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|| Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 guide ||
|| Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers ||
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Written by: robvalue
Can be viewed in Wordpress-
http://mtg.dreamhosters.com/guides/playing-skills/
In the process of being updated, many thanks to Omgpewpew for kindly doing
this as Playhaven has now stopped hosting guides.
===============================================================================
Table of Contents
===============================================================================
- Introduction
- Differences between D09 and D12
- Getting started
- Choosing your deck for online play
- Deck building and playing strategies
- Chandra Nalaar - Unquenchable Fire
- Garruk Wildspeaker - Apex Predators
- Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis
- Gideon Jura - Wielding Steel
- Jace Beleren - Realm of Illusion
- Kiora Atua - Ancient Depths
- Koth - Strength of Stone
- Cerebral Eruption Analysis
- Nissa Revane - Guardians of the Wood
- Sarkhan Vol - Dragon's Roar
- Sorin Markov - Blood Hunger
- Tezzeret - Machinations
- Ajani Goldmane - Auramancer
- Liliana Vess - Grave Whispers
- Ral Zarek - Cloudburst
- Bouncing and tapping
- Rules differences to full Magic
- Analysis of artifact and enchantment control
- Bugs and issues
- User reported issues
- Changes Log
===============================================================================
Introduction
===============================================================================
I have written this guide to help players get the most out of Duels of the
Planeswalkers 2012 (D12). I play on the Xbox 360, but everything should apply
just as well to other formats. I will note the changes between this and the
original Duels (D09), and for each deck I will discuss each card, give general
strategies, and give example decklists that I recommend using. I've added
additional sections after this for more information about the game. Please use
the "Guide Index" on the right hand side of the screen (on Playhaven) to jump
to the section you want to read.
If you haven't already, I suggest first reading my other guide "Improving your
playing skills":
http://www.playhaven.com/guides/360/magic-the-gathering-duels-of-the-planeswalk
ers/improving-your-playing-skills/mjCV2Dnb5ntz/
This was written for D09 but almost everything in it still applies. Of course
the examples given are all from D09, but the points are still relevant.
Please note that the card analysis and deck-building tips in this guide are
aimed at one on one matches, although I will comment briefly on cards that may
be useful in Two Headed Giant and Archenemy. Free-for-alls are a totally
different matter, and I am the worst in the world at them!
At the end of the guide, I have included a changes log where I will note any
alterations I make to the example decklists over time, and other changes. I'll
give credit where due for corrections etc.
I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has written to me to say they
have found my guides useful! I highly value such feedback and really appreciate
it. I hope this guide will be as helpful! If you try my decklists or ones based
on them, I'd love to know how you get on.
Everything I write about the cards is only my opinion and advice. I am never
saying I know better than anyone else or that these things are just facts.
Everyone's play style differs, and people place different values on different
things. You will probably find you disagree with some of my commentary and
parts of the suggested decklists, and that is fine! You should follow your own
path and judgement. This is just meant to be a starting point for new players,
and some food for thought for more experienced ones.
You can view all cards in the game at the website below, hover the cursor over
each card name to see a picture of it come up. It may be helpful to view this
while reading my guide.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/duelsoftheplaneswalkers.aspx?x=mtg/digital
/d12/decks
If you want to discuss this guide on the official Duels of the Planeswalkers
forum, there is a topic for it here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27971365/My_new_Duels_2012_gu
ide?pg=15
Or send me a message: robvalue (at) yahoo.com
I'd love to hear how you get on using my guide and decklists!
o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o
>> INFO: I am in the process of adding the new cards and decks from DLC1.
Please note that at present I don't own the DLC, so I am giving my comments
purely based on viewing the available cards. I hope my commentary may still be
useful, but please take that into account. I am refusing to purchase any DLC
until there have been significant efforts to fix the high number of bugs in the
game. I hope you understand.
o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o
===============================================================================
Differences between D09 and D12
===============================================================================
> * Improved graphics and user interface. Much more of play area is visible
as the "turn bar" which shows what phase you are in is much smaller and is near
the life total for each player.
> * New cards and new decks. Not every card is new, but a good percentage
are. Out of the ten decks you can play, eight of them are roughly based on
decks from D09 but are far from carbon copies. Many have had quite a makeover.
Two are brand new original decks, for new Planeswalkers Kiora Atua and Koth.
Also Karn appears as the new non-playable boss, and Gideon Jura takes over the
role of primary white Planeswalker.
> * Core deck editing! You can now remove cards from the core deck after
adding unlocked cards. This means you have much more control of your deck and
can personalize it, taking it in many different directions. It also means that
for some multicoloured decks you can cut out some of the colours completely by
removing all cards of that colour. Lands in your deck are calculated
automatically, and corresponding lands disappear if you take out all cards of a
colour.
> * Large amounts of bugs and issues have been fixed. Props to Wizards and
Stainless, they seem to have pretty much taken into account everything on my
bug list for cards in this game. Only a few coding issues remain, and Wizards
seem much more determined to sort things out this time round. Update- in fact
there is quite a large number of bugs that have come to light, I have a section
for this near the end of the guide now.
