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Magic: The Gathering |OT|

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How is it that standard decks wind up having a significantly higher non-land:land ratio than draft decks? I typically run 16-17 lands in a 40-card draft deck, and even then I can run into mana problems. Sometimes it feels as though I can't make a competitive dual-colour deck without pricey fetchlands.

I've abandoned the idea of buying more Tezzerets. I'm using the $35 to buy a bunch of other useful singles that will make an impact in my casual standard decks - staples like Birds of Paradise, which I've never owned. Now I'm debating whether or not I should open the other of the two Worldwake fat packs I picked up Thursday. Another Jace, or even a foil Jace would be sweet, but there's no guarantee I'll get one...
 
Takuan said:
How is it that standard decks wind up having a significantly higher non-land:land ratio than draft decks? I typically run 16-17 lands in a 40-card draft deck, and even then I can run into mana problems. Sometimes it feels as though I can't make a competitive dual-colour deck without pricey fetchlands.

I've abandoned the idea of buying more Tezzerets. I'm using the $35 to buy a bunch of other useful singles that will make an impact in my casual standard decks - staples like Birds of Paradise, which I've never owned. Now I'm debating whether or not I should open the other of the two Worldwake fat packs I picked up Thursday. Another Jace, or even a foil Jace would be sweet, but there's no guarantee I'll get one...
Click to expand...
...why would you not open packs you already own? Do you have a store or something?
 
DCIJudges just tweeted "Did you know that there's a combination of keys in DCI reporter that can delete all results of one round? The score keeper at #gpbcn. .." "... found out the hard way. But the affected half is only 30 minutes behind the other at #gpbcn"

Woops. I've seen that or similar happen a few times, it always sucks.
 
Hey guys, huge ass post incoming. My wife and I play a lot of Magic these days, and she wants suggestions on how to strengthen her deck to play against a black/green deck (mine). I'll be posting both and any help you can give her would be appreciated. For reference, my deck is heavy with Elves and Vampires, with 2 Sorin's, a Nissa, Blight Dragon and a Grave Titan.

1 x Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 x Ajani Goldmane

20 x Plains

3 x Northern Paladin
1 x Devout Lightcaster
1 x Caravan Hurda
1 x Magus of the Disk
1 x Leonin Skyhunter
1 x Pristine Angel
1 x Angelic Arbiter
1 x Loyal Sentry
1 x Serra Angel
1 x Ajani's Pridemate
1 x War Priest of Thune
1 x White Knight
1 x Victory's Herald

2 x Celestial Purge
1 x Safe Passage
1 x Righteousness
1 x Blessed Reversal

4 x Armored Ascension
3 x Arrest
2 x Oblivion Ring (thanks Technomancer...)
2 x Pacifism
1 x Angelic Blessing
1 x Call to Arms
1 x Black Ward
1 x Holy Strength
1 x Eland Umbra
1 x Mammoth Umbra
1 x Hero's Resolve
 
WanderingWind said:
...why would you not open packs you already own? Do you have a store or something?
Click to expand...
I might just resell it for profit, because I'm a bastard like that.

Re: Your wife's dilemma, a Baneslayer Angel or two would help nullify your Blight Dragon, and a few Mirran Crusaders would be deadly. Honor of the Pure to give your guys a boost, and you're looking pretty good.
 
You see this card?

You See this card?

Put the second one out as fast as you can, spend one forest to bring the first out. Say BYE-BYE to the opponent in five turns.

I'm not sure if this works in the table-top variant with so many cards, but with the XBLA DotP 2010 version, it breaks the AI. The AI will attack me/I go to block them. AI cards are mostly 5/5 (sometimes 7/7) and get taken out as Vigor isn't attacking. +1/+1 counters even if that card would've been destroyed normally?

Weeny cards get a sudden 15/15 from a 3/3. 1/1 turns into 10/10. BROKEN.

How awesome is this card? SoAWESOME.gif
 
The_Technomancer said:
I fucking hate Vigor
when its being played against me
Click to expand...

