INTRO:
For an introduction, I’m a Johnny/Spike in about equal amounts and I love doing Multiplayer EDH. My last few decks have been “soul-sucking”, “dominating”, and “un-fun”. Nothing like holding down an entire table with a shrouded Sheldorud and sand-bagging multiple reanimation effects… My Spike to Johnny ratio is out of whack obviously… so I had to make a change.
What Commander is the most innocent and Johnny commander? Zedruu the Greathearted that’s who… and rather than my mass control deck shenanigans, I wanted to play a group hug deck…
But I can’t in good conscious just go into my playgroup with something weak, or not have answers to problematic things other people with broken decks, nor just jam all EDH greats and make a target of myself.
I read all of the R/W/U decklists for ideas and a few group hug decks just so my mind is in the right area. Then I came upon this article from SCG.com which highlighted a great control card that was fairly inoffensive:99 Problems with Sunforger
This was written for a Numot deck and said that it hardly ever cast its general. This article’s description of the way it answered everything and yet wasn’t stiflingly overpowerful drew me into creating the deck you’ll see below. By switching from Numot to Zedruu, it would allow me to have some group hug elements and be whacky , while at the same time have the capability to smash some of the best-laid plans of my “win at all costs” friends. The article was a great boon for figuring out how much Sunforging I’d need and other ideas to implement. My only problem with the written deck is that creature centric, and if I’d be donating things, creatures were the easiest to kill and/or be used to kill me. I couldn’t go creatureless, as Sunforger only works when being equipped and unequipped.
Sunforger is pretty powerful in the classical sense. In that it gives you greater options, and how you use these options determines how you are as a person and Magician ( I know someone wants to play Uncle Ben to my Spiderman, come on you know you want to….). You can be a griefer, or just sit back and let the good times roll. My previous method was to be as ruthless as possible so I could kill groups at a time, now my motto is much like Magic’s Judo, use people’s spells against them.
Why would I want to play this deck?
1. You like having answers
2. You like being underestimated
3. You like to play control games
4. You don’t mind grinding out games
5. Synergy is above combo
6. Politics is your life blood
Why wouldn’t I want to play this deck?
1. You don’t like to shuffle
2. You want a simple game plan
3. You like killing people quickily.
4. Making another person miserable (griefing) is like sunlight for vampires
5. Politics is what your targets do
Sunforger and Targets
Sunforger is the main theme to this deck. Zedruu is a fun and quirky commander, that can do some fairly low-powered but broken things, but Sunforger is what allows this relatively low powered deck to control things as well as a geared-up control deck. You can have fun with combat shenanigans and prevent bad things from happening to teammates, or you can hose your enemies and break their will based solely off this little artifact.
There is a link at Sunforger Targets that Corps T made that is a pretty definitive list of everything you can Sunforger out. Bookmark it, look at it every so often see what strikes your fancy.
That said, we have to have a few areas to cover completely to break Sunforger:
1. Good Solid Sunforger Targets
2. Finding Sunforger
3. Reusing those Sunforger Staples
4. Tutors to make sure our recursion elements are active
Sunforger – This little gem is the ultimate in political power. Usually you want it to be a tool to balance the broken things other people are doing, not being a dick yourself.
Sunforger Targets –
There is a link at Sunforger Targets that Corps T made that is a pretty definitive list of everything you can Sunforger out. What we are aiming for isn’t to have everything on this list possible, but rather the minimum amount of cards that we can use time and time again to solve any and all problems.
Oblation – The original tuck effect. Being able to tuck an opponent’s general at will is amazing, since most people build their deck to function in conjuction with their general and are hobbled without it.
Chaos Warp – Tuck effect that can hit pro-white creatures. Little risky getting a random permanent in EDH, but better something random than what’s currently messing you up right?
Mirrorweave – Combat Trick #1. Make all creatures copies of whatever you need to make it to kill your problem. Make your opponent’s darksteel colossus into Weathered Wayfarerand sacrifice a guy to block it. Or make all your creatures into a Primeval Titan, attack and get every land in your deck.
Master Warcraft – Mini Insurrection and/or Mindslaver. Once you’re able to recur things, you’ll be taking people out via other players. Player A being a d*ck? Have player B take him out… But remember, you only choose whether or not to attack, not whom they attack… Better have some sort of defense yourself. It can also be a type of fog, as you can make them not attack anyone at all…
Reiterate – Use this and then pay the buyback cost and you can keep it to use again… Less enemies made than Wild Ricochet.
Double Negative – Tutorable Counterspell. Could play Absorb if you wanted to, but a way to counter 2 spells versus 3 life seems better, not to mention that Absorb is a few bucks and Double Negative is pocket change.
Orim's Thunder – Tutorable Removal for Artifacts and Enchantments, and can hit creatures too. Could be Return to Dust to exile the offending thing or 2 things… I like having the opportunity to kill the 2 biggest offenders on a table with vastly different types…
If it’s the point of the deck, you’ve got to be able to find it right? And if you get your sunforger killed, you need redundancy to find it again assuming you can get it back into your library from your graveyard. Lastly your equipment theme is useless if you already have Sunforger out or you want protection for you general via Swiftsure Boots or Lightning Greaves.
Stoneforge Mystic– Finds it, then brings it out without worry about counterspells. Nice that it splits these abilities, so you get some value if it dies…
Stonehewer Giant – Might be more expensive, but allows for instant speed search and equip of your shroud givers, which is relevant. Also equips the sunforger, allowing it to be used ASAP.
Godo Bandit Warlord – Finds and puts out equipment, dodging counterspells… Extra Combat phase, might as well right?
Steelshaper's Gift – Backup Systems to find your sunforger at minimal cost.
Muddle the Mixture – Finds your stoneforge which is what grabs your sunforger. Or finds
Two reasons you need to have recursion:
1. Sunforger dies a lot, since the average life expectancy of an artifact in EDH is probably 4-5 turns
2. By having pretty good recursion, you can use all of your high quality Sunforger staples time and time again, because Sunforger only cares that it is in your deck, not where it is.
Mistveil Plains – The gold standard. For example: EOT Oblation one person’s general, then put Oblation on bottom of library. Untap, equip Sunforger , then unequip to Oblation another person’s general… Great, now that you’ve made the entire table your enemy, you better have a backup plan. This thing is like nuclear energy, harnessed right it makes power seem effortless, but you do the Oblation trick too often, you’ll be blown up like Chernobyl. Tutorable via 4 fetches, Expedition Map, Trinket mage for the Expedition map, Weathered Wayfarer, Eternal Dragon, Tolaria West and Tithe. Hardest thing is to keep 2 white permanents to keep activating it over and over.
Sun Titan – Gets back all kinds of goodies… But for my money, here’s the best thing you can do with Sun Titan without a game winning combo: Put out Oblivion Stone, then put a fate counter on Lightning Greaves. Blow up the world, then play Sun Titan bringing back O-Stone. Equip with lightning greaves, put a counter on sun titan. Now you have a blow up the world every combat step machine.
Weathered Wayfarer – Tutorable off of Ranger of Eos, and will allow you to search for any type of land. This is usually given to someone who is white and manascrewed for political reasons. Lands aren’t going to kill you, and a 1/1 gift is usually harmless.
Eternal Dragon – Cycles to find Mistveil Plains, if you’re recurring this you’ve gotten incredibly screwed out of much better mana-sinks… good luck.
Arid Mesa - On color Fetch for mana fixing or Mistveil.
Flooded Strand - On color Fetch for mana fixing or Mistveil.
Marsh Flats - Mistveil, a normal Plains or Shockland
Zedruu’s Theme
Zedruu is a great way to stay off people’s radar. She has a quirky effect, and can come out pretty quick if you want her to. Some people are all about Zedruu and Donating things:
1. Enchantment based, with a pretty good primer included - fivecolorjunk
2. Politics based, said its kinda evil… – bluebruin
3. Hard Control with Donation sub theme- Yarpus
4. Donation Based - Kikero
Mine’s different because my donation is a sub-sub theme. Most Zedruu decks would be hobbled severely by any tucking effect… This deck will continue sunforger-ing and be tutoring up the tools necessary to find the Zedruu again, but isn’t in a rush… Zedruu is to me a white creature who
• gets Mistviel Plains turned halfway on
• can hold Sunforger like a champ
• I always have access to, albeit at steadily increasing man cost
If I don’t have to cast Zedruu, I don’t. But she’s fun. I’m more likely to cast Zedruu to give someone a Land Tax, than I am to cast her simply so I have a creature.
But just because I don’t have her as my Plan A, doesn’t mean that I don’t have a Plan for her…
Vedalken Plotter – Exchange lands so you can consistently draw, relatively inoffensive
Political Trickery - Exchange lands so you can consistently draw, relatively inoffensive
Shifting Borders - Exchange lands so you can consistently draw, relatively inoffensive
Thought Lash – Win-Con. Refuse to pay upkeep cost then donate to opponent, they have to remove their library from the game. Some people have to die…
Pyromancers Swath – Control Player Win-Con. Good luck winning the game without a hand… Don’t play this without some protection for Zedruu… They kill her and you’ll be the one handless. I usually donate this before thoughtlashing someone so I don’t get in a position to die off Thought Lash.
Delaying Shield – Rattlesnake card extraordinare. This is usually what I do when playing master warcraft: Player A attack B please, and if you decide to attack me, I’ll kill you with your own damage via Delaying Shield.
Group Hug
My group is competive, and a pure group hug deck will simply be the first victim if it didn’t have a method of keeping people at arms length. People will respect the Sunforger after they see the multi-tucks, so you might have to make an example of a person the first few times… But after people see the stick, they need the carrot a little bit too… Hence the group hug below. None of these are going to kill you, and should get you some goodwill…
Oath of Lieges - Donatable, and everyone loves it. Except the green players, they don’t get the hug…
Dominus of Fealty – Steal Player A’s Creature give it to Player B, permanently.
Death by Dragons –Its like Oprah: “Everybody Gets A New Car”, except the douche at the table. ( In case you didn’t know, when you cast this, you have to say the phrase just like Oprah did… “Everybody gets a brand new DRAGON!!!!! Except you Tom….”)
Rainbow Vale – Taps for any color of mana, then self donates, further Zedruu shenanigans.
Forbidden Orchard – You might not own the tokens anymore, but damn is it political to give free 1/1s
The Rest
Some of these cards you’ll know and love as EDH Favorites, others are in theme. Rattlesnakes, Removal, Card Draw/Selection, Sweepers, Counters and Win-Cons. Most of the above is pretty set in stone, the below is set in hardened clay. It fits me, and fits me well. You can customize to your own flavor.
Coalition Relic - Color Fixing and Ramp, both nice in a 3 color deck, a staple for a reason.
Figure of Destiny – Holds Sunforger like a champ, grows to be huge with minimal resources
Serra Ascendent – Usually a 6/6, don’t be the guy to put this out the 1st turn…
Tauran Mauler – A slow grower, best in multiplayers. If you guys die to the Tauran Mauler, its your own fault, big dumb fat guy with no evasion… Hell I donate this half the time to give someone a surprise blocker when they’re going to die otherwise.
Archon of Justice – Rattlesnake. Flying decent body Rattlesnake. More importantly its white for Mistveil Plains
Oblivion Stone – Rattlesnake Sweeper, one of the few sweepers in the deck. I never put a counter on anything unless I can recur the stone, because every time I a fate counter on anything else, my stone gets blown up…
Austere Command – The most versatile sweeper, which is why in my mind, it’s the best.
