Well since everyone else is looking at combo-madness post ravnica i thought i'd get in on the action. However, unlike a lot of the combo decks that people are coming up with these days this one doesn't go off on turn 4 or 5... that's right it doesn't even go off turn 3, it goes off turn 7.
The combo
it plops down some creatures and then an overwhelm and a couple of rally the righteous later you should still have 4-5 dudes left that are about 15/1's or something ridiculous then you swing and win =) the true heart of this deck is of course in it's mana producers as they along with convoke are what allow you to basically cast whatever you want during the turn that you go off on. My tentative decklist
so i guess the ideal situation would go something like
Turn 1: Land, Birds
Turn 2: Land, Birds, Utopia Tree
Turn 3: Land, Greater Good, Fists of Ironwood
Turn 4: Land Eot Chord of calling for Godo with sunforger
Turn 5: Play Scatter the seeds or some other random card to get your creature/mana producer count up
Turn 6: Go off(sac godo draw lots of cards, convoke out a siege wurm or a scatter the seeds or something, rally the righteous untap all your mana critters and guys you tapped for convoke, sac the now 7/5 siege wurm draw more cards, play more guys rally again, etc eetc continuing until you have about 10 guys in play, the 4th rally in hand and a chord or a flame-kin zealot then you chord up the zealot(or play it) rally the righteous a final time, and charge in for the win)
So best case scenario i see it going off turn 6, maybe turn 5 i haven't analyzed it closely. however, I think that it can get that ideal situation down to turn 5, and maybe 6-7 consistently which would be good enough to warrant it's status as my official casual deck since the deck is obviously hilarious. Anyway input appreciated.
There is a certain merit to playing Zurs weirding against control when you are playing aggro(granted there aren't really any strong blue aggro decks) because once you drop it unless the control deck has an answer in hand, you win the game because you can deny them draws for the rest of the game as you should always be ahead on life... holy run-on sentence batman!
Although the mana cost kills the idea, it would be pretty savage to have underworld dreams and mikokoro center of the sea in this deck. Dreams and pains reward is a straight beating, turning it from your opponent losing 5 ish life for 3 mana to your opponent to losing 7+ or you getting 4 cards from an extremely minimal investment. Mikokoro is further synergy with the dreams and it allows you to draw through mana clumps and get to more tasty burn. Also one other card to consider(although likely too expensive) is Choice of Damnations. Choice of damnations is an extremely powerful card with a lot of burn. Think about it, it's late game you've burned your opponent to 6 life or so but now they have control of the board and you are getting beat on by creatures or w/e, you cast choice of damnations... your opponent realistically can choose 3 to avoid shock and magma jet. OK i'm rambling at this point, and both those ideas would crank up the fun factor in this deck but would decrease the playability... sad face. Good look with the deck, i <3 any deck with pains reward(play it in my underwolrd dreams deck).
Seems like if you are going to go to the trouble to blow up the lands with a 2 card combo the least you could do is save your own... so how about instead of predators strike echoing courage? then you probably want more acceleration... and if you have more accel you can fit fatter creatuers in...i like where thi sis going these are the changes i would make
+3 kodamas Reach
+4 LLanowar Elves
+4 Echoing Courage
+2 Big Jugs(Jugan)
+2 arashi the Sky asunder
+4 forest
+1 Jiwari the Earth aflame
+4 Viridian Zealot(or Kodama of North Tree)
The zealot is a little sketchy as it dies to pyroclasm. However, you are overlooking something very important when it comes to WW... they run glorious anthem... your deck DOES NOT LIKE GLORIOUS ANTHEM!the zealot is good against so many decks it's hard to pass up
tooth - titan, stone
U tron - Everything
WW - Glorious anthem
MUC - Shackles
Rats - Jitte, Vial
Just so many different things that you need removal against. Ok thats my rant.
so played in a block tournament tonight, result... 2-2 better than expected! woo hoo i also managed to take out a father son tandem, w00t!
analysis time
- Matchup 1: Ed with snakes
Game one i get owned up pretty hard by sachi sosuke's summons and seshiro, i find out that sakura tribe elder+kodamas reach + orochi sustainer = bad times for LD. Positive notes include Cunning bandit flipped being an absolute house.
SB: -3 Crack the Earth
-4 Stone rain
-1 ?