> * Archenemy mode! You and two other players (or AI players if you are on
your own) team up against one super-powered opponent who gets to use a card
from a seperate oversized deck every turn for free. Cards from this deck
(called Schemes) are extremely potent and can swing the momentum of the game
hugely. They also get 40 life.
> * You can now play Two Headed Giant online with a team mate who is not
physically sat next to you.
> * In my opinion the decks are much more balanced. I would rate Blood Hunger
as the best, and Strength of Stone as the worst, and the others somewhere in
the middle. The spread is not as great as before.
> * There has been new terminology introduced for the Magic 2012 core set,
which has been implemented in this game. The phrase "When this creature
dies..." is now shorthand for "When this creature is put into the graveyard
from the battlefield..."
> * In general, the decks feel more coherent with less sore thumbs.
> * Deathtouch has been corrected when facing multiple blockers. Only 1
damage has to be put on each blocker now from a creature with deathtouch. If
the creature also has trample, remaining damage can be assigned to the
opponent. This is now in line with the main Magic rules.
===============================================================================
Getting started
===============================================================================
Most of what I've written in "Improving your playing skills" will help you get
started with this game. The options set up is virtually identical, and I
recommend following the same configuration as before.
You do not now have the option of using custom duel as an easy option to unlock
cards, since it won't let you change the starting life totals and hand sizes as
in D09. But you can win cards by repeatedly beating the same opponent over and
over in campaign mode (or custom duel), with difficulty set to Mage if you want
to do so as fast as possible. This makes the AI play badly, and doesn't stack
the deck in their favour like it does on higher difficulties. To have a one on
one duel outside of campaign, select Custom Duel from the main menu, then Free
For All, and pick just one AI opponent before starting the duel.
I found the easiest opponents to unlock cards against are:
Koth: Probably the weakest overall deck. Has few flying creatures, good for
decks with lots of fliers and/or strong creatures.
Jace: Lots of Illusion creatures that die when they are targeted by a spell or
ability. Any deck that has lots of ways to target (even with things that don't
normally kill creatures like helpful Auras) can exploit this.
To save time, if a duel is going badly or you have had to mulligan several
times, just pause the game and select Restart Duel. The AI doesn't mind! It's
quicker to play out your stronger hands and not spend a lot of time on the
defensive, if you just want to get the cards most quickly.
Every time you win a duel with a deck, you unlock a new card for it. It's best
to then go back to the Deck Manager on the main menu, and see if you actually
want that card in your deck! If you don't like it, take it out right away. If
you do, then choose your weakest card and remove that to keep your deck at 60
cards. Refer to my individual deck guides to help you decide what to keep and
what to take out. Take out cards I list as "bad" from your core deck as soon as
possible, and don't add any that you unlock. Add in all the cards I list as
"good", and even "OK" ones if they can replace something worse. If you're
beating up on the same opponent again and again to unlock cards, you can alter
your deck accordingly. For example you may include life gain cards against
direct damage, or remove artifact control against a deck with no artifacts.
Sometimes you unlock multiple copies of a card at once, in which case remove
the same number of cards if you wish to keep them in. The golden rule for
having a good deck is always, always stay at 60 cards. If you are taking things
seriously, this is the way to proceed. My 15+ years of Magic have taught me
this time and time again. There are several reasons for this:
> * The fewer cards you have, the more consistent your draws will be. You
have a better idea of what you expect to draw, and will see each card the
maximum amount of the time.
> * Each card you add over 60 effectively decreases the number of every other
card in the deck. All you are doing is diluting your deck and spreading your
power across it. And if you instead choose and remove the weakest cards, you
achieve the most potent combination. A lot of cards in this game are simply
much better than others, and you only want the best available.
> * You will more regularly get the amount of land you need, and the right
colours, with fewer cards. A draw with too little or too much land is much more
likely to self-correct in a smaller deck.
You will find that initially victories can be difficult as the core decks
contain a lot of poor cards, but as you manage each win it will get easier and
easier with that deck as you add in powerful unlocks and remove the weaker core
cards.
You unlock decks as you progress through the campaign as before, by beating
certain opponents. You get all the decks in the initial campaign, the Archenemy
and Revenge parts do not give you any extras. You only have to beat each
opponent once to progress and get the decks, but to get cards you can play any
of them as many times as you want.
As Koth is the first opponent, you may find it a good idea to repeatedly beat
him with one of the two starting decks and unlock all its cards. You should
then sail through the campaign quite easily with either of them. You will find
it easiest with Wielding Steel, being the stronger of the two. You may wish to
switch to Realm of Illusion or Blood Hunger when they become available as they
are in my opinion the strongest. You can go back to beating up Koth to earn
cards for them. For the boss Karn, I found the best decks to use are Ancient
Depths or Realm of Illusion for their bouncing and stealing, or Wielding Steel
for lots of tapping. If anyone's having any more trouble with any of the
campaign, please let me know and I'll offer help! Note that you will have
unlocked all the available decks once you've beaten Nissa Revane and Sorin
Markov in the standard campaign.
