The black was not that big of an issue, mostly do to Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth. Those I admit the mana base needs work. On duals lands I gold fished with the pain lands and found I took to much damage from them. The nice part of this deck there are only 3 cards that need double of a color to cast. I forgot to post the side board but I had Languish in the sideboard. When playing against an aggro deck I mulligan aggressively to make sure I hit black, Fogs or life lands to make it past turn four. The hero's down fall was there mostly for Planeswalkers if they hit the table as Ugin and Ashiok are problems for this deck.
The fourth Cruise was for both the interaction with Dark Deal and I wanted as many cheap draw spells I could fit in. I thought about murderous cut but it hindered the treasure cruise.
I like monastery siege at a 4 of. The 1st siege I cast most times is set to Dragons. Forcing Red decks to pay 2 more for burn or causing Dromoka's Command to cost 4 buys you a lot of time to stabilize. In one game against Sultai control I dropped 2 Monastery Siege set to dragons forcing them to pay 7 mana for their Sultai Charms.
A bunch of us discussed adding waste not and I thought about putting it in the board. The main reason I did not play it was I was trying to play as many cards as I could that trigger Sphinx's tutelage on their own. Those the thought of going 2nd turn waste not 3rd turn tutelage into 4th turn dark deal makes me LOL every time I think about it.
Here is the sideboard I ran on Game day. I was expecting a lot of control so I packed it with as many Hexproof guys as I could.
I played the fog deck for game day and took second. I made BUG for access to Dark Deal. Most games i would cast 3rd turn Tutelage in to 4th turn Dark deal and it just wrecked most of my opponents. The best part is if you have an untapped blue source after you Dark Deal, all that discard just feed into a Treasure Cruise. Unlike the UG deck that runs Days Undoing you can play lands that you have drawn off Dark Deal. Please see the deck list below:
it depends on your elf build. Green Sun zenith is better at fetching creatures then the Command but the command gives you add utility. I prefer the Zenith to the Command because it puts the card into play and with that you can mimic the commands other ability with green creatures, tool box style.
This card will see some standard play as paying 7 for a primeval titan is still pretty good. I see most of the card play coming from Elves in Extended.
People have been comparing this card to chord of calling from the older extended elf decks. The difference between the two you have to look deeply at.
1. Chord is an Instant and Green Sun's Zenith is a sorcery
2. Green Sun's Zenith works best on fetching small Creatures while Chord was best dropping end of turn fattys or fetching a regal force
3. Using chord to fetch a 1cc creature in the old elf deck you (tap [CARDheritage druid][/CARD] and 3 over elves or just convoking it with 4 green creatures) but unless you had double nettle sentinel already in play you did not net mana. With Green Sun's Zenith it cost 2 mana to fetch a 1cc creature. So with a Heritage druid and two other elves this card net's you one mana.
4.In a vacuum Green sun's Zenith can be played turn two with two lands to fetch a 1cc creature. In a vacuum Chord of calling can only do this on turn 4 with four lands.
In my opinion the instant speed of Chord of Calling put's it over the top as a better card but Green Sun's Zenith ability to search up a need elf combo pieces will have it seeing play this season Extended Elf decks.
Ok heres my take on the elf archtype in extended. A brief history i played elfs in every format. The best i have done was with a elf glimpse deck two years ago at grand prix LA I got to day two after tying with Brian Kibler day one.
Now the main deck is a basic elf deck using gilt-leaf archdruid as a pseudo glimpse of nature. The deck is 1/3 druids so there is a good shot of drawing off the Gilt-leaf archdruid, plus the land steal ability is actually easy to abuse with 22 druids.
Now the side board is the tricky part, Its a Necrotic Ooze boad when they switch in cards that kill the elf combo you switch in a different combo. The Ooze targets i took from Conley Woods extended Ooze deck. The good thing is that Ezuri, Renegade Leader gives it ability to Necrotic Ooze So I can kill there board with a Poppet and then over run with my elves. The three Memoricide is to take out hate against both combo choices.
I am still amassing the cards, mostly the lands, and I plan on testing the deck in the coming weeks. I will post the results and changes if need.
I have a friend that is running a Blue white infected deck is actually posting some good results. He uses tempered steel to boost necropede, ichorclaw myr, and corpse cur. what puts a lot of his damage over the edge is the use of distortion strike. I don't hve the deck list but I'll ask him if he would like to post it.
I like the idea of the artifact deck with all the pump, I start working on 1 when i so the ext deck list heres what i got:
How could that card possibly be good? It's 4 CMC to cancel, and you have to sacrifice the land. News Flash people: Blue doesn't have that kind of mana power. Unless you're running UG control, in which case Cancel's still the better option.
its an uncounterable counter spells, that can act as a land drop... if I remember correctly R&D said it was to powerful and need to be tweeked.
