Well, it depends on if you're taking a long time to make your decisions in between actions or not. If you've practiced the deck and you understand what you're trying to do, then it shouldn't take too long. If you're playing really slowly, and your combo turn takes lets say, 15 minutes, then I would be inclined to agree with the judge for playing slowly. If you can combo out in less than 5 minutes, and you can see the lines of play in a reasonable amount of time, then you should be fine.
Remember, there are two players at the table, with 50 minutes for both of them to split. If one person takes 20 minutes in game 1, and then you have to wait another 20 minutes for them to play slowly in game 2, then you're not going to finish the round. Just practice more and play faster for yourself. If your opponent cannot understand your lines of play, but you're playing quickly and properly, then it's your opponents fault, not yours.
What you guys are using to represent your floating mana? in Real life games?
I put dice on these dividers for my colored mana count, and I put the colorless on the actual KCI in play. I usually ask opponent if that is ok, and they usually have no problems. I do own the sand colored Ultimate Guard card dividers as well, and I use one to separate my deck from my sideboard, so I have that as a backup in case the opponent does not want to put dice on a card in play (Engineered Explosives or Everflowing Chalice might have a die on it to represent counters.)
I have had many issues in the past with (petty) people attempting to get me disqualified from having basic lands in my deck box, even though they were in different color sleeves. Some people are just super salty and will try any desperate measure to win a game. There was even one time in an tournament where a guy had an issue with me printing out Cat tokens for Firecat Blitz and putting them in sleeves in front of basic lands, because there were no official tokens at the time. He said I had extra lands in my deck box, so I talked to the LGS owner and he gave me extra Goblin tokens from their stock, and I replaced the basic lands with Goblin tokens in the sleeves. Opponent was trying to pull a fast one, because he knew he was going to die that turn, which he did.
Your assumption is correct. If you Cast Sudden Shock first, it immediately goes onto the stack. This then prevents you from casting Lightning Bolt since Split Second says you can't cast spells. So, you will only ever be able to cast 1 Split Second Spell this way and you will want to cast it last.
Aww, now my nerdboner went away. Damn you blue players and your ability to counter my spells!
I would like to use the 2 following spells as the "spells being cast as a result of these resolving" for the sake of this discussion: Sudden Shock Lightning Bolt
So the Gatherer rulings for EE claim that you have to cast the cards individually for the sake of choosing targets or modes, but the first spell cast will be the last to resolve, which means they are placed onto the stack during the resolution of the Epic Experiment. There is no addendum stating how this works for HUF in the Gatherer rulings, but I assume this works the same way.
How does this work when attempting to cast S. Shock and L. Bolt? Assume I attempt to stack shock to resolve second, did I just screw myself over and not allow myself to play bolt at all due to the way split second works, or did I just protect my bolt from countermagic because of the wording on split second?
My logic makes me think, I put Shock on the stack, but now I messed up because now I can't put Bolt on the stack because of Split Second, but maybe the inner workings of casting spells during the resolution of another spell will make this work? Somehow? Or am I just trying to have my cake and eat it too?
Hey guys. I have been testing this for about 2 weeks now, and every time I try Hangarback Walker it has been lackluster for me. The only way I have noticed it to be useful is for those "aggro" matchups to play it for 1 or 2, and use those tokens to survive until you combo out. Would it be better to just cut Hangarback completely and add more digging/ramp to get yourself going and try to combo faster? Or am I missing something?
Does anyone know of there are any good places to play in the NYC area, other than The Geekery? Nebulous has been failing to make 8 people, and I have heard that the Montasy pay out is atrocious. Please let me know if you have any ideas. Thank you.
I have a strange idea that I would like some of the more seasoned players to try out. The reason why I am asking others to try this instead of myself, is that I am not very popular with the others at my LGS. As a result of this, I don't have anyone to playtest this idea. I will try to get as much testing as possible, but the more people who can help me test, the better.
The idea is as follows:
Game 1, play "budget" Belcher. Why budget? We have a transitional sideboard, which transitions into Sneak Attack. This means that we have no Burning Wish gameplan, and we also do not want LED in the deck. I propose this decklist as a starting point:
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith
4 Seething Song (normally Lion's Eye Diamond, but we normally use LED to activate Belcher, whereas we cannot use it to activate Sneak Attack)
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
4 Land Grant
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lotus Petal
3 Serum Powder (normally this is Chrome Mox, but because we want to look for possible t1 kill so opponent thinks we're playing Belcher, but then we sb into Sneak Attack and make them sb incorrectly.)