Sunblast Angel– I don’t attack that often, so this is a wrath variant… I could use Wrath of God here, or Rout honestly, but this makes much fewer enemies. Course it does less… Do what you will, this guy seems inoffensive compared to a hard reset of creatures. I’m tempted to do a Hallowed Burial, but I might tuck my guy too.
Ghostly Prison – Fence, used this over propaganda because white permanents turn on Mistveil Plains
Windborn Muse – Fence that can hold a Sunforger, and its white
Oblivion Ring – Catchall. Granted it is easily killable, and that lets whatever was trapped back out, but its general purpose and donatable.
Wild Research – I never knew this guy existed until I looked in Zedruu decks. Insane and $.50… I might shoehorn a Library of Leng for this guy alone. Usually I search for Pyromancer’s Swath stick it and Donate it, then Search up Thought Lash with this guy. At any part of the process if it gets destroyed, I mistveil it back and start over again… It’ll have to stick one time or another…
Rhysic Study – Card Draw… Comes down early and is great. Staple for a reason .
Future Sight – Card Advantage, especially with the amount of shufflers in your deck
Magus of the Future - Card Advantage, especially with the amount of shufflers in your deck and it can hold a Sunforger
Counterbalance – Repeat after me: “This is a may ability, I do not have to try and counter everything.” However sometimes you have to try and counter a thing, and this is what is best at what it does… Free re-usable counterspells. Consistently Awesome with Scroll rack, Good with Top, and randomly awesome doing it blind. Without having a top or rack in play, what’s the ettiqutte on this thing? My Spike-ness wants to do it everytime, but maybe that’s too much?
Spell Crumple – Originally I had both hinder and spell crumple in here, but slots needed to be carved, and I already have tuck effects tutorable… So this is Tuck # 3, and I might enterain a switch to another counterspell. Draining Whelk is a creature can hold a sunforger, Commandeer fits with my “use the opponents spells against them” theme, Desertion has a nice ring to it, cryptic command has versatility which is King in EDH. I’ll let you know.
Mindslaver – Repeat after me: “Yes, I have Mindslaver and Academy Ruins in a deck” and “No, I do not have to use it like that”. But if the situation calls for it, so be it. Also if its just you and the last person of a multiplayer game, I say do it.
Rite of Replication – Kicked it’s a Win-Con, normal it’s a clone. Either way, its awesome. Might eventually try out Storm Herdin here instead though.
Rest of the Lands
Like most competitive tri-color builds, you try to have a bunch of fetches, 3 Shocks, 3 Filter, 3 Pain, 3 Vivids + Reflecting Pool. I went ahead and used 3 Artifact lands so I can search them out, and some RavniKaroos to finish things off. With Innistrad coming out, I may take out the RavniKaroos out and use the M10/Innistrad cycle of lands to smooth things out… And Artifact lands might be a detriment, since artifact seeping happens a good deal… But this works, and is pretty close to ideal for me.
Remember, you can be the griefer and have everyone hate you… Or you can be the friend to some and have a blast.
I do recommend that you remember what tutors for what, and get used to shuffling through your deck, as you will be looking at the deck quite a bit. You might want to print out your list and keep it close so you can reference it. This is so you search for a card, not waste everyone’s time by LOOKING through you deck for stuff you can use… It causes quite the time waste as it is. (Yes I know that it is slightly against the rules, but you’re playing casual right, among friends… And you’ll pick up the tricks soon enough to take off the training wheels.)
Like the idea of taking bunches of turns, allows for complete broken-ness... The only way I ever did it with the GU version was Cast Emrkul take another turn, bounce with jace, repeat... Which is complete win-more since if you've CAST the flying spagetti monster, you should win anyway... Didn't like the wall action and was looking for a good way to abuse the lands we get...
Back in Lorwyn/Shards I played 5 color Planeswalkers, and was able to use jace and lilliana to chain time warps together, then use a primal command to get the time warps back again. Averaged about 4-5 turns of mine to theirs... Which was awesome...
Thinking back to that deck, thought the same situation might be good, use lilliana to tutor the necessary pieces of whatever you want... But didn't see a good way to get the graveyard recycled, until I noticed the legendary eldrazi have the graveyard shuffle effect...
Not saying that it would help the deck, but this is an idea... Splash black for the afforementioned pulse, then add lilliana...
Pros:
Gains more interaction to the Opponents board state...
Allows us to sculpt our hands/library to get the cards we need...
Lowers the Curve (For lilliana I'd take out a single avenger an AiD and mindspring)...
Allows singlton toolbox stategy, to which we already use a bit via the map and eye...
Broken Turn Chains. Starting Loyalty for Lilliana and Jace2. Use lilliana and jace to find and draw and cast time warp and whateveris leftover from the brainstorm. Next turn repeat. Next turn Use Lilliana on self to discard a legendary eldrazi, shuffle GY into library, which will also make lilliana an even numbered PW, which if she was unmolested earlier should be at 2 now. Then Oppoent gets a turn. On our next turn Use lilliana to get another lilliana, jace draw it, cast 2nd Lilliana, find time warp. Cantrip and cast might be doable, but more than likely end turn. Opponent turn, Then we've gotten back to our original set of permanents Lilliana @ original loyalty, but we've taken 4 turns to their 2, and if we are able to cast lilliana timewarp and a cantrip in the same round the turns would continue til we have gotten 6 turns to their 1.
This is supposing that the brainstorms have gotten you nothing. More than likely this is what you will see: Lilliana tutor for Time Warp, Jace brainstorms and you put the crappy stuff back, next turn drawing your 2nd crappiest card and repeat the process , but the lilliana search has shuffled the library, meaning the Jace Brainstorm gets your worst cards out of the running and you different cards. And contiue the shenanigans.
So if you can find another lilliana or a time warp, it saves a set of the lilliana/jace use.
Cons:
Screws with the manabase. Getting B for maelstrom pulse isn't that hard, getting BB for Lilliana would probably need to use prob 3 evolving wilds and 3-4 verdent catacombs and at least 2 swamp and/or probably use a creeping tar pit as well, to add the inevitablility once we chain the turns together. To adjust we'd probably need to cut most halimar depths to avoid the ETBT land issue... And lastly if we have too many fetches, we would severely hamper the point of the deck, getting massive land advantage....
Lilliana might be too slow, as without jace tag team it sets up the top of deck making the answers we need now appear next turn, which giving the opponent 1 more turn to make the board state different might be too late.
Decreases the chances of drawing an answer naturally, since we shave a Avenger and AiDs here and there, making them harder to get multiple copies over a game without the help of Lilliana...
However this idea might have a glimmer of hope, and isn't a complete noob pipedream hope. It worked in an older format fairly well, and might in this one... Let me know what you think.
PLayed Sanchez Mill last year for states, got the crap kicked out of me, so I was watching the train wreck happening next to me, instead of the one driected my way...
Original boros vs BRW discard WTF....
T4 goblin guide lynx and geopede get DoJ away, ranger and bushwhacker were force discarded away via blightning.
T5 WRB casts haunting echoes, and proceeds to rip every fetch, landfall guy lightning bolt, ranger and bushwhacker away...
@ Lugz: He said that he didn't like the discard package in the SB, and would rather play negates, since that means they would have to invest their mana...
The Jaces and Lilliana are well I'll just let him use his words rather than paraphrase...
While both good on their own, they serve dual purposes. Jace kills theirs and is a huge tempo swing versus their Baneslayer. Playing only a single copy of the Bond is sort of risky, as while you tend to tear through your deck in the midgame, sometimes you just can’t find it. Liliana is like a second pseudo copy while also being a solid disruption tool.
This deck is not Open the Vaults, its spread-em. Creating a hybrid of the two decks is a bad idea, as was already discussed in the convincing mirage discussion 15 pages back or so. Thinning your artifact base to add spread-em cards (ardent plea, convincing mirage) makes the artifact-vault-filigree strategy too unreliable to ever be successful. Both Spread-em and Open the Vaults rely on VERY tight decklists with very few open slots in order to draw the cards required to win consistently.
Creating some weird hybrid of the two will completely destroy the consistency of either strategy.
There is a reason spread-em doesnt have a forum in developing competitive, if you want to play the spread-em package (convincing mirage, spreading seas, ardent plea) go start a casual standard forum, you are disrupting productive deck discussion in this thread.
This isn't Spread-Em, that has a 4-5 Color Manabase, and many many cascade spells that would alloow the person to cast a mediocre enchantment/creature/sorcery that would always come up with a mana-denial spell. It is a fringe deck, and doesn't deserve a DC slot.
However this deck uses elements from it, the mana-denial and a 4of the cheapest cascader. Spread-Em had a problem finishing, and my work with OtV has me working hard on not dying early... Smash them together and you might get something that works well...
As far as starting a casual forum for this idea, I will. But only once I do much more testing, and find out this stinks to high heavens. I'll publish the results, apologize, then make the thread for others to read and learn, then promptly go back and play a more conventional OtV. I love OtV, I only like the Spread-Em hybrid.
ALSO: Slapping GerryTs name on a build thats clearly a homebrew hybrid of a deck from his article and a "deck he saw on ML" is misleading and inappropriate. ie:
This is the other deck that I made some adjustments to. GerryT said he saw somethignlike it on ML, but that he hasn't played it yet.
Spread the Vaults by Gerry T
(Decklist)
I suppose I should not paraphrase: His exact word were: "Another interesting list that I found on Magic-League was a combination of Spread ‘Em plus Open the Vaults. I haven’t played a game with this list, but it looks awesome. "
Those were his exact words. And when I posted both decks from his 4-25 Article, they were exactly as written. I am honest when I say what is a pro's work, and what is my own. If you still don't believe me, shoot me a PM, and I'll get you a PDF of his article, since you can't access SCG.com.
If there was a homebrew element, it would have been my decklist. I took the one he advocated that he saw on ML, saw it didn't have the filigree angels that I loved in OtV, so I bastardized his list. Dropped a Jace2.0, an Oring and then made the deck 61 cards to insure 3x Filigree angels, then put the extras in the SB so I could create a more typical OtV when I knew the convincing mirages were lackluster. Then I had to re-do the manabase to what I was comfortable with...
EDIT:
And I'm not saying this is the new OtV, or that it makes us Tier 1. Its an interesting take on the deck, and in my meta it might be an improvement. More testing will tell the tale.
For the sake of this thread (and my sanity) I'm going to say that this is a different deck than what everyone else has been talking about. It has a lot of similar cards, but It's primary win condition is completely different (no fillagree) and it's primary form of disruption is mana denail - which was never our deck's form of primary disruption. Additionally - the sideboard is filled with cards that the consensus has ruled out here...the only exception being the singleton DoJ that many run in the main...lol.
I posted the both lists that he put in the article, mainly for informational purposes. The 2nd list, the spreading seas list, I will agree that it isn't the usual run of the mill OtV deck, which is why I changed his list to add some filigree angels and re-did the manabase.
And while it isn't doing the usual disruption plan, why not try this and see for yourself...
Or just cut your JtN and try some pleas to where you would cascade into WoO, Spreading Seas, or Capsule.... It might not have the surety of hitting a mana-denial card, but it would be a sure-fire way to get deck thinning and card advantage...
And I know that I'm at least doing the land-thinning manabase, so after a few spreading seas and Ardent Pleas and land fetching, my deck is usually more threat dense than my opponent's considering he usually can't cast his bombs...
