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Christ, I thought Zaraki was gonna lap you before you showed up...er. Oops.

Bonfire of the Damned is my favorite card right now, and I don't even like red
How was that?
 
Christ, I thought Zaraki was gonna lap you before you showed up...er. Oops.

Bonfire of the Damned is my favorite card right now, and I don't even like red
How was that?

:lol Cold blooded

Gotta post whenever he posts to keep the gap :P

Edit: One person has put Gisela in their Frites deck at MTG salvation and came in 3rd in a 22 person tournament losing only in game 3 to another Frites deck and then changed a few cards and went undefeated to get 1st in a 16 person tournament. Pretty anecdotal for the time being but I'm interested in how Gisela does in Frites in the future. He had 4x Grisel, 3x Elesh, and 2x Gisela.
 
What do you guys think of these decks?

Tibalt/Burning Vengeance
Green/White Soulbond

Probably more for casual stuff, not really sure about jumping into FNMs yet.

Eh, they're pretty casual decks. I don't like the tibalt one only because the removal in the deck is pretty meh and it' mostly card draw with flashback and only 3 creatures with snap caster makes me uneasy about being wide open especially with all the aggro decks. I still only like Tibalt in Frites though so I might be biased.

The green one is better but some stuff makes me shake my head like druid familiar which is just too expensive in my mind to be a 4 drop and to have 4 diregraf escort seems pointless... I don't see zombies that often so see that being a playset... It's very casual, they're decent bases but I think they can definitely be improved if that's what you want to play.
 
I like the Tibalt deck mostly because it uses the guy himself, but yes, having only three creatures could be a big problem.

The GW deck would be easier to build, I think. Plus, plus I haven't played a green deck in a while so it would be nice to go back to that.
 
So much standard talk in here...*sniff*...I feel so left out....
I play EDH.

So talk about it! Others do too, I just don't know old cards well enough to say much but others are definitely into legacy and older formats also.

I like the Tibalt deck mostly because it uses the guy himself, but yes, having only three creatures could be a big problem.

The GW deck would be easier to build, I think. Plus, plus I haven't played a green deck in a while so it would be nice to go back to that.
Ya, and naturally it depends on what kind of decks you're playing against where it will be an even footing or not.
 
Eh, they're pretty casual decks. I don't like the tibalt one only because the removal in the deck is pretty meh and it' mostly card draw with flashback and only 3 creatures with snap caster makes me uneasy about being wide open especially with all the aggro decks. I still only like Tibalt in Frites though so I might be biased.

If I was going to build a Burning Vengeance deck, I would eschew the blue mage mentality. Drop the snapcasters, ponders, temporal mastery, and mana leaks, and replace them with Chandra's Phoenix, devil's play, rolling temblor; basically everything red that flashes back, with blue just being there to help with the card advantage (think twice, desperate ravings) and the odd creature control here and there. Just double down on the red mage aspect of the deck and hit them with all you got!
 
If I was going to build a Burning Vengeance deck, I would eschew the blue mage mentality. Drop the snapcasters, ponders, temporal mastery, and mana leaks, and replace them with Chandra's Phoenix, devil's play, rolling temblor; basically everything red that flashes back, with blue just being there to help with the card advantage (think twice, desperate ravings) and the odd creature control here and there. Just double down on the red mage aspect of the deck and hit them with all you got!

Ya, I think I like that better. Or if you're going snaps at least use shock or some better removal and depend on snaps a little more.
 
Can somebody recommend a good replacement for the phyrexian metamorph in this deck that from the current block? I can tune the deck to my local meta but I can't seem to find anything to fill the slot for that card.
 
Do you mean only innistrad block?

Yeah. I have all the uncommons/commons from the previous block and a few rares/mythics (swords/batterskull/wurmcoil/pretty much what's needed for WRR and Delver), just not that specific one. I'm pretty well stacked on the innistrad block and the 2012 set. I just can't think of a good replacement from what I have. Any options would be awesome, it's been about a decade since I've tried to play competitively.
 
Yeah. I have all the uncommons/commons from the previous block and a few rares/mythics (swords/batterskull/wurmcoil/pretty much what's needed for WRR and Delver), just not that specific one. I'm pretty well stacked on the innistrad block and the 2012 set. I just can't think of a good replacement from what I have. Any options would be awesome, it's been about a decade since I've tried to play competitively.

The only close thing is Phantasmal image from M12. I can't think of any innistrad cards that make a copy of another creature.
 
The only close thing is Phantasmal image from M12. I can't think of any innistrad cards that make a copy of another creature.

Cackling Counterpart.