1 Taiga
SB:
4 Sneak Attack
3 Through the Breach
4 Worldspine Wurm
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (However, I think this should be a different creature, since we want to kill with either the swing, or the tokens that are left after. Worldspine leaves 15 power, while Emrakul does not kill the opponent. We "blow the payload" with Emrakul and then we're done. If we were always on the play, I would suggest Blightsteel Colossus, but if they play turn 1 creature, then we probably don't kill them.)
Sideboard transition:
Remove 15 cards, add 15 cards, to throw our opponents off and have them sideboard incorrectly against us. We side out Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens, but we need to figure out the other 7 cards to remove.
As another idea, I thought about cutting green completely. Keep the Vexing Shushers, since they are RR to cast, but use Duergar Hedge-Mage instead of Pridemage / Rec Sage, and possibly add Scab-Clan Berserker and Fiend Hunter to the mix. Additionally, I have contemplated a 4 drop creature in deck, and I was thinking about Avaricious Dragon , but I am now thinking about Thunderbreak Regent instead. It doesn't have the immediate drawback of losing your hand, then getting StP'd away, whereras TbR will be at least a bolt, or 5 damage if there is an Eidolon or Scab-clan out.
Greetings. I have an idea in my head that I would like to share with you all. The basic concept is to have a Hatebears variant that be relatively diverse, and still have a decent matchup against the big boys. It has different strategies, based on what deck you play against.
The gameplan is simple. You want to try to lock down your opponent within the first 2 turns. Early Chalice followed by an uncounterable creature threat is the best play, if available. Obviously going in blind will be an issue for game 1, so always assume your first play baits out a counter.
Specifically against certain matchups:
For Miracles, use Cavern of Souls and Vexing Shusher to force your threats through. Terminus is problematic, however, you should play conservatively, and try not to overextend. Sulfur Elemental helps against Mentor, where the Chalices can prevent your opponent from maintaining a Top lock.
For combo, such as storm or Charbelcher, you have Eidolons, which hurt and prevent extra draws. Also, Chalice and Revoker help, depending on the type of combo.
For creature based strategies, we have Mayor of Avabruck, which pumps our Humans while he's small, or pumps out an army of 3/3 wolves if they can't keep him in check.
Against mud, we have Thalia and Pridemage, with Kataki in the board. Magus if the Moon can keep them off their game long enough for the bears to rip chunks of life.
Against Sneak/Show, we have Karakas and Containment Priest.
Jund will be mostly a fair matchup, but any deck with Abrupt Decay will hurt.
Merfolk will be strange. True-Name sucks, but we could possibly race, since we can force threats through counters.
Tarmogoyf gets big quickly, so we will have to race him and his flying Insectile friend. Eidolons and Rest in Peace might be the key here, depending on the matchup.
I welcome any and all suggestions. Thoughts are appreciated. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.
Edit: Alternatively, this is the R/G list I am working with right now, as I continue to slowly pick up some of the missing cards I need to complete the above deck. I am trying a slightly different approach for the R/G version, since it has obvious holes, and is in testing for v 1.0. The Skylashers, for example, are specifically because my meta is blue heavy, so I am going to try them out at my local weekly tournament.
Before I added the Aether Vials, I had Krosan Grip instead of Rec Sages, Sulfur Elementals and Revokers in the board and burn in the main. Also, Chaos Warp and Koth of the Hammer in the main. It worked decently against some matchups, but poorly against others, as I suspect this list will do the same. There is no such thing as a perfect deck, I understand this, however, I would like to brew a list that seems decent enough for me to try out at Eternal Weekend or Eternal Extravaganza this year.
Forgive my complete laziness and unwillingness to do my own research. I have one noob question and then I will leave you alone.
Does anyone know where REGULAR art Wastes will be available? I personally prefer regular art lands, and I would prefer not to purchase a giant stack of different products for no reason.
Mana Flips will hold fine. If you're concerned about jumping around inside your backpack and opening, there is a trick that I have seen used by multiple people that protects the deckbox as well as the decks themselves. Put two decks inside two mana flip boxes, and then take the mana flip boxes and put them into a FAT PACK box. They will fit inside quite well, and the deckboxes will be protected from random dings and tumbles.
I used this for my Vintage and Legacy decks, because I only have 1 of each, until I started playing EDH on a regular basis and needed the backpack space and removed the Vintage and Legacy from my bag.
While I cannot say that any of these cards are real or fake, I am going to assume, for the sake of discussion, that they are real.
It is my opinion that <> does NOT mean "colorless mana only." I think it means <>, just like {W}, {U}, {B}, {R}, and {G}. This is not a new color, because the border for this Kozilek is colorless, and this card does not have Devoid. It is simply like one of the five colored mana symbols, except it is colorless. <> can pay for {1}, just like the five colors can, but not vice-versa.
