MTG Salvation

Thank you to everyone! Even though this was meant to be a forum for opinions, I believe you guys have also solved my problem.

Telling them that they are allowed to proxy cards they already own across multiple decks might just get them to buy a few cards, and from there, hopefully more.

@amurphcs Right, right, I completely forgot that you can't tap for mana that isn't in your commander's color identity.

In that case, I don't even think you will need a card such as you described. A simple 4 colored legendary eldrazi would do just fine, as it would synergize well, but still allow you to play all those colored devoid cards.

However, they could possibly say "yes, wastes cannot be added to a deck without the waste symbol in the mana cost, as this is color identity" but I doubt it.

In essence, we must keep in mind that eldrazi only have 4 colors, they cannot be white. Wastes possibly would act as that fifth color in the new set, without it being an actual color. So, at least, I would like to see a four color eldrazi that requires the "waste" symbol in it.

I'm also curious how cards like "command tower" will interact with commanders that have the waste symbol int heir summoning cost. Can it tap for that too?

@amurphcs Yes, I agree completely. The biggest reason I see people NOT playing colorless commanders is due to the cost of the mana base. Wastes will make colorless decks some of the cheapest by far (equivalent in cost to mono colored).

My thought is, do you think they should make "devoid" count towards color identity as well for EDH? I feel like the current Devoid cards are weak due to their dependence on color, but if devoid applied to commander, it would make them more useful.

Before this conversation gets out of hand, I would like to clarify a few things, if they make any difference.

As someone stated earlier, roguedecking is finding ways around the meta, and homebrewing is making your own deck without much outside help. When I refer to "roguedecking" I mean both the actual definition, as well as homebrew. For sake of clarity, I will separate the two now.

On regards to "netdecking." I consider netdecking to be someone who buys a good deck right off the internet. This does NOT apply to someone who A. Uses gatherer and the forums to buy the best cards for a color choice/tribal choice (take for example a soldier tribal). B. Looks at the best decks, and then tweaks them heavily to suit his store's meta (I've taken an Abzan control deck intended to be anti-creature and made it anti-enchantment simply because of the decks going on at my LGS) nor does it apply to C. Someone who looks at popular decks online, but then just uses cards that he already owns and are close enough. For sake of clarity, we will call these guys Netbrewers.

GoblinDJ has stated that he doesn't believe netdeckers are good at magic. This is his opinion, but it is most certainly wrong on a full scale picture. However, I believe it's being blown out of proportion here. We aren't accounting for the players at his LGS. It's very well possible that the majority of players at his LGS who netdeck are unskilled, and that would certainly lead to his view on them.

However, it would also be fair for GoblinDJ to step back and realize that there are certainly fantastic players out there that happen to netdeck. Typically, as I've personally encountered, it's the people who don't have a lot of money to spend on drafts, resulting in too few cards, and don't have a lot of money to spend on experimenting with decks that netdeck. To be fair, they typically budgetize the deck, and finding a way to replace certain expensive cards certainly takes some amount of skill, which can be respectable.

Hopefully this wraps up the debate in a polite manner, haha.

One thing I absolutely love about these forums is that we tend to generally accept all people's perspectives and beliefs on the format of their choice. In the real world, however, I rarely encounter that.

I notice a lot of hate between netdecking and roguedecking. More specifically, I have encountered the following:
1. People who believe it is more fun to build a deck from scratch, but then complain when they lose to a deck that was taken from the internet.
2. People who not only complain about people who steal entire decks from the internet, but complain about people who dare use other decks for mere inspiration.
3. People who copy entire decks from the internet, then make fun of roguedeckers for having bad decks.
4. People who copy entire decks and then moan and groan when a roguedeck beats their netdeck.
and lastly, the one I find worst of all
5. People who dedicate their time to learning the ins and outs of all the cards, and believe that people who play using netdecks are scum to the community.

Is this an issue in my area specifically? You'd be surprised how often I come across it. I've personally seen someone who was poking major fun at someone because they decided they wanted to play a deck someone else made. I really don't understand where this hate comes from. If the fun of magic comes from making decks from boosters, do it. If the fun of magic comes from using other decks as inspiration, do it. If the fun of magic comes from understanding the ins and outs of legal cards, do it. If the fun of magic comes from just buying cool decks and playing against friends who do the same, do it. However, once you do that, you have no right to complain about the other people doing other things.

Feel free to share your two-cents, whether it's in agreeance or disagreeance.