But it doesn't even come close to filling the void. First, it targets. Second, it only copies your stuff. Third, it won't copy a Sword (which is really what puts Metamorph over the edge for the decklist above).

Oh yeah - and it's Blue. That too.
 
Cackling Counterpart.

But it doesn't even come close to filling the void. First, it targets. Second, it only copies your stuff. Third, it won't copy a Sword (which is really what puts Metamorph over the edge for the decklist above).

Oh yeah - and it's Blue. That too.

Ya, I forgot about that... It's just not very good. I still think phantasmal image is the second best but like you said metamorph is so good because of the utility you get out of him in what you can copy.

Why copy stuff when you can just blow everything they have up with Bonfire of the Damned? *jumps on the hype train*

DIES TO BONFIRE. I think that should be the new dies to vapor snag.
 
I've modified my curse deck, I'm now running:

9x Mountain
9x Swamp
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Dragonskull Summit

4x Bitterheart Witch
4x Tormented Soul

3x Curse of Bloodletting
2x Curse of Death's Hold
2x Curse of Misfortunes
2x Curse of Thirst
3x Curse of Stalked Prey
3x Curse of the Pierced Heart

2x Doom Blade
2x Go for the Throat
3x Tribute to Hunger
4x Whipflare

The main change is that I've added tormented soul and stalked prey as an early game threat. It can also passively make bitterheart a threat on her own as well if they refuse to swing into her (as they should)

I dropped my tragic slips for doom blade/gftt because I kept finding I wasn't morbid when I wanted to be, and you can kill your own witch with gftt, unlike tragic slip unless it's morbid.

I was running a splash of blue for desperate ravings and forbidden alchemy, but dropped it after a while. If you were going to continue to splash blue, you could replace or augment tormented soul with invisible stalker, but you wouldn't really be able to keep up as much removal.
 
I've modified my curse deck, I'm now running:

9x Mountain
9x Swamp
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Dragonskull Summit

4x Bitterheart Witch
4x Tormented Soul

3x Curse of Bloodletting
2x Curse of Death's Hold
2x Curse of Misfortunes
2x Curse of Thirst
3x Curse of Stalked Prey
3x Curse of the Pierced Heart

2x Doom Blade
2x Go for the Throat
3x Tribute to Hunger
4x Whipflare

The main change is that I've added tormented soul and stalked prey as an early game threat. It can also passively make bitterheart a threat on her own as well if they refuse to swing into her (as they should)

I dropped my tragic slips for doom blade/gftt because I kept finding I wasn't morbid when I wanted to be, and you can kill your own witch with gftt, unlike tragic slip unless it's morbid.

I was running a splash of blue for desperate ravings and forbidden alchemy, but dropped it after a while. If you were going to continue to splash blue, you could replace or augment tormented soul with invisible stalker, but you wouldn't really be able to keep up as much removal.

DIES TO WITCHBANE ORB.

Have you test it yet? I'd still want one slagstorm instead of 3x tribute knock it down to two but that's just me. I'm curious how it does for you.
 
DIES TO WITCHBANE ORB.

Have you test it yet? I'd still want one slagstorm instead of 3x tribute knock it down to two but that's just me. I'm curious how it does for you.

Yeah I've actually considered getting slagstorm because I've run in to people abusing artifact decks a lot on MTGO lately :/

Unless you get good removal draws early on, you will pretty much lose straight up to aggro/ramp decks, I don't really think you can get around that with this deck. It's basically red/black control with amazing inevitability.

edit: Killing Wave might actually fit really well in this deck. If you have a curse of bloodletting on someone, would they take double damage from paying life to save a creature? Or would it not affect that because it's a "cost", not taking damage.
 
Yeah I've actually considered getting slagstorm because I've run in to people abusing artifact decks a lot on MTGO lately :/

Unless you get good removal draws early on, you will pretty much lose straight up to aggro/ramp decks, I don't really think you can get around that with this deck. It's basically red/black control with amazing inevitability.

edit: Killing Wave might actually fit really well in this deck.

Yeah, that wouldn't be bad removal and can be relatively cheap to cost.
 
Did a six-pack sealed draft with my friends last night. I built a green/white soulbond centric deck. Terminus was a real helper and the green miracle that drops +1/+1 counters down was great in a pinch. I lost one game, but won all of my rounds. Small note, one of my friends was hammered on mamosas, so he might have beat me sober. But that's the risk you run when you drunk draft.

Really though, Angelic Wall is a GREAT draft card in the early game.
 
edit: Killing Wave might actually fit really well in this deck. If you have a curse of bloodletting on someone, would they take double damage from paying life to save a creature? Or would it not affect that because it's a "cost", not taking damage.