This would mean that no previous mana sources would need to be changed, since this is a new mana symbol. Sol Ring still produces 2 colorless, not 2 <> mana. Kozilek will require 2 sources that tap for <>, not 8 colorless plus a Sol Ring.
Chains of Mephistopheles. Follow up with
Teferi's Puzzle Box.
Congratulations on locking out all non instant, non generals. I do this all the time when going up against counterspells or "giantcreature.deck" pods. It gives them tears of salt, and thus, gives me erect nipples.
Unfortunately not all of these "value packages" packages have decks with good cards. I saw some with 3 intro pack decks and 1 land pack. I was lucky enough to find one with the arcanis half of the speed vs cunning, but they removed the foil promo. It seems, at least in my neck of the woods, that the decent ones are bought out quickly or the kids break into them and steal the food stuff, leaving half empty packages.
Mistform Ultimus has been my favorite creature ever since it was printed. It was the original Changeling before changelings were cool. The first creature to be every creature type, the first Eldrazi, even before Eldrazi starting annihilating permanents.
Remember, there are two players at the table, with 50 minutes for both of them to split. If one person takes 20 minutes in game 1, and then you have to wait another 20 minutes for them to play slowly in game 2, then you're not going to finish the round. Just practice more and play faster for yourself. If your opponent cannot understand your lines of play, but you're playing quickly and properly, then it's your opponents fault, not yours.
IF you mean the new artifact from Ixalan, I think it's too slow. Takes too long to get it going.
I put dice on these dividers for my colored mana count, and I put the colorless on the actual KCI in play. I usually ask opponent if that is ok, and they usually have no problems. I do own the sand colored Ultimate Guard card dividers as well, and I use one to separate my deck from my sideboard, so I have that as a backup in case the opponent does not want to put dice on a card in play (Engineered Explosives or Everflowing Chalice might have a die on it to represent counters.)
I have had many issues in the past with (petty) people attempting to get me disqualified from having basic lands in my deck box, even though they were in different color sleeves. Some people are just super salty and will try any desperate measure to win a game. There was even one time in an tournament where a guy had an issue with me printing out Cat tokens for Firecat Blitz and putting them in sleeves in front of basic lands, because there were no official tokens at the time. He said I had extra lands in my deck box, so I talked to the LGS owner and he gave me extra Goblin tokens from their stock, and I replaced the basic lands with Goblin tokens in the sleeves. Opponent was trying to pull a fast one, because he knew he was going to die that turn, which he did.
Aww, now my nerdboner went away. Damn you blue players and your ability to counter my spells!
Hazoret's Undying Fury
Epic Experiment
I would like to use the 2 following spells as the "spells being cast as a result of these resolving" for the sake of this discussion:
Sudden Shock
Lightning Bolt
So the Gatherer rulings for EE claim that you have to cast the cards individually for the sake of choosing targets or modes, but the first spell cast will be the last to resolve, which means they are placed onto the stack during the resolution of the Epic Experiment. There is no addendum stating how this works for HUF in the Gatherer rulings, but I assume this works the same way.
How does this work when attempting to cast S. Shock and L. Bolt? Assume I attempt to stack shock to resolve second, did I just screw myself over and not allow myself to play bolt at all due to the way split second works, or did I just protect my bolt from countermagic because of the wording on split second?
My logic makes me think, I put Shock on the stack, but now I messed up because now I can't put Bolt on the stack because of Split Second, but maybe the inner workings of casting spells during the resolution of another spell will make this work? Somehow? Or am I just trying to have my cake and eat it too?
The idea is as follows:
Game 1, play "budget" Belcher. Why budget? We have a transitional sideboard, which transitions into Sneak Attack. This means that we have no Burning Wish gameplan, and we also do not want LED in the deck. I propose this decklist as a starting point:
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith
4 Seething Song (normally Lion's Eye Diamond, but we normally use LED to activate Belcher, whereas we cannot use it to activate Sneak Attack)
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
4 Land Grant
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lotus Petal
3 Serum Powder (normally this is Chrome Mox, but because we want to look for possible t1 kill so opponent thinks we're playing Belcher, but then we sb into Sneak Attack and make them sb incorrectly.)
1 Taiga
SB:
4 Sneak Attack
3 Through the Breach
4 Worldspine Wurm
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (However, I think this should be a different creature, since we want to kill with either the swing, or the tokens that are left after. Worldspine leaves 15 power, while Emrakul does not kill the opponent. We "blow the payload" with Emrakul and then we're done. If we were always on the play, I would suggest Blightsteel Colossus, but if they play turn 1 creature, then we probably don't kill them.)