This is a deck I've been playing at FNM with a lot of success. There are a ton of great warriors (Bellowing Saddlebrute is not one of them). Here is my list:

Well, there are a few ways to look at this game, in Vintage we have Pillars and Schools, but that's a bit advanced, I'll explain some of the basics for you, in terms of what you've asked. Remember, none of this is set in stone and there are always decks that can fit multiple types.

Let's start with the basics, being the three types of Standard decks that Wizards wants to see. There's Aggro, there's Control, and then there's Midranged. Control seeks to establish control of the game by using spells that generate consistent advantage, even if their cost isn't optimal, while aggro wants optimal costs and to end the game as fast as possible. Now, Midrange exists between the two, and it should beat aggro, but lose to control, because it plays strong value creatures. In other words, in the Midrange vs. Aggro Match up, the Midrange deck plays the control role, but in the Midrange vs. Control Match up the Midrange deck plays aggro. What this means is that a card like Loxodon Hierarch is a fantastic Midrange card, because in the control match up it has a solid power, but in the aggro match up it has a large toughness while gaining you some life. In other words, to play midrange is to play the value deck, where all of your stuff produces value, but can also backfire. The issue with Loxodon Hierarch is that it costs 4, and against control the life gain doesn't matter much, and they can counter it easily. Something like Putrid Leech is also a good midranged card, because in the aggro match up you'll use it as a 2/2 for 2 and trade with creatures, but against control you'll usually pump it to be more aggressive... You're basically in the middle, playing the midrange deck, you're never quite as fast as the aggro deck, or as end game stable as the control deck, but you do a little of both. Get the idea?

Now, moving onto more advanced ideologies:

Ramp: The idea of this deck isn't to use creatures that tap for mana, but rather to boost your mana to play things that are above the current mana that you have. In other words, it's not whether you have a Llanowar Elves or a Rampant Growth but rather that you're casting your big creature a turn or two before the game would realistically allow you to. In other words, your deck is about getting big stuff out fast, to cheat the mana clock, so if you're playing a 5 cost creature on turn 3 or a 6 cost creature on turn 4, you should be winning the game as you're ahead and they shouldn't be able to win against your big guy because you're playing on turn 5-6 while they're on turn 3-4. The downside is that you're making a lot of room in your deck for ramp, so if you draw all the Rampant Growth and whatever spells you're not doing anything, and the same goes for if you draw all the Kalonian Hydras and none of the cards to play it before turn 5 since you won't be doing anything to play it before then.

Tempo: This is the deck that assumes it can stall you long enough to win the game with a few threats, it's like a control deck, but more aggressive. Basically cards like Remand and Man-o'-War are seen here, because they don't actually do anything besides buy you time. Think about it this way, a control deck runs things like Counterspell and Wrath of God because it wants to basically be reactive and answer all of you things, thus creating a situation where you can't win and it can win off of a couple turns later down the road. A tempo deck on the other hand says "No, not this turn, maybe next" so it basically Remands your big spell a few turns, and bounces your guy, all the while attacking in. Land destruction is a type of tempo deck, because it devotes a lot of time destroying lands, but if it's not attacking during that time and putting consistent damage on you, it's not going to win once you have a couple lands in play.

In short, if you always bounce their creatures and spells, or tap them, you can kill them before they come into play, so it doesn't matter if they resolve them... I mean after all how good is Vapor Snag when they spend a turn casting the same creature they played last turn? It's like all your spells are Time Walks to them.

Combo: This is the deck that basically wants to create one game winning turn, it used to refer to a deck that used a specific combination of cards to win, such as Channel and Fireball when the game was new, but since then it's basically turned into decks that win off of Tendrils of Agony. Lightning Storm, or similar effects. The point isn't the gain control of the game, but rather to build up enough resources to win the game on one turn and as such as long as you're above 0 life you're ok. Cards like Angel's Grace, Phyrexian Unlife, Necropotence, and Ad Nauseam all show up in this type of deck because they just want to get enough cards to blow you out... Who cares how many turns you skip to Meditate when you're just going to kill the opponent that turn with a Brain Freeze, right?

Lock Down: This is where control and tempo meet to make a horrible baby. The idea is to deny the opponent resources, but unlike tempo it's to deny resources throughout the game, and unlike control you don't win in a turn or two, you simply drag it out... Pox and Stax is a good example of this, you basically just create a situation where the opponent can't win, and then beat them down slowly with a 1/1 creature. Tempo and Control are both based on time, whereas Lockdown has all the time in the world. If you play Crucible of Worlds and Strip Mine together you probably won't cast too many spells that game, but neither will your opponent, and when they miss a turn to play a land, you'll just run out a 1/1 dude and smack them in the face with it for the rest of the game... Yea, tempo will counter a spell with Mana Leak, and hit you with a flipped Delver of Secrets, but Lock Down will make sure you never cast a spell with their Sphere of Resistance and Wasteland.