+2 Ryusei
+3 First Volley
+3 hinder
Game 2: i cast a turn 3 bandit, then proceed to cast a lot of first volleys, consuming vortexs, glacial rays etc. I flip with 4 counters on him. Ryusei makes an appearance, a turn later miren the moaning well + azamuki take it home
Game 3: I'm holding 2 hinders, which he knows i have due to reach through mists. I foolishly tap out to cast a jushi and a bandit. He untaps pays 9 mana and drops myojin of infinite rage blows up all lands and proceeds to win... sad face
Round 2: Ron Playing Black Green thing
Game One: He has 3 lands all game... one for the first 4 turns... i'm playing land destruction nuff' said
SB: None
Game 2: i go third turn stone rain, fourth turn sunder from within, fifth turn stone rain, 6th turn jushi crack+ reach through depths(mists? the one mana one) and flip he hasn't missed a land drop though so he still has three lands, no matter i counter his GG tree(kodama north tree) and he finally finds lands... in a big pocket.
Round 3: Noah playing U/G control
Game One: Just hopeless he has tribe elder+kodama reach+counters = game over.... as i only have 9 threats in the whole deck, he has 12 counters... and i can never get him low enough on lands as he accelerated right through them. That's how both games went(game one note he played sakura tribe scout and proceeded to drop turn 4 keiga turn 5 equip with jitte turn 6 win...)
Round 4: Robert Playing sub-Par WW
Game One: A true triumph for this deck he drops first turn isamaru second turn 81/2 tails i ray the tails and suffer beats from a few random creatures(isamaru, kondas hatamoto?, kami of ancient law, mothrider samurai?) burning one or two and bouncing a few times, he stops at 4 lands and i manage to get in 2 LD spells while under fire. Eventually i stabilize at 3 life and jaraku + Azamuki+lots of countesr +miren the moaning well + opponent with 2 lands left = best day ever
Game 2: ALmost identical to the last but he only gets me to 6 this time.
so I finished 2-2 my thoughts on the deck? well i didn't play a single "accepted" deck throughout the tournament; however, my last round against weirdo WW showed me that my deck is goign to be too slow against WW as i almost got owned by random creature.dec. I also learned that trieb elder + Kodama reach basically renders the LD plan useless. Basically, the deck is screwed game one against every deck in the format and LD is sub optimal so i will be scrapping the deck i think. Oh well it was a fun ride while it lasted!
I've been trying to get dreams to work for a while, and i've been comboing it with howling mine and mikokoro in Mono Black. However, it hasn't really been working, but i really like the white idea with rule of law and Hokori, it makes a lot of sense really. I would like to point out that Teferi's Puzzlebox is probably pointless for the Black/White deck as if you have things locked down with a rule of law you shouldn't need to do more than 2-3 dmg a turn with the dreams en route to winning. My 2 cents i'll be back with more.
My thoughts on the whole issue of there being tons of creature types is viewing it more from a playability standpoint as opposed to a flavour standpoint(yay for english... and me sucking) my point is that i think that wizards is probably trying to move away from the creature type theme that has been dominating for a while now (onslaught block, not so much mirrodin, then again in Kamigawa) and steer it into a new direction(color combinations). My thoughts if they made any sense, cheers y'all
You've over looked 3 of the key elements of Rude awakening.
a. It's all on one card so you don't need two cards to cast it... seems obvious but it's very important
b. Rude Awakening only makes YOUR land into creatures meaning stompage is far easier as they will have no additional blockers.
c. Rude awakening isn't good when you have only 6 lands because you only swing for 12 tops... you need to have lots of lands IE. More than enough to cast it for it to really be effective.
That's just my take, i have to go otherwise i would make comments on how to improve the deck.
Thanks for the input! new to the site, sorry about the deck tags thing, fixed.
- The "IDEA" is to use LD to slow up the opponent then use Jaraku to counter things; however, i could easily not draw into LD early, or i could run into somethign such as WW where they will no doubt have 2-3 creatures out by the time i blow up a land. Because of this tendency for erratic happenings, i like to have ways to deal with what is on the board, and Azamuki Seemed to fit well.
- However your observation is duly noted and i will test without it
- When i was making the deck i definately didn't notice that eye of nowhere was a sorcery. I too was thinking about consuming vortex but ultimately went with the eye because i thought it was an instant and fit well, but now that i know it is a sorcery i will seriously consider switching to the vortex.
- Good call!
- Miren is in the deck for more than just Azamuki(granted not too much) it is there to sacrafice used up Jaraku's and Azamuki's to enable the flipping/casting of a fresh one with counters. However, i agree that if The Bandit was removed it would make sense to remove Miren. From my point of view i don't see miren really hurting the deck at all consistency wise in the mana base; however, it's also true that i haven't actually played any games with the deck and everythign i am saying is pure speculation.
Thanks again, i'd also like to hear general opinions as to whether the deck has any potential(i'm just looking to top 4 at FNM not sweep the PTQ circuit)
So i'm never ever ever playing the accepted best deck in the format, i'm always trying to come up with something new and original. Anyway, my creation for block is as follows
General Concept:
Destroy 2-3 lands, and cast enough arcane spells to flip the Jushi, from there you simply win because they can't play anything and you get to beat face.
Card By Card Analysis:
Callow Jushi - If you destroy even a few lands this becomes just a house as every spell they cast you can likely counter.
Cunning Bandit - Useful flip mechanic extremely helpful against aggro decks as he buys you a lot of time via stealing and blocking, much like a really weak vedalken shackles
The Unspeakable - A "win more" kind of card by the time this guy hits play you should be well on your way to victory, but this will insure that victory. He reccurs bounce, LD, Direct Damage, You name it.
Crack The Earth - Likely one of the more controversial picks but it fits extremely well in the deck as it is a cheap arcane spell to trigger jushi and bandit; additionally, early game its a neutral card as both decks are likely going to lose a land, and late game it's still effective as it gives a ki counter and likely takes out a land or important creatue(due to being low on lands and under jushi pressure... hopefully) either of which makes this deck happy.
Sunder From Within - Deals with Jitte, LD, Arcane, basically except for costing 4 mana it's the ideal spell for this deck
Stone rain - Land destruction, slows some decks, really hurts some decks(gifts), and as you pile it on it locks out everything
Peer Through the Depths - Cheap Arcane Spell that is basically a free ki counter. Has good synergy with glacial ray, jushi, bandit, unspeakable...
Reach through mists - see Peer through depths
Sift Through Sands - Only really in there for the unspeakable, debating cutting although it is arcane card draw which is nice.
Eye of Nowhere - Boomerang, always a fan of this card, once you have jushi lockdown you can always bounce a threat back to their hand, or you can bounce a land for tempo, just a money card, and the fact that it's now arcane? gravy.
Glacial Ray - Probably the only "good" spell in the whole deck. There are tons of arcane spells in the deck which means its just gonna be money money bling money!
Miren the moaning Well - Can be used to sac used up jushis and bandits(flipped of course) and scrape up some needed life, also a money card with the bandit... take your creature, sac woo.
Tendo Ice Bridge - A lot of the important early game spells require two colors of mana, but in the late game things tend to smooththemselves out, so the bridge seems to be a natural fit
Cards i considered but failed to find room for:
Long Forgotten Gohei - Would be nice to reduce arcane costs and increase the silliness factor, but it again seems like a win more card
Thoughts of Ruin - the LD would be nice, but the deck seems too slow to utilize it, again a win more card
Disrupting Shoal - Next!
more Creatures - At first i was thinking that i might want to make it more aggro but finally realized that its more of a combo-control deck Any thoughts would be nice, i have no play results as of yet because MWS is a wang bar, but i fully expect it to have a losing record against all the top tier decks. However, that's why i've turned to you fine folks to help me out!
The combo
that's basically it. With assorted cards such as
it plops down some creatures and then an overwhelm and a couple of rally the righteous later you should still have 4-5 dudes left that are about 15/1's or something ridiculous then you swing and win =) the true heart of this deck is of course in it's mana producers as they along with convoke are what allow you to basically cast whatever you want during the turn that you go off on. My tentative decklist
3x Elves of the Deep Shadow
4x Utopia Tree
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Siege Wurm
1x Godo
1x Flame-kin Zealot
2x Conclave Phalanx
4x Fists of IronWood
4x Greater Good
3x Scatter the Seeds
4x Rally the Righteous
1x Sunforger
4x Karplusan Forest
2x Battlefield Forge
so i guess the ideal situation would go something like
Turn 1: Land, Birds
Turn 2: Land, Birds, Utopia Tree
Turn 3: Land, Greater Good, Fists of Ironwood
Turn 4: Land Eot Chord of calling for Godo with sunforger
Turn 5: Play Scatter the seeds or some other random card to get your creature/mana producer count up
Turn 6: Go off(sac godo draw lots of cards, convoke out a siege wurm or a scatter the seeds or something, rally the righteous untap all your mana critters and guys you tapped for convoke, sac the now 7/5 siege wurm draw more cards, play more guys rally again, etc eetc continuing until you have about 10 guys in play, the 4th rally in hand and a chord or a flame-kin zealot then you chord up the zealot(or play it) rally the righteous a final time, and charge in for the win)
So best case scenario i see it going off turn 6, maybe turn 5 i haven't analyzed it closely. however, I think that it can get that ideal situation down to turn 5, and maybe 6-7 consistently which would be good enough to warrant it's status as my official casual deck since the deck is obviously hilarious. Anyway input appreciated.
-4 kird ape
-3 predators strike
-4 shock
-4 ogre recluse
-4 elvish warriors
-5 mountain
+3 kodamas Reach
+4 LLanowar Elves
+4 Echoing Courage
+2 Big Jugs(Jugan)
+2 arashi the Sky asunder
+4 forest
+1 Jiwari the Earth aflame
+4 Viridian Zealot(or Kodama of North Tree)
The zealot is a little sketchy as it dies to pyroclasm. However, you are overlooking something very important when it comes to WW... they run glorious anthem... your deck DOES NOT LIKE GLORIOUS ANTHEM!the zealot is good against so many decks it's hard to pass up
tooth - titan, stone
U tron - Everything
WW - Glorious anthem
MUC - Shackles
Rats - Jitte, Vial
Just so many different things that you need removal against. Ok thats my rant.
analysis time
- Matchup 1: Ed with snakes
Game one i get owned up pretty hard by sachi sosuke's summons and seshiro, i find out that sakura tribe elder+kodamas reach + orochi sustainer = bad times for LD. Positive notes include Cunning bandit flipped being an absolute house.
SB: -3 Crack the Earth
-4 Stone rain
-1 ?
+2 Ryusei
+3 First Volley
+3 hinder
Game 2: i cast a turn 3 bandit, then proceed to cast a lot of first volleys, consuming vortexs, glacial rays etc. I flip with 4 counters on him. Ryusei makes an appearance, a turn later miren the moaning well + azamuki take it home
Game 3: I'm holding 2 hinders, which he knows i have due to reach through mists. I foolishly tap out to cast a jushi and a bandit. He untaps pays 9 mana and drops myojin of infinite rage blows up all lands and proceeds to win... sad face
Round 2: Ron Playing Black Green thing
Game One: He has 3 lands all game... one for the first 4 turns... i'm playing land destruction nuff' said
SB: None
Game 2: i go third turn stone rain, fourth turn sunder from within, fifth turn stone rain, 6th turn jushi crack+ reach through depths(mists? the one mana one) and flip he hasn't missed a land drop though so he still has three lands, no matter i counter his GG tree(kodama north tree) and he finally finds lands... in a big pocket.
Round 3: Noah playing U/G control
Game One: Just hopeless he has tribe elder+kodama reach+counters = game over.... as i only have 9 threats in the whole deck, he has 12 counters... and i can never get him low enough on lands as he accelerated right through them. That's how both games went(game one note he played sakura tribe scout and proceeded to drop turn 4 keiga turn 5 equip with jitte turn 6 win...)
Round 4: Robert Playing sub-Par WW
Game One: A true triumph for this deck he drops first turn isamaru second turn 81/2 tails i ray the tails and suffer beats from a few random creatures(isamaru, kondas hatamoto?, kami of ancient law, mothrider samurai?) burning one or two and bouncing a few times, he stops at 4 lands and i manage to get in 2 LD spells while under fire. Eventually i stabilize at 3 life and jaraku + Azamuki+lots of countesr +miren the moaning well + opponent with 2 lands left = best day ever
Game 2: ALmost identical to the last but he only gets me to 6 this time.
so I finished 2-2 my thoughts on the deck? well i didn't play a single "accepted" deck throughout the tournament; however, my last round against weirdo WW showed me that my deck is goign to be too slow against WW as i almost got owned by random creature.dec. I also learned that trieb elder + Kodama reach basically renders the LD plan useless. Basically, the deck is screwed game one against every deck in the format and LD is sub optimal so i will be scrapping the deck i think. Oh well it was a fun ride while it lasted!
a. It's all on one card so you don't need two cards to cast it... seems obvious but it's very important
b. Rude Awakening only makes YOUR land into creatures meaning stompage is far easier as they will have no additional blockers.
c. Rude awakening isn't good when you have only 6 lands because you only swing for 12 tops... you need to have lots of lands IE. More than enough to cast it for it to really be effective.
That's just my take, i have to go otherwise i would make comments on how to improve the deck.
- The "IDEA" is to use LD to slow up the opponent then use Jaraku to counter things; however, i could easily not draw into LD early, or i could run into somethign such as WW where they will no doubt have 2-3 creatures out by the time i blow up a land. Because of this tendency for erratic happenings, i like to have ways to deal with what is on the board, and Azamuki Seemed to fit well.
- However your observation is duly noted and i will test without it
- When i was making the deck i definately didn't notice that eye of nowhere was a sorcery. I too was thinking about consuming vortex but ultimately went with the eye because i thought it was an instant and fit well, but now that i know it is a sorcery i will seriously consider switching to the vortex.
- Good call!
- Miren is in the deck for more than just Azamuki(granted not too much) it is there to sacrafice used up Jaraku's and Azamuki's to enable the flipping/casting of a fresh one with counters. However, i agree that if The Bandit was removed it would make sense to remove Miren. From my point of view i don't see miren really hurting the deck at all consistency wise in the mana base; however, it's also true that i haven't actually played any games with the deck and everythign i am saying is pure speculation.
Thanks again, i'd also like to hear general opinions as to whether the deck has any potential(i'm just looking to top 4 at FNM not sweep the PTQ circuit)
4x Callow Jushi
4x Cunning Bandit
1x The Unspeakable
Spells:
3x Crack the Earth
4x Sunder from Within
4x Stone Rain
4x Peer Through Depths
3x Reach Through Mists
2x Sift Through Sands
4x Eye of Nowhere
4x Glacial Ray
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1x Minamo, School by waters edge
2x Miren moaning Well
1x Shinka, The Bloodsoaked Keep
4x Tendo Ice Bridge
8x Mountain
7x island
General Concept:
Destroy 2-3 lands, and cast enough arcane spells to flip the Jushi, from there you simply win because they can't play anything and you get to beat face.
Card By Card Analysis:
Callow Jushi - If you destroy even a few lands this becomes just a house as every spell they cast you can likely counter.
Cunning Bandit - Useful flip mechanic extremely helpful against aggro decks as he buys you a lot of time via stealing and blocking, much like a really weak vedalken shackles
The Unspeakable - A "win more" kind of card by the time this guy hits play you should be well on your way to victory, but this will insure that victory. He reccurs bounce, LD, Direct Damage, You name it.
Crack The Earth - Likely one of the more controversial picks but it fits extremely well in the deck as it is a cheap arcane spell to trigger jushi and bandit; additionally, early game its a neutral card as both decks are likely going to lose a land, and late game it's still effective as it gives a ki counter and likely takes out a land or important creatue(due to being low on lands and under jushi pressure... hopefully) either of which makes this deck happy.
Sunder From Within - Deals with Jitte, LD, Arcane, basically except for costing 4 mana it's the ideal spell for this deck
Stone rain - Land destruction, slows some decks, really hurts some decks(gifts), and as you pile it on it locks out everything
Peer Through the Depths - Cheap Arcane Spell that is basically a free ki counter. Has good synergy with glacial ray, jushi, bandit, unspeakable...
Reach through mists - see Peer through depths
Sift Through Sands - Only really in there for the unspeakable, debating cutting although it is arcane card draw which is nice.
Eye of Nowhere - Boomerang, always a fan of this card, once you have jushi lockdown you can always bounce a threat back to their hand, or you can bounce a land for tempo, just a money card, and the fact that it's now arcane? gravy.
Glacial Ray - Probably the only "good" spell in the whole deck. There are tons of arcane spells in the deck which means its just gonna be money money bling money!
Miren the moaning Well - Can be used to sac used up jushis and bandits(flipped of course) and scrape up some needed life, also a money card with the bandit... take your creature, sac woo.
Tendo Ice Bridge - A lot of the important early game spells require two colors of mana, but in the late game things tend to smooththemselves out, so the bridge seems to be a natural fit
Cards i considered but failed to find room for:
Long Forgotten Gohei - Would be nice to reduce arcane costs and increase the silliness factor, but it again seems like a win more card
Thoughts of Ruin - the LD would be nice, but the deck seems too slow to utilize it, again a win more card
Disrupting Shoal - Next!
more Creatures - At first i was thinking that i might want to make it more aggro but finally realized that its more of a combo-control deck Any thoughts would be nice, i have no play results as of yet because MWS is a wang bar, but i fully expect it to have a losing record against all the top tier decks. However, that's why i've turned to you fine folks to help me out!