I'm not married to the Spread-Em idea, if my meta shifts from Naya Jund and RDW, I'll probably move away from the Spread-Em and try a different tack on the deck...
Also what else could we use that is cascadeable? Executioner's Capsule being cascaded into saved my bacon, as did finding perimeter captain or WoO. Dispeler's Capsule might be interesting to get rid of stuff, but seems lackluster...
as far as you have not been attacking with a sole creature, chalk that up to playstyle. I like keeping a blocker or 2 back during the middlegame. Post OtV when you have craploads of guys that are semi-disposable, sure go to town, just cause you have a exalted trigger possible doesn't mean you have to use it...
Well control isn't that bad a MU, once you neuter then out of W mana... Sure they have Jace if they are mono-U at that point, he can only unsummon a guy a turn, and your 2nd creature can finish him off. Let's say they counter all your manscrew cards, great that isn't a counter they can't use on your OtV...
I will agree that JtN is a horrible cascade, hence why there aren't any in the deck. What 1/2 drops does this deck have:
JtN-manascrew cards serve as disruption to prevent early creature rushes until DoJ cleans up the rest...
PtE- See above
Everflowig Chalice-Borderpost can accelerate, or fix mana...
Capsule-I cut these for ardant plea... and it is a slight downgrade... Capsule gets 2 , then gets 2 more post OtV. Ardent Pleas get 1, but a 1 card that you know what you're expecting. Sometimes it gets you 2 (via spreading seas)...
Tidehollow, hand disruption versus land disruption... I used to run these MD, and loved them... I may squeeze them into SB for Control MU...
Wall of Omens, Already in my SB, and serves the same purpose as my manascrew cards, a speedbump to gain control...
Spreading Seas... which is my point to this version of the deck...
Many people in my meta have fragile manabases, good chunk of my wins were based off of delaying them on their mana to buy time for OtV, or keeping the control player off WW to make sure the DoJ or Martial Coup fails to keep my creatures off the field.
Ardent Plea's Exalted isn't something to sneeze at either, hulk is usually the sole attacker for me, it helps brng the game to a close sooner... and in multiples it makes even Pilgram's eye a viable threat...
Read an interesting article at starcitygames on OtV, by Gerry T. In it he did some crazy things after seeing some fo the current winners with the deck, but at the end of the article he mentioned someone smashed Spread-Em with OtV, and posted a decklist.
I took that decklist, and added my usual manabase for OtV, instead of having the possiblity of ruinblaster/tectonic edge. Most of my games I played with previously were won off the Spreading Seas, and lost to RDW. So I knew that if I could maximize the Spreading Seas, most of my matchups would be good, and by removing the Convincing mirage, and spreading seas I could put in Perimeter Captain and Wall of Omens instead to accelerate into Walls that slow RDW to a crawl...
Executor's Capsule I figured would be a good SB cascadable target to kill the polymorph menace that I thought would be around since I thought it would be a DTB...
Round 1 Spread Em (Guy who won)
Spread-Em mirror match ish... Annoying. Lost 0-2. My manabase only had 3 Plains and 2 UW borderposts. Mana was never an issue when I was doing it before, and this just messed me up, never had to worry about my mana before... Still makes me mad that I chose to have a 4 Plains/ 8 Island Split simply because that's what I had in Unglued pretty lands... But anyhow, that will be fixed by next week. No SBing.
Round 2: G/r Eldrazi 2-0
Steamrolled G1, DoJ to kill half the tokens that he was making to keep him off 15 mana, he would occasionally do the 8CMC Eldrazi, which got O-ringed.
SB -3 Convincing Mirage - 4 Spreading Seas + 3 Executioner's capsule + 4 Wall of Omens.
LD is not very important to a guy that is trying to get buttloads of colorless mana, and executioner's capsule is made for the Flying Spagetti Monster, 15CMC timewalk and Gaea's Cradle, sure you do that...
Ardent Plea grabs a capsule, he looks and picks it up, reads something in his hand, says crap, that sucks... So same as last game, DoJ as necessary, but steady pressure. He is dead in a few turns, but I have been leaving 1B always open.He decides to go for it but he needs to cast FSM to get the extra turn, have me kill it, then after the reshuffle, draw it again... which he doesn't.
Round 3 Mythic Bant
G1, Spreading Seas ftw
G2, my manabase destoyed me, If I wasn't pissed about this before I was livid now, an athestitic choice cost me $10... Also had the unfortunate realization that Everflowing Chalice (something that I love, and ran without thinking) was cascadable...
G3, Kept 1 Hulks, 2 Plains, 2 Marsh flats, DoJ Oring... Never see a U source... Should have mulliganed, but too pissed off.
Dropped, started trading to blow off steam.... The decided to play some casual with other people/store owner...
RDW, was a horrible MU, Post board never lost a game(5)... I highly recommend you try the cascade goodness... Perimeter Captain was the bomb...
T1 Mountain, Goblin Guide swing 18-20
T1 Plains, Perimeter Captain...
T2 Mountain Goblin Guide swing both, Block 1of them gain 2 life 20-20 take 2 18-20, burst lightning the Captain.
T2 Island Wall of Omens, draw.
T3 Attack both guides take 2 16-20. Mountain, Searing Blaze, kill WoO, take 3, 13-20.
T3 Island Ardent Plea into Perimeter Capatin.
T4 Attack both guides block 1 gain 2 15-20. Take 2 13-20. Mountain Bolt the Wall.
T4 Pilgrim's Eye, grab plains, play it.
T5 Attack both guides, block 1 take 2 11-20
T5 Swamp, Sphinx. Discard Architect +Filigree +hulk
T6 Mountain Double Hell's Thunder attack everything, block 1 hell's thunder, take 8, 3-20.
T6 Marsh Flats, grab plains. 2-20. OtV--> Piglram's Eye, Filigree, Hulk, Architect. Gain 12, 14-20... Concession.
So my advice, never just use a previous manabase after you retool a deck... It isn't the same deck, so the manabase must be different, don't be lazy like me.
Have played this a few times at FNM, getting 4-1 finishes. Started with the stock Gerry T shell.
Few things:
Spreading Seas is my MVP, close second being Filigree Angel, you know the reason to play the deck... I can't tell you how many times it came to me shutting off jund/naya/bant's fragile manabase to win the game, or just destroying man-lands... Love the card...
How my deck evolved... Played quite a few games with this, found that I was taking a beating while just trying to cycle the Courier's capsule, and drawing crap. Cut them and the MD Sanguine Bond for 3 Tidehollows, haven't looked back. The tempo/virtual lifegain you get is so worth it. Let's you know what the enemy is really trying to do, and let's you affect the board. best cast scenerio that happened to me... T1 borderpost, T2 Tidehollow, grab a pancake man who was about to hit the board. T3 Spreading Seas a colonade, since it was his only W source, kept him from ever casting the Walletslayer, and made sure I could kept a o-ring for the rafiq that came a few turns later...
Going to 3 Tidehollows, then adding the 4th by making my deck 61 meant that the deck needed a good B source... cut the chalices and put in 2 more UB borderposts. 4 Marsh flats, 2 Swamp 3 UB Borderpost 4 Terramorphic is fairly good for the B splash for early Tidehollows, cut an island to bring the UW Borderpost up to 4... Yes this makes pulsing a major liability, gotcha... Hasn't really hit me yet though, Usually they want their man/savage land back... I have never been colorscrewed with this deck since going to this manabase.
Which brings me to my favorite point: Deck Thinning. First Time I OtVed someone... Used Architect to look at the crap on top of my deck, put the best on top, spreading seas drew that card, then cracked my fetch, found my last swamp in the deck, no plains and 2 islands... Thought that was odd, but then I shuffled cut and then used a 2nd Architect to rearrange my top 3 again. I got so excited about the deck manipulation, that it didn't occur to me then what was going too be happening quite a lot... Around T 7-10, you will have no more/very few lands in your deck... Borderposts are good because they trigger Hulk's unblockablity, so all your draws are business cards, not crappy lands... Since I cut the Capsules this is very important to me, since I need all the advantage I can get...
Short answer I am a very big advocate to getting onto the basics manabase, ruinblaster is stopped and so is tectonic edge. Is there a reason that people are hurting themselves with Kabrina Crossroads(CIPT not lifeloss, silly)? Also will be testing Pilgram's eye, since I strip my deck of basics anyway, why not accelerate that process?
My list I tied for 1st with last night in case anyone wants it but didn't want to decrypt what I used for notes in my lack of sleep fogged brain.
Yes, It's 61 Cards. Yes it has 24 Lands. But so far it has only mana-flooded, not manascrewed, and if you were to take it down a card it would be a terramorphic, not a basic land. The Bloodwitches have saved my bacon via pro white and/or life gain too much for me to go less than three... Beyond that its pretty stock.
MD Banefire is an expensive terminate at times, an X spell finisher that doesn't draw the game when both people are low on life. This might be a mistake.
EDIT: Have you guys seen how easy it is to pimp this deck if that's your style.
Malakir Bloodwitch is a foil in a starter deck.
Hellspark is an FNM Foil
Nighthawk is an FNM Foil
Bolt is able to be Foil Textless
VF is Textless
Blightning Textless
Terminate Textless or FNM Foil from onlaught
Me versus jund, 5 mana on board. I have nothing out, he's at 10 with a putrid leech tapped and a Hyppie. I'm at 6. Lay terramorphic get back ghast, swing. He declines to kill the hippie since i have terramorphic to get it back, and he'll have lethal next turn if I didn't have a bolt in hand for it. He's at 8. Earthquake for 3. He decides to pump leech for the kill next turn, I go to three, he's at three. Bolt FTW.
Don't know why you guys hate the Terramorphic so much...
If I could i'd run 8 over the refuges I would. Anyday of the week, twice on sunday.
Only time I was ever sad about the terramorphics is when I was racing combo decks online, like Runeflare Trap and Crypt Unearth guys. I think they are the only ones you need to race flat out...
Most of the time Terramorphics were my T3 land and I was either saving terminate mana open or unearth my hellsparks or bloodghasting... Sure I wasn't laying the Nighthawk in my hand, or Thundering them for 4... But what I was doing with Terminates and Hellsparks wasn't bad playing and it smoothed out my mana, thinned a bit and was aggressive throughout.
I won plenty of games by abusing it as Bloodghast recursion... If you're focused on aggroing them to death, you might have a hard time swallowing Terramorphic.
Wall of text incoming, trying to summarize why this deck is effective so people don't have to read 90 pages of posts. Stop reading here if you are just trying to have the usual "man this new manland sux" or "blightning is good/no it's not" discussions all over the previous 90 pages. Not complaining, it was entertaining, but I'm bored a lot as you can see with the wall o text coming down the pipe, so reading 90 pages was informative and time comsuming.
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But my playstyle of the deck is like this... G1, hellspark and look at what they do...
1.If they look like "o-crap he's aggro and gonna kill me" its cause they're midrange aggro and know the hard hits will kill them. Save removal for their blockers and your unearthers/unkillable bloodghasts will win you the game G2, side out the least effective unearthers side in Banefire and earthquake. (WoD means the Thunders are out, deft duelsit and other first strikers means hellsparks go.) If they play white go the Deathmark route and let bloodghast kill them. It will be slower since you're taking out all unearthers since you will kill their creatures with 8 point removal. G2 Get ahead in life by a little, then quake for as much as you can, drop a land get back your bloodghasts, hopefully swing with haste. Bolt blightning Banefire FTW. This MU is the rope-a-dope, first game "ohhh lookie lookie hard fast aggro" next game semi-control slower right cross.