Haha. DotP puts it in the mono-green weenie deck as a last-card unlock from Expansion 3 (added when that happened), it wasn't there before. And it makes the deck SUPER DEADLY if you get Piper and it in the same hand with a good mana pool. I figured "what the hell, I'll go for it" when I have G, creature, creature, piper, vigor, enchantment and got lucky on pulling the piper out in 4th turn.
 
TheSeks said:
Haha. DotP puts it in the mono-green weenie deck as a last-card unlock from Expansion 3 (added when that happened), it wasn't there before. And it makes the deck SUPER DEADLY if you get Piper and it in the same hand with a good mana pool. I figured "what the hell, I'll go for it" when I have G, creature, creature, piper, vigor, enchantment and got lucky on pulling the piper out in 4th turn.
Click to expand...
He's one of the only reliable foils to my saproling madness deck, (along with counter-control and straight up creature destruction (not damage)) Makes everything so large that I can't attack until I've amassed enough for a one-shot, since I can't risk leaving myself open.

Its my pet deck:
Land
Forest x24

Creatures
Mycoloth x4
Sporesower Thallid x2
Thallid x 2
Thallid Shell-Dweller x2
Essence Warden x3
Verdeloth the Ancient x1
Elvish Farmer x2

Other spells
Scatter the Seeds x3
Fists of Ironwood x3
Saproling Symbiosis x2
Beastmaster Ascension x2
Doubling Season x2
Echoing Courage x4
Overrun x2

Planeswalkers
Garruk Wildspeaker x2


The regularity with which this deck can create ri-godamn-diculous amounts of saprolings is awesome. So many games end with me swinging with 100+
The Fists of Ironwood and Scatter the Seeds completely overcome any speed problems, so I'm strong in the early game as well.
 
Well, we've decided to pull out the Planeswalkers from the decks for most play throughs. Frankly, they're so powerful they really do make the game less fun. We also spent 30 bucks on singles and I now have an amazing Vampire deck. I really like Kalitas and my Captivating. She's rocking a cat deck that fucked me up pretty hard.

I think we've played about 20 games of magic in the past week or so. Good times.

How do you guys keep your deck size down? I have so many awesome cards that it's really hard to choose. I'd like to keep it at 60-75 but every card has a definite use.
 
WanderingWind said:
How do you guys keep your deck size down? I have so many awesome cards that it's really hard to choose. I'd like to keep it at 60-75 but every card has a definite use.
Click to expand...
Really start to keep track of the cards that you draw but never get a chance to play, or that you play that don't end up working. You'd be surprised how many cards you think should go in while building that you don't actually end up needing.
 
The_Technomancer said:
Really start to keep track of the cards that you draw but never get a chance to play, or that you play that don't end up working. You'd be surprised how many cards you think should go in while building that you don't actually end up needing.
Click to expand...

...you know, I have 4 Omnaths that I've never drawn in a game. And I always have more than enough green mana. But I dream of pulling one of those and an Exsanguinate. Some day, it may happen. I think my Blight Dragon fits your criteria though. It's useful, but not that useful. And I'd rather spend that mana on one of my Vamps. So, that's three down.
 
WanderingWind said:
...you know, I have 4 Omnaths that I've never drawn in a game. And I always have more than enough green mana. But I dream of pulling one of those and an Exsanguinate. Some day, it may happen. I think my Blight Dragon fits your criteria though. It's useful, but not that useful. And I'd rather spend that mana on one of my Vamps. So, that's three down.
Click to expand...
Yeah, its hard for me sometimes cutting cards that "would form a brutal combo if they all went off together" when I realize that in three months and dozens of games I pulled it off once.
 
WanderingWind said:
Well, we've decided to pull out the Planeswalkers from the decks for most play throughs. Frankly, they're so powerful they really do make the game less fun. We also spent 30 bucks on singles and I now have an amazing Vampire deck. I really like Kalitas and my Captivating. She's rocking a cat deck that fucked me up pretty hard.

