This means we're either playing mana acceleration or control - perhaps a bit of both. With our colors, mostly control and defense is our strongest option - though we'll include some ramp elements too (Orzhov Signet makes me happy).
Now, with that in mind let's get to work!
+3 Necromancer's Covenant. It's the card we're building the deck around. However, you only want one at a time and we're going to have lots of ways to find the card - so three is probably the right number. After all, we're splashing black in order to run blue.
... Wait, what?
Yes, you heard me - I want blue in this deck. Blue is great at drawing/discarding, deck manipulation and control. While it might seem odd to splash black when there's two black mana symbols in the covenant - with the amount of fixing we'll be running it'll be easy as pie to get two black mana by turn 6. Could you run the deck straight black/white? Certainly! But, as you'll see, there's some nifty things we can do with Esper colors. Which leads us to the following... How to get a graveyard filled with critters?
The easiest solution is to run Time of Need to find Iname Death Aspect and giggle. You can definitely go that way, but since I just suggested a similar plan for a different strategy let's branch out a little. We need something to ensure our creatures fill the grave fast, as well as ways to find our Necromancer's Covenant.
Ladies and gentleman, let's start cycling!
Architects of Will, Glassdust Hulk, Sanctum Plowbeast, Jhessian Zombies Esper Sojourner, Undead Gladiator, Viscera Dragger, Gempalm Polluter - the possibilities are many, varied and wonderful. Each time you cycle one of these creatures you discard it to draw a new card... Filling your grave and drawing you into Necromancer's Covenant in the process. Plus, Sanctum Plowbeast and Jhessian Zombies help fix your mana to keep you running smooth. All you need are some Wall of Omens for more card draw plus defense as well as Sea-Gate Oracle for the same.
So let's add in some cards.
3 Necromancer's Covenant
The Ark
2 Dimir Signet
2 Orzhov Signet
4 Wall of Omens
4 Sea-Gate Oracle
4 Architects of Will
4 Glassdust Hulk
4 Jhessian Zombies
2 Esper Sojourner
Well, that's looking nice! Some solid defense and more card-draw than you can shake a stick at. Now, we have seven more slots in the deck and it's worth noting that all that cycling can be done at instant speed... So we can spend most of our time untapped. You could run most any white or black removal here, but to me this sounds like a job for Mana Leak!
+4 Mana Leak
+3 Remand
Mana Leak is a great and easy-to-find spell, plus my love for remand is well known (it's a time walk!), but for some reason opponents often mind it less than a hard counter - making it more fun for them to play. You'll love the card draw here too, letting you stay untapped to counter something of theirs or, if they don't play anything worth countering, cycle something away at the end of their turn. You basically never have to tap out in the deck if you don't want to!
However, if you're one of those folks that really likes solid removal or really hates counterspells there's lots of good options. Path to Exile is a champ, Swords to Plowshares, Condemn, Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Dismember... All fun spells and there's lots more where those came from. But, since I love the counterspells here since you can so often leave your mana open and only cycle during their end step if you don't need to spend your mana on something else, those are what shall fill the deck.
A deck which now looks like...
3 Necromancer's Covenant
The Ark ]33]
2 Dimir Signet
2 Orzhov Signet
4 Wall of Omens
4 Sea-Gate Oracle
4 Architects of Will
4 Glassdust Hulk
4 Jhessian Zombies
2 Esper Sojourner
4 Mana Leak
3 Remand
4 Arcane Sanctum
20 Other
Now that looks fun! A great and unusual... As well as wicked powerful way to abuse the Covenant. You can throw in a secondary win condition too, not a bad idea (and Open the Vaults is similar in style) but that's up to you. If you want to be extra evil, you could avoid the defense creatures entirely and run nothing but cyclers and counter-spells - keeping your opponent from ever doing anything until you win with a Necromancer's Covenant. I'm not sure if it would be stronger or not... But it would sure be evil!
Enjoy.
-Stairc
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7 Mountain
12 Island
4 Drift of Phantasms
4 Gilder Bairn
4 Coretapper
4 Dismantle
4 Freed from the Real
4 Coalition Relic
4 Eternity Vessel
3 Darksteel Reactor
2 Paradise Mantle
2 Magistrate's Scepter
Freed from the Real can also help tap the Gilder Bairns.
The main win con will be to add charge counters to a Darksteel Reactor by the Coretapper Combo, taking infinite turns with it in play with the scepter, Gilder Bairn + Freed from the Real, Dismantle from an artifact with a bunch of counters (mainly Eternity Vessel).