2. If they shrug and take the T2 hellspark, you've got a flavor of control, or a cool headed aggro player that's gonna lose. Control Players know in their bones that the opponent is gonna give them a bunch of lifeloss, that they will stabilize. I'm a hardcore control player and it's a factor of when/what life they stabilize, not if. So you poke the bear... T2 Hellspark, T3 Thunder or Nighthawk, draw out their removal and counters. Terminate their blocker their turn so you have it countered so you can waste them on your turn, or blightning their answers, the ones that they wanted to use to stem the bloodletting you'll give them. Bloodghast is an annoying guy that has to be PtE, no don't help me fix my mana/thin my deck...Not the briar patch, anything but that... But usually I just sit back, let them think they've got time, then unearth hellspark and burn when they think their on that magical turn which every control player loves, the switching of the tides, where the lowly burn player is out of gas, and you have your grip of answers.
G2 you can go the aggro route and probably do alright, hell better than alright. But as a control player, I'd bet my BR aggro opponent is staying relatively standard, bringing in the anti-anti beatdown cards. Which is why I would transform this into a anti-control control deck. Bring in Banefire (pray they dont swerve it), bring in the last VF, bring in the thought hemhorrage. Hell's thunder is usually the one I take out maybe some earthquakes and terminates. Unearth for a blaze of glory, TH their lifegain away, Banefire FTW, bolt EOT to draw out removal so the blightnings cripple; this deck already has good anti-control cards, SB in more specific ones makes the deck sing. Course if you lose trying to out-control the control guy, go aggro next round. The key to winning them is blanking their answers because you have damage producers that are anti-control aggro, and damage producers that are anti-control control. They have to figure out which you are, then hope they picked right...
3. If their doing balls to the walls aggro via boros or RDW, you don't need a T2 hellspark to see the writing on the wall. Save your removal for their combat step, kill what needs it, absorbing damage along the way. Once they extend enough, earthquake for 3 (harm's way or cracking a fetch for landfall guys) or VF to makes sure their stuff dies. Their logical next step is bring out enough to threaten you again. Blightning after they play most their hand to get rid of the last most important things like their finishing burn, the creatures they put out will hopefully be the last ones you'll see. Take their damage for the single turn pray they don't topdeck a great answer, then wipe the board again. Now you have a few cards to their topdecks, your 5 life to their 12-15. Bloodwitch and Nighthawk will pad your life total, hopefully you play this right as it can be tricky. The same way you can overwhelm control via unearth they can via Bushwhacker and/or fetches with landfall guys. Doesn't feel too good does it...
G2, +VF +Quake if its not already maxed out. Have a bunch of boros in your meta, have a few Haunting echoes in SB. Saw it at states, guy VF'ed in oppoents landfall trigger, so they crack a fetch, bolted it regardless. Next turn he untapped Haunting echoes the dude. Every fetch in the deck, geopede and bolts gone. Guy might have been at 4 mana and not too worried about that, but his deck was immasculated. If you have RDW, up the VF but take out Quakes. Now put in bloodchief's ascension in SB for RDW or the mirror. Found this out the hard way. Once it is online (you're playing with burn, just do what you normally do.) bolt their creatures, throw bloodghast into the fray, who cares if he dies cause VF will do the last few points of damage... then you gain life back once their cretures dies. Lightning bolt will hurt them more than it does you. Don't even think about the Blightning lifeswing, it might tempt you to MD the ascension... Bad idea...
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For people who've played this a lot more than I have, Jund... Whats the strategy... Play as control, play as aggro... What? Is this what the Quenchable fires were in the SB for?
Been playing this on MTGO and rocking the tournie practice room, so decided to cobble this together for FNM.
Main deck was pretty stock. Ran 3:3 split of VF and quake, 4 Nighthawk 3 Bloodwitch made my deck 61 cards. -2 Swamp -2 Mountain +4 Terramorphic made the 24 lands acceptable. Did have a few issues of manaflood, but times I was running into just enough to squeak by means I won't go to 23 lands anytime soon.
SB
3 Thought Hemhorrage
4 Deathmark
3 Banefire
1 VF
1 Quake
3 Quenchable Fire
Tied for 1st. (Had to, running on 3 hours sleep and $32 to split was fine by me. Might have won, but bant with slayers and rafiq doesn't sound fun...)
Round 1 B/W Midrannge 2-0
Duress Sculler Stepp Lynx + Emeria with Fetches makes for a decent deck, and the lady playing it had some skill. Harms way had to be played around, but fairly easy to make short work. Bloodwitch ftw. Really this lady made my night. PtE is premier removal... oops...
Instant speed kill more important than fast damage to me. 12 spot removal and 8 sweepers = easier G2. Bloodghasts ftw. Malikar was unkillable... Don't know why people don't like her.
Round 2 WW Soldiers 2-0
guy didn't see too many honor of the pures, so this was easy G1.
SB see above.
G2, sweepers ftw, bloodghast with the assist.
Round 3 Spread em 2-1
G1, had him at 6, 2 Luminarch ascension with no counters, but a sigil of empty throne out and he islanded a land. 3 ghast swing in and take him to 2, have to pass turn. Battlegrace comes down and the lone angel token swings for 7 exalted and I'm at 8. Next game please...
SB
+3 Thought Hemorrhage (Yeah, its got a Hemi) +4 Deathmark +3 Banefire -4 thunder (had walls of denial) -3 Quake -2 Blightning -1 Quake
Don't know if it was a wise SB plan, but it work
G2, single bloodghast and nighthawk + burn get him to 9. he mentions "crap, not DoJ" on his T5 when he missed a landdrop... my last card card in hand with island island swamp mountain for mana is thought hemorrage, name sigil... he had 3 in hand... Love accidental wins... Heres a interesting safety tip. Playing spread em throw a fetch out, crack it after they pass turn... Terramorphic is in our colors and ETBT isn't too bad, just requires more finesse...
G3, long and epic... Short answer is Bloodwitch meets DoJ, bloodghasts peck at him, and everytime I try and get R mana, he makes it island... but PtE gives me plenty of mana, so I save 2 mountains in hand with 2 Banefires. Over 2 Turns drop mountain, take 7, his turn turn into island, my turn, play mountain Baneifre for 8.
Round 4 Bant 2-0 (older style with the squires and flying squires rather than hierarch into war monk into rafiq or elspeth)
G1, talked with this guy earlier, so knew it was bant flavored. 2 terminates a bolt and swamp refuge and summit is my god hand for this MU. Best mulligan all night. Attacks with exalted, bolt or terminate. In the end, Bloodwitch as perfect blocker kills the deck.
SB see rounds 1 or 2
G2, earthquake for 2 on T4 kills his side. Rafiq comes out, eats bolt. Blightning and Bloodghast come next turn. Bloodwitch seals deal.
So undefeated going into T8. Wish the tournie was over, but this place likes its T8s...
T8 Kor Equipment WTF? 2-0
I was kinda scared of this when it had a T2 2/1 doublestricker attacking. Then my magical lightning bolt saved me. Armnement master met terminate. Quake kills his honor of the pure fueled Conqueror's Pledge.
SB, see 1 round.
Mulled into mountain mountain bolt bolt VF Quake. Didn't care that I never drew a B source until T9 when my hand was neverending Black creatures. Dreams crushed like cheap siding.
T4 Captain America 2-1
His T2 Deft Duelist met my T2 quake for 1. Double blightning Double Bolt a hellspark and a bloodghast kill him. He tapped out and I got him hellbent with a early blightning.
G2, T2 duelist meets T2 quake. This entire match screams deja vu, only he has counterspells... crap... back and forth... back and forth. Duelist stays alive for while makes sure that there is a lethal earthquake ready for me...
G3, wish I could say that I made that sideboarding choice intelligently above, but realized the duelists would block my ghast and hellsparks all day long, so....
-4 Hellsparks +4 Thunders
And would wish my massive playskill would be what brings me through this, but his T2 Duelist +T3 Duelist met a T4 VF and thats the last thing his mana gives him to cast. Kinda pissed that he always had the duelists, but he's probably just as pissed that I always had a sweeper... Probably should have lost this round, but hey, I'll take an opp manascrew for cheap wins.
Finals.... Tied so we could go home. $32 in store credit got me 7 packs which my zendikar math = 1 fetch at least. So I crack them and get a Scalding Tarn and DoJ... Had fun and made significant profit...
Thoughts.... MD Bloodwitches made my night... Most decks I faced had significant W as removal source, so it was profitable...
When the heck do we SB in Quenchable Fires? SB Plan coming for front page anytime soon?
Loved Banefires for finisher, almost tempted to run 3 Quake:2 VF:2 Baneire:3Terminate for the MD.
Loved that this deck can be an aggro nightmare or a BR Control with a extremely flexible SB. Its my new favorite deck... Until the next one comes along... Like week after next...
Competitive Class, Fun, Multiplayer Deck
INTRO:
For an introduction, I’m a Johnny/Spike in about equal amounts and I love doing Multiplayer EDH. My last few decks have been “soul-sucking”, “dominating”, and “un-fun”. Nothing like holding down an entire table with a shrouded Sheldorud and sand-bagging multiple reanimation effects… My Spike to Johnny ratio is out of whack obviously… so I had to make a change.
What Commander is the most innocent and Johnny commander? Zedruu the Greathearted that’s who… and rather than my mass control deck shenanigans, I wanted to play a group hug deck…
But I can’t in good conscious just go into my playgroup with something weak, or not have answers to problematic things other people with broken decks, nor just jam all EDH greats and make a target of myself.
I read all of the R/W/U decklists for ideas and a few group hug decks just so my mind is in the right area. Then I came upon this article from SCG.com which highlighted a great control card that was fairly inoffensive:99 Problems with Sunforger
This was written for a Numot deck and said that it hardly ever cast its general. This article’s description of the way it answered everything and yet wasn’t stiflingly overpowerful drew me into creating the deck you’ll see below. By switching from Numot to Zedruu, it would allow me to have some group hug elements and be whacky , while at the same time have the capability to smash some of the best-laid plans of my “win at all costs” friends. The article was a great boon for figuring out how much Sunforging I’d need and other ideas to implement. My only problem with the written deck is that creature centric, and if I’d be donating things, creatures were the easiest to kill and/or be used to kill me. I couldn’t go creatureless, as Sunforger only works when being equipped and unequipped.
Sunforger is pretty powerful in the classical sense. In that it gives you greater options, and how you use these options determines how you are as a person and Magician ( I know someone wants to play Uncle Ben to my Spiderman, come on you know you want to….). You can be a griefer, or just sit back and let the good times roll. My previous method was to be as ruthless as possible so I could kill groups at a time, now my motto is much like Magic’s Judo, use people’s spells against them.
Why would I want to play this deck?