Sideboard transition:
Remove 15 cards, add 15 cards, to throw our opponents off and have them sideboard incorrectly against us. We side out Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens, but we need to figure out the other 7 cards to remove.
Any thoughts?
As another idea, I thought about cutting green completely. Keep the Vexing Shushers, since they are RR to cast, but use Duergar Hedge-Mage instead of Pridemage / Rec Sage, and possibly add Scab-Clan Berserker and Fiend Hunter to the mix. Additionally, I have contemplated a 4 drop creature in deck, and I was thinking about Avaricious Dragon , but I am now thinking about Thunderbreak Regent instead. It doesn't have the immediate drawback of losing your hand, then getting StP'd away, whereras TbR will be at least a bolt, or 5 damage if there is an Eidolon or Scab-clan out.
Here is the list I propose:
2 Arid Mesa
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Savannah
2 Taiga
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Mayor of Avabruck
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Containment Priest
3 Karakas
3 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Rest in Peace
3 Sulfur Elemental
The gameplan is simple. You want to try to lock down your opponent within the first 2 turns. Early Chalice followed by an uncounterable creature threat is the best play, if available. Obviously going in blind will be an issue for game 1, so always assume your first play baits out a counter.
Specifically against certain matchups:
For Miracles, use Cavern of Souls and Vexing Shusher to force your threats through. Terminus is problematic, however, you should play conservatively, and try not to overextend. Sulfur Elemental helps against Mentor, where the Chalices can prevent your opponent from maintaining a Top lock.
For combo, such as storm or Charbelcher, you have Eidolons, which hurt and prevent extra draws. Also, Chalice and Revoker help, depending on the type of combo.
For creature based strategies, we have Mayor of Avabruck, which pumps our Humans while he's small, or pumps out an army of 3/3 wolves if they can't keep him in check.
Against mud, we have Thalia and Pridemage, with Kataki in the board. Magus if the Moon can keep them off their game long enough for the bears to rip chunks of life.
Against Sneak/Show, we have Karakas and Containment Priest.
Jund will be mostly a fair matchup, but any deck with Abrupt Decay will hurt.
Merfolk will be strange. True-Name sucks, but we could possibly race, since we can force threats through counters.
Tarmogoyf gets big quickly, so we will have to race him and his flying Insectile friend. Eidolons and Rest in Peace might be the key here, depending on the matchup.
I welcome any and all suggestions. Thoughts are appreciated. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.
Edit: Alternatively, this is the R/G list I am working with right now, as I continue to slowly pick up some of the missing cards I need to complete the above deck. I am trying a slightly different approach for the R/G version, since it has obvious holes, and is in testing for v 1.0. The Skylashers, for example, are specifically because my meta is blue heavy, so I am going to try them out at my local weekly tournament.
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Mayor of Avabruck
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Reclamation Sage
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Skylasher
3 Sulfur Elemental
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Blood Moon
3 Choke
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Sudden Shock
Before I added the Aether Vials, I had Krosan Grip instead of Rec Sages, Sulfur Elementals and Revokers in the board and burn in the main. Also, Chaos Warp and Koth of the Hammer in the main. It worked decently against some matchups, but poorly against others, as I suspect this list will do the same. There is no such thing as a perfect deck, I understand this, however, I would like to brew a list that seems decent enough for me to try out at Eternal Weekend or Eternal Extravaganza this year.
Does anyone know where REGULAR art Wastes will be available? I personally prefer regular art lands, and I would prefer not to purchase a giant stack of different products for no reason.
Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.
I used this for my Vintage and Legacy decks, because I only have 1 of each, until I started playing EDH on a regular basis and needed the backpack space and removed the Vintage and Legacy from my bag.
It is my opinion that <> does NOT mean "colorless mana only." I think it means <>, just like {W}, {U}, {B}, {R}, and {G}. This is not a new color, because the border for this Kozilek is colorless, and this card does not have Devoid. It is simply like one of the five colored mana symbols, except it is colorless. <> can pay for {1}, just like the five colors can, but not vice-versa.
This would mean that no previous mana sources would need to be changed, since this is a new mana symbol. Sol Ring still produces 2 colorless, not 2 <> mana. Kozilek will require 2 sources that tap for <>, not 8 colorless plus a Sol Ring.
Teferi's Puzzle Box.
Congratulations on locking out all non instant, non generals. I do this all the time when going up against counterspells or "giantcreature.deck" pods. It gives them tears of salt, and thus, gives me erect nipples.