no worries mate. I too am thinking of retiring my deck in favor of a nightmare survival deck:)
It gets really boring really fast when you reanimate a Jin on T1/2 on the back of dark ritual/tutor rather consistently.
I thought quite hard about the fetches as well. But finally, the blue fetches to me are not an investment but an easy resource because i can quite easily jam them into any decks that require blue.
With luck, magic might in time become an awesome collectors item such that these fetches might retain value hahaha
Its that simple. Ravenger is the icing/cherry on the top of the cake that we do not necessarily need but is good to have.
Essentially, your games will be powered by:
T1: Artifact land, Mox, Sol Ring, MoE/Etched Champ + rest of hand
Don't detract from what an affinity deck is. Synergy and speed. You are going for their throat from the get go. There are not many decks that can defend against a Cranial Plated Etched Champ on T2.
Here is my most recent list and it is explosively insane:
2 Steelshaper's Gift: This is Cranial Plating 5-6. An unanswered and equipped plating is almost GG right there on T2.
1 Tinker: Just for fun and an alternate win con with Blightsteel.
PS: When playing with this deck, be as aggressive as you can. Double equip a skullclamp to kill your own creature if need be to draw cards. Do not sit back and block. These is barely any deck in the world that can race an affinity deck.
I went up to 14 Land. I'll playtest but I think with the Petals it will be fine. The Petals may let me Duress or Spell Pierce if I draw it opening hand. I cut the Imp's and Rituals for the extra Land, Defense and LDV. Cheers.
I don't know what your restricted card list looks like but I'm assuming there isnt one (demonic consultation was amongst some of the lists I saw).
I play 2HG reanimator and its a blast (bore depending on you) when you get to close out games after 2 turns. Here is my version of a nut draw.
T1: Swamp, Dark Ritual, Entomb (for Jin) and Exhume/Reanimate/Animate Dead.
T2: Autowin.
A few suggestions I would make to your list.
+4 Mystical Tutors. They are banned for a reason. They greatly improve consistency. You essentially need 3 pieces to "combo off" for the Jin lockdown. Mystical tutor gets you the 3rd piece (entomb for creatures, reanimate for animation and/or dark ritual for acceleration).
+2 Echoing Truth
+4 Drowned Catacombs works better with watery grave than darkslick
+4 Blue Fetchlands. To tune the manabase, this is really necessary.
+2 Demonic Tutor. best tutor ever printed
Removals:
-4 Ponder - just add in demonic tutors in place of this.
-1 Animate Dead/Exhume - too many reanimators can be overkill
-4 Lotus Petal - doesnt add too much value imho. just up the land count.
-4 Darkslick Shores - never really saw value in this card unless its in your opening hand
-2 Lim Duis Vault - same as ponder. just use demonic tutor
-2 Underground River - blue fetches are an investment.
-1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse - same as underground river
-1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge - same as underground river
Ultimately, you want a core of 17 lands (including fetches), a creature base of 7-8 creatures, 4-6 tutors, 9-10 reanimators, 4 brainstorm and the remainder is a combination of counter/disruption/utility/enabler spells (dark ritual for instance). That is entirely meta dependant.
I play a very similar format to yours. In fact it is exactly as you guys are playing it.
Control in this format is actually twice as difficult because of tempo. You only have so much mana to do so many things against 2 people. You might be drawing 2-3 cards per turn but you cant cast all the counters in the world against 2 people. Basically what I am saying is that you should abandon the idea of control in the traditional sense.
What really gets this going are 2 (or more) for 1. Like wrath of god and pernicious deed and slagstorm. Just to give you a flavour of what you need to be looking out for.
But having said that, I find control incredibly difficult to pilot. This is because you really need very tight resource management to counter/cast spells at the right time. And you need an in depth understanding of your meta to be able to effectively build around it. For example, my friends play a brainfreeze/hightide/combo deck (quite insane in 2HG actually). So I might include mindbreak trap just for that purpose. mindbreak trap is also immensely useful for tricky situations where uncounterable spells need to be countered.
So frankly, I would say give up on control and instead, follow a linear strategy. I find that in my meta, Jund Ramp works incredibly well. My curve will go like this:
but thats a very meta dependent call as you yourself have admitted. It works best when there are a mix of old and new players and admittedly, the new player can often use a helping hand. In such a meta where people have sportsmanship, this card shines. You help the new player, possibly buy an ally and have an incredible creature for your efforts. And of course have fun along the way to see what crazy stuff happens.
In the other end of the spectrum, you might find yourself with a meta like mine. 4 players playing 2HG who can attack and defend as "one". Diplomacy becomes irrelevant at this juncture.
Magic also has evolved to the point where power creep becomes inevitable. Creatures dont only have to be aggressively costed, they have to create board presence and make some form of impact when they hit. Its easy to diss the card that first appears to have an incredibly "bad' drawback.
Anyway the hunted cards are interesting. Ceteris Peribus, You are "possibly" going to take 6 damage. But if you do, you are certainly going to deal 7 damage making you a point better off in any exchange. And if I remember black mages correctly, the dont mind taking 19 lives off if they can deal 20 first. Which is the whole point. Hunted Horror deals lethal in 3 turns but the tokens deal lethal in at least 4.
i meant the complete opposite: That the starting post (your question) was meant in general (as you just sad again) but everyone was just responding as if you mention the context of turn2.
that is why i qouted on that post where i did.
alosngside Earthquake and good positioned later in the game !!
lol. give a man some goodies but hold the ultimate whip to destroy him if he betrays you. nice!
Oh no, my intent was never to limit the discussion to ideal scenarios where you cast him on turn 2. That's not very practical. I'm curious as what people think about the card on the whole. It's relevance at every stage of the game are important considerations to make in my mind.
Hmm. Back when we played FFA (8 players) this would always be a tough call.
Because the person you give the 2 creatures might likely be behind and so your saving him. Well he might or he might not help you. And he might or might not turn against you. But,
The thing is, you got a good deal. 2 mana 7/7 is incredible cost to power ratios. If the guy you gave it to "betrays" you, then he will likely be dead next turn anyway. So its a suicidal path.
In any case, i will most likely give it to the player already behind. Giving the strongest player will not buy you alliance in my opinion. Well maybe he will but when its down to you and him, guess which tokens will kill you...
Anyway i'm curious. why are you discussing this card. are you intending to use them in a deck that can change the fate of the game by "helping" another player while providing some form of sturdy creature yourself?
I guess what Cz is advocating as he has always advocated is that in MP cards must make an instant impact or its not really worth the investment.
For instance, this is a 4 mana (fairly large investment) for a 1/1 body (just about any thing can prick this) and you have to build a deck chock full of counters to abuse it.
Surely if you intend to draw cards (I'm assuming) that are cheaper and WAYYY better ways of doing so (which are harder to remove)
Are we assuming that your ally is playing 60 island.deck or something? My argument is simple. 2 players playing dedicated aggro decks with reach can kill 1 player hella reliably before turn 4. Even if you have double the amount of spot removal, we have double the amount of creatures and burn and we can easily kill 1 player before you hit your Wraths. And, again, it doesn't just have to be aggro. Burn, poison, etc. all work as well. The point is that 2 people doing one ultra-linear, proactive strategy can usually kill one player off with extreme speed and consistency and that makes the prospect of playing slower, defensive decks pretty miserable in my opinion.
your right mate. i probably forgot to mention that we do mix up the decks alittle bit so we dont have like 2 dedicated burn decks which will close out games really quickly. then it doesnt become fun. sorry for making u waste all those words god..my bad!
What people don't understand is that there are no absolutes in Magic. No deck or strategy wins 100% of the time. I'm not trying to say that being ultra-linear is the only thing that can possibly win. What I'm saying is that, on average, playing defensively or slow will lose you games if both of your adversaries on some ultra-linear, proactive gameplan. Just because having a defensive ally can win games that doesn't mean that it's a smart strategy to employ. Anything can and will work some % of the time.
Yes you are absolutely right. I always fall into this trap when deckbuilding. Planning to account for every situation. It is because of this weakness that I'm here seeking opinions. My most effective decks really are those that focus on only 1 linear strategy and to hell with the rest. Its like answer my threat and you win or lose if you cant.