1. You like having answers
2. You like being underestimated
3. You like to play control games
4. You don’t mind grinding out games
5. Synergy is above combo
6. Politics is your life blood
1. You don’t like to shuffle
2. You want a simple game plan
3. You like killing people quickily.
4. Making another person miserable (griefing) is like sunlight for vampires
5. Politics is what your targets do
1 Zedruu the Greathearted
Sunforger and Targets
1 Sunforger
1 Tithe
1 Mirrorweave
1 Master Warcraft
1 Wild Richochet
1 Reiterate
1 Chaos Warp
1 Oblation
1 Double Negative
1 Orim's Thunder
1 Enlightened Tutor
Tutors to find Sunforger
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Stonehewer Giant
1 Godo Bandit Warlord
1 Steelshaper's Gift
1 Muddle the Mixture
Reusing the goodies
1 Elixir Of immortality
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Sun Titan
Tutors to find the reusing tools
1 Expedition Map
1 Trinket Mage
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Tolaria West
1 Arid Mesa
1 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
Zedruu Stuff
1 Vedalken Plotter
1 Political Trickery
1 Shifting Borders
1 Thought Lash
1 Pyromancers Swath
1 Delaying Shield
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Champion's Helm
1 Howling Mine
1 Oath of Lieges
1 Dominus of Fealty
1 Death by Dragons
The Rest
1 Tauran Mauler
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Rite of Replication
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Figure of Destiny
1 Serra Ascendent
1 Land Tax
1 Wild Research
1 Rhysic Study
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sensi's Diving Top
1 Archon of Justice
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Austere Command
1 Windborn muse
1 Counterbalance
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Spell Crumple
1 Mindslaver
1 Coalition Relic
1 Future Sight
1 Magus of the Future
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Tormod’s Crypt
Rest of the Lands
1 Command Tower
1 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Mystic Gate
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Vivid Meadow
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Reflecting pool
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Boros Garrison
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Shivan Reef
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Dust Bowl
1 Academy ruins
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den
1 Great Furnace
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Rainbow Vale
1 Winding Canyon
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Mountain
Sunforger and Targets
Sunforger is the main theme to this deck. Zedruu is a fun and quirky commander, that can do some fairly low-powered but broken things, but Sunforger is what allows this relatively low powered deck to control things as well as a geared-up control deck. You can have fun with combat shenanigans and prevent bad things from happening to teammates, or you can hose your enemies and break their will based solely off this little artifact.
There is a link at Sunforger Targets that Corps T made that is a pretty definitive list of everything you can Sunforger out. Bookmark it, look at it every so often see what strikes your fancy.
That said, we have to have a few areas to cover completely to break Sunforger:
1. Good Solid Sunforger Targets
2. Finding Sunforger
3. Reusing those Sunforger Staples
4. Tutors to make sure our recursion elements are active
Sunforger – This little gem is the ultimate in political power. Usually you want it to be a tool to balance the broken things other people are doing, not being a dick yourself.
Sunforger Targets –
There is a link at Sunforger Targets that Corps T made that is a pretty definitive list of everything you can Sunforger out. What we are aiming for isn’t to have everything on this list possible, but rather the minimum amount of cards that we can use time and time again to solve any and all problems.
Oblation – The original tuck effect. Being able to tuck an opponent’s general at will is amazing, since most people build their deck to function in conjuction with their general and are hobbled without it.
Chaos Warp – Tuck effect that can hit pro-white creatures. Little risky getting a random permanent in EDH, but better something random than what’s currently messing you up right?
Mirrorweave – Combat Trick #1. Make all creatures copies of whatever you need to make it to kill your problem. Make your opponent’s darksteel colossus into Weathered Wayfarerand sacrifice a guy to block it. Or make all your creatures into a Primeval Titan, attack and get every land in your deck.
Master Warcraft – Mini Insurrection and/or Mindslaver. Once you’re able to recur things, you’ll be taking people out via other players. Player A being a d*ck? Have player B take him out… But remember, you only choose whether or not to attack, not whom they attack… Better have some sort of defense yourself. It can also be a type of fog, as you can make them not attack anyone at all…
Wild Ricochet – Nice Time Stretch... Or Banefire or whatever is bothering you…
Reiterate – Use this and then pay the buyback cost and you can keep it to use again… Less enemies made than Wild Ricochet.
Double Negative – Tutorable Counterspell. Could play Absorb if you wanted to, but a way to counter 2 spells versus 3 life seems better, not to mention that Absorb is a few bucks and Double Negative is pocket change.
Orim's Thunder – Tutorable Removal for Artifacts and Enchantments, and can hit creatures too. Could be Return to Dust to exile the offending thing or 2 things… I like having the opportunity to kill the 2 biggest offenders on a table with vastly different types…
Tithe – Tutorable Tutor for Mistveil Plains.
Enlightened Tutor – Tutorable Tutor that gets you the Sunforger for all these shenanigans, or get Wild Research for more Shenanigans, or Expedition Map to get your Mistveil Plains or whatever you need…
Tutors to find Sunforger
If it’s the point of the deck, you’ve got to be able to find it right? And if you get your sunforger killed, you need redundancy to find it again assuming you can get it back into your library from your graveyard. Lastly your equipment theme is useless if you already have Sunforger out or you want protection for you general via Swiftsure Boots or Lightning Greaves.
Stoneforge Mystic– Finds it, then brings it out without worry about counterspells. Nice that it splits these abilities, so you get some value if it dies…
Stonehewer Giant – Might be more expensive, but allows for instant speed search and equip of your shroud givers, which is relevant. Also equips the sunforger, allowing it to be used ASAP.
Godo Bandit Warlord – Finds and puts out equipment, dodging counterspells… Extra Combat phase, might as well right?
Steelshaper's Gift – Backup Systems to find your sunforger at minimal cost.
Muddle the Mixture – Finds your stoneforge which is what grabs your sunforger. Or finds
Scroll Rack, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots,
Howling Mine, Oath of Lieges or Counterbalance. Oh, and it counters any instant or sorcery, the latter being one of the bigger win-cons in EDH, no biggie.
Reusing the goodies
Two reasons you need to have recursion:
1. Sunforger dies a lot, since the average life expectancy of an artifact in EDH is probably 4-5 turns
2. By having pretty good recursion, you can use all of your high quality Sunforger staples time and time again, because Sunforger only cares that it is in your deck, not where it is.
Mistveil Plains – The gold standard. For example: EOT Oblation one person’s general, then put Oblation on bottom of library. Untap, equip Sunforger , then unequip to Oblation another person’s general… Great, now that you’ve made the entire table your enemy, you better have a backup plan. This thing is like nuclear energy, harnessed right it makes power seem effortless, but you do the Oblation trick too often, you’ll be blown up like Chernobyl. Tutorable via 4 fetches, Expedition Map, Trinket mage for the Expedition map, Weathered Wayfarer, Eternal Dragon, Tolaria West and Tithe. Hardest thing is to keep 2 white permanents to keep activating it over and over.
Elixir Of Immortality – Tutorable off of Trinket Mage, Enlightened Tutor.
Sun Titan – Gets back all kinds of goodies… But for my money, here’s the best thing you can do with Sun Titan without a game winning combo: Put out Oblivion Stone, then put a fate counter on Lightning Greaves. Blow up the world, then play Sun Titan bringing back O-Stone. Equip with lightning greaves, put a counter on sun titan. Now you have a blow up the world every combat step machine.
Academy Ruins - Artifact Recurring is good…
Tutors to find the reusing tools
Expedition Map – Finds what you need, usually Mistveil plains for recursion. But other fun ones are Forbidden Orchard, Reliquary Tower, Dust Bowl, Academy Ruins, Thawing Glaciers, or Winding Canyon.
Tolaria West – See above, and add in a Tormod’s Crypt.
Trinket Mage – usually finds Expedition Map, Sensi’s Divining Top, Elixir or Immortality or Tormod’s Cryptin that order. But also included all relevant artifact lands so it could be used as a Civic Wayfinder in a pinch.
Weathered Wayfarer – Tutorable off of Ranger of Eos, and will allow you to search for any type of land. This is usually given to someone who is white and manascrewed for political reasons. Lands aren’t going to kill you, and a 1/1 gift is usually harmless.
Eternal Dragon – Cycles to find Mistveil Plains, if you’re recurring this you’ve gotten incredibly screwed out of much better mana-sinks… good luck.
Arid Mesa - On color Fetch for mana fixing or Mistveil.
Flooded Strand - On color Fetch for mana fixing or Mistveil.
Windswept Heath – Mistveil, a normal Plains or Shockland
Marsh Flats - Mistveil, a normal Plains or Shockland
Zedruu’s Theme
Zedruu is a great way to stay off people’s radar. She has a quirky effect, and can come out pretty quick if you want her to. Some people are all about Zedruu and Donating things:
1. Enchantment based, with a pretty good primer included - fivecolorjunk
2. Politics based, said its kinda evil… – bluebruin
3. Hard Control with Donation sub theme- Yarpus
4. Donation Based - Kikero
Mine’s different because my donation is a sub-sub theme. Most Zedruu decks would be hobbled severely by any tucking effect… This deck will continue sunforger-ing and be tutoring up the tools necessary to find the Zedruu again, but isn’t in a rush… Zedruu is to me a white creature who
• gets Mistviel Plains turned halfway on
• can hold Sunforger like a champ
• I always have access to, albeit at steadily increasing man cost
If I don’t have to cast Zedruu, I don’t. But she’s fun. I’m more likely to cast Zedruu to give someone a Land Tax, than I am to cast her simply so I have a creature.
But just because I don’t have her as my Plan A, doesn’t mean that I don’t have a Plan for her…
Vedalken Plotter – Exchange lands so you can consistently draw, relatively inoffensive
Political Trickery - Exchange lands so you can consistently draw, relatively inoffensive
Shifting Borders - Exchange lands so you can consistently draw, relatively inoffensive
Thought Lash – Win-Con. Refuse to pay upkeep cost then donate to opponent, they have to remove their library from the game. Some people have to die…
Pyromancers Swath – Control Player Win-Con. Good luck winning the game without a hand… Don’t play this without some protection for Zedruu… They kill her and you’ll be the one handless. I usually donate this before thoughtlashing someone so I don’t get in a position to die off Thought Lash.
Delaying Shield – Rattlesnake card extraordinare. This is usually what I do when playing master warcraft: Player A attack B please, and if you decide to attack me, I’ll kill you with your own damage via Delaying Shield.
Lightning Greaves – protect Zedruu
Swiftfoot Boots - protect Zedruu
Champion's Helm - protect Zedruu
Group Hug
My group is competive, and a pure group hug deck will simply be the first victim if it didn’t have a method of keeping people at arms length. People will respect the Sunforger after they see the multi-tucks, so you might have to make an example of a person the first few times… But after people see the stick, they need the carrot a little bit too… Hence the group hug below. None of these are going to kill you, and should get you some goodwill…
Howling Mine – Donatable, and everyone loves it.
Oath of Lieges - Donatable, and everyone loves it. Except the green players, they don’t get the hug…
Dominus of Fealty – Steal Player A’s Creature give it to Player B, permanently.
Death by Dragons –Its like Oprah: “Everybody Gets A New Car”, except the douche at the table. ( In case you didn’t know, when you cast this, you have to say the phrase just like Oprah did… “Everybody gets a brand new DRAGON!!!!! Except you Tom….”)
Rainbow Vale – Taps for any color of mana, then self donates, further Zedruu shenanigans.
Forbidden Orchard – You might not own the tokens anymore, but damn is it political to give free 1/1s
The Rest
Some of these cards you’ll know and love as EDH Favorites, others are in theme. Rattlesnakes, Removal, Card Draw/Selection, Sweepers, Counters and Win-Cons. Most of the above is pretty set in stone, the below is set in hardened clay. It fits me, and fits me well. You can customize to your own flavor.