When unlocking cards for each of the decks, I suggest repeatedly taking on the
opponent as detailed below as being the past of least resistance if beating up
Koth isn't working out:
Unquenchable Fire: Machinations. You should have no trouble burning out his
more important little creatures and preventing metalcraft bonus. He doesn't
have a lot of kill spells to stop your creatures.
Apex Predators: Unquenchable Fire. Your bigger creatures should prove too much
for Chandra to keep burning up, and your hexproofs are easy gamewinners.
Wielding Steel: Realm of Illusion. Gideon's Lawkeeper and Kor Hookmaster can
easily wipe out the Illusions that die by being targeted. Being even quicker
than Jace, you should outspeed him, along with your equipment providing
bonuses.
Realm of Illusion: Ancient Depths. By the time Kiora gets going, you'll
probably have a huge army of unblockable and flying creatures. She doesn't do
much to intefere with your growing Illusion population. You can counter any
really big spells she builds up to later on.
Ancient Depths: Apex Predators. You should be able to stall all the ground
creatures long enough to get to your big spells, and Apex is surprisingly slow
off the mark.
Strength of Stone: Apex Predators. Koth's Courier has forestwalk, when pumped
up she will end the game quickly. Also it has no answer to a creature enchanted
with Claws of Valakut.
Guardians of the Wood: Ancient Depths. Kiora won't interfere much with you
building up a fast army of Elves and you should be able to overwhelm her before
she gets going too much. Your Heedless Ones will get huge fast, and they even
count Kiora's Coiling Oracle's for more bonus, since they have Elf in their
creature type!
Dragon's Roar: Apex predators. You can hold off the ground creatures with
Goblins and Scorpions until your Dragons dominate his poor flying defense.
Blood Hunger: Strength of Stone. Stick with beating on Koth here. Your
creatures are far superior, and you have more creature removal. Your plentiful
life gain stops him winning with direct damage easily.
Machinations: Ancient Depths. You have lots of cheap fliers, they are lethal
against Depths. It has almost no way to defend against them, and Steel Overseer
makes the job even quicker.
For the Archenemy campaign, you can pick both your deck and both your AI
partners' decks if you are playing on your own. I suggest either all 3 playing
Blood Hunger, or picking the AI to both be Blood Hunger and you pick Ancient
Depths. Depths has some great cards which will help both your allies in this
mode: New Frontiers and Edric, Spymaster of Trest. See the Depths section for
more hints on those cards.
The Revenge campaign is the same as the original campaign, but the opponents
now have a few different cards in their deck which you can't unlock at present,
generally making them a bit harder. I suggest using Blood Hunger for this
campaign, and again Ancient Depths, Realm of Illusion or Wielding Steel for
Karn at the end.
===============================================================================
Choosing your deck for online play
===============================================================================
You will get enjoyment playing with every deck, and by doing so you learn about
how each of them works and will then be able to play better against them. I
highly recommend doing this.
If you would prefer to stick with one deck, at least initially, then there are
several things to consider. I have split them into the following categories for
simplicity. I have overgeneralised, but it is a good starting point.
Power: The decks are better balanced this time, but some are still stronger
than others. They all have a chance, but in the long run some tend to do better
and some worse, even with skilful play. I have split them into high (most
powerful), medium (average) and low (weaker).
Difficulty: This is the amount of experience and skill needed to play the deck
well. Of course every deck will perform better with more skilful play, but some
decks are much more likely to go totally wrong if you make some bad decisions.
I have labelled such decks as high, the rest as low. Those somewhere inbetween
I've labelled medium.
Mana Problems: This is how likely you are to run into problems with the land
you draw, either by not drawing enough or in multicolour decks not drawing the
right types of land. High indicates a lot of risk of this, medium means less of
a risk, and low means fairly safe. For Machinations and Dragon's Roar, I put
two difficulties depending on whether you play 1-, 2- or 3- colours.
Strategy: The decks vary in how they play, and they may work better or worse
for you depending on your play style. Generally speaking decks are either
aggressive, which means they go for the throat and try to win quickly, or
defensive, in which case they play more for the long term by controlling the
game. I have split the decks into these categories, adding 'very' to the
extreme cases. Choose one which fits your own play style.
Nemesis: The deck that exploits its weaknesses the most, the hardest one for it
to play against.
+============+============+============+============+============+============+
| | Power | Difficulty | Mana | Strategy | Nemesis |
| | | | problems | | |
+============+============+============+============+============+============+
| Blood | high | low | low | very | Unquenchab |
| Hunger | | | | aggressive | le Fire |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Realm of | high | high | low | aggressive | Wielding |
| Illusion | | | | | Steel |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Unquenchab | high | low | low | defensive | Wielding |
| le Fire | | | | | Steel |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Wielding | high | mid | low | very | Guardians |
| Steel | | | | aggressive | of the |
| | | | | | Wood |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Guardians | medium | low | medium | very | Unquenchab |
| of the | | | | aggressive | le Fire |
| Wood | | | | | |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Ancient | medium | high | medium | very | Machinatio |
| Depths | | | | defensive | ns |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Machinatio | medium | mid | 3-high | aggressive | Unquenchab |
| ns | | | 2-medium | | le Fire |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Apex | low | low | low | very | Strength |
| Predators | | | | aggressive | of Stone |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Dragon's | low | low | 2-high | aggressive | Blood |
| Roar | | | 1-low | | Hunger |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| Strength | low | low | low | defensive | Blood |
| of Stone | | | | | Hunger |
+============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
===============================================================================
Deck building and playing strategies
===============================================================================
Below I will discuss each of the ten playable decks. I will split all the
available cards into three groups, according to my opinion of them:
> * Good- The better cards in the selection. This is either because they are
very powerful card in their own right, or they fit and complement the deck in
general very well. These should be highly considered for every decklist.