... it is unfair. It's so unfair that it'll only ever be found in Vintage. Like, I hope you can appreciate how silly this argument is. You're saying that because Swords to Plowshares can kill a creature that opening with Sol Ring + Moxen + Academy is a fair? That's supposed to make sense? First of all I don't see how your claim supports your conclusion at all (it seems wholly irrelevant). Moreover, are you saying that you'd rather be the guy with the Swords? Or would you rather have the deck with Academies and Moxen? Bear in mind that Moxen deck could have any number of win conditions. Do you seriously take the Swords? Cause like, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll happily jam games against you with Sol Ring, Academy, Moxen, etc. Yep, you can bait me all you want with your spot removal. Like I don't know what to say really. Do you think that Sol Ring, Moxen and Academy are trivialized by Swords? That the presence of Swords renders them inert? I really don't get it lol.
nope this isnt fair for sure. but we do try to limit the unfair stuff we do. Ie maximum acceleration into something like a colossus is more fine (because we do have ways to remove him) than accelerating into something insane like progenitus is just boorish (auto scoop). But yes, i dont do stuff like T1 mox, artifact land, sol ring, tinker, blightsteel!
About the most degenerate stuff my playgroup (agrees on) does is T1 swamp, dark ritual, putrid imp, dump some 8/8 demon and exhume. It gives us 2 turns at least to find a way to destroy it. But the demon usually doesnt have hexproof or protection from x colours...etc. We balance unfairness out that way i suppose
my friend has an oath deck that doesnt run 4 progenitus to keep it more interesting. So sometimes he'll topdeck an Avatar of Might. others he might get Emerakul. So it depends and it adds flavour and an element of fun:)
Tell you what. I don't get your stance at all. Like, I personally think that Sol Ring, Moxen, Academy, etc. are very powerful cards. I think that they're more powerful than a deck with Swords, Terminates, Wraths, etc. Why don't you explain to me why your spot removal is better than my fast artifact mana. Why do the cards match up better in practice than they do in my head? Cause like, I'm totally lost on this one.
Haha you misunderstand me mate. I'm not suggesting that wrath or removal is better than the vintage restricted cards. I'm saying degenerate acceleration is ok if the threat can be answered. I want to create a strong deck but sub-consciously one that can still be dealt with. Else, if I can create a deck that combos out by T2 or T1 then whats the point of playing (to me at least).
Maybe you both could play burn ; D I wouldn't be difficult to nuke down one player by turn 3.. and from there on you would be drawing 2 cards a turn and most likely win in next 3-4 turns.
Thats a good suggestion. Double burn targeting 1 player will almost certainly win by T3 without some really concentrated anti burn decks.
Warning: games like this gets really boring really fast
Whats your card restrictions like? Legacy legal? Vintage legal or free and easy all the way.
For aggro I would definitely go affinity (with skullclamp). Your opponent will have their hands full racing affnity. The complement deck to affinity would be a deck chock full of control elements (dispel, counters, creature removal). Unless the opponents are extremely dedicated anti artifact, affinity puts most people on a 3-4 turn clock CONSISTENTLY.
Anyways, I fiddled around somemore and I was thinking I have a Jund deck solely because of BBE and Blightning. BBE is great but is it worth splashing red for? I thought about splashing white to make it a Junk deck just for kicks and this is the result:
Its primarily a control deck till i can get wurmcoil out. Problem is I can reuse him or recur him again and again. Was thinking of investing in some tutors and a singleton (or 2) recurring nightmare.
4 Guttersnipe
Rituals
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Manamorphorse
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Faithless Looting
Spells
2 Past in Flames
4 Flame Rift
2 Grapeshot
20 Land
It gets really boring really fast when you reanimate a Jin on T1/2 on the back of dark ritual/tutor rather consistently.
I thought quite hard about the fetches as well. But finally, the blue fetches to me are not an investment but an easy resource because i can quite easily jam them into any decks that require blue.
With luck, magic might in time become an awesome collectors item such that these fetches might retain value hahaha
If your meta is cool on restricted lists (it is causal after all), these are the cards you NEED to add in:
4 Skullclamp
4 Sol Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
Its that simple. Ravenger is the icing/cherry on the top of the cake that we do not necessarily need but is good to have.