I think we've played about 20 games of magic in the past week or so. Good times.

How do you guys keep your deck size down? I have so many awesome cards that it's really hard to choose. I'd like to keep it at 60-75 but every card has a definite use.
Click to expand...

Really it's just experience, building endless decks over the years, you start to learn balance. You want a certain amount of creatures and a certain amount of removal and so on. You build around combos so cards that don't work well with your combos get removed. You consider mana costs and whether the card will be useful by the time you can afford it.

But mostly by using them. I'll play a bunch of games, see which cards were consistently useful, which were only useful sometimes, and which never really helped at all. Then I cut everything except the consistently useful. It sounds pretty "duh" but it's hard sometimes to realize a certain card isn't actually any good in a deck until you sit there and really think about it, "hmmm I don't think I have ever won a game with this card, in fact I only get it out once every 5 games and by then it's just slowing me down". You often think a card is key to a deck simply because it's an awesome card, but you'd be surprised how many times an awesome card is useless in a deck that wasn't built specifically for it.

edit: Omnath falls into that last category. Unless the deck is build specifically around it (green sun zenith to bring him out if you don't draw him for instance, plus a ton of mana creation with elves and stuff) then he isn't very useful. You have to build with the idea in mind that he is going to be your offensive weapon every game.
 
It's kind of surprising to me, but mono decks have been more successful for me, personally. It used to be that every deck had something the others didn't - and largely that's still true - but if you dig into it well enough, you can fill in the gaps. Blue is still (as far as I know) the only color with counters and red is still the heaviest direct damage, but black has some of those now, too. Green is still producing mana at will, but other decks - if built right - can do that now, too. White is still for pussies, though.

Some things never change....
 
If I was going to make a standard omnath deck it would probably look something like this.

4X Omnath
4X Green Sun Zenith
4X Llanowar Elves
4X Birds of Paradise
4X Joraga Treespeaker
4X Overgrown Battlement
4X Unatural Predation (give your omnath trample for the turn)
4X Withstand Death (give your omnath indestructibility for the turn)
4X Vines of Vastwood (makes your omnath untargetable till end of turn)
2X Liege of the tangle (incase omnath somehow gets fucked, although I might put these in the sideboard)
22X forests

I'd board some naturalize, overwhelming stampede, plummet, and some other anti flying anti artifact/enchantment stuff.

But I'd also play the fuck out of it and likely change it quite a bit in the end. those 12 instants to help omnath would probably get changed up. But I think as it is, you could do some nasty damage with that deck. Just focus on getting omnath out turn two, and then using your land and mana producers to make him big and nasty. You should be able to kill your opponent turn 5 (or even 4) if all goes well.
 
WanderingWind said:
It's kind of surprising to me, but mono decks have been more successful for me, personally. It used to be that every deck had something the others didn't - and largely that's still true - but if you dig into it well enough, you can fill in the gaps. Blue is still (as far as I know) the only color with counters and red is still the heaviest direct damage, but black has some of those now, too. Green is still producing mana at will, but other decks - if built right - can do that now, too. White is still for pussies, though.

Some things never change....
Click to expand...

Interestingly, counters have moved into other colors, but only a bit.

Green has avoid fate, which only counters instants or auras that targets a permanent you control. Still useful as it only costs 1 green
It has life force, which is an enchantment that counters black spells

Red has burnout with counters a blue spell
also Molten Influence which counters an instant of sorcery unless it's controller takes 4 damage
And of course Pyroblast and Red elemental blast which counters a blue spell

Black has Dash hopes which can itself be countered if your opponent pays 5 life. Great spell imo.
It also has deathgrip, an enchantment that counters green spells (opposite of life force)
and Withering boon which counters a creature for 3 life

White has dawn charm which counters a spell targeting you.
Also illumination which counters an artifact or enchantment and gives your opponent life
And Lapse of certainty, which counters it and puts it back on top of the library.
Mana Tithe counters a spell unless the controller pays 1.
Rebuff the wicked counters a spell that targets a permanent you control

Green/Red has guttural response which counters a blue instant

There are also two creatures, a white one and black one, which counters each other's colors by tapping and paying a life.
 