> * OK- A decent card for providing support, filling holes, and rounding out
themes, but does not excel. Some powerful cards will drop to just OK because
they don't fit particularly well in the deck.
> * Bad- The poorer cards in the selection, either just because they are
awful or they are totally in the wrong kind of deck. I recommend avoiding all
these cards unless you have a particular reason to include them in a deck
design.
Under each heading, I have also put the cards for each deck in roughly what I
consider to be order of power and usefulness. So the very best cards are are at
the beginning of the "good" section, and the worst at the bottom of the "bad".
Those near the top of "OK" are often going to be serious contenders and
necessary to round out a deck.
Don't assume that sticking all the good cards together is always going to be
the best deck. You may find that two cards are competing for the same mana cost
slot, and it doesn't always make sense to include both. There are also many
other factors to consider when putting together your 60 cards:
Mana curve
You want a reasonable spread over different mana costs throughout your deck.
Too many cheap cards will leave you lacking in power late game; too many
expensive ones can clog up your hand early on. Too many spells of the same mana
cost can cause a bottleneck, where you can't cast a group of them in your hand
until you hit that much mana, and are left casting them after your mana has
gone to higher amounts, or they get left behind as you go up the curve.
Generally the more land and land-fetching cards in the deck, the more you
should move the distribution towards higher mana cost cards. A smooth mana
curve is most important for creatures than for other spells, as you tend to
cast creatures right away and more often hold other spells back. But a range of
other spell costs is good too. You can press Y when in the deck manager to see
an overall graph of your mana costs.
Synergy
The cards in a deck don't exist in a vacuum, they must cooperate with every
other card in the deck. This doesn't mean they have to all be part of "combos",
but they should be making each other stronger whenever possible. Look for
little ways in which cards can help each other, and that work well together.
Theme
The deck as a whole should have some sort of purpose, a way in which it plays
to achieve victory. This could be such things as aggression, direct damage,
fast mana, using certain creature types, etc. Decks may have a mix several
different themes. Try to make sure that every card is pulling in the same
direction and achieving what you want from your overall plan and themes. A card
that may usually be very good on its own may prove much less useful if it
doesn't fit in with what you're trying to do with the deck. With core card
removal each deck can be taken in some different directions, so for your
particular build think what you're trying to do.
Be sure to test your deck thoroughly, since what looks good on paper sometimes
doesn't pan out in a game. Don't be too hasty to make changes, don't let one
bad deal make you give up on a card. Give it a few games at least, and see how
the deck is working together. Then go back to your deck manager and see what
you have learned, and how you can improve your deck. Make as few changes at a
time as possible, as it will be easiest to see whether or not this is an
improvement.
The decklists I offer are not meant to be "the best", they are just an example
of what I have come up with during my experience with the game, and to provide
a starting point for those who are overwhelmed by all the different choices.
They have been working well for me in testing, but everyone's play style is
different and you may find particular cards don't work so well for you. Allow
your creativity to flow and build on the decks, taking them in your own
direction. To help build them quickly, I've included the list of cards you need
to exclude under each decklist.
I have included the lands in the decklists for completeness. You don't need to
chose lands for your decks, they are calculated automatically based on the
cards you pick. If you use the cards I suggest, you will get the amount of land
I show. The only exception so far is Machinations, where you can put in up to 3
Terramorphic Expanse to help you search for other lands. These are chosen from
your list along with the spells.
Note that when I refer to things such as "artifact control" I mean "the ability
to deal with artifacts on the battlefield". Also, I have discussed the
life-gain artifacts and why I hate them in my Improving your Playing Skills
guide, so please see that for why I dismiss these cards. I won't repeat it all
here, I'll just write "I hate life gain!"
===============================================================================
Chandra Nalaar - Unquenchable Fire
===============================================================================
Summary
This is an aggressive mono red direct damage deck, loosely based on Heat of
Battle from D09. It has also borrowed the Kiln Fiends and Wheel of Fortune from
Root of the Firemind, but only has one Pyroclasm now. It's a nasty deck that
can deal a lot of damage quickly, and can often finish you off from quite a
high life total with direct damage.