Essentially, your games will be powered by:
T1: Artifact land, Mox, Sol Ring, MoE/Etched Champ + rest of hand
Don't detract from what an affinity deck is. Synergy and speed. You are going for their throat from the get go. There are not many decks that can defend against a Cranial Plated Etched Champ on T2.
Here is my most recent list and it is explosively insane:
4 Arcbound Ravager
1 Blightsteel Colossus
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
3 Vault Skirge
2 Steelshaper's Gift
4 Thoughtcast
1 Tinker
Artifacts
4 Cranial Plating
3 Mox Opal
4 Skullclamp
4 Sol Ring
2 Ancient Den
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Glimmervoid
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Vault of Whispers
Some of the less commonly seen card choices
2 Steelshaper's Gift: This is Cranial Plating 5-6. An unanswered and equipped plating is almost GG right there on T2.
1 Tinker: Just for fun and an alternate win con with Blightsteel.
PS: When playing with this deck, be as aggressive as you can. Double equip a skullclamp to kill your own creature if need be to draw cards. Do not sit back and block. These is barely any deck in the world that can race an affinity deck.
I don't know what your restricted card list looks like but I'm assuming there isnt one (demonic consultation was amongst some of the lists I saw).
I play 2HG reanimator and its a blast (bore depending on you) when you get to close out games after 2 turns. Here is my version of a nut draw.
T1: Swamp, Dark Ritual, Entomb (for Jin) and Exhume/Reanimate/Animate Dead.
T2: Autowin.
A few suggestions I would make to your list.
+4 Mystical Tutors. They are banned for a reason. They greatly improve consistency. You essentially need 3 pieces to "combo off" for the Jin lockdown. Mystical tutor gets you the 3rd piece (entomb for creatures, reanimate for animation and/or dark ritual for acceleration).
+2 Echoing Truth
+4 Drowned Catacombs works better with watery grave than darkslick
+4 Blue Fetchlands. To tune the manabase, this is really necessary.
+2 Demonic Tutor. best tutor ever printed
Removals:
-4 Ponder - just add in demonic tutors in place of this.
-1 Animate Dead/Exhume - too many reanimators can be overkill
-4 Lotus Petal - doesnt add too much value imho. just up the land count.
-4 Darkslick Shores - never really saw value in this card unless its in your opening hand
-2 Lim Duis Vault - same as ponder. just use demonic tutor
-2 Underground River - blue fetches are an investment.
-1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse - same as underground river
-1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge - same as underground river
Ultimately, you want a core of 17 lands (including fetches), a creature base of 7-8 creatures, 4-6 tutors, 9-10 reanimators, 4 brainstorm and the remainder is a combination of counter/disruption/utility/enabler spells (dark ritual for instance). That is entirely meta dependant.
Control in this format is actually twice as difficult because of tempo. You only have so much mana to do so many things against 2 people. You might be drawing 2-3 cards per turn but you cant cast all the counters in the world against 2 people. Basically what I am saying is that you should abandon the idea of control in the traditional sense.
What really gets this going are 2 (or more) for 1. Like wrath of god and pernicious deed and slagstorm. Just to give you a flavour of what you need to be looking out for.
But having said that, I find control incredibly difficult to pilot. This is because you really need very tight resource management to counter/cast spells at the right time. And you need an in depth understanding of your meta to be able to effectively build around it. For example, my friends play a brainfreeze/hightide/combo deck (quite insane in 2HG actually). So I might include mindbreak trap just for that purpose. mindbreak trap is also immensely useful for tricky situations where uncounterable spells need to be countered.
So frankly, I would say give up on control and instead, follow a linear strategy. I find that in my meta, Jund Ramp works incredibly well. My curve will go like this:
5 mana: Spiritmonger/Demigod of Revenge
6 mana: Broodmate Dragon/Primetime
7 mana: Violent Ultimatum
8 mana: Hellkite Overlord
The rest of the deck are:
Rampant Growth, Sakura-tribe elder and Cultivate
Barter in blood for creature control
Syphon Soul for draw
In the other end of the spectrum, you might find yourself with a meta like mine. 4 players playing 2HG who can attack and defend as "one". Diplomacy becomes irrelevant at this juncture.