Yeah, I like Killing Wave more than Bonfire of the Damned as my new 'X' removal in this deck, unfortunately it does not pair with Bloodletting since it's "pay x life." At least that's my understanding...and that's why I'm starting to lean more heavily towards Bonfire.

I'll likely end up with 3 Bonfires and 1 KW...we'll see. Maybe 2 Bonfires. KW is just too good for a noncreature deck to completely ignore it.

edit: Considering Vexing Devils for early threat, btw. Those DO pair with bloodletting.
 
Here's my casual-FNM deck for Avacyn Restored... focused around my two favorites, Tibalt and Griselbrand.


4 Faithless Looting
2 Gut Shot
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Dead Weight
3 Tibalt
2 Whipflare
1 Dismember
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Desperate Ravings
2 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
1 Day of Judgment
1 Sever the Bloodline
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Unburial Rites
3 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn
1 Sun Titan
1 Grave Titan

4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Clifftop Retreat
1 Copperline Gorge
4 Evolving Wilds
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Shimmering Grotto
1 Sulfur Falls

1 Island
2 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Swamp


It has... trouble against RG aggro. =\ And wolf-run variants in general, honestly.

My more competitive deck is naya pod, which has decent matchups against both but is boring as fuck to play.

My magical christmasland deck is cloudshift humans, which is.... magical christmasland as hell.


Also, speaking of magical christmasland:

I was wrong (to an extent) about champion of lambholt. That card has the capability of being completely fucknuts. In my blink humans deck, there's been some completely absurd turns to the tune of:

My board: 4 lands, mana dork, blade splicer, champion of lambholt w/ no counters, golem token (opponent at 17 life, it's the end of my opponent's turn, my lands are untapped)

Me: Restoration angel, blink blade splicer, make a new golem. 3 creatures entered the battlefield so I get 3 counters on champion. Now, cloudshift the angel, same play, 3 more counters on the champ and a new golem. My turn I untap everything, activate my township, swing with 3 blade splicer tokens and the champ for 24 unblockable.

Yes, this is ridiculously hard to pull off and is countered by a gut shot or vapor snag or whatever. But....

I live in magical christmasland, and that champion, despite starting off as a 1/1 for 1GG, does absurd things to an unprepared opponent.... Especially an RG aggro opponent, who runs little instant-speed removal and has trouble dealing with restoration angels.

It's not a garbage card like I said earlier, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to run 2-3 maindeck at an FNM-level (or competitive close-to-release level) tournament, assuming you're smart enough to side them out game 2 as your opponent sides in gut shots and galvanic blasts.

For the record, since Naya Pod is a fairly self-explanatory deck, here's my current blinkhumans list. I only have one cavern of souls.


4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Champion of the Parish
2 Cloudshift

3 Gather the Townsfolk
2 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Kruin Striker

4 Kessig Malcontents
2 Fiend Hunter
4 Blade Splicer
1 Silverblade Paladin
1 Champion of Lambholt

4 Restoration Angel
1 Hero of Bladehold
2 Huntmaster of the Fells


1 Cavern of Souls
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Sunpetal Grove
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Gavony Township

My LGS gave out two foil Restoration Angels per participant at the $15 release draft. I was incredibly pleased, and my friend sold me his (plus a nonfoil he pulled!) for $8 after the event ended.... so I now have pretty much every rare/mythic in AVR I want for a total of under $100, aside from finishing my set of Caverns, which I'll probably wait until Scars block rotates out to do (if ever)
 
Looks like a fun deck, but what do you do if your coalition victory condition is made impossible?

How about now?

I might win before I get coalition victory, though...

BNL02.jpg
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J69B5.jpg
 
I'm always down for EDH discussion! Is it bad that my first though on seeing Cavern of Souls was "This would go great in my Karrthus EDH deck!"

Naw, it's cool.


My first thought was to throw it in my Animar EDH deck to prevent people from Hinder/Spell Crumpling my general.



So much standard talk in here...*sniff*...I feel so left out....
I play EDH.

I have two or three EDH decks together right now with varying levels of casual-ness.... (One has no non-permanents so I can primal surge my entire deck at once, one has an infinite combo that does nothing but gain each opponent infinite life. Ultimate group hug!)


I'd be totally up for an EDH game on tinychat or skype. I duno how we'd handle 3+ players, but 1v1 can go smoothly if each involved party has a decent webcam + mic.

Let me know if anyone here would be interested in that (or Standard!) so I remember to bring a casual deck on vacation with me :P
 
I was wrong (to an extent) about champion of lambholt. That card has the capability of being completely fucknuts. In my blink humans deck, there's been some completely absurd turns to the tune of:

My board: 4 lands, mana dork, blade splicer, champion of lambholt w/ no counters, golem token (opponent at 17 life, it's the end of my opponent's turn, my lands are untapped)

Me: Restoration angel, blink blade splicer, make a new golem. 3 creatures entered the battlefield so I get 3 counters on champion. Now, cloudshift the angel, same play, 3 more counters on the champ and a new golem. My turn I untap everything, activate my township, swing with 3 blade splicer tokens and the champ for 24 unblockable.

Yes, this is ridiculously hard to pull off and is countered by a gut shot or vapor snag or whatever. But....

I live in magical christmasland, and that champion, despite starting off as a 1/1 for 1GG, does absurd things to an unprepared opponent.... Especially an RG aggro opponent, who runs little instant-speed removal and has trouble dealing with restoration angels.

It's not a garbage card like I said earlier, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to run 2-3 maindeck at an FNM-level (or competitive close-to-release level) tournament, assuming you're smart enough to side them out game 2 as your opponent sides in gut shots and galvanic blasts.

For the record, since Naya Pod is a fairly self-explanatory deck, here's my current blinkhumans list. I only have one cavern of souls.


4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Champion of the Parish
2 Cloudshift

3 Gather the Townsfolk
2 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Kruin Striker

4 Kessig Malcontents
2 Fiend Hunter
4 Blade Splicer
1 Silverblade Paladin
1 Champion of Lambholt

4 Restoration Angel
1 Hero of Bladehold
2 Huntmaster of the Fells


1 Cavern of Souls
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Sunpetal Grove
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Forest
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Gavony Township

My LGS gave out two foil Restoration Angels per participant at the $15 release draft. I was incredibly pleased, and my friend sold me his (plus a nonfoil he pulled!) for $8 after the event ended.... so I now have pretty much every rare/mythic in AVR I want for a total of under $100, aside from finishing my set of Caverns, which I'll probably wait until Scars block rotates out to do (if ever)

I think still he's good because of champion of the parish. You'll only have so much removal in a deck and if they see champion turn 1 that'll make them go to that instantly and waste removal on other creatures before you even get to lambholt.
 
Currently, I run a straightforward Karrthus deck. It just sort of sits back and tries not to draw attention until it starts laying down dragon after dragon.

My Second deck, titles "Ashling the Pilgrim vs. the World" is a Voltron-style deck with a load of board wipes and control. It's my more "serious" deck of the two but its a lot of fun to pilot.
 
Since my singles won't get here in time, I'm not sure what I want to run for FNM. :/ And I love how card shops online not so subtlety wait until a card goes up to restock. Griselbrand has been gone for days but now it's back in stock now that it's like $5 more than it was before. How convenient...
 
I think still he's good because of champion of the parish. You'll only have so much removal in a deck and if they see champion turn 1 that'll make them go to that instantly and waste removal on other creatures before you even get to lambholt.

I think he's good too, but he does still have a lot of potential for tempo loss. When you're an insanely aggressive tempo-based deck like Humans, losing 3 mana worth of tempo to a "free" spell like gut shot can be devastating.

However, it's arguable that it's worth the risk, and at this point, I think it might be. Your argument makes sense, but you have to remember that a Human deck wants to have every creature be as efficient as possible, even as it stands alone; it's not really supposed to be a voltron "assemble-the-pieces"-style deck. Champion of the Parish is just such a strong 1-drop we run 4 simply because nothing else can be swinging in for 2-3 on turn 2 and continuing to grow throughout the game.

I think I might up Lambholt to 2-3 and see how that goes. I would never want more than one during the course of a game (even less than Thalia), but she can just.... end games @___@


Since my singles won't get here in time, I'm not sure what I want to run for FNM. :/ And I love how card shops online not so subtlety wait until a card goes up to restock. Griselbrand has been gone for days but now it's back in stock now that it's like $5 more than it was before. How convenient...

I have an extra Griselbrand or two I can trade before vacation (as in, today), if you have things I need. Message me in the next few hours and we can work something out. I value 'im at $11 a piece because they're S-Chinese (which admittedly looks really cool on a giant demon, but whatevs.)

If anyone else is interested in AVR stuff, I also have an Entreat the Angels up for grabs. I already have three decks built for new standard, and I really can't make an excuse to build a fourth just to fit this card in :P
 
I think he's good too, but he does still have a lot of potential for tempo loss. When you're an insanely aggressive tempo-based deck like Humans, losing 3 mana worth of tempo to a "free" spell like gut shot can be devastating.

However, it's arguable that it's worth the risk, and at this point, I think it might be. Your argument makes sense, but you have to remember that a Human deck wants to have every creature be as efficient as possible, even as it stands alone; it's not really supposed to be a voltron "assemble-the-pieces"-style deck. Champion of the Parish is just such a strong 1-drop we run 4 simply because nothing else can be swinging in for 2-3 on turn 2 and continuing to grow throughout the game.

I think I might up Lambholt to 2-3 and see how that goes. I would never want more than one during the course of a game (even less than Thalia), but she can just.... end games @___@




I have an extra Griselbrand or two I can trade before vacation (as in, today), if you have things I need. Message me in the next few hours and we can work something out. I value 'im at $11 a piece because they're S-Chinese (which admittedly looks really cool on a giant demon, but whatevs.)

I already won them they just won't arrive until saturday for one and monday for the other. :( I was too late to pull the trigger to get them on time. At least if I had my 4x silver blade I could run most of my humans deck to try it even if I don't have everything.
 
I already won them they just won't arrive until saturday for one and monday for the other. :( I was too late to pull the trigger to get them on time. At least if I had my 4x silver blade I could run most of my humans deck to try it even if I don't have everything.

aw, boo. :P I suppose I'd best keep my Gris playset anyways, they're just going up and up....

but that stinks :( Do you at least have copies of Mirran Crusader to sub in for your silverblades or something?
 
aw, boo. :P I suppose I'd best keep my Gris playset anyways, they're just going up and up....

but that stinks :( Do you at least have copies of Mirran Crusader to sub in for your silverblades or something?

Ya, I have a play set for mirran which I guess I will. I can tweak it but that is the biggest difference since I'm missing 4x silver blade, 1x lambholt, 3x cavern, 1 zealous conscripts but other than that I'm set. I knew I wouldn't have the caverns but I was hoping to have the rest.

Edit: I guess I can just up the fiend hunters to fill the gap. ;P

Edit 2: Haha, I only own 2 fiend hunters... It's destiny!
 
Ya, I have a play set for mirran which I guess I will. I can tweak it but that is the biggest difference since I'm missing 4x silver blade, 1x lambholt, 3x cavern, 1 zealous conscripts but other than that I'm set. I knew I wouldn't have the caverns but I was hoping to have the rest.

Edit: I guess I can just up the fiend hunters to fill the gap. ;P

Depends on your metagame; if you're seeing a lot of wolf-run, RG aggro, solar flare, etc, you might want to keep the maindeck fiend hunters low.

The best card in the human decks, IMHO, is Blade Splicer... especially in blink variants. Even in non-blink, the interactions are absurd -- Kruin Striker immediately becomes a 4/1 trampler, and once you begin activating your township, you end up getting even more bang for your buck.

What colors/subtheme are you running?
 
Depends on your metagame; if you're seeing a lot of wolf-run, RG aggro, solar flare, etc, you might want to keep the maindeck fiend hunters low.

The best card in the human decks, IMHO, is Blade Splicer... especially in blink variants. Even in non-blink, the interactions are absurd -- Kruin Striker immediately becomes a 4/1 trampler, and once you begin activating your township, you end up getting even more bang for your buck.

What colors/subtheme are you running?

I saw mostly delver variants before but I'm curious if that changes with avacyn out... Probably not since most people don't have the money for cavern. I'm trying to make a R/G/W humans like I had on the other page.
 
Can't find the deck that had my 2 elesh norns in it... This makes me go something something...

Edit: Apparently I never bought isolated chapels? I thought I bought all the new duals but they're not there... I feel dumb. :(
 
Edit: I'm the king of the hill! :D:D:D

cPFo3.png

Been too busy at work. My count has slowed down. D:

I had the worst pulls in the league possible last night lol.
Around me people are pulling time walk, grislebrand, cavern, sigurda, the white red angel, white big miracle, entreat of angels, Wolfrir, red planeswalker etc etc I got pooooop
I managed to go 2 and 2, should have been 3 and 1 but against my third opponent I mulled down to 5 first game, took a one lander (rule was to start with one land in play also) and did not pull another land for 7 turns, stabilized but was way too late and got doinked by a swampwalker. game two had a handfull of one color and never saw a land to match
every other game I had more mana than I knew what to do with.
Buuuut that is why we have 4 weeks and 3 more packs to mix in

I know that feeling bro.

Gonna draft with some friends tonight. Hopefully, our box (my packs specifically) is good!
 
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