What do you think about this? Feasible? See any improvements?
Sales Thread!
It certainly looks fun.
Take a look here. Might give you some more ideas.
http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/articles/Between_a_Rock_and_a_Grindstone_-_Dice_Factory:_The_Scariest,_Jankiest_Deck_Ever_Seen.php
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I'm a sucker for themes and flavor and having played since Ice Age/Alliances were around, I immediately fell in love with the snow theme in Coldsnap when the series hit the shelves some years ago. Since then I've wanted to build a cool snow-themed deck using snow-covered lands and a bunch of snow cards, but I haven't been able to find a descent build.
As a player I like flavor, but not to the point where I loose most games. Therefore it is very important to me that my decks both "feel right" and play well. I play both 1v1 and multiplayer games, so it doesn't really matter which format the deck is for.
My budget is somewhat limited, I'd say around $50 tops for the entire deck.
I'd really appreciate it if you could help me finally create a cool, relatively efficient snow deck. As I said earlier its a magic dream of mine.:)
Sure thing! I might have just what you're looking for...
What is Snow? It is ice and wind, the swift flurry before the biting chill. Fighting it is like walking uphill through white sand, dragging you back, freezing you for brief moments... Making you expend more energy than normal to do what are usually trivial tasks.
This calls for blue, specifically Rune Snag.
Costing your opponent additional effort to cast their spells makes a great deal of sense. We will take its cousin as well, Mana Leak.
+4 Rune Snag
+4 Mana Leak
Now, a control deck would be easy to build - but snow is not ice... It does not exist to freeze the opponent forever. It strikes in rushes and flurries - the harried presence of a blizzard. So, we will go aggro-control - dropping cheap threats and protecting them under counterspells, striking quickly and then stymying their spells just long enough to bury them under a snow drift.
We will need one more piece of counter-magic, and as the deck will be running solely blue... Let us summon the true, withering power of the blizzard.
+4 Counterspell
That is enough of that, we can feel the rush of the wind. Now it is time for our aggressive creatures.
Vexing Sphinx is deadly, highlighted by Ben Bleiweiss once. As he pointed out - as the age counter goes on before you choose to pay the cumulative cost, you can actually use the sphinx to your advantage. You play it, then put a counter on it during your next turn - discarding a card and attacking. Then you put another counter on, discard two cards and swing again. Then you put a third counter on and decline to pay, drawing three cards for the age counters on it. You dealt eight damage and discarded three cards, then drew three new ones. All for 1UU. Now that's value.
+4 Vexing Sphinx
Now, we must call the cold to us as well, flashes of ice and snow drifts locking down our enemies. A creature must fill this role, and he shall be known as Rimewind Taskmage.
+4 Rimewind Taskmage
Now, as the snow many of our own most powerful machines are frozen solid, requiring thawing... But when they do their power is enormous. We require another powerful 3cmc creature. Let us thaw the phyrexians.
+4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
With that, I would use Ben Bleweiss' own suggestion of ninjas here. They have the feel of the snow, striking in flurries then vanishing in the white blur of the blizzard. Ninja of the Deep Hours is incredible, an aggressive body with a card draw engine attached.
+4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
A ninja needs an enabler, and as more counterspells are always appreciated, let us turn to the soul of the snow - a wizard so devoted to the blizzard that he will give up his life, Martyr of Frost. A cheap creature to enable Ninjutsu and counter opponent's spells? Glorious.
+4 Martyr of Frost
Now, card draw is always appreciated. Let's explore Azure Mage. A 2/1 for 1U is pleasant in an aggressive deck - and the ability to draw you additional cards at the end of your opponents' turn if they have played nothing worth countering is excellent. Wisdom waits within the snow for those who pay attention.
+2 Azure Mage
Now, let us explore the lands. We can go a bit below 24 lands, but I'd rather not 22. The good news is that the deck is currently so cheap we can easily afford two copies of one of the best lands around for this deck - Scrying Sheets. Being able to pay two mana and get a chance at a free card is truly incredible value. Of course, the deck doesn't need them but they are quite the gems if you can pick them up and only a few dollars.
+20 Snow-Covered Island
+2 Scrying Sheets
And so, let us delve into the blizzard.
4 Martyr of Frost
4 Rimewind Taskmage
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Vexing Sphinx
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
2 Azure Mage
4 Rune Snag
4 Mana Leak
4 Counterspell
20 Snow-Covered Island
2 Scrying Sheets
Have yourself a merry little christmas.