Magic also has evolved to the point where power creep becomes inevitable. Creatures dont only have to be aggressively costed, they have to create board presence and make some form of impact when they hit. Its easy to diss the card that first appears to have an incredibly "bad' drawback.
Anyway the hunted cards are interesting. Ceteris Peribus, You are "possibly" going to take 6 damage. But if you do, you are certainly going to deal 7 damage making you a point better off in any exchange. And if I remember black mages correctly, the dont mind taking 19 lives off if they can deal 20 first. Which is the whole point. Hunted Horror deals lethal in 3 turns but the tokens deal lethal in at least 4.
lol. give a man some goodies but hold the ultimate whip to destroy him if he betrays you. nice!
Hmm. Back when we played FFA (8 players) this would always be a tough call.
Because the person you give the 2 creatures might likely be behind and so your saving him. Well he might or he might not help you. And he might or might not turn against you. But,
The thing is, you got a good deal. 2 mana 7/7 is incredible cost to power ratios. If the guy you gave it to "betrays" you, then he will likely be dead next turn anyway. So its a suicidal path.
In any case, i will most likely give it to the player already behind. Giving the strongest player will not buy you alliance in my opinion. Well maybe he will but when its down to you and him, guess which tokens will kill you...
Anyway i'm curious. why are you discussing this card. are you intending to use them in a deck that can change the fate of the game by "helping" another player while providing some form of sturdy creature yourself?
For instance, this is a 4 mana (fairly large investment) for a 1/1 body (just about any thing can prick this) and you have to build a deck chock full of counters to abuse it.
Surely if you intend to draw cards (I'm assuming) that are cheaper and WAYYY better ways of doing so (which are harder to remove)
your right mate. i probably forgot to mention that we do mix up the decks alittle bit so we dont have like 2 dedicated burn decks which will close out games really quickly. then it doesnt become fun. sorry for making u waste all those words god..my bad!
Yes you are absolutely right. I always fall into this trap when deckbuilding. Planning to account for every situation. It is because of this weakness that I'm here seeking opinions. My most effective decks really are those that focus on only 1 linear strategy and to hell with the rest. Its like answer my threat and you win or lose if you cant.
nope this isnt fair for sure. but we do try to limit the unfair stuff we do. Ie maximum acceleration into something like a colossus is more fine (because we do have ways to remove him) than accelerating into something insane like progenitus is just boorish (auto scoop). But yes, i dont do stuff like T1 mox, artifact land, sol ring, tinker, blightsteel!
About the most degenerate stuff my playgroup (agrees on) does is T1 swamp, dark ritual, putrid imp, dump some 8/8 demon and exhume. It gives us 2 turns at least to find a way to destroy it. But the demon usually doesnt have hexproof or protection from x colours...etc. We balance unfairness out that way i suppose
my friend has an oath deck that doesnt run 4 progenitus to keep it more interesting. So sometimes he'll topdeck an Avatar of Might. others he might get Emerakul. So it depends and it adds flavour and an element of fun:)
Haha you misunderstand me mate. I'm not suggesting that wrath or removal is better than the vintage restricted cards. I'm saying degenerate acceleration is ok if the threat can be answered. I want to create a strong deck but sub-consciously one that can still be dealt with. Else, if I can create a deck that combos out by T2 or T1 then whats the point of playing (to me at least).
Thats a good suggestion. Double burn targeting 1 player will almost certainly win by T3 without some really concentrated anti burn decks.
Warning: games like this gets really boring really fast
For aggro I would definitely go affinity (with skullclamp). Your opponent will have their hands full racing affnity. The complement deck to affinity would be a deck chock full of control elements (dispel, counters, creature removal). Unless the opponents are extremely dedicated anti artifact, affinity puts most people on a 3-4 turn clock CONSISTENTLY.
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Glissa, the Traitor
2 Hypnotic Specter
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Swords to Plowshares
Enchantments
3 Pernicious Deed Buy
Artifacts
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Forest
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
Its primarily a control deck till i can get wurmcoil out. Problem is I can reuse him or recur him again and again. Was thinking of investing in some tutors and a singleton (or 2) recurring nightmare.
What are your thoughts?