WanderingWind said:
Well, we've decided to pull out the Planeswalkers from the decks for most play throughs. Frankly, they're so powerful they really do make the game less fun. We also spent 30 bucks on singles and I now have an amazing Vampire deck. I really like Kalitas and my Captivating. She's rocking a cat deck that fucked me up pretty hard.

I think we've played about 20 games of magic in the past week or so. Good times.

How do you guys keep your deck size down? I have so many awesome cards that it's really hard to choose. I'd like to keep it at 60-75 but every card has a definite use.
Click to expand...

Yea, it's hard but I force myself to keep it at 60 cards every time. Consistency is better than throwing in some extra cards. Make your deck nice and tight.

It's really hard to play with a small group of friends when it's so easy to tweak your deck to crush each other. Your wife could just add a bunch of white knights/pro black creatures to destroy the vamps. It's hard to find a balance but it seems removing the planeswalkers was a good move in that direction.

Also, I hate cat decks, lol. Some guy had about 20+ cat tokens courtesy of White Sun's Zenith last week.
 
There's also that Eldrazi counter that's free to cast if it targets a creature with 7 power of greater. That can be useful in a green deck with huge beaters.
 
Takuan said:
There's also that Eldrazi counter that's free to cast if it targets a creature with 7 power of greater. That can be useful in a green deck with huge beaters.
Click to expand...

I've only seen that busted out once but it was clutch as fuck when he did.
 
Takuan said:
There's also that Eldrazi counter that's free to cast if it targets a creature with 7 power of greater. That can be useful in a green deck with huge beaters.
Click to expand...

Friend of mine has that. I may trade something for it soon.
 
Question sabout Gloom and Ascendant Evincar.

Does Gloom (white spells cost 3 more to cast) stack? So, 2 Glooms would mean 6 more, right?
Same question with Evincar.
Also, the fact that all non-blacks get -1/-1 would prevent any 1/1's from coming onto the board, correct?
 
WanderingWind said:
Question sabout Gloom and Ascendant Evincar.

Does Gloom (white spells cost 3 more to cast) stack? So, 2 Glooms would mean 6 more, right?
Same question with Evincar.
Also, the fact that all non-blacks get -1/-1 would prevent any 1/1's from coming onto the board, correct?
Click to expand...

Yes and yes

except you cant have two evincar out because he is legendary, but yeah, 1/1's would die the minute they hit the board.
 
siddx said:
Yes and yes

except you cant have two evincar out because he is legendary, but yeah, 1/1's would die the minute they hit the board.
Click to expand...

Whoa. Also, we have been playing Planeswalkers ALL wrong. We had NO idea that you could attack them with creatures!

Reading is fundamental...
 
WanderingWind said:
Whoa. Also, we have been playing Planeswalkers ALL wrong. We had NO idea that you could attack them with creatures!

Reading is fundamental...
Click to expand...

Yup, thats what makes them slightly less powerful. You can also hit them with burn spells like lightning bolt. And remember that you can't have two of the same planeswalker out, including the same planeswalker with different abilities (Jace Beleren and Jace Mind sculptor can't be out at the same time).
 
siddx said:
Yup, thats what makes them slightly less powerful. You can also hit them with burn spells like lightning bolt. And remember that you can't have two of the same planeswalker out, including the same planeswalker with different abilities (Jace Beleren and Jace Mind sculptor can't be out at the same time).
Click to expand...

That one was houseruled almost immediately, any way. I knew about lightning bolts and what not, but creatures attacking them opens up so much more. I'm guessing the actual rules let you have, say Nissa and Garruk or Elspeth and Ajani, out right?
 
