So in my meta, and it seems legacy at large, U/X aggro-control, (whether threshold, BANT control, Team, merfolk, etc) is very dominant. I love playing these decks, but often find the idea of yet another round playing agaisnt 4 FoW/4 Daze/ and/or 4 countertop.dec less than thrilling. Wastelands abound, and despite the many permutations and different "takes" on U/X aggro control, many matchups are often very similar.
So I'm brainstorming tonight to develop a deck that plays off the high prevelance of U/x aggro-control, and thought I'd open it up to you for advice. Many hands, and all that.
soo, here is my initial build with thoughts and Q's below.
reasons/thoughts tarmogoyf: well, because I'm in G, and I hear he's good, sooo..... Vexing shusher:This is the main creature the deck is built around, i guess. As I see it, he stops a large part of the current meta. In this build, he's treated as GG. This may be a problem... Qasali pridemage: Included as he can pump my goyfs, can be a threat by himself, is relativley cheap, and shuts down vial, jitte's, counter-top, etc... aven mindcensor: hurts against opponents fetchlands, any kind of tutor effects, etc. Otherwise, he is a 2/1 beater with evasion. Fetches are large in my meta, so he recived the initial inclusion.
swords/halo/oblivion ring: all White removal/control answers...seems like a versitile package to me, but may be too heavy? right now it takes up 9 slots... life from the loam: I'm running some non basics, fetches, and my own wastelands in a feild where most opponents are doing the same. I'm intending these will a) recurr my own wastelands, b) negate opponents wastelands, c) recur fetches to thin lands from the deck. Krosan grip: slpit second enchantment/artifact removal seems good to me. Umezawa's jitte:I guess this card is an attempt to seal a win condition for the deck by making it aggro-viable. sensei's divining top: as if this needed explaining!
other possible inclusions:
Noble Hierarch (or perhaps birds of paradise?): I really like the idea of mana exceleration, AND adding another exalted creature to the mix, but I wonder if the deck really needs mana accel or not. This would open up U as an option, and while trying to stay away from a heavy U component of FoW/daze, it could allow ->
Counterbalance: I think the fact that top is already run means that this could be an easy include.
stoneforge mystic: this could be fun to run, and help fish out jitte's and possibly other equipment? like ->
sword of fire and ice: maybe this is a win-more card, though? I'm not sure it deserves auto include...
armegeddon: I thought that IF hierarchs were to be included, you could run this along with maybe mox diamond's and weather the land loss better than your opponent.
enlightened tutor with so many artifacts and enchantments MD, this seams like a logical consideration...
pithing needle: I'd say it could shut down wastelands, but you're running them, so that leaves other things like aether vials, countertop combo,painters servant combo, thropter/sword combo, depths combo... maybe SB?
I plan on having the build together tomorrow when I'm not at work and maybe get some playtesting in sometime soon. One area I'm unsure of is how the deck would fair against anything BUT U/x aggro control, ie, dredge, zoo. Not well, I'm fearing. I guess that is where a SB would be handy. Kinda a gamble building for a presumed meta, but hey! You never know!
Speaking of draw, with cards like brainstorm and ponder, has anyone had much testing experience using sensei's divining top instead/as well? Seems like it has some benefits, ie re-usability, but I see the drawback in that it doesn't draw a card outright. Thoughts?
I boycotted Mirrodin block because i just didn't liek the direction the game took. i totally dug onslaught block, very classicaly fantasy, and then mirrodin was like some cheap B-grade scifi flick- ugh. So yeah, I have a huge hole in my collection because of that.
of course i regret it- having to buy my chrome moxen via ebay at dire prices sucked, but when i think of that block, i still get those repulsive shivers. And now they are going BACk to mirrodin. Sigh.
other peculiarites? I bought a playset of coldsnap when it first came out because I loved the fact that it was the lost part of an old block. i started playing when Ice Age came out, and I thought the nod to nostalgia was awesome- way better than a useless un- set. Every body laughed when i did that, but who has 4x mint dark depths now, eh? booya.
sandwich the cards between a bunch of plain white paper, and iron them on low heat (no steam, moving the iron constantly and pushing down. works on water damaged (warped) cards, too. Also on newspapers if you are a rich aristocrat snob who prefers to read his morning Times sans wrinkles.