Strategy
The aim of this deck is to do a lot of quick damage with creatures, using
damage spells to remove blockers, and get the opponent into a range where
direct damage can finish them off. Kiln Fiends are huge early on, as they can
provide an extra 3 damage each time you burn out a blocker on your turn. If
things are going badly, you use your creatures and spells to kill the biggest
creature threats until you can get something good into play. Don't use your
direct damage spells immediately on the opponent unless you feel you have
enough to finish them off in short order. It's usually best to save them to
have the option of killing creatures, both to keep yourself alive and to remove
blockers to do repetitive damage with your own creatures. You can always use
them later on the opponent when they are closer to death. Your creatures are
pretty much expendable as far as getting your opponent's life total down is
concerned, they don't need to get it all the way there. Sometimes you can make
bad trades just to keep the damage getting through if you have more creatures
on the table.
Pros
> * Huge amounts of direct damage to kill creatures and hurt players
> * Nice creatures that interact well with the deck's other spells
> * Potential to finish players from high life totals with a combination of
direct damage cards
> * Punishes life gain with Punishing Fire
> * Mono deck so no colour problems
Cons
> * No artifact or enchantment control
> * Few evasion creatures
> * Can struggle against huge creatures as it relies on direct damage to kill
them
Example decklist
24 Mountains
Creatures (17)
2 Goblin Arsonist
3 Kiln Field
1 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Fiery Hellhound
1 Prodigal Pyromancer
1 Flametongue Kavu
2 Fire Elemental
1 Fire Servant
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Inferno Titan
Other spells (19)
1 Banefire
1 Blaze
2 Flame Slash
2 Incinerate
2 Punishing Fire
1 Pyroclasm
4 Volcanic Hammer
1 Wheel of Fortune
3 Chandra's Outrage
1 Lava Axe
1 Flame Wave
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Cinder Wall
2 Flamekin Brawler
3 Dragon's Claw
2 Goblin War Paint
2 Sizzle
1 Relentless Assault
2 Lava Axe
2 Ember Shot
Alternate super speed decklist
24 Mountains
Creatures (19)
2 Flamekin Brawler
2 Goblin Arsonist
3 Kiln Field
1 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Fiery Hellhound
1 Prodigal Pyromancer
1 Flametongue Kavu
2 Fire Elemental
1 Fire Servant
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Inferno Titan
Other spells (17)
1 Banefire
1 Blaze
2 Flame Slash
2 Incinerate
2 Punishing Fire
1 Pyroclasm
4 Volcanic Hammer
1 Wheel of Fortune
3 Chandra's Outrage
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Cinder Wall
3 Dragon's Claw
2 Goblin War Paint
2 Sizzle
1 Relentless Assault
3 Lava Axe
2 Ember Shot
1 Flame Wave
This focuses more on creatures and speed with Flamekin Brawlers, and less on
reliance on bigger mana spells. Later in the game the Brawlers can still pack a
mean punch. However this list runs the risk of crossover redundancy from
Brawlers and Hellhounds. If your opponent is killing your creatures regularly
though, this won't be a problem!
DLC 1 cards
Volcanic Fallout: This is an excellent weenie sweeper, being extra useful being
both an Instant and uncounterable. This makes it highly effective against Realm
of Illusion and Machinations in particular, although it is great in almost any
matchup. Because it doesn't target anything it gets around shroud and hexproof.
Like all sweepers, try and save it for the moment you can get most out of it.
This may mean taking out some of your own guys, but it's worth it if you can
kill more of the opponent's. Being instant speed, you can use it in response to
a Giant Growth on a 2/2 for example to kill not only that creature but all
other 2 toughness or less creatures at the same time. If you have enough mana,
you can combine it with other instant speed spells like Incinerate to take out
a larger creature along with the smaller ones. The 2 damage to both players can
be considered incidental, but since you will often have a lot of other direct
damage, you can use this as part of your finishing blow when the situation
arises.
-Recommendation: Must include. For my first decklist, replace Lava Axe which is
easily the weakest card in the list. For my second decklist, replace a Fire
Elemental, which is a little slow and lumbering for the fast strategy.
Insurrection: This is a huge effect, but for 1 on 1 play, it's just too
expensive. At eight mana, on average you expect 13 turns to pass before having
enough land to cast it. That's a long time to wait if it's in your opening
hand. Even if you do eventually get the mana for it, your general strategy is
to flame away anything the opponent puts on the battlefield so it's unlikely
there will be much to take. If you are failing to do this, you'll likely have
lost by that stage. In multiplayer formats it is more playable, where you will
have longer to build up your land supply and more players to steal creatures
from. It could easily win you the game in one turn in the right situation,
particularly a stalemate.
-Recommendation: Don't include.
Flame Rift: This is a really bad card in my opinion, at least in this game. It
does an efficient amount of damage to the opponent for its cost, but although
the deck has a lot of direct damage, it doesn't have enough that you can rely
on this as a finisher. It's not only pointless if you are losing, but would
even help your opponent by hurting yourself. Being unable to target creatures
makes it inflexible, and its cheap cost is kind of pointless since you wouldn't
cast this until the opponent is nearly dead anyhow. If you are the Archenemy,
this would be more worthwhile as you can hit all your 3 opponent's for 4 damage
each. I wouldn't recommend it for Two Headed Giant as it still does as much
damage to your team as the opponents and suffers from the same drawbacks. It
could be used as a way to finish off multiple struggling players in free for
all.
-Recommendation: Don't include.
Good cards
Wheel of Fortune: This really needs a new category of it's own; broken. I think
it was a mistake to include cards like this in the game, they are unbalancing.
But here it is! It's now in the right deck as well unlike in D09, making it
even more scary. The important part is not so much drawing 7 cards each, as
both players discarding their whole hand. If you use this when your opponent
has more cards in hand than you, you gain card advantage by using this. At it's
best, if the opponent has 7 cards in hand and this is your last card, they
discard 7 cards and you discard none, this has given you a 6 card advantage
(you used the Wheel for this effect) making it especially effective against
slow decks. So always try to use this when your opponent has more cards. Late
in the game if you have a lot of mana you can use it regardless, expecting to
be able to cast a lot of burn spells that you draw to finish off your opponent,
or crazily pump up a Kiln Fiend. As this deck is so fast, you will normally
have less cards in your hand than your opponent, and if you have this in hand
at the start of the game you may wish to empty your hand super-fast to get
maximum advantage from this.
Banefire: Damage spells that deal unlimited amounts depending on mana input are
always powerful. This is one is especially useful for its extra ability. It
means that you kill a big creature or finish off your opponent without worrying
about counterspells. The "damage can't be prevented" part isn't going to be
relevant very much in this game, as they don't include many damage prevention
spells or abilities. Creatures killed by this can still be regenerated. You
should usually save this for killing big creatures that can be out of reach of
your other small direct damage, or as part of a big finish, especially after
using instants on your opponent at the end of their turn before you untap. Note
that X spells can be cast with X=0, just to kill Illusions, or pump up your
Kiln Fiends cheaply.
Blaze: This is just the same as Banefire, but without the extra bonus.
Certainly worth including as well.
Incinerate: All the way from Ice Age, it's one of the best direct damage spells
ever. It does efficient damage for it's cost, at instant speed, and stops
regeneration. It doesn't have to kill a creature outright to stop regeneration,
as soon as a creature has been hit by this it can't regenerate that turn so you
can finish it off in other ways. Take advantage of this being an instant. You
can use it in response to Giant Growth, to kill the creature before it gets
pumped and take out 2 cards for 1, and in all sorts of similar situations. It's
often best used during combat, it can suddenly make a blocker disappear when
the opponent has ganged up 2 blockers on your big creature, allowing your
creature to survive.
Flame Slash: Insanely efficient, and even though it's just against creatures,
the sheer power of this card is worth it. Save this for your opponent's medium
size creatures, often they will have to spend a lot of mana getting out a
creature with 4 toughness and you gain momentum by taking it out for just 1
mana.
Pyroclasm: This is your best sweeper spell, and a "panic button" against a
weenie assault. If your opponent has got off to a quick start with lots of
small creatures, after waiting as long as possible to lure more creatures onto
the board, cast this and reset the game, gaining lots of card advantage. Don't
worry about killing your own creatures as long as you kill more of your
opponent's. It can also help get rid of a big creature at the same time in
combination with another spell, for example use this to clear the weenies then
hit the remaining 6 toughness creature with Flame Slash to finish it off.
Volcanic Hammer: An obviously weaker version of Incinerate, but still efficient
and worth including. Use this before Incinerate when you have a choice, to save
the better card for later. Being a sorcery there are much less tricks you can
do with it.
Inferno Titan: This guy is huge, and with his immediate damage he gets you card
advantage even if he is killed right away. It makes you pick 3 targets, and
then does 1 to each of them, but you can pick the same target more than once.
Usually you'll want to cast this as soon as you can, taking out whatever
creatures you can, and putting the remaining damage onto your opponent. If they
can't deal with it they are probably going to lose very quickly as you continue
to either hack their creatures down or burn their face when you attack! And as
if that wasn't enough, you can pump up his attack up as well.
Flametongue Kavu: This is an awesome creature, having stats that are a decent
threat while taking out anything up to a 4 toughness creature for free. Don't
cast it however if the opponent has no creatures, as you will be forced to
target one of yours! Think of this as a Flame Slash with an added creature. It
usually swings the momentum of the game heavily. If things are going badly for
you, just cast it as soon as you can and kill the best thing possible, then you
have another blocker to help keep you alive.
Flameblast Dragon: If you can get this out and keep it out, usually you will
easily win the game. Being a big flying creature he is hard to stop, and every
attack you can usually kill a creature. Unless you can finish off the opponent
in very short order, I'd recommend using his ability to hit a creature each
time. This is hard for the opponent to come back from, and clears the way for
your other attackers. He is not as useful on defence as he can't use his
ability, but he can still block and kill most creatures in the game, providing
a lot of cover until you are in a position to attack again.
Prodigal Pyromancer: A 'pinger', a 'Tim', what do you call him? You will always
be happy to see this guy, his ability to do 1 damage to a specific target every
turn is really powerful. He can be used to pick off 1 toughness creatures, or
to provide extra damage after one of your spells to kill a large creature. When
you have attacked, he can finish off any creature that requires just 1 more
damage. Unless you are removing blockers, it's best to not use him in your
turn, and wait to see what your opponent does on their turn. You can always use
it near the end of their turn with no penalty if no other interesting
possibilities arise, hitting the opponent if there's nothing you can kill. Keep
him out of combat whenever possible as his ability is far too valuable to lose
him.
Punishing Fire: You can generally use this as a less powerful Incinerate, with
the same strategies. But it comes into its own in any situation where the
opponent gains life. I have found a great way to use this card is cast it in
response to a spell or ability that will give your opponent life. (You may need
to turn auto resolution off to make best use of the timing for this). Your
spell resolves first, and then when their ability resolves, you can pay one
mana to get this card back. You can then use it again that turn if need be!
This way you can take out a 4 toughness creature with this one card by
piggy-backing your opponent's life gain. It's great against lifelink creatures,
sometimes turning them into a liability. If a lifelink creature is going to
deal damage, cast this in the blocker's phase before damage is dealt, then when
the lifelink guy hits you will get the chance to restock this and use it again!
Chandra's Phoenix: I love this creature, it seems almost unfair. It fits the
aggressive nature of the deck perfectly, being able to smash away for 2 damage
every turn, including the one you cast it. You'll usually want to keep up the
pressure with this guy, using your ground creatures for defence if need be.
You'll normally want to kill any big fliers the opponent casts as general
strategy anyway, which clears the way for him to continue. He can suicidally
attack even if the opponent has a big flier, as you will probably have an
instant or sorcery to do the rest of the damage after combat if it gets
blocked. When the opponent has finally stemmed the bleeding and killed it, all
you have to do is hit them directly with a damage spell and he's back to your
hand ready to be cast again. Or use Chandra's Outrage on one of their
creatures, and the side-effect damage will get the Pheonix back.
Chandra's Outrage: This is a bit expensive, but still effective. Again make use
of the fact that it's an instant to full advantage. The 2 damage dealt to your
opponent is very helpful for this deck. When you can spare the mana for this,
use this ahead of other direct damage to kill a creature so that you retain
your cheaper ones for crucial situations later.
Fiery Hellhound: Although 2/2 for 3 isn't that good, his ability to pump up
indefinitely makes him a scary creature for the opponent to be looking at. If
there's no blockers you can do as much damage as you like, and even if there
are, he can usually be pumped up to kill whatever blocks him. It's not always
best to pump him up as much as you can; if it's just to do damage, put what you
can spare into him, but continue to cast other creatures to develop your
position. Of course the closer the opponent is to death, the more important it
is to get damage through, and you can do so without having to use any further
cards. This saves them for the big finish. Usually your opponent either has to
spend a card taking this guy out or swap it for a big creature, as you'll
likely burn away any smaller ones that could stop him. Otherwise, they'll be
snacking on hellfire and dead pretty quickly.
Kiln Fiend: Borrowed from the Firemind deck in D09, these fit in perfectly
here. The deck is full of instants and sorceries to fire him up. Often the
strategy for this deck revolves around getting this out, and then using spells
to kill each blocker that appears, pumping this up to 4/2. Keeping this up for
even a few turns is devastating and will probably put the opponent into serious
worries about being finished off easily with direct damage. You can pull some
tricks off with him too, if he blocks or is blocked by a 7/7 creature say, in
the blockers phase Incinerate the 7/7. This puts your Fiend up to 4/2, which is
enough to fell the foul beast!
Goblin Arsonist: This is the perfect 1 drop for this deck, he needs no further
investment and is almost guaranteed to end up doing his damage to something.
Hopefully early on he can attack freely for a bit of damage, and as soon as
other creatures turn up he can still make a nuisance of himself. If the
opponent has cast a 2/2, you can attack with this, and if they block you can
use his ability after he dies to finish off the 2/2. Of course his ability can
also pick off any 1 toughness creature, or if there's nothing better just hit
the opponent. You can combine it with your spells to take down a bigger
creature too. If the opponent has a 1/1 creature with a good ability, by
keeping this on defence you make the opponent unlikely to attack since you can
block with this and then kill their 1/1! Currently the best choice for a 1 drop
in my book.
Fire Servant: Although his stats are not very good for his cost, his ability is
awesome in this deck. It's not hard to finish your opponent with direct damage
anyhow, and this makes it even easier. X spells become double X, Incinerate
becomes 6 damage, it's all rather crazy. This also makes it much easier to kill
big creatures as damage to them is doubled too from your sorceries and
instants. You have no shortage of these, and he can also be applying some beats
while you remove blockers. Keep him alive unless you desperately need to block
with him to save yourself.
Flamekin Brawler: This is very nice for 1 mana, 2 toughness is notable and
helpful against initial weenies, and unlimited pump from turn 1 sounds great. I
have found in my testing that he is not as effective as I had hoped though.
Firstly, on turn 2 I almost always want to spend my mana either on another
creature like Kiln Fiend, or on some burn to kill something. Rarely am I happy
to spend 2 mana just to do 2 damage, it's not very efficient at such an early
stage. And also he is heavily competing with the similar Fiery Hellhound. As
soon as you get one of those out as well, this becomes almost redundant, except
for being able to split the mana between them. As this deck is always hungry
for mana, I'd rather rely on the 4 Hellhounds which can do some damage even if
I can't spare mana, and to leave these guys out. He's worth considering for a
speedy build though, and has the flexibility to provide a lot of punch for a
small creature later in the game. For a speed compromise, you could go with 2
of these and 2 Hellhounds, for example.