WanderingWind said:
That one was houseruled almost immediately, any way. I knew about lightning bolts and what not, but creatures attacking them opens up so much more. I'm guessing the actual rules let you have, say Nissa and Garruk or Elspeth and Ajani, out right?
Click to expand...

Yeah you can have different planeswalkers, but you can't have the two jaces out, or the two different Anjani's, or the two different Elspeths. Even though they have different names and abilities, they are the same person so the legend rule still applies.
 
WanderingWind said:
That is incredibly expensive under all but the most exact circumstances.
Click to expand...

It's unplayable IMO unless you are running some strange beatdown deck with mega cc creatures.
 
Takuan said:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=194007
Does "becomes tapped" apply to attacking, since you have to tap to attack? On that link, people are talking about it as though it only applies to using tap abilities, but the text doesn't explicitly say that.

Seems like a pretty good card, but there has to be a reason people don't talk about it.
Click to expand...

I would assume you get counters from attacking but it becomes pretty much worthless unless you're using it to use tap abilities more than once. That's the reason you'd play it.
 
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
I would assume you get counters from attacking but it becomes pretty much worthless unless you're using it to use tap abilities more than once. That's the reason you'd play it.
Click to expand...
It's kinda like vigilance for all your creatures. Pretty useful, imo. Thanks to you and Hex for clarifying.

Question the 2nd: If I cast Terastodon and my opponent responds with a Doom Blade, the Terastodon's "comes into play" effect still resolves, yes?

Edit: Yeah, it makes sense because he had to resolve in order to be a legal target for Doom Bladage. There are so many interesting cards in this game that you could build a deck around... so many possibilities!
 
Takuan said:
It's kinda like vigilance for all your creatures. Pretty useful, imo. Thanks to you and Hex for clarifying.

Question the 2nd: If I cast Terastodon and my opponent responds with a Doom Blade, the Terastodon's "comes into play" effect still resolves, yes?
Click to expand...

I believe so. I mean, the creature exists, then was killed. He wasn't countered.
 
alternade said:
Freaking Platinum Angel!!!! Had my opponent at -18 life and I still lost!
Click to expand...
That's where you board in something to take care of it. If you lose game 2 knowing he has a Platinum Angel in there and not doing anything about it, that's on you.
 
Takuan said:
That's where you board in something to take care of it. If you lose game 2 knowing he has a Platinum Angel in there and not doing anything about it, that's on you.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was able to cancel it round 2. Was playing against an all artifact deck. It had some crazy combos, at one point he had 26 2/2 thropter!
 
The "Big" version of Legacy Zoo is one of the most fun decks in the format. God help the other player if they are playing anything even remotely resembling a "fair" deck, you literally sit there and drop undercosted green fatties for like six or seven turns.

Reshuffling Green Sun's Zenith with a Sylvan Library out is bonkers. If a game goes long you can basically see a Zenith over and over via Library if you have 3-4 in your deck.
 
NEW PHYREXIA ANNOUNCED

The Grand Compleation is Achieved

Fragamemnon said:
The "Big" version of Legacy Zoo is one of the most fun decks in the format. God help the other player if they are playing anything even remotely resembling a "fair" deck, you literally sit there and drop undercosted green fatties for like six or seven turns.

Reshuffling Green Sun's Zenith with a Sylvan Library out is bonkers. If a game goes long you can basically see a Zenith over and over via Library if you have 3-4 in your deck.
Click to expand...

I agree, it is so much fun. GSZ makes it for me, I love the versatility of it.
 
The previewed legend reminds me of Ascendant Evincar, but more versatile.

New Phyrexia was always going to win. They're too awesome to keep down for long.
 
An-Det said:
The previewed legend reminds me of Ascendant Evincar, but more versatile.

New Phyrexia was always going to win. They're too awesome to keep down for long.
Click to expand...

A little too expensive for most standard play but he'll definitely get thrown in one or two of my EDH decks.
 
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