Ok, I'm hoping you guys can help me out. I've been out of Standard for a while, and have been pretty lazy fattening up my collection with TS block cards. I recently got back into the idea of playing Standard, but need a little advice...
What rare cards from Future sight are considered "must have x4" for standard? I already have a uncommon/common plaset, so all i alck are the rares to pad it out. We all know that out of all the rares printed in a set, some are just crap, and others are really good. I want your opinions on what's good. So, what are they in your opinions?
The gatherer probably is just errored. C1's are common. ;-)
From mtgnews.com:
'The concepts of card rarity and packaging have changed drastically since the beginning. The "quick" answer is that you can't label card rarity from sets before Ice Age, and some shortly after, the same way we do now. Some parallels can be made, but they are approximations at best. You can use Gatherer to tell you, but in my opinion it "lies" sometimes by rating multiple artworks of the same card separately. And sometimes cards change in reprinting.
In general (and there are many variations from this simple approach), Magic cards are printed on large sheets. Usually, there are either 121 or 110 cards on a sheet, but there can be other sizes. There are different sheets for each rarity (C, U, R, and basic land). More "common" sheets get printed than "rare" sheets, meaning more of each common card will exist. A fixed number of cards from each kind of sheet are put into packages.
Ice Age was the first set to use a straight-forward system; the sheets all had 121 different cards. A booster pack got 11 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare. Starter packs also got cards from a land sheet. Sets that use the black/silver/gold symbols try to mimic that distribution, and it really doesn't matter how they get there.
In Alpha/Beta/Unlimited, I believe there were also three 121-card sheets, but there was no land sheet. There were only 75 truly common cards, 95 uncommon cards, and 117 rare cards. The remaining spaces on the sheets were basic lands, and there was no separate land sheet. This means that you could get a basic land as your "rare." Like I said, things have changed drastically. Nobody in the early days expected people to buy more than a few packs.
Revised (3rd edition) was similar, but didn't have basic land on the rare sheet. There were 121 true rares.
In the earlier "small" sets, there was no rare sheet. Instead, they counted on printing a different number of the same card on a sheet to make it more, or less, common. An eight-card booster pack got 6 cards from the "common sheet," and 2 from the "uncommon sheet." So "U2" means it is from the uncommon sheet, printed twice. But depending on repeats, a card from the uncommon sheet could end up more common than one from the common sheet. Since three times as many common sheets were printed, a U3 is technically the same rarity as a C1.
Here are breakdowns of some of the more confusing sets:
Arabian Nights
The common sheet had 1 C1, 16 C4's, 9 C5's, and a C11 (Desert). The C1 mountain was a mistake - it should have been a fifth copy of one of the red C4's, making it a C5 so all colors would have 3 C4's and 2 C5's.
The uncommon sheet had 33 U2's, 17 U3's, and a U4. The U2's were "intended" to be like rares.
Gather calls the U2's "rare," the U3's and U4's "uncommon," and the rest "common."
Antiquities
The common sheet had 11 C1's, 5 C2's, and 25 C4's.
The uncommon sheet had 26 U1's, 4 U2's, and 29 U3's.
That counts multiple artworks of a card like Strip Mine as different rarities. It and Mishra's factory were each both a C1 and three different U1's. Counting all arts together, they had the same number of cards printed as a true C2.
The Urza's cycle also had multiple artwork, but appeared entirely on the common sheet. They were effectively C1+C1+C2+C2=C6, C1+C1+C2+C2=C6, and C1+C1+C1+C2=C5. All of the C2's were Urzatron.
Gather calls the U1's "rare," the U2's, U3's, and C1's "uncommon" (equal numbers of U3's and C1's were printed), and the rest "common." Notice that it calls the C2 Urzatron cards common, and the C1 Urzatron cards uncommon. I'd call all of these lands "common."
The Dark
The common sheet had a C1 and 40 C3's.
The uncommon sheet has 35 U1's and 43 U2's.
Gatherer calls the U1's "rare," the U2's and C1 "uncommon," and the rest "common."
Fallen Empires
The common sheet had 1 C1, 20 C3's, and 15 C4's. But all repeats had different artwork, and I'm listing them all together now.