Tool box: This deck refers to a type of deck that has many options, and lots of answers, but needs a card to get those things... it can be Survival of the Fittest, Mystical Teachings, or whatever, but the basic idea is to have one copy of every answer for every deck in your deck so that you can basically tutor it up with a card that provides multiple tutors and then answer your opponent's deck before winning off of general value stuff. You know, having a silver bullet for every occasion.

Combo-Control: This deck type cares less about brute force and more about controlling the game before winning off of its combo. Let's put it this way Oath of Druids can just pump out a Griselbrand pretty easily off of a Forbidden Orchard as combo, but what you do with that is what matters... Do you try to draw a million cards and just win off of a Tendrils of Agony or do you just draw 7 and beat down for a couple of turns? The difference is that a combo deck will play the Tendrils combo, with the Oath-Grizzle combo, and Necropotence and all sorts of things to basically cast a combo every turn hoping to get one through. The Combo-Control version will just play more counter spells and more Abrupt Decays to answer the opponent before using Oath as a way to cast their end game card. In short, Combo will run Duress or Thoughtseize before Force of Will or Mana Drain because all they care about is resolving their combo and winning the game almost instantly, the control deck is more patient.

Aggro-Control: This is usually a tempo deck, but mostly it runs more disruption than the average tempo deck. The idea is more that you have less threats, like Tarmogoyf and then a bunch of counters than creatures. Merfolk in vintage is more of an aggro deck as it tries to overwhelm the board with guys, but something like Goblins runs a bunch of small dudes, that gain card advantage like Goblin Ringleader and Gempalm Incinerator to clear out creatures, but even then there are ways to build goblins as pure aggro. It's more a matter of how much you're willing to slow down your aggro plan to have answers for other things.

Aggro-Combo: This is the most hated deck ever probably. The Standard version of Affinity was probably the worst for this, you basically threw out an early Arcbound Ravager and Frogmite to beat in, or you beat in and then sacrificed a bunch of stuff to the Ravager to trigger the Disciple of the Vault to kill the opponent. It either killed via aggro by attacking, or by combo... This hasn't gone away, Vintage just uses Genesis Chamber and Skullclamp to generate absurd advantage on the field or hand, and in Legacy Elves just use Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and Glimpse of Nature along with Natural Order to either produce a bunch of creatures or cheat creatures into play, and kill you in one turn or beat you down with a swarm. Good times. Both Vintage Affinity and Legacy Elves use Gaea's Cradle in almost the same way.

Oh, my combo didn't work or I didn't get it? well here's a bunch of small creatures beating your face in bro!

Quote from robmoore675 »

Awesome! but where can I go to view said events?

twitch.tv/magic

The point is you have way too many 1-ofs that are overcosted and really don't do anything. Just draw some sample hands on the link you provided to see what I mean -- I drew ~20 hands and don't think a single one of them were remotely playable, especially in a format as fast as Modern:

My last 4 hands (as an example):
1.) Gravepurge, Soul Manipulation, Extinguish All Hope, Grave Betrayal, Grave Pact, Army of the Damned, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2.) Mountain, Mountain, Island, Dimir Guildgate, Thraximundar, Tymaret, the Murder King, Grave Pact
3.) Gravepurge, Levitation, Grave Pact, Lich Lord of Unx, Honden of Night's Reach, Erebos, God of the Dead
4.) Memory Plunder, Mind Funeral, Sedris, the Traitor King, Grave Pact, Grave Betrayal, Swamp, Lich Lord of Unx

What am I supposed to do with any of those?

You don't run any real discard or removal (or good counters), so you have no real way to interact or disrupt your opponent's plans. You also say you want to drain life, but you aren't actually doing it that effectively or efficiently. Your best bet is to just keep it simple. If you want to drain life, just jam some Geralf's Messengers and Gray Merchant of Asphodels in there with some ways to recur them. If you want to play the "lord" route, play some decent early beaters (Gravecrawler, Stromgald Crusader, Sangrophage, etc) and run your lords at the top of the curve. If you want to play a more controlling deck with Grave Pact, run some early disruption (Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, etc), some Gravecrawlers and a sac outlet. In addition, Nameless Inversion and Fleshbag Marauders are decent removal options that you can reuse with Lord of the Undead -- what would you even bother recurring in your current deck?

I would probably just stick with Monoblack, but splashing green (Putrid Leech, Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse) gives you some good options to deal with a wider variety of decks, too.

Off the top of my head, I would probably try: