Magic : The Gathering : The Thread : The Rename

[halbarad]

Got my order through of Innistrad cards and a bunch of other stuff I picked up. I can see there being some good fun in the coming weeks playing EDH. I've already started on a Jor Kadeen deck, seems like it could be pretty fun with lots of tokens and blanket buffs, though it currently sits at about 350 cards before land so there may be some trimming needed.

After that I'm considering either building Damia or Ruhan from the commander decks as I've picked those up too.

[Goldstein]

350 cards before land

Bloody hell! How did you even find that many cards you might want to include?

Remember, more cards in your deck rarely means you get to play more cards during the game, so cut everything that isn't brilliant.

[halbarad]

350 cards before land

Bloody hell! How did you even find that many cards you might want to include?

Remember, more cards in your deck rarely means you get to play more cards during the game, so cut everything that isn't brilliant.

I have a reasonably large collection (though no where near what it was before I quit a few years ago) so finding 350 cards between red, white and artifact wasn't too hard. No doubt I'll trim it down to about 100 pretty easily and then just have to trim another 35 or so which will be tougher.

Edit: This is for EDH so I'll have to cut it down quite a bit but it shouldn't take too long to do so, just leaves a decent size pile of stuff to swap around regualrly to try things out.

[Xeio]

350 cards before land

Bloody hell! How did you even find that many cards you might want to include?

Remember, more cards in your deck rarely means you get to play more cards during the game, so cut everything that isn't brilliant.

Phhhht, the only deck size limit is the limit of how the hell you shuffle it. Admittedly not as much in 1v1.

Ah, the good old days of 1000+ card online decks. I should reinstall MTGO.

[Plasma Man]

I've got a triple helping of Innistrad goodness to look forward to. There's a draft tonight, another one tomorrow, and an Innistrad block constructed league tomorrow as well.

Last Friday we did an Innistrad draft and I won it! It's the first time that I've won a draft with this group, and I had to beat the best player in the group to do it. I'd gone black vampires and zombies with a splash of white, and it worked pretty well. Surprise of the day was managing to get two trepanation blades out early in one game and managed to mill my opponent to death. I'd only put them in for boosting attack and making it harder for my opponent to work out what to leave up as blockers, but evidently there are more possibilities. Amusement of the day was someone managing to get Ludevic's Abomination out, only to have me keep tapping it with my Avacynian Priest. That's one badass priest.

[Woopate]

Hey there, so I am running a new Standard deck, and was wondering about people's thoughts. So far it takes people by surprise, as it really doesn't fall under any normal archetype, but it still needs some tuning. This is mostly just a fun deck.

Creatures
4 x fume spitter
4 x typhoid rat
4 x skirsdag high priest
4 x falkanwrath noble
2 x grave Titan
Other spells
3 x mana leak
4 x mortarpod
4 x swiftfoot boots
3 x doom blade
3 x negate
Land
4 x drowned catacombs
Assortment of swamps and islands (I don't have my original deck list handy)
Sidebar
Go for the throat
(maybe dismember)

I think I May be missing a playset of one card in my decklist, if I am though, it's probably a filler card. Originally this deck was supposed to use a combo of galvanic juggernaut, heavy arbalest, and onyx Mage to be a board sweeper. (galvanic juggernaut untaps when a creature dies, arbalest gives juggernaut tap for 2 damage ability, onyx Mage gives him deathtouch). This is where the sacrifice creatures came from, so I could use the arbalest a few more times per round. This was an effective combo, but could take forever to get to. Also here is mortarpod and typhoid rat, which, aside from a hilarious mental image was a cheap, instant speed removal and morbid trigger (if I equipped the mortar at some point)

When the arbalest combo took too long to set up I sought something early game to distract the opponent a while. Enter skirsdag high priest. With enough self sacrificing cheap drops, I could potentially use him for a 5/5 flying Demon on turn 3, and then a new demon every turn thereafter. Not a threat to scoff at. It puts people on hard defense, and has proven itself to be a consistent occurrence in my deck. Once I set this up, I noticed that I was no longer playing to the juggernaut combo, instead focussing on the turn 3 demon.

So I dropped the juggernaut combo, and put removal and counterspells in. My biggest threat was celestial purge, which an opponent used to lock down my priest before I could throw down a demon. Falkanwrath noble was also added, because if I could kill one of his creatures with one of my sac creatures, it would be an additional 4 life swing. As well as swiftfoot boots to protect my demon summoner, so I could put a demon up turn 3, or turn 4 with the boots and have it be relatively secure.

Anyways, I am not feeling too good about typhoid rat in this deck anymore. When I had brass squire in, it made for a cool 1 mana removal. But now the squire is gone, and I have to pay equip costs, the utility of this creature has gone down. Also thinking of bringing the grave titans up to a full play set, and I am not sure what to sidebar.

[rrwoods]

Amusement of the day was someone managing to get Ludevic's Abomination out, only to have me keep tapping it with my Avacynian Priest. That's one badass priest.

I love that card so much. At my prerelease I got triple Avacynian Priest. Tappy tappy! I tapped down someone's trampler-mill-yourself-for-two and they milled themselves out. I also won a game by dealing 19 combat damage with Priests when I had all three out by turn four

[ofMars]

Amusement of the day was someone managing to get Ludevic's Abomination out, only to have me keep tapping it with my Avacynian Priest. That's one badass priest.

I love that card so much. At my prerelease I got triple Avacynian Priest. Tappy tappy! I tapped down someone's trampler-mill-yourself-for-two and they milled themselves out. I also won a game by dealing 19 combat damage with Priests when I had all three out by turn four

I've got an M11-12 red and white deck full of blinding mage and gideon's lawkeeper. Gideon's Avenger enjoys them quite a bit. I've since added some of Innistrad's human-specific equipment and a couple werewolves - lots of ways to keep those cards useful even if you can't manage to transform them.

[pollywog]

Got my order through of Innistrad cards and a bunch of other stuff I picked up. I can see there being some good fun in the coming weeks playing EDH. I've already started on a Jor Kadeen deck, seems like it could be pretty fun with lots of tokens and blanket buffs, though it currently sits at about 350 cards before land so there may be some trimming needed.

After that I'm considering either building Damia or Ruhan from the commander decks as I've picked those up too.

I have a Jor Kadeen deck, and it rocks. I found that with the cards I have, the best strategy was to have lots of artifact creatures, board sweepers, and equipment. Card advantage is really hard when you already need to play so many artifacts, so I kept up by planar cleansing, WoGing or chain reaction every few turns. Jor is one of the best aggro generals I've ever played with, and with a few pieces of equipment can easily one-hit an opponent. I had a lot of artifact tutors in my deck, which were a lot more useful than base card draw, of which RW has not very much at all. I only included a few token generators, as I usually killed everything every couple of turns, but being able to pump out 5/2's for the win is pretty fun. Rapacious One was quite often MVP in my flat's games, and is the one card I would recommend most for a Jor Kadeen deck. Have fun with whatever you make though, Jor can be incredibly explosive and is usually pretty fun.

[Plasma Man]

Hehehe! Just came fourth in the Saturday draft with a red-blue aggro-draw deck. I'd decided to go with red-blue, but opened an Angelic Overseer in my third pack and kept it - then got another one in the pack I won as a prize for getting fourth. Result!

[Telchar]

Trying to make a competitive bant pod deck but the amount of token decks in the format just makes it too slow. Roomate is running heartless summoning with sphinx and tutor demons. Is running really well.

[Plasma Man]

I hear you. I'm trying to come up with a new standard deck, but there are a couple of guys with extremely fast and aggressive Werewolf decks, and I'm not sure what I can do about them. I'm thinking of going for a blue-green self-milling deck, using Deranged Assistants to accelerate, Armored Skaabs to mill and defend and Splinterfright or Wreath of Geists as my big hitters. Not sure how well it would work, and I'm also quite liking the idea of a morbid deck. Time to sort out the cards and see what I can come up with.

[mosc]

nihil spellbomb is still in the format which completely gimps your graveyard AND kills all your splinterfreights/grave wurms in the same foul swoop. It's easily sideboarded in any deck and it will completely wreck you.

[Plasma Man]

Thanks for the tip. I'd already changed my mind though - I was looking through my cards last night and I spotted that quite a few of the metalcraft creatures from the latest Mirrodin cycle are humans. With there being a few artifacts in Innistrad that are better with humans, I'm going to have a go at building a metalcraft humans deck. I don't know how well it will work, but it will be an interesting one to build - which is a lot of what I look for in a deck.

[mosc]

Tempered steel is still competitive, as is white human decks. There are a few crosses that work, but be careful because humans aren't artifact creatures so you really have to choose what your mainstay creatures will be. Honor of the Pure is used in more human oriented decks over tempered steel. That would probably mean zero metalcraft too. Hero of Bladehold, Angelic Destiny, and Mirran Crusader do most of the heavy lifting and you can suppliment them with either atifact creatuers (glint hawk, glint hawk idol, memnite, porcelain legionnaire, blade splicer, flayer husk, mortorpad) or humans (fiend hunter, gideon's lawkeeper, champion of the parish, Doomed Traveler, Elite Vanguard). I think the human side is far stronger than the artifact side with the loss of ornithoper when Innestrad came out. Also, the human side is far easier to mix in another color. Blue always has it's uses, and Geist of Saint Traft is another solid beater. Black has dismember and doom blade.

[Telchar]

Been running a standard deck with heartless summoning into tutordemons/sphinx/mass wurms. Is surprisingly resilient. Only match I lost at FNM this week was mirror GB. Games against solar flare were long but I won 2/1 the 2 matches. Weenie format dominates the meta but with 2 massacre wurms it shouldn't be a huge problem. I might try making a cheap red deck wins for this next one.

[Box Boy]

Thanks for the tip. I'd already changed my mind though - I was looking through my cards last night and I spotted that quite a few of the metalcraft creatures from the latest Mirrodin cycle are humans. With there being a few artifacts in Innistrad that are better with humans, I'm going to have a go at building a metalcraft humans deck. I don't know how well it will work, but it will be an interesting one to build - which is a lot of what I look for in a deck.

Personally, I'd highly suggest picking up a playset of Adaptive Automaton if you haven't already - they're perfect for the strategy you're going for, acting as both metalcraft fuel and also buffing your creatures - along with Dispatch and Puresteel Paladin if you're using much in the way of equipment. Aside from that it's up to you to find the land:spell ratio that works best for you, but I'd heavily recommend Mentor of the Meek, Flayer Husk, Trinket Mage, Invisible Stalker and Mirran Crusader all being decent beaters and/or utility, with things like Silver Inlaid Dagger and Accorder Shield as good, solid budget equipment that work well with Paladin and Humans.

...this is actually mainly based on my OWN budgety ( total cost was €25 I'd guesstimate, but prices have changed since I got the cards and I don't know the exact figure now) human/metalcraft W/B deck I'm tinkering with, and not the available humans in Mirrodin actually, so I'll just post you the list if it helps (Note though, it's far from finished):

Spoiler:

LANDS
11 Plains
4 Glacial Ruins
4 Islands
2 Buried Ruins
21

CREATURES
4 Invisible Stalker
4 Trinket Mage
4 Mentor of the Meek
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Adaptive Automaton
2 Mirran Crusader
22

ARTIFACTS/SORCERIES
4 Flayer Husk
3 Mortarpod
2 Silver Inlaid Dagger
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
2 Acorders Shield
4 Ponder
1 Nihil Spellbomb
17

SIDEBOARD
4 Dispatch
4 Mana Leak
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Nevermore
1 Mirran Crusader

I've yet to settle on a solid sideboard, this is just the current one, but so far it's quite fun, with the Trinket Mages being VERY useful for getting equipments to place on my beaters, and getting Nihil Spellbomb if I'm up against a graveyard abusing deck. I also get a lot of mileage out of my MotM an PP along with Ponder, each providing some solid card advantage once they're up and running. Mortarpod is for the endgame, when I'll bounce it from creature to creature (ending in the Paladin) when my opponents in the red as a finisher.

If I was going to add (a lot) more value to the deck, I'd probably go for a pair of Seachrome Coasts and trio of Moorland Haunts, the first two replacing my (fairly unused) Buried Ruins and the latter two Plains and an Island, respectively, with some of the Swords of X and Y thrown in in place of the Daggers and Shields and a Geist of saint Traft or two, though it's still very fun and (fairly) competitive against my home meta as-is, though I won't be taking it to a tournament any time soon. (Still changing it around and trying new things too much, as it's my first deck with Blue in it, or an equipment theme)

I think the human side is far stronger than the artifact side with the loss of ornithoper when Innestrad came out. Also, the human side is far easier to mix in another color.

I'd have to agree - Tempered Steel just isn't the same without it's eight free first turn drops, and the replacements have just slowed down it's clock that little bit too much for it to shine like it used to.

[mosc]

Box Boy, that deck is not bad I agree. It has somewhat of a cap on it though. The only equipment that is really scary are things you can't fetch with a trinket mage. That really limits your potential. Also, you don't have an answer for most of the larger beats out there. Lots of 6/6's in standard. I have seen a pretty good deck that plays similarly to what you layed out though, featuring invisible stalker and a bunch of control as the bedrock. It was blue/black though. Trinket mages fetched a variety of options like elixir of immortality, hex parasite, and the already mentioned nihil spellbomb. I like the human angle going with invisible stalker + silver inlaid dagger as a 5 turn clock, but without a lot of control I can't see that ever being fast enough. Not sure how much good white is doing you...

[Box Boy]

As I said, it's my first time playing blue or using equipment on any large scale, and I'm trying to keep it budget friendly/work with what I've got as well (which just happens to include a whole bunch of white humans and a few cheap equipments.), so it's a major work in progress.

I'll agree that certain elements of the white aren't as efficient as they could be - Mentor of the Meek, while drawing me on average around three cards a game so long as it gets out on the third turn, isn't exactly vital, and Mirran Crusader is technically beaten by creatures with evasion (though Puresteel is very good IMHO, the mortarpod strategy has won me a lot of my games, and free equip costs help make my low mana base more feasible). I'd not really considered going into Black yet, actually, as that's the other colour that I've never really played with since I started a few months ago, and I've not got much of it/know much of it besides the artifacts, so I'll look into what it may provide beyond removal.

EDIT: Actually, I have been meaning to try out my Auriok Sunchasers for a bit now as well, because with metalcraft and a Dagger they're a Flying 6/2 who puts put my opponent on a two turn clock with my Stalker Daggered up as well, which isn't exactly impossible to get going .....

[mosc]

Well that sounds like your heading down the path of a more traditional puresteel paladin deck. Not sure how effective it will be without swords, but they still work much as they did before Innestrad. I'm sure there are some good lists laying around. I could never bring myself to get into that deck after the Stoneforge Mystic banning. I was excited when I heard they were banning Jace because I thought a Puresteel+Stoneforge deck would finally work, but alas they never let standard try that combination banning both in the same foul swoop. Legacy just has too many things like spell snare that just eat you alive. I had wonderful dreams of bouncing equipment and stoneforge replaying them triggering puresteel card advantage...

[Plasma Man]

I finally got to try out my white-blue metalcraft & humans deck at the last FNM... and it won! I didn't have a single loss the whole event, though a couple of the games were really close. One match, I came back from being on 3 life & my opponent being on 37, thanks to an Auriok Sunchaser with a pitchfork and a Batterskull.
There are definitely improvements to be made, though. I'd included some bonds of faith, but I didn't end up using them at all. I also had a bit of trouble powering up the metalcraft, so I'll replace the bonds of faith with an adaptive automaton and some memnites. Overall though, it seems that Invisible Stalker + Equipment = win.
I'm really looking forward to the big event on the 28th, it's going to be an excellent day.

[The Utilitarian]

So, after almost 20 years I'm seriously considering getting back into Magic after having messed around with a buddy's random starter deck cards in a whisky infused haze.

I'm thinking about trying to craft some kind of White/Red deck, mostly out of a theme rather than any functional reason, on account of being completely out of touch with what colors are doing these days.

Anyone see any perticular synergy there?

[phlip]

Anyone see any perticular synergy there?

In a W/R deck, Rally the Peasants combos quite well with Rally the Peasants.

[The Utilitarian]

Anyone see any perticular synergy there?

In a W/R deck, Rally the Peasants combos quite well with Rally the Peasants.

Was that you suggesting that Rally the Peasants is just totally awesome and synergies with itself or was there supposed to be a second card in that statement?

[phlip]

Mostly just a tongue-in-cheek way of saying it's a very good card, when you can play the flashback. I'm willing to call playing it and then flashing it back in the same turn counts as comboing with itself, in this case.

[mosc]

R/W works OK in standard with a human based deck. Lots of white, little bit of red for direct damage and the noble. Can be competitive but I think the pure white version is stronger, as are the white human + control variations as well. If you're not playing against top tier standard decks though, You could make a R/W deck strong enough to clean house.

[rigwarl]

Just wondering, does anyone else here play limited format events online?

[mosc]

I can't fathom spending money on virtual cards I can never hold.

[rigwarl]

Hmm, is that much different than buying a video game?

[The Utilitarian]

R/W works OK in standard with a human based deck. Lots of white, little bit of red for direct damage and the noble. Can be competitive but I think the pure white version is stronger, as are the white human + control variations as well. If you're not playing against top tier standard decks though, You could make a R/W deck strong enough to clean house.

Well I have zero intention of playing this "competitively" it's purely for casual social Magic gaming, so I'm really aiming for "effective and fun" which it sounds like it could be.

Also thanks Philip, I'll have to see if I can get ahold of one or two of those cards, seems like, combined with a high damage trample creature you could really break the opponents defense.

[phlip]

Just wondering, does anyone else here play limited format events online?

I've tried it recently, but when your only interaction with the other players is via the game, and a little chat panel that no-one uses, it's a much more dry and sterile experience. If I'm going to get my butt kicked playing a card game, I'm going to want to do it in an environment where the players are joking around, and we can have fun regardless of the result.

I've played three drafts in it so far, and I'll probably play a fourth at some point (I drafted Garruk Relentless in one of them... never actually drew it throughout the whole tournament, but managed to sell it to get into the next couple of tournaments for free) but I probably won't put any more money into the thing.

[mosc]

Any 2-color combination can be effective and fun with a budget of $50-$100 worth of cards and that's just in terms of standard. Other formats are cheaper for casual play if you don't mind buying singles. Fair warning, deck construction is all the more key when you have a limited card pool to choose from which can be particularly challenging for new players. Magic purposely prints "bad" cards which facilitate good deck construction eliminating much of the random chance in magic allowing differentiation between good and bad players.

Of course, many people get into magic simply throwing together cards without much deck construction at all. These players generally find enjoyment in the exploration of a card (regardless of it's actual strength) and in interesting games with interesting and uncommmon card interactions. If that's your speed, the weirder and less effective card, the better. If you want to get into the strategy of the game (which is to a large part deck construction) or enjoy improving your technique (more powerful and flexible cards help), see the top paragraph.

[rigwarl]

Just wondering, does anyone else here play limited format events online?

I've tried it recently, but when your only interaction with the other players is via the game, and a little chat panel that no-one uses, it's a much more dry and sterile experience. If I'm going to get my butt kicked playing a card game, I'm going to want to do it in an environment where the players are joking around, and we can have fun regardless of the result.

I've played three drafts in it so far, and I'll probably play a fourth at some point (I drafted Garruk Relentless in one of them... never actually drew it throughout the whole tournament, but managed to sell it to get into the next couple of tournaments for free) but I probably won't put any more money into the thing.

This is true. Very little talking during events, I don't think many people like to chat in game other than to complain about their draws either.

[mister k]

R/W works OK in standard with a human based deck. Lots of white, little bit of red for direct damage and the noble. Can be competitive but I think the pure white version is stronger, as are the white human + control variations as well. If you're not playing against top tier standard decks though, You could make a R/W deck strong enough to clean house.

Well I have zero intention of playing this "competitively" it's purely for casual social Magic gaming, so I'm really aiming for "effective and fun" which it sounds like it could be.

Also thanks Philip, I'll have to see if I can get ahold of one or two of those cards, seems like, combined with a high damage trample creature you could really break the opponents defense.

If you're building a deck with big nasty tramplers then red/green is probably better, as there are better boost for individual creatures there, giant growth being the standard. Rally the peasents is better for a deck full a smaller critters who overwhelm the defenses of their hapless opponent.

Will you be playing multiplayer or one one one more? Because I rate boost a bit less for multiplayer, simply beause you need to kill two opponents (or more)...

[Jessica]

For a while I played online. I haven't in a while because of money constraints.

I find that online is a poor substitute for in person play, but if you don't have anyone to play with in person, it's adequate. Even fun.
I've been in many online drafts and sealed tournaments. The fun part is that you can pretty much play one any time of the day, any time of the year, no matter what the weather is like. It also allows you to play many times with few other constraints (like, making sure you have 8 people who are willing to buy 3 packs, save them until all of you can get together, and then draft for 3 to 5 hours, for no prize support, other than possibly rare picks afterward).

As for the real vs digital cards: once you get over the digital hump of considering your pictures on card stock more real than 1s and 0s on a server, it goes a lot better.

[phlip]

As for the real vs digital cards: once you get over the digital hump of considering your pictures on card stock more real than 1s and 0s on a server, it goes a lot better.

For me it's not so much that the virtual cards are "less real", and more the fact that it would split my collection. I have a good relationship with the local game shop and the people who play there, so the cards that I can use when I'm playing there are worth more to me than the cards that I can only use in a place I have absolutely no attachment to.

[Xeio]

I think the split collecting is probably the biggest problem for me. Though I played online a bit back when I didn't really know of any local gameshops or players at college. Especially now that I'm back into paper magic.

Granted, I've been pretty disappointed with MTGO since they released version 3, which is pretty much still terrible (a tiny bit less terrible than 2, but that's not saying much). And still no leagues, which were the only tournament format I bothered playing.

[mosc]

Will you be playing multiplayer or one one one more? Because I rate boost a bit less for multiplayer, simply beause you need to kill two opponents (or more)...

Multiplayer makes all strategies that deal with doing ~20 damage to win inherently flawed. All aggro decks are drastically weakened in multiplayer. Control is also flawed because controlling multiple players with target based cards requires twice the number of cards. It's why I always go with combo based "infinite" win conditions that work equally well no matter how many people are playing and thus perform similarly. And it's also why nobody finds playing multiplayer "fun" with me.

Course, EDH isn't the same game and combos are far more difficult with 1-of instead of 4-of as well as larger required deck sizes. Still, even EDH has to go out of it's way to smack down possible combos fueled by deck-searching commanders. Great effort has to go into grinding the game's speed to a halt.

My personal choice for a multiplayer variant is two headed giant with shared life and shared blockers but separate turns, mana pools, attacks, targeting, etc. Card advantage, aggro, and control still work on the same fundamental levels they did in conventional magic. You do have to pick a partner with a similar win condition, but there are only so many ways to win so most players will pair synergistically.

[Jessica]

As for the real vs digital cards: once you get over the digital hump of considering your pictures on card stock more real than 1s and 0s on a server, it goes a lot better.

For me it's not so much that the virtual cards are "less real", and more the fact that it would split my collection. I have a good relationship with the local game shop and the people who play there, so the cards that I can use when I'm playing there are worth more to me than the cards that I can only use in a place I have absolutely no attachment to.

Yeah. That's probably the thing I hate most. But, since I haven't been playing in person in years, it's less an issue, you know?

I wish I could play in person more. Though, I really don't have the time. or money.

[The Utilitarian]

Bought my first new booster. It begins.

Innistrad looks like it's got some neat white options, and the whole werewolves thing would make for a neat Green/Red combination...

Two questions though: how the hell does the dual sided card mechanic work in terms of your deck (do you just get to know where those cards are?) (also I know I could normally look this up, but I'm on a limited internet access right now at work)

Secondly: Is it generally considered advantageous to build single expansion decks to take advantage of the included synergy, or is it always worth it to have the variety of options that comes from buying various expansion boosters?

God... I am such a newbie at this. It's kind of an interesting feeling to be re-entering such a complex and interesting gaming system. I have this reputation among my friends of being the strategist power game in any system I encounter, and I often am, but it's a really different feeling to be coming at this with only the basic grasp of the rules and no knowledge of the current meta and specifics.

I imagine it'd be like a 1st or 2nd ed D&D player tackling 4th.