Coalition Relic - Color Fixing and Ramp, both nice in a 3 color deck, a staple for a reason.
Darksteel Ingot - Indestructible Color Fixing and Ramp
Solemn Simulacrum – 3 color decks likes color fixing, and is generally a great creature.
Land Tax – I donate this for goodwill, there’s usually a guy that’s mana screwed, and after the 1st time you use it, it no longer is as good.
Ranger of Eos – Usually used simply as a way to turn on Mistveil Plains and have bodies for Sunforger. Grabs Figure of Destiny, Weathered Wayfarer or
Serra Ascendant.
Figure of Destiny – Holds Sunforger like a champ, grows to be huge with minimal resources
Serra Ascendent – Usually a 6/6, don’t be the guy to put this out the 1st turn…
Tauran Mauler – A slow grower, best in multiplayers. If you guys die to the Tauran Mauler, its your own fault, big dumb fat guy with no evasion… Hell I donate this half the time to give someone a surprise blocker when they’re going to die otherwise.
Keiga, the Tide Star – Rattlesnake. Also works with Master Warcraft to kill itself to steal something juicy.
Archon of Justice – Rattlesnake. Flying decent body Rattlesnake. More importantly its white for Mistveil Plains
Oblivion Stone – Rattlesnake Sweeper, one of the few sweepers in the deck. I never put a counter on anything unless I can recur the stone, because every time I a fate counter on anything else, my stone gets blown up…
Austere Command – The most versatile sweeper, which is why in my mind, it’s the best.
Sunblast Angel– I don’t attack that often, so this is a wrath variant… I could use Wrath of God here, or Rout honestly, but this makes much fewer enemies. Course it does less… Do what you will, this guy seems inoffensive compared to a hard reset of creatures. I’m tempted to do a Hallowed Burial, but I might tuck my guy too.
Ghostly Prison – Fence, used this over propaganda because white permanents turn on Mistveil Plains
Windborn Muse – Fence that can hold a Sunforger, and its white
Oblivion Ring – Catchall. Granted it is easily killable, and that lets whatever was trapped back out, but its general purpose and donatable.
Wild Research – I never knew this guy existed until I looked in Zedruu decks. Insane and $.50… I might shoehorn a Library of Leng for this guy alone. Usually I search for Pyromancer’s Swath stick it and Donate it, then Search up Thought Lash with this guy. At any part of the process if it gets destroyed, I mistveil it back and start over again… It’ll have to stick one time or another…
Rhysic Study – Card Draw… Comes down early and is great. Staple for a reason .
Future Sight – Card Advantage, especially with the amount of shufflers in your deck
Magus of the Future - Card Advantage, especially with the amount of shufflers in your deck and it can hold a Sunforger
Scroll Rack – Super Top with all the shuffling effects, Tutorable with Enlightened Tutor and Muddle the Mixture.
Sensi's Diving Top – Annoying to play against, but a staple for a reason. Great with all the shuffling effects. Tutorable with Enlightened Tutor or Trinket Mage.
Counterbalance – Repeat after me: “This is a may ability, I do not have to try and counter everything.” However sometimes you have to try and counter a thing, and this is what is best at what it does… Free re-usable counterspells. Consistently Awesome with Scroll rack, Good with Top, and randomly awesome doing it blind. Without having a top or rack in play, what’s the ettiqutte on this thing? My Spike-ness wants to do it everytime, but maybe that’s too much?
Spell Crumple – Originally I had both hinder and spell crumple in here, but slots needed to be carved, and I already have tuck effects tutorable… So this is Tuck # 3, and I might enterain a switch to another counterspell. Draining Whelk is a creature can hold a sunforger, Commandeer fits with my “use the opponents spells against them” theme, Desertion has a nice ring to it, cryptic command has versatility which is King in EDH. I’ll let you know.
Mindslaver – Repeat after me: “Yes, I have Mindslaver and Academy Ruins in a deck” and “No, I do not have to use it like that”. But if the situation calls for it, so be it. Also if its just you and the last person of a multiplayer game, I say do it.
Rite of Replication – Kicked it’s a Win-Con, normal it’s a clone. Either way, its awesome. Might eventually try out Storm Herdin here instead though.
Rest of the Lands
Like most competitive tri-color builds, you try to have a bunch of fetches, 3 Shocks, 3 Filter, 3 Pain, 3 Vivids + Reflecting Pool. I went ahead and used 3 Artifact lands so I can search them out, and some RavniKaroos to finish things off. With Innistrad coming out, I may take out the RavniKaroos out and use the M10/Innistrad cycle of lands to smooth things out… And Artifact lands might be a detriment, since artifact seeping happens a good deal… But this works, and is pretty close to ideal for me.
Command Tower
Steam Vents - Shockland
Hallowed Fountain - Shockland
Sacred Foundry - Shockland
Mystic Gate - Filterland
Rugged Prairie - Filterland
Cascade Bluffs - Filterland
Vivid Meadow - Vivid
Vivid Crag - Vivid
Vivid Creek - Vivid
Reflecting pool – 6 lands are out and out rainbow, and the amount of Filter/Pain/Ravnikaroos/Fetchable Shock lands make this guy pretty much a Command Tower # 2.
Izzet Boilerworks - Ravnikaroo
Boros Garrison - Ravnikaroo
Azorius Chancery - Ravnikaroo
Battlefield Forge- Pain
Shivan Reef - Pain
Reliquary Tower – You can draw ridiculous amounts of cards when you want to, its was worth cutting Adakar Waste to fit it in.
Scalding Tarn – Only non-plains fetch.
Seat of the Synod - Artifact
Ancient Den - Artifact
Great Furnace - Artifact
Dust Bowl – Some lands have to die, and this helps with that. Reason this gets the nod over say Wasteland or Strip Mine is the amount of white fetches I have. Sac a plains to dustbowl something, mistveil it back into the library and re-fetch it back out… I could be that guy and have a Crucible of the Worlds to recur the strip mine, but this is slightly more friendly and less slots.
Thawing Glaciers – Might be a little too cute, considering the amount of basics I run.
Winding Canyon – Leave mana open all the time now….
Plains x2
Island
Mountain
Remember, you can be the griefer and have everyone hate you… Or you can be the friend to some and have a blast.
I do recommend that you remember what tutors for what, and get used to shuffling through your deck, as you will be looking at the deck quite a bit. You might want to print out your list and keep it close so you can reference it. This is so you search for a card, not waste everyone’s time by LOOKING through you deck for stuff you can use… It causes quite the time waste as it is. (Yes I know that it is slightly against the rules, but you’re playing casual right, among friends… And you’ll pick up the tricks soon enough to take off the training wheels.)
Back in Lorwyn/Shards I played 5 color Planeswalkers, and was able to use jace and lilliana to chain time warps together, then use a primal command to get the time warps back again. Averaged about 4-5 turns of mine to theirs... Which was awesome...
Thinking back to that deck, thought the same situation might be good, use lilliana to tutor the necessary pieces of whatever you want... But didn't see a good way to get the graveyard recycled, until I noticed the legendary eldrazi have the graveyard shuffle effect...
Not saying that it would help the deck, but this is an idea... Splash black for the afforementioned pulse, then add lilliana...
Pros:
Gains more interaction to the Opponents board state...
Allows us to sculpt our hands/library to get the cards we need...
Lowers the Curve (For lilliana I'd take out a single avenger an AiD and mindspring)...
Allows singlton toolbox stategy, to which we already use a bit via the map and eye...
Broken Turn Chains. Starting Loyalty for Lilliana and Jace2. Use lilliana and jace to find and draw and cast time warp and whateveris leftover from the brainstorm. Next turn repeat. Next turn Use Lilliana on self to discard a legendary eldrazi, shuffle GY into library, which will also make lilliana an even numbered PW, which if she was unmolested earlier should be at 2 now. Then Oppoent gets a turn. On our next turn Use lilliana to get another lilliana, jace draw it, cast 2nd Lilliana, find time warp. Cantrip and cast might be doable, but more than likely end turn. Opponent turn, Then we've gotten back to our original set of permanents Lilliana @ original loyalty, but we've taken 4 turns to their 2, and if we are able to cast lilliana timewarp and a cantrip in the same round the turns would continue til we have gotten 6 turns to their 1.
This is supposing that the brainstorms have gotten you nothing. More than likely this is what you will see: Lilliana tutor for Time Warp, Jace brainstorms and you put the crappy stuff back, next turn drawing your 2nd crappiest card and repeat the process , but the lilliana search has shuffled the library, meaning the Jace Brainstorm gets your worst cards out of the running and you different cards. And contiue the shenanigans.
So if you can find another lilliana or a time warp, it saves a set of the lilliana/jace use.
Cons:
Screws with the manabase. Getting B for maelstrom pulse isn't that hard, getting BB for Lilliana would probably need to use prob 3 evolving wilds and 3-4 verdent catacombs and at least 2 swamp and/or probably use a creeping tar pit as well, to add the inevitablility once we chain the turns together. To adjust we'd probably need to cut most halimar depths to avoid the ETBT land issue... And lastly if we have too many fetches, we would severely hamper the point of the deck, getting massive land advantage....
Lilliana might be too slow, as without jace tag team it sets up the top of deck making the answers we need now appear next turn, which giving the opponent 1 more turn to make the board state different might be too late.
Decreases the chances of drawing an answer naturally, since we shave a Avenger and AiDs here and there, making them harder to get multiple copies over a game without the help of Lilliana...
However this idea might have a glimmer of hope, and isn't a complete noob pipedream hope. It worked in an older format fairly well, and might in this one... Let me know what you think.
Original boros vs BRW discard WTF....
T4 goblin guide lynx and geopede get DoJ away, ranger and bushwhacker were force discarded away via blightning.
T5 WRB casts haunting echoes, and proceeds to rip every fetch, landfall guy lightning bolt, ranger and bushwhacker away...
The Jaces and Lilliana are well I'll just let him use his words rather than paraphrase...
@Spoons:
This isn't Spread-Em, that has a 4-5 Color Manabase, and many many cascade spells that would alloow the person to cast a mediocre enchantment/creature/sorcery that would always come up with a mana-denial spell. It is a fringe deck, and doesn't deserve a DC slot.
However this deck uses elements from it, the mana-denial and a 4of the cheapest cascader. Spread-Em had a problem finishing, and my work with OtV has me working hard on not dying early... Smash them together and you might get something that works well...
As far as starting a casual forum for this idea, I will. But only once I do much more testing, and find out this stinks to high heavens. I'll publish the results, apologize, then make the thread for others to read and learn, then promptly go back and play a more conventional OtV. I love OtV, I only like the Spread-Em hybrid.
I suppose I should not paraphrase: His exact word were: "Another interesting list that I found on Magic-League was a combination of Spread ‘Em plus Open the Vaults. I haven’t played a game with this list, but it looks awesome. "
Those were his exact words. And when I posted both decks from his 4-25 Article, they were exactly as written. I am honest when I say what is a pro's work, and what is my own. If you still don't believe me, shoot me a PM, and I'll get you a PDF of his article, since you can't access SCG.com.
If there was a homebrew element, it would have been my decklist. I took the one he advocated that he saw on ML, saw it didn't have the filigree angels that I loved in OtV, so I bastardized his list. Dropped a Jace2.0, an Oring and then made the deck 61 cards to insure 3x Filigree angels, then put the extras in the SB so I could create a more typical OtV when I knew the convincing mirages were lackluster. Then I had to re-do the manabase to what I was comfortable with...