The uncommon sheet had 36 U1's, 5 U2's, and 25 U3's.
Gather lists the U1 as rares, U2's and U3's as uncommon, and the rest "common." The C1 should really be "uncommon."
Alliances
The common sheet had 40 C2's and 10 C3's. There were two different arts for each that I'm listing together. They show up multiple times in gatherer as if it wants to show you the two arts, but it doesn't seem to.
The uncommon sheet had 40 U2's and 5 U6's. The U6's have two arts.
A rare sheet has 46 R2's and 3 R6's.
Gatherer calls the R2's rare, the R6's and U2's uncommon, and the U6's, C2's, and C3's common."
If I cast sea drake and I have only one land in play (I'm getting the other required mana from a sol ring) to return to my hand, does the sea drake say on thhe board or does it need to be sacrificed?
If your playing Sneak, there are 2 main ways you can build your deck. One way is to go the Tyrant route, where you are effectivly winning the game in one turn. The other is to run creatures that ensure you the win. each has its risks, but having run both versions, I find the 2nd to be the most consistent, most fun, most preductive route.
Here's the my version, which I've done well with so far (one 1st place finish, one 2nd.), and a following explanation for the cards.
Now, keep in mind this is the actuall deck I ran, not my idealized version of it. If THAT were the case, I'd max out the duals and drop the pain lands. Also run 4 enlightened tutor and drop the groves.
The card that is the BIGGEST game breaker in this, and any S.A. Deck is Gleancrawler. In my experience, its incredible. You drop all your creatures with sneak, encluding the gleancrawler, you swing dealing your beats, and then at the end of turn, you stack the gleancrawler's ability on the stack first, then all the sneak attack sac's. everything dies, goes to the graveyard including the gleancrawler. then Gleancrawler's ability resolves, and every creature that you just sac'd goes right back to your hand. Including gleancrawler. Instant hand recharge that delivers needed consistency.
Other key cards and their purpose:
crater helion: This is your wrath card. Since you can activate S.A.'s ability as a fast effect, you can play/sac/play the C.H. , doing 8 damage to all creatures in one turn (assuming you also have the gleancrawler).
kokusho: no joke. 10 damage lost in one turn. If you can't get him, anther good substitution is laquatus's champion.
palinchron: let you play everything in your hand. Rally good with greater good
Serra Avatar: a huge beater that, even without a gleancrawler in play, gets put back into circulation via the library. Combined with an angelic chorus, its doubley huge.
Academy rector: Another tutor method. Or, sneak him out to force sac and get a utility ench.
Living wish: one of the best cards in this deck. You can fish for a gleancrawler (usually 1st choice) or get what ever else you need. You have all the answers to almost anything in your SB. Land is often a reall good pick, too, hence the undiscovered paradise. Great when your mana screwed.
its alot of fun to play, usually going off by turn 4, GG by turn 5. try it out!
So in my meta, and it seems legacy at large, U/X aggro-control, (whether threshold, BANT control, Team, merfolk, etc) is very dominant. I love playing these decks, but often find the idea of yet another round playing agaisnt 4 FoW/4 Daze/ and/or 4 countertop.dec less than thrilling. Wastelands abound, and despite the many permutations and different "takes" on U/X aggro control, many matchups are often very similar.
So I'm brainstorming tonight to develop a deck that plays off the high prevelance of U/x aggro-control, and thought I'd open it up to you for advice. Many hands, and all that.
soo, here is my initial build with thoughts and Q's below.
4 tarmogoyf
4 vexing shusher
4 qasali pridemage
4 aven mindcensor
SPELLS
4 swords to plowshares
3 runed halo
2 oblivion ring
3 life from the loam
3 krosan grip
3 umezawa's jitte
4 sensei's divining top
4 wasteland
4 savannah
4 windswept heath
1 flooded strand
1 misty rainforest
4 plains
4 forest
tarmogoyf: well, because I'm in G, and I hear he's good, sooo.....
Vexing shusher:This is the main creature the deck is built around, i guess. As I see it, he stops a large part of the current meta. In this build, he's treated as GG. This may be a problem...