There once was a type one deck that used both cards a few years back. i think it used 2 or 3 Diminishing returns..what was the name, Draw 7 or something like that. I just think that Diminish returns dropped out of favor as the format changed.
The main difference and really why Diminishing returns doesn't see much play is the exile top ten cards, other wise 4 for a draw 7 would see a lot of play.
But if any one is interested combo it with mirror of fate. Use the exile to your advantage, exile a bunch of your ones of, draw a bunch of mana ramp cards, use mirror of fate to get back your key cards.
WOW! Love that last line, my mind just turns to extended mono red Dragonstorm. Play out a bunch of mana excel to drop this early if you don't have the dragon storm in hand or if you don't have the mana to play it ditch it and play it for free the next turn or use her first ability to set off spinerock knoll ability. Either way it seems to help ease the combo by setting up redundancy.
that's just off the top of head, who knows if it will actually work with the new extended.
lightning Bolt is such a powerful card, it might not have a shattering affect on standard but what about extended? There was a straight burn deck last season that did well imagine adding bolt to it..wow. I call it will not be reprint but then again wizards is doing some off the wall things lately
I like the new tap-lands, I do not nor will i call them duals, they work fine after the first turn. No pain is good, the ability to tap them for mana the turn you play them is good. I have lost main of game because i need one more mana and i drew a tap land or a shock land that i could not pay the two life for.
i voted don't like combat damage rules change. the others I like or I can deal with. I just see that new combat rules, especially the new blocking order, causing a lot of confusion. I agree with the article by Zvi Mowshowitz.
I did not copy the deck, this deck list came about while a friend of mine was making a esper control deck with conflux. I was looking through his cards as we were tweaking his deck and I started building this on the side with the cards he was not using.
I have not read the thread on the wizard site. If you could please post a link or the reason why the idea was dropped that would be appreciated. What were the changes that made the deck worse? With this community we might be able to gather more insight in to why the deck should change to a mid range uw or if the agro version just needs a few adjustment.
Thank you all for help on this deck. I appreciate it, those when it wins my FNM might not!
the reason behind running such a low land count is my curve maxes out at three cc. I have been playing with uping the land count to 17 by cutting a esparoza.
The ornithopters are staying in they are just realy good I’ve found out. With a Master, Warhammer, or a springleaf in play theY have many other duty's to the deck then just swinging.
Cutting one warhammer, I’ll test that, it did seem mana intensive to me. Does any one have any suggestion on what equipment would work well with this type of deck? One thing that made old school affinity good was the abuse of equipment cards (example: skull clamp, cranial plating) it aloud them to have there little 1/1's and 2/2's even their 0/2 swing for a lot of damage.(ok damage not so much with the clamp)
The black was not that big of an issue, mostly do to Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth. Those I admit the mana base needs work. On duals lands I gold fished with the pain lands and found I took to much damage from them. The nice part of this deck there are only 3 cards that need double of a color to cast. I forgot to post the side board but I had Languish in the sideboard. When playing against an aggro deck I mulligan aggressively to make sure I hit black, Fogs or life lands to make it past turn four. The hero's down fall was there mostly for Planeswalkers if they hit the table as Ugin and Ashiok are problems for this deck.
The fourth Cruise was for both the interaction with Dark Deal and I wanted as many cheap draw spells I could fit in. I thought about murderous cut but it hindered the treasure cruise.
I like monastery siege at a 4 of. The 1st siege I cast most times is set to Dragons. Forcing Red decks to pay 2 more for burn or causing Dromoka's Command to cost 4 buys you a lot of time to stabilize. In one game against Sultai control I dropped 2 Monastery Siege set to dragons forcing them to pay 7 mana for their Sultai Charms.
A bunch of us discussed adding waste not and I thought about putting it in the board. The main reason I did not play it was I was trying to play as many cards as I could that trigger Sphinx's tutelage on their own. Those the thought of going 2nd turn waste not 3rd turn tutelage into 4th turn dark deal makes me LOL every time I think about it.
Here is the sideboard I ran on Game day. I was expecting a lot of control so I packed it with as many Hexproof guys as I could.
On another note one of the main reasons I played this deck was the name I gave it, BUG Fogger
1 Nissa, Vastwood seer
Enchantments:
4 Sphinx's tutelage
4 Monastery Siege
4 Dictate of Kruphix
Spells:
4 Defend the Hearth
3 Winds of Qal Sisma
3 Negates
4 Dark deal
4 treasure cruise
3 Drown in Sorrow
2 Sultai Charm
1 hero's Downfall
1 Urborg, tom of Yawgmoth
4 Radiant Fountain
3 Thornwood Falls
2 Dismal backwater
1 Jungle hollow
3 Temple of Mystery
3 island
4 swamp
3 Forrest
People have been comparing this card to chord of calling from the older extended elf decks. The difference between the two you have to look deeply at.