EDIT:
And I'm not saying this is the new OtV, or that it makes us Tier 1. Its an interesting take on the deck, and in my meta it might be an improvement. More testing will tell the tale.
I posted the both lists that he put in the article, mainly for informational purposes. The 2nd list, the spreading seas list, I will agree that it isn't the usual run of the mill OtV deck, which is why I changed his list to add some filigree angels and re-did the manabase.
Which came up to this...
And while it isn't doing the usual disruption plan, why not try this and see for yourself...
Or just cut your JtN and try some pleas to where you would cascade into WoO, Spreading Seas, or Capsule.... It might not have the surety of hitting a mana-denial card, but it would be a sure-fire way to get deck thinning and card advantage...
And I know that I'm at least doing the land-thinning manabase, so after a few spreading seas and Ardent Pleas and land fetching, my deck is usually more threat dense than my opponent's considering he usually can't cast his bombs...
I'm not married to the Spread-Em idea, if my meta shifts from Naya Jund and RDW, I'll probably move away from the Spread-Em and try a different tack on the deck...
Also what else could we use that is cascadeable? Executioner's Capsule being cascaded into saved my bacon, as did finding perimeter captain or WoO. Dispeler's Capsule might be interesting to get rid of stuff, but seems lackluster...
3 Courier's Capsule
1 Fieldmist Borderpost
1 Mistvein Borderpost
Artifact Creatures
3 Filigree Angel
4 Glassdust Hulk
3 Pilgrim's Eye
Creatures
4 Sphinx Of Lost Truths
4 Wall Of Omens
Enchantments
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Sanguine Bond
4 Spreading Seas
1 Doom Blade
Sorceries
3 Day Of Judgment
4 Open The Vaults
Basic Lands
8 Island
6 Plains
2 Swamp
Lands
3 Marsh Flats
3 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Negate
4 Celestial Purge
2 Flashfreeze
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana Vess
1 Day of Judgment
1 Doom Blade
Notice lack of Architects
This is the other deck that I made some adjustments to. GerryT said he saw somethignlike it on ML, but that he hasn't played it yet.
(EDIT: This is the other deck Gerry T posted at end of his article. I made my deck by adjusting off of this. Previous Statement could be read wrong.)
Spread the Vaults by Gerry T
4 Architects Of Will
4 Glassdust Hulk
3 Pilgrim's Eye
Creatures
3 Sphinx Of Lost Truths
Enchantments
4 Ardent Plea
3 Convincing Mirage
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Spreading Seas
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
Sorceries
3 Day Of Judgment
3 Open The Vaults
Basic Lands
6 Island
6 Plains
1 Swamp
Lands
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Kor Firewalker
4 Luminarch Ascension
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Day Of Judgment
I will agree that JtN is a horrible cascade, hence why there aren't any in the deck. What 1/2 drops does this deck have:
JtN-manascrew cards serve as disruption to prevent early creature rushes until DoJ cleans up the rest...
PtE- See above
Everflowig Chalice-Borderpost can accelerate, or fix mana...
Capsule-I cut these for ardant plea... and it is a slight downgrade... Capsule gets 2 , then gets 2 more post OtV. Ardent Pleas get 1, but a 1 card that you know what you're expecting. Sometimes it gets you 2 (via spreading seas)...
Tidehollow, hand disruption versus land disruption... I used to run these MD, and loved them... I may squeeze them into SB for Control MU...
Wall of Omens, Already in my SB, and serves the same purpose as my manascrew cards, a speedbump to gain control...
Spreading Seas... which is my point to this version of the deck...
Many people in my meta have fragile manabases, good chunk of my wins were based off of delaying them on their mana to buy time for OtV, or keeping the control player off WW to make sure the DoJ or Martial Coup fails to keep my creatures off the field.
Ardent Plea's Exalted isn't something to sneeze at either, hulk is usually the sole attacker for me, it helps brng the game to a close sooner... and in multiples it makes even Pilgram's eye a viable threat...
Heres the link: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/19201_One_Step_Ahead_Standard_Musings_Open_The_Vaults.html
I took that decklist, and added my usual manabase for OtV, instead of having the possiblity of ruinblaster/tectonic edge. Most of my games I played with previously were won off the Spreading Seas, and lost to RDW. So I knew that if I could maximize the Spreading Seas, most of my matchups would be good, and by removing the Convincing mirage, and spreading seas I could put in Perimeter Captain and Wall of Omens instead to accelerate into Walls that slow RDW to a crawl...
Executor's Capsule I figured would be a good SB cascadable target to kill the polymorph menace that I thought would be around since I thought it would be a DTB...
Round 1 Spread Em (Guy who won)
Spread-Em mirror match ish... Annoying. Lost 0-2. My manabase only had 3 Plains and 2 UW borderposts. Mana was never an issue when I was doing it before, and this just messed me up, never had to worry about my mana before... Still makes me mad that I chose to have a 4 Plains/ 8 Island Split simply because that's what I had in Unglued pretty lands... But anyhow, that will be fixed by next week. No SBing.
Round 2: G/r Eldrazi 2-0
Steamrolled G1, DoJ to kill half the tokens that he was making to keep him off 15 mana, he would occasionally do the 8CMC Eldrazi, which got O-ringed.
SB -3 Convincing Mirage - 4 Spreading Seas + 3 Executioner's capsule + 4 Wall of Omens.
LD is not very important to a guy that is trying to get buttloads of colorless mana, and executioner's capsule is made for the Flying Spagetti Monster, 15CMC timewalk and Gaea's Cradle, sure you do that...
Ardent Plea grabs a capsule, he looks and picks it up, reads something in his hand, says crap, that sucks... So same as last game, DoJ as necessary, but steady pressure. He is dead in a few turns, but I have been leaving 1B always open.He decides to go for it but he needs to cast FSM to get the extra turn, have me kill it, then after the reshuffle, draw it again... which he doesn't.
Round 3 Mythic Bant
G1, Spreading Seas ftw
G2, my manabase destoyed me, If I wasn't pissed about this before I was livid now, an athestitic choice cost me $10... Also had the unfortunate realization that Everflowing Chalice (something that I love, and ran without thinking) was cascadable...
G3, Kept 1 Hulks, 2 Plains, 2 Marsh flats, DoJ Oring... Never see a U source... Should have mulliganed, but too pissed off.
Dropped, started trading to blow off steam.... The decided to play some casual with other people/store owner...
RDW, was a horrible MU, Post board never lost a game(5)... I highly recommend you try the cascade goodness... Perimeter Captain was the bomb...
T1 Mountain, Goblin Guide swing 18-20
T1 Plains, Perimeter Captain...
T2 Mountain Goblin Guide swing both, Block 1of them gain 2 life 20-20 take 2 18-20, burst lightning the Captain.
T2 Island Wall of Omens, draw.
T3 Attack both guides take 2 16-20. Mountain, Searing Blaze, kill WoO, take 3, 13-20.
T3 Island Ardent Plea into Perimeter Capatin.
T4 Attack both guides block 1 gain 2 15-20. Take 2 13-20. Mountain Bolt the Wall.
T4 Pilgrim's Eye, grab plains, play it.
T5 Attack both guides, block 1 take 2 11-20
T5 Swamp, Sphinx. Discard Architect +Filigree +hulk
T6 Mountain Double Hell's Thunder attack everything, block 1 hell's thunder, take 8, 3-20.
T6 Marsh Flats, grab plains. 2-20. OtV--> Piglram's Eye, Filigree, Hulk, Architect. Gain 12, 14-20... Concession.
Current Decklist: SB might need re-tooled.
4 Architects Of Will
4 Glassdust Hulk
3 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Filigree Angel
Creatures
3 Sphinx Of Lost Truths
Enchantments
4 Ardent Plea
3 Convincing Mirage
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Spreading Seas
3 Day Of Judgment
3 Open The Vaults
Basic Lands
6 Island
6 Plains
1 Swamp
Lands
4 Marsh Flat
4 Terramorphic
3 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Perminter Captain
4 Wall of Omens
3 Executioner's Capsule
1 Pilgram's Eye
1 Day Of Judgment
1 Open the Vaults
So my advice, never just use a previous manabase after you retool a deck... It isn't the same deck, so the manabase must be different, don't be lazy like me.
Few things:
Spreading Seas is my MVP, close second being Filigree Angel, you know the reason to play the deck... I can't tell you how many times it came to me shutting off jund/naya/bant's fragile manabase to win the game, or just destroying man-lands... Love the card...
How my deck evolved... Played quite a few games with this, found that I was taking a beating while just trying to cycle the Courier's capsule, and drawing crap. Cut them and the MD Sanguine Bond for 3 Tidehollows, haven't looked back. The tempo/virtual lifegain you get is so worth it. Let's you know what the enemy is really trying to do, and let's you affect the board. best cast scenerio that happened to me... T1 borderpost, T2 Tidehollow, grab a pancake man who was about to hit the board. T3 Spreading Seas a colonade, since it was his only W source, kept him from ever casting the Walletslayer, and made sure I could kept a o-ring for the rafiq that came a few turns later...
Going to 3 Tidehollows, then adding the 4th by making my deck 61 meant that the deck needed a good B source... cut the chalices and put in 2 more UB borderposts. 4 Marsh flats, 2 Swamp 3 UB Borderpost 4 Terramorphic is fairly good for the B splash for early Tidehollows, cut an island to bring the UW Borderpost up to 4... Yes this makes pulsing a major liability, gotcha... Hasn't really hit me yet though, Usually they want their man/savage land back... I have never been colorscrewed with this deck since going to this manabase.
Which brings me to my favorite point: Deck Thinning. First Time I OtVed someone... Used Architect to look at the crap on top of my deck, put the best on top, spreading seas drew that card, then cracked my fetch, found my last swamp in the deck, no plains and 2 islands... Thought that was odd, but then I shuffled cut and then used a 2nd Architect to rearrange my top 3 again. I got so excited about the deck manipulation, that it didn't occur to me then what was going too be happening quite a lot... Around T 7-10, you will have no more/very few lands in your deck... Borderposts are good because they trigger Hulk's unblockablity, so all your draws are business cards, not crappy lands... Since I cut the Capsules this is very important to me, since I need all the advantage I can get...
Short answer I am a very big advocate to getting onto the basics manabase, ruinblaster is stopped and so is tectonic edge. Is there a reason that people are hurting themselves with Kabrina Crossroads(CIPT not lifeloss, silly)? Also will be testing Pilgram's eye, since I strip my deck of basics anyway, why not accelerate that process?
Yes, It's 61 Cards. Yes it has 24 Lands. But so far it has only mana-flooded, not manascrewed, and if you were to take it down a card it would be a terramorphic, not a basic land. The Bloodwitches have saved my bacon via pro white and/or life gain too much for me to go less than three... Beyond that its pretty stock.
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Bloodghast
4 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Blightning
4 Terminate
3 Earthquake
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Akroum Refuge
4 Terramorphic Expanse
6 Mountain
6 Swamp
4 Deathmark
3 Quenchable Fires
3 Banefire
3 Thought Hemorrhage
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Earthquake
What I'll be testing over next few days/weeks...