Qasali pridemage: Included as he can pump my goyfs, can be a threat by himself, is relativley cheap, and shuts down vial, jitte's, counter-top, etc...
aven mindcensor: hurts against opponents fetchlands, any kind of tutor effects, etc. Otherwise, he is a 2/1 beater with evasion. Fetches are large in my meta, so he recived the initial inclusion.
swords/halo/oblivion ring: all White removal/control answers...seems like a versitile package to me, but may be too heavy? right now it takes up 9 slots...
life from the loam: I'm running some non basics, fetches, and my own wastelands in a feild where most opponents are doing the same. I'm intending these will a) recurr my own wastelands, b) negate opponents wastelands, c) recur fetches to thin lands from the deck.
Krosan grip: slpit second enchantment/artifact removal seems good to me.
Umezawa's jitte:I guess this card is an attempt to seal a win condition for the deck by making it aggro-viable.
sensei's divining top: as if this needed explaining!
other possible inclusions:
Noble Hierarch (or perhaps birds of paradise?): I really like the idea of mana exceleration, AND adding another exalted creature to the mix, but I wonder if the deck really needs mana accel or not. This would open up U as an option, and while trying to stay away from a heavy U component of FoW/daze, it could allow ->
Counterbalance: I think the fact that top is already run means that this could be an easy include.
stoneforge mystic: this could be fun to run, and help fish out jitte's and possibly other equipment? like ->
sword of fire and ice: maybe this is a win-more card, though? I'm not sure it deserves auto include...
armegeddon: I thought that IF hierarchs were to be included, you could run this along with maybe mox diamond's and weather the land loss better than your opponent.
crucible of worlds: maybe run this instead of life from the loam?
enlightened tutor with so many artifacts and enchantments MD, this seams like a logical consideration...
pithing needle: I'd say it could shut down wastelands, but you're running them, so that leaves other things like aether vials, countertop combo,painters servant combo, thropter/sword combo, depths combo... maybe SB?
I plan on having the build together tomorrow when I'm not at work and maybe get some playtesting in sometime soon. One area I'm unsure of is how the deck would fair against anything BUT U/x aggro control, ie, dredge, zoo. Not well, I'm fearing. I guess that is where a SB would be handy. Kinda a gamble building for a presumed meta, but hey! You never know!
Thanks!
my thinking is no, since as long as the suspended card is removed from the game, stifle has nothing to target. Am I wrong?
of course i regret it- having to buy my chrome moxen via ebay at dire prices sucked, but when i think of that block, i still get those repulsive shivers. And now they are going BACk to mirrodin. Sigh.
other peculiarites? I bought a playset of coldsnap when it first came out because I loved the fact that it was the lost part of an old block. i started playing when Ice Age came out, and I thought the nod to nostalgia was awesome- way better than a useless un- set. Every body laughed when i did that, but who has 4x mint dark depths now, eh? booya.
When does M10 and Alara block rotate out of standard? After the next block is released? Any idea when that will be?
What rare cards from Future sight are considered "must have x4" for standard? I already have a uncommon/common plaset, so all i alck are the rares to pad it out. We all know that out of all the rares printed in a set, some are just crap, and others are really good. I want your opinions on what's good. So, what are they in your opinions?
Thanks in advance.
From mtgnews.com:
'The concepts of card rarity and packaging have changed drastically since the beginning. The "quick" answer is that you can't label card rarity from sets before Ice Age, and some shortly after, the same way we do now. Some parallels can be made, but they are approximations at best. You can use Gatherer to tell you, but in my opinion it "lies" sometimes by rating multiple artworks of the same card separately. And sometimes cards change in reprinting.
In general (and there are many variations from this simple approach), Magic cards are printed on large sheets. Usually, there are either 121 or 110 cards on a sheet, but there can be other sizes. There are different sheets for each rarity (C, U, R, and basic land). More "common" sheets get printed than "rare" sheets, meaning more of each common card will exist. A fixed number of cards from each kind of sheet are put into packages.
Ice Age was the first set to use a straight-forward system; the sheets all had 121 different cards. A booster pack got 11 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare. Starter packs also got cards from a land sheet. Sets that use the black/silver/gold symbols try to mimic that distribution, and it really doesn't matter how they get there.
In Alpha/Beta/Unlimited, I believe there were also three 121-card sheets, but there was no land sheet. There were only 75 truly common cards, 95 uncommon cards, and 117 rare cards. The remaining spaces on the sheets were basic lands, and there was no separate land sheet. This means that you could get a basic land as your "rare." Like I said, things have changed drastically. Nobody in the early days expected people to buy more than a few packs.
Revised (3rd edition) was similar, but didn't have basic land on the rare sheet. There were 121 true rares.
In the earlier "small" sets, there was no rare sheet. Instead, they counted on printing a different number of the same card on a sheet to make it more, or less, common. An eight-card booster pack got 6 cards from the "common sheet," and 2 from the "uncommon sheet." So "U2" means it is from the uncommon sheet, printed twice. But depending on repeats, a card from the uncommon sheet could end up more common than one from the common sheet. Since three times as many common sheets were printed, a U3 is technically the same rarity as a C1.
Here are breakdowns of some of the more confusing sets:
Arabian Nights
If I cast sea drake and I have only one land in play (I'm getting the other required mana from a sol ring) to return to my hand, does the sea drake say on thhe board or does it need to be sacrificed?
thanks in advance.
If your playing Sneak, there are 2 main ways you can build your deck. One way is to go the Tyrant route, where you are effectivly winning the game in one turn. The other is to run creatures that ensure you the win. each has its risks, but having run both versions, I find the 2nd to be the most consistent, most fun, most preductive route.
Here's the my version, which I've done well with so far (one 1st place finish, one 2nd.), and a following explanation for the cards.
4 plateau
3 savanah
3 windswept heath
3 wooded foothills
1 sacred foundry
1 stomping ground
1 brushlands
1 battle feild forge
1 karpulsan forrest
4 sneak attack
4 living wish
2 enlightened tutor
2 sterling grove
1 angelic chorus
1 rememberance
4 lotus petal
3 crater helion
3 palinchron
3 gleancrawler
3 kokusho, the evening star
4 birds of paradise
3 academy rector
1 kokusho, the evening star
1 gleancrawler
1 palinchron
1 angel of dispair
1 serra avatar
1 crater helion
1 undiscovered paradise
2 disenchant
1 circle of protection white
1 circle of protection red
1 circle of protection blue
1 circle of protection black
1 circle of protection green
1 blood moon
Now, keep in mind this is the actuall deck I ran, not my idealized version of it. If THAT were the case, I'd max out the duals and drop the pain lands. Also run 4 enlightened tutor and drop the groves.
The card that is the BIGGEST game breaker in this, and any S.A. Deck is Gleancrawler. In my experience, its incredible. You drop all your creatures with sneak, encluding the gleancrawler, you swing dealing your beats, and then at the end of turn, you stack the gleancrawler's ability on the stack first, then all the sneak attack sac's. everything dies, goes to the graveyard including the gleancrawler. then Gleancrawler's ability resolves, and every creature that you just sac'd goes right back to your hand. Including gleancrawler. Instant hand recharge that delivers needed consistency.
Other key cards and their purpose:
crater helion: This is your wrath card. Since you can activate S.A.'s ability as a fast effect, you can play/sac/play the C.H. , doing 8 damage to all creatures in one turn (assuming you also have the gleancrawler).
kokusho: no joke. 10 damage lost in one turn. If you can't get him, anther good substitution is laquatus's champion.
palinchron: let you play everything in your hand. Rally good with greater good
Serra Avatar: a huge beater that, even without a gleancrawler in play, gets put back into circulation via the library. Combined with an angelic chorus, its doubley huge.
Academy rector: Another tutor method. Or, sneak him out to force sac and get a utility ench.
Living wish: one of the best cards in this deck. You can fish for a gleancrawler (usually 1st choice) or get what ever else you need. You have all the answers to almost anything in your SB. Land is often a reall good pick, too, hence the undiscovered paradise. Great when your mana screwed.
its alot of fun to play, usually going off by turn 4, GG by turn 5. try it out!
Why couldn't you use force of will? Is it because your not playing the spell, just putting it into play?
(and of course this is in regard to a format where FOW is legal)
EDIT:d'oh. I see you specificly typed "put into play".