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NOTHING
Spells:
4 Consume Spirit
4 Taste of Blood
4 Blue Sun's Zenith
2 Caress of Phyrexia
4 Sign in Blood
4 Dark Ritual
4 Black Vise
4 The Rack
4 Miser's Cage
Enchantments:
4 Underworld Dreams
Planes Walkers:
2 Jace Beleren
8 Swamps
4 Island
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
Take a look here. It's a link to an old deck from a tournament format - and it should give you some cool ideas.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/11536_The_Complete_Owling_Mine_Player8217s_Guide.html
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I understand the amount of requests but just incase you may have overlooked it, I was wondering if you would mind giving this one some thought. Thanks.
Sure thing. I think I mentioned something about Trace of Abundance earlier (good to give man-lands shroud!). As for the deck itself, if I get an inspired moment I'll definitely take a crack at it. So far I've been prioritizing other ideas because you've gotten a lot of other people suggesting things (at least I thought you did) and because the strategy so far looks rather similar to the Greater Harvester deck I built - just with different colors. Not that that's a bad thing - just nudged it behind other options. After all, my heart does go out to newbies and those who have been banging their heads trying to get junk rares to work.
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Things to notice about Terra Eternal:
1) It affects all lands- Not just your own, so a one sided land destruction with some man lands is a no-go.
2) It has a CMC of 3- meaning that it is right on the line where aggressive decks will be pummeling face in both duals and multiplayers.
3) It is an enchantment which opens itself up to all sorts of removal.
So let's figure out how to win with this deck, since the key thing to note is that man-lands require a ton of extra mana despite being lands, so permanent/static effects become extra important.
Step 1: Decide on your base
In this case we were given Terra Eternal and Day of Judgment as our base.
+4 Terra Eternal
+4 Day of Judgment
Step 2: Decide on what you want to win with
A particularly strong man-land and favorite of mine is Inkmoth Nexus since it can come out of nowhere to win.
a) It's an artifact creature so it will benefit from effects like Tempered Steel and Glorious Anthem.
snip
snip
+4 Inkmoth Nexus
+4 Blinkmoth Nexus
+4 Tempered Steel
+2 Glorious Anthem
Step 3: Let's add a few more board wipe spells to ensure maximum pwnage
+2 Rout
+1 Austere Command
+3 Wrath of God
Step 4: Now for some ways to get your tools to win.
+2 Weathered Wayfarer
+4 Idyllic Tutor
Step 5: A way to deal with some indestructable monsters that may stand in your way
+4 Path to Exile
Step 6: A way to kill any annoying enchantments or artifacts that stand in your way
+4 Disenchant
Step 7: An alternate win condition
See all the lovely enchantments that help make the deck pump your lands? Let's make some friendly tokens for them to pump as well.
+2 Shrine of Loyal Legions
Step 8: Let's finish the lands off
+4 Mishra's Factory (Artifact and creature so it benefits from your pumps)
+2 Urza's Factory (some permanent tokens)
+10 Plains(We do need basic lands)
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urza's Factory
10 Plains
2 Weathered Wayfarer
Spells
4 Terra Eternal
4 Day of Judgment
4 Tempered Steel
2 Glorious Anthem
2 Rout
1 Austere Command
4 Idyllic Tutor
4 Path to Exile
4 Disenchant
2 Shrine of Loyal Legions
3 Wrath of God
Just won a game with it versus a very aggressive Depths combo deck, this deck is legit fun to play!
Best of Luck,
MagicProfessor28
I'll see if I have some time for another deck later
warnig for img leeching. imgs removed.
blut
Looks sweet. Being able to use the 1/1s as indestructible fliers, Blinkmoth pumping the infect inkmoths, gives you lots of mileage without you ever needing to play a spell. Provided you don't mind getting playsets of those lands (the moths are rather pricey) then this interaction like a ton of fun.
The only sad thing is that you can't use the worldwake lands in here (too color-hungry considering the 8 colorless lands) - but considering how good the moths are here that hardly seems like a loss.
-
Seems like fun to me, if you have access to the playsets of the Inkmoth and Blinkmoth - not to mention the factory (and if so, awesome - those cards are sweet!)