1. Chord is an Instant and Green Sun's Zenith is a sorcery
2. Green Sun's Zenith works best on fetching small Creatures while Chord was best dropping end of turn fattys or fetching a regal force
3. Using chord to fetch a 1cc creature in the old elf deck you (tap [CARDheritage druid][/CARD] and 3 over elves or just convoking it with 4 green creatures) but unless you had double nettle sentinel already in play you did not net mana. With Green Sun's Zenith it cost 2 mana to fetch a 1cc creature. So with a Heritage druid and two other elves this card net's you one mana.
4.In a vacuum Green sun's Zenith can be played turn two with two lands to fetch a 1cc creature. In a vacuum Chord of calling can only do this on turn 4 with four lands.
In my opinion the instant speed of Chord of Calling put's it over the top as a better card but Green Sun's Zenith ability to search up a need elf combo pieces will have it seeing play this season Extended Elf decks.
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Joraga Treespeaker
2 Copperhorn scout
2 Devoted Druid
3 Fauna shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish archdruid
2 Elvish Harbinger
1 Ezuri, renegade leader
3 gilt-leaf archdruid
2 Regal Force
land:22
4 Misty Rainforest
4 verdant catacombs
3 Gilt-leaf palace
1 Murmuring Bosk
1 Swamp
9 forest
4 Necrotic ooze
2 Devoted druid
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Thornling
1 grim poppet
1 molten-tail masticore
1 Quillspike
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Memoricide
Now the main deck is a basic elf deck using gilt-leaf archdruid as a pseudo glimpse of nature. The deck is 1/3 druids so there is a good shot of drawing off the Gilt-leaf archdruid, plus the land steal ability is actually easy to abuse with 22 druids.
Now the side board is the tricky part, Its a Necrotic Ooze boad when they switch in cards that kill the elf combo you switch in a different combo. The Ooze targets i took from Conley Woods extended Ooze deck. The good thing is that Ezuri, Renegade Leader gives it ability to Necrotic Ooze So I can kill there board with a Poppet and then over run with my elves. The three Memoricide is to take out hate against both combo choices.
I am still amassing the cards, mostly the lands, and I plan on testing the deck in the coming weeks. I will post the results and changes if need.
I like the idea of the artifact deck with all the pump, I start working on 1 when i so the ext deck list heres what i got:
3 Ornithopter
4 Steel Overseer
4 Etched Champion
4 Trinket Mage
Non-Creature Artifacts:
3 Mox Opal
1 Chimeric Mass
3 origin Spellbomb
4 Tempered Steel
4 Spreading Sea
Spells:
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Duress
4 marsh Flats
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Plains
3 Swamp
3 Island
I like the idea of using pain smith or myr smith but i need to cut and test which one works best
Joraga Treespeaker is a druid plus you level it to 5 your nettle sentinel tap for 2 green
Here is the deck list I came up with. Its mono green, so a little different then yours. Good Luck with the elf deck.
2 Arbor Elf
4 Heritage Druid
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish ArchDruid
1 Elvish Harbinger
4 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Regal Force
1 Eldrazi Monument
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Mutavault
11 Forrest
its an uncounterable counter spells, that can act as a land drop... if I remember correctly R&D said it was to powerful and need to be tweeked.
*rats a minute late! :(*
The main difference and really why Diminishing returns doesn't see much play is the exile top ten cards, other wise 4 for a draw 7 would see a lot of play.
But if any one is interested combo it with mirror of fate. Use the exile to your advantage, exile a bunch of your ones of, draw a bunch of mana ramp cards, use mirror of fate to get back your key cards.
that's just off the top of head, who knows if it will actually work with the new extended.
I have not read the thread on the wizard site. If you could please post a link or the reason why the idea was dropped that would be appreciated. What were the changes that made the deck worse? With this community we might be able to gather more insight in to why the deck should change to a mid range uw or if the agro version just needs a few adjustment.
Thank you all for help on this deck. I appreciate it, those when it wins my FNM might not!
the reason behind running such a low land count is my curve maxes out at three cc. I have been playing with uping the land count to 17 by cutting a esparoza.
The ornithopters are staying in they are just realy good I’ve found out. With a Master, Warhammer, or a springleaf in play theY have many other duty's to the deck then just swinging.
Cutting one warhammer, I’ll test that, it did seem mana intensive to me. Does any one have any suggestion on what equipment would work well with this type of deck? One thing that made old school affinity good was the abuse of equipment cards (example: skull clamp, cranial plating) it aloud them to have there little 1/1's and 2/2's even their 0/2 swing for a lot of damage.(ok damage not so much with the clamp)