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Bloodghast
4 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Blightning
3 Terminate
3 Volcanic Fallout
2 Earthquake
2 Banefire
4 Akroum Refuge
4 Terramorphic Expanse
6 Mountain
6 Swamp
4 Deathmark
4 Bloodchief Ascension
3 Thought Hemorrhage
2 Earthquake
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Terminate
MD Banefire is an expensive terminate at times, an X spell finisher that doesn't draw the game when both people are low on life. This might be a mistake.
EDIT: Have you guys seen how easy it is to pimp this deck if that's your style.
Malakir Bloodwitch is a foil in a starter deck.
Hellspark is an FNM Foil
Nighthawk is an FNM Foil
Bolt is able to be Foil Textless
VF is Textless
Blightning Textless
Terminate Textless or FNM Foil from onlaught
If I could i'd run 8 over the refuges I would. Anyday of the week, twice on sunday.
Only time I was ever sad about the terramorphics is when I was racing combo decks online, like Runeflare Trap and Crypt Unearth guys. I think they are the only ones you need to race flat out...
Most of the time Terramorphics were my T3 land and I was either saving terminate mana open or unearth my hellsparks or bloodghasting... Sure I wasn't laying the Nighthawk in my hand, or Thundering them for 4... But what I was doing with Terminates and Hellsparks wasn't bad playing and it smoothed out my mana, thinned a bit and was aggressive throughout.
I won plenty of games by abusing it as Bloodghast recursion... If you're focused on aggroing them to death, you might have a hard time swallowing Terramorphic.
Wall of text incoming, trying to summarize why this deck is effective so people don't have to read 90 pages of posts. Stop reading here if you are just trying to have the usual "man this new manland sux" or "blightning is good/no it's not" discussions all over the previous 90 pages. Not complaining, it was entertaining, but I'm bored a lot as you can see with the wall o text coming down the pipe, so reading 90 pages was informative and time comsuming.
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But my playstyle of the deck is like this... G1, hellspark and look at what they do...
1.If they look like "o-crap he's aggro and gonna kill me" its cause they're midrange aggro and know the hard hits will kill them. Save removal for their blockers and your unearthers/unkillable bloodghasts will win you the game G2, side out the least effective unearthers side in Banefire and earthquake. (WoD means the Thunders are out, deft duelsit and other first strikers means hellsparks go.) If they play white go the Deathmark route and let bloodghast kill them. It will be slower since you're taking out all unearthers since you will kill their creatures with 8 point removal. G2 Get ahead in life by a little, then quake for as much as you can, drop a land get back your bloodghasts, hopefully swing with haste. Bolt blightning Banefire FTW. This MU is the rope-a-dope, first game "ohhh lookie lookie hard fast aggro" next game semi-control slower right cross.
2. If they shrug and take the T2 hellspark, you've got a flavor of control, or a cool headed aggro player that's gonna lose. Control Players know in their bones that the opponent is gonna give them a bunch of lifeloss, that they will stabilize. I'm a hardcore control player and it's a factor of when/what life they stabilize, not if. So you poke the bear... T2 Hellspark, T3 Thunder or Nighthawk, draw out their removal and counters. Terminate their blocker their turn so you have it countered so you can waste them on your turn, or blightning their answers, the ones that they wanted to use to stem the bloodletting you'll give them. Bloodghast is an annoying guy that has to be PtE, no don't help me fix my mana/thin my deck...Not the briar patch, anything but that... But usually I just sit back, let them think they've got time, then unearth hellspark and burn when they think their on that magical turn which every control player loves, the switching of the tides, where the lowly burn player is out of gas, and you have your grip of answers.
G2 you can go the aggro route and probably do alright, hell better than alright. But as a control player, I'd bet my BR aggro opponent is staying relatively standard, bringing in the anti-anti beatdown cards. Which is why I would transform this into a anti-control control deck. Bring in Banefire (pray they dont swerve it), bring in the last VF, bring in the thought hemhorrage. Hell's thunder is usually the one I take out maybe some earthquakes and terminates. Unearth for a blaze of glory, TH their lifegain away, Banefire FTW, bolt EOT to draw out removal so the blightnings cripple; this deck already has good anti-control cards, SB in more specific ones makes the deck sing. Course if you lose trying to out-control the control guy, go aggro next round. The key to winning them is blanking their answers because you have damage producers that are anti-control aggro, and damage producers that are anti-control control. They have to figure out which you are, then hope they picked right...
3. If their doing balls to the walls aggro via boros or RDW, you don't need a T2 hellspark to see the writing on the wall. Save your removal for their combat step, kill what needs it, absorbing damage along the way. Once they extend enough, earthquake for 3 (harm's way or cracking a fetch for landfall guys) or VF to makes sure their stuff dies. Their logical next step is bring out enough to threaten you again. Blightning after they play most their hand to get rid of the last most important things like their finishing burn, the creatures they put out will hopefully be the last ones you'll see. Take their damage for the single turn pray they don't topdeck a great answer, then wipe the board again. Now you have a few cards to their topdecks, your 5 life to their 12-15. Bloodwitch and Nighthawk will pad your life total, hopefully you play this right as it can be tricky. The same way you can overwhelm control via unearth they can via Bushwhacker and/or fetches with landfall guys. Doesn't feel too good does it...
G2, +VF +Quake if its not already maxed out. Have a bunch of boros in your meta, have a few Haunting echoes in SB. Saw it at states, guy VF'ed in oppoents landfall trigger, so they crack a fetch, bolted it regardless. Next turn he untapped Haunting echoes the dude. Every fetch in the deck, geopede and bolts gone. Guy might have been at 4 mana and not too worried about that, but his deck was immasculated. If you have RDW, up the VF but take out Quakes. Now put in bloodchief's ascension in SB for RDW or the mirror. Found this out the hard way. Once it is online (you're playing with burn, just do what you normally do.) bolt their creatures, throw bloodghast into the fray, who cares if he dies cause VF will do the last few points of damage... then you gain life back once their cretures dies. Lightning bolt will hurt them more than it does you. Don't even think about the Blightning lifeswing, it might tempt you to MD the ascension... Bad idea...
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For people who've played this a lot more than I have, Jund... Whats the strategy... Play as control, play as aggro... What? Is this what the Quenchable fires were in the SB for?
Main deck was pretty stock. Ran 3:3 split of VF and quake, 4 Nighthawk 3 Bloodwitch made my deck 61 cards. -2 Swamp -2 Mountain +4 Terramorphic made the 24 lands acceptable. Did have a few issues of manaflood, but times I was running into just enough to squeak by means I won't go to 23 lands anytime soon.
SB
3 Thought Hemhorrage
4 Deathmark
3 Banefire
1 VF
1 Quake
3 Quenchable Fire
Tied for 1st. (Had to, running on 3 hours sleep and $32 to split was fine by me. Might have won, but bant with slayers and rafiq doesn't sound fun...)
Round 1 B/W Midrannge 2-0
Duress Sculler Stepp Lynx + Emeria with Fetches makes for a decent deck, and the lady playing it had some skill. Harms way had to be played around, but fairly easy to make short work. Bloodwitch ftw. Really this lady made my night. PtE is premier removal... oops...
SB + 1 VF +1 Quake +4 Marks -4 Hellspark -1 Thunder -1 Blightning
Instant speed kill more important than fast damage to me. 12 spot removal and 8 sweepers = easier G2. Bloodghasts ftw. Malikar was unkillable... Don't know why people don't like her.
Round 2 WW Soldiers 2-0
guy didn't see too many honor of the pures, so this was easy G1.
SB see above.
G2, sweepers ftw, bloodghast with the assist.
Round 3 Spread em 2-1
G1, had him at 6, 2 Luminarch ascension with no counters, but a sigil of empty throne out and he islanded a land. 3 ghast swing in and take him to 2, have to pass turn. Battlegrace comes down and the lone angel token swings for 7 exalted and I'm at 8. Next game please...
SB
+3 Thought Hemorrhage (Yeah, its got a Hemi) +4 Deathmark +3 Banefire -4 thunder (had walls of denial) -3 Quake -2 Blightning -1 Quake
Don't know if it was a wise SB plan, but it work
G2, single bloodghast and nighthawk + burn get him to 9. he mentions "crap, not DoJ" on his T5 when he missed a landdrop... my last card card in hand with island island swamp mountain for mana is thought hemorrage, name sigil... he had 3 in hand... Love accidental wins... Heres a interesting safety tip. Playing spread em throw a fetch out, crack it after they pass turn... Terramorphic is in our colors and ETBT isn't too bad, just requires more finesse...
G3, long and epic... Short answer is Bloodwitch meets DoJ, bloodghasts peck at him, and everytime I try and get R mana, he makes it island... but PtE gives me plenty of mana, so I save 2 mountains in hand with 2 Banefires. Over 2 Turns drop mountain, take 7, his turn turn into island, my turn, play mountain Baneifre for 8.
Round 4 Bant 2-0 (older style with the squires and flying squires rather than hierarch into war monk into rafiq or elspeth)
G1, talked with this guy earlier, so knew it was bant flavored. 2 terminates a bolt and swamp refuge and summit is my god hand for this MU. Best mulligan all night. Attacks with exalted, bolt or terminate. In the end, Bloodwitch as perfect blocker kills the deck.
SB see rounds 1 or 2
G2, earthquake for 2 on T4 kills his side. Rafiq comes out, eats bolt. Blightning and Bloodghast come next turn. Bloodwitch seals deal.
So undefeated going into T8. Wish the tournie was over, but this place likes its T8s...
T8 Kor Equipment WTF? 2-0
I was kinda scared of this when it had a T2 2/1 doublestricker attacking. Then my magical lightning bolt saved me. Armnement master met terminate. Quake kills his honor of the pure fueled Conqueror's Pledge.
SB, see 1 round.
Mulled into mountain mountain bolt bolt VF Quake. Didn't care that I never drew a B source until T9 when my hand was neverending Black creatures. Dreams crushed like cheap siding.
T4 Captain America 2-1
His T2 Deft Duelist met my T2 quake for 1. Double blightning Double Bolt a hellspark and a bloodghast kill him. He tapped out and I got him hellbent with a early blightning.
SB +3 Hemi +3 Banefire +1 Quake +1 VF -4 Thunder -4 Terminate
G2, T2 duelist meets T2 quake. This entire match screams deja vu, only he has counterspells... crap... back and forth... back and forth. Duelist stays alive for while makes sure that there is a lethal earthquake ready for me...
G3, wish I could say that I made that sideboarding choice intelligently above, but realized the duelists would block my ghast and hellsparks all day long, so....
-4 Hellsparks +4 Thunders
And would wish my massive playskill would be what brings me through this, but his T2 Duelist +T3 Duelist met a T4 VF and thats the last thing his mana gives him to cast. Kinda pissed that he always had the duelists, but he's probably just as pissed that I always had a sweeper... Probably should have lost this round, but hey, I'll take an opp manascrew for cheap wins.
Finals.... Tied so we could go home. $32 in store credit got me 7 packs which my zendikar math = 1 fetch at least. So I crack them and get a Scalding Tarn and DoJ... Had fun and made significant profit...
Thoughts.... MD Bloodwitches made my night... Most decks I faced had significant W as removal source, so it was profitable...
When the heck do we SB in Quenchable Fires? SB Plan coming for front page anytime soon?
Loved Banefires for finisher, almost tempted to run 3 Quake:2 VF:2 Baneire:3Terminate for the MD.
Loved that this deck can be an aggro nightmare or a BR Control with a extremely flexible SB. Its my new favorite deck... Until the next one comes along... Like week after next...