One thing I should mention though, is that the manabase is WAY white-light. You've got Tempered Steel out there for 1WW in a deck with 10 white sources and that's asking for trouble. Also, since you have no ramp spells, I doubt Urza's Factory is really worth the slot. You might want to find some cards that can, for colorless mana, help you fix your colors. A signet (like Azorious Signet) or something like Sanctum Plowbeast perhaps.
Now, what I like most about the deck is its resilience to various strategies. If you run extra mass removal/defense you'll have a great game against aggro. As you do everything with man-lands you have a great game against control. If you could slip some counterspells into the main or black disruption (like memoricide) you could hate on combo too and make it complete.
In short, nice work Magicprofessor - there's a ton of cool potential here.
Edit - On another note, isn't anyone going to request a Melira deck? Look at the lady!
snip
There are so many amazing combos you can pull off with her, she'd be great even if all she was was a 0/2 for 2G who only provided the, "creatures you control can't have -1/-1 counters placed on them" ability!
And right now she's going at bulk rare prices, with the foil at $2.50 on channelfireball. Pick up your copies now guys, because she can't get much cheaper and she might well become a loved johnny gem eventually.
I mean, come on, combine her with Glen Elendra Archmage to counter every non-creature spell your opponents play (keeps coming back as a 2/2 each time with no -1/-1 counter!), or with Aerie Ouphes to deal infinite damage to creatures with flying, or with Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap/Woodfall Primus + Spawning Pit/Ashnod's Altar/Altar of Dementia to gain infinite life, deal infinite damage or destroy infinite non-creature permanents (including lands and plainswalkers)... All while making infinite charge counters for 2/2s, infinite mana, or milling for infinite cards.
Does that sound fun?
Well, it should!
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see cards in spoiler:
Modern:
URG Tarmo-Twin Deck URG
UU Merfolk Deck UU
WBG Melira-Pod Deck (RIP) WBG
WUBRG Cube [WIP] WUBRG
Casual Decks:
WUG Bant Humans WUG
WUB Esper Tokens WUB
WUB Esper Artifacts WUB
UG WallsOfProgenitus UG
WWEquipment KnightsWW
UR Izzet Chimera UR
Casual EDH/Commander Deck:
UG Momir Vig: Combo UG
WB Athreos: Shadowborn Apostle WB
URG Animar: Fatties URG
UBR Marchesa: Sacrifice UBR
Thanks a lot for the snow deck. Im very grateful for your help, but its not really what I was looking for. Its pretty "snowy" and all, but I'm afraid its not strong enough to compete against my friends. Furthermore I'm not much for mono-blue decks and too much countermagic.
I really liked the idea of a Winter's Night deck, as in GMAD #223:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=314003&highlight=gmad&page=5
My only problem with the deck is, that it might not be strong enough to compete with the decks of my friends. Is it possible to improve it? I would really appreciate it if you could find the time to try.
Why don't we start with you giving us an idea of your friends' decklists?
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*smiles* Don't worry, I've built aggo, combo and control all. It just so happens I've been getting many combo-based requests. Additionally, Hosecloth and Knighti4 are good at all manner of building as well. I'm pretty sure MagicProfessor is pure Johnny though.
One thing - do you have the money to afford a reliable 5 color mana-base? We can budget on the spells themselves, there's lots of options, but you really do need reliable mana in a control deck - and 5 color ones are expensive.
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This seems pretty interesting, so I thought I'd offer my ideas.
Aside from Fortune Thief, Near-Death Experience loves Worship.
Since you need the Experience and/or Worship to be sticking around, might as well add Greater Auramancy as well.
With that many vital enchantments Idyllic Tutor seems like a good addition.
The best part about your combo is that you don't have to worry about your opponent attacking you, because you want them to attack you. But since you can't trust your opponent to do all the work for you, you'll need some ways to get it done yourself.
Master Warcraft to force an Alpha Strike on their part to drop your life.
The best one though is Volcano Hellion. With this guy you can immediately drop your life total to 1, even without Fortune Thief or Worship.
You'll probably want some more creatures for Worship, perhaps something indestructible like Darksteel Myr.
And finally, a somewhat silly suggestion that could turn out fun; Final Fortune. If you play this the same turn as a Hellion with Near-Death Experience out, you'll win before your opponent gets another turn.
EDH Decks
BGGlissa, the TraitorGB
URTibor and LumiaRU
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticBUW
UBSygg, River CutthroatBU
RGXenagos, God of RevelsGR
UGVorel of the Hull CladeGU
GBSavra, Queen of the GolgariBG
URGMaelstrom WandererGRU