OK cards
Flame Wave: 7 mana is a stretch for this deck, which is why I don't rate this
card higher, but I think this is just about worth it. It's one card that will
make a real difference in a long game or a stalemate situation. It will most
likely win you the game right away, knocking your opponent further into direct
damage range and removing probably a lot of blockers at once. The game can go
on a bit if you are burning out lots of creatures and your creatures are being
killed too. But a case could certainly be made for leaving it out and
concentrating more on speed.
Fire Elemental: He's not amazing, but there are very few 5 mana creatures
available at the moment and he's good enough. The 5 power is too much for the
opponent to ignore with the amount of firepower you have in this deck.
Lava Axe: It's a reasonable amount of damage for the mana, and for a total burn
strategy is a reasonable finisher. But I personally do not get along with cards
like this, simply because they are inflexible. They are only any good if you
are winning, and don't affect the board at all. If you're losing, this pretty
much does nothing at all. I prefer to stick to cards that can kill creatures
too, as they are always useful. You can't assume you will always be winning!
For now I have included just one copy for lack of a better card.
Relentless Assault: This is quite a cool card, but doesn't work as well in the
deck as I initially thought. The Kiln Fiends will only get the bonus once since
you cast it after the first combat, and it won't help clear blockers. And it
doesn't combine well with Flamekin Brawler or Fiery Hellhound as it takes mana
away from them.
Goblin War Paint: This is an alright Aura, but suffers from the usual problem
of possibly losing both cards to one kill-spell. At least the haste means you
will often get some damage in before that can happen, especially if the
opponent is tapped out. I feel that the deck doesn't need this for one on one,
the creatures are strong enough and I'd prefer to have direct damage to back
them up.
Bad cards
Cinder Wall: I feel this deck is too aggressive to be mucking about with walls.
It has 4 aggressive one drops, and I would much rather have any of them than
this. It can never damage your opponent, and can't be used offensively to
remove blockers. It also is never a surprise.
Dragon's Claw: I hate life gain!
Ember Shot: I don't know why this was brought across from D09, it must have
been the butt of the most jokes of all the cards. It's hideously overpriced,
and 7 mana is a lot for this deck anyhow. Flame Wave is a much better choice.
Avoid!
Sizzle: In one on one, this is totally stupid. 3 Damage for 3 mana is poor, and
it can't hit creatures either. This isn't any good for Archenemy either, unless
you were the Archenemy which isn't possible at the moment! It's only use would
be in Two Headed Giant, where it would hit both opponents for a total of 6
damage.
===============================================================================
Garruk Wildspeaker - Apex Predators
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a mono green aggressive creature deck based loosely on Teeth of the
Predator from D09. It has lost all parts of the Troll Ascetic/Blanchwood
Armor/Loxodon Warhammer combo, which I am personally glad of, but has become
much more well rounded with a stronger creature base instead of relying almost
entirely on that one combo. It does however have some new creatures with "troll
shroud", which has been given the new name hexproof, meaning you can target it</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
with spells and abilities but your opponent cannot. Note that hexproof and
shroud do not stop a creature being countered while being cast. This deck still
uses 2 Overrun as big finishers, and has gained a little creature control with
2 Serrated Arrows and some cards that let you draw multiple creatures at once
from your deck.
Strategy
This deck relies entirely on creature damage to win. You want to get out as
many creatures are possible, as fast as possible, and keep the pressure on.
Giant Growth can help you break through against bigger creatures, as can
Elephant Guide. It is often better not to trade creatures if you have the
choice, unless it helps you get more damage through in short order. This is
because if you draw an Overrun, the more creatures you have the better, as they
all get the +3/+3 and trample. This is what you will rely on late game and in
stalemates to get your win. The deck does have some excellent higher mana
creatures which can break through as well. If things are going badly, Cudgel
Troll is an excellent blocker, having 4 power and being able to regenerate. You
also have Serrated Arrows to pick off weenies if you are getting overwhelmed,
to fix fights in your favour or stop the bleeding to some extent from a flier
that is beating you up.
Pros
> * Some of the most efficient creatures, some of which are hard to counter
or kill
> * Mana acceleration from Nature's Lore and extra land from Borderland
Ranger
> * Excellent surprise value and fight fixing from Giant Growth
> * Good ways of drawing cards and adding more creatures from your deck
> * Mono deck so no colour problems
Cons
> * No artifact or enchantment control
> * Little creature control
> * Vulnerable against fliers
> * Relies entirely on creatures to win
Example decklist
24 Forest
Creatures (24)
2 Garruk's Companion
2 Runeclaw Bear
3 Borderland Ranger
2 Centaur Courser
1 Dungrove Elder
1 Leatherback Baloth
2 Cudgel Troll
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Wolfbriar Elemental
2 Garruk's Packleader
2 Stomper Cub
1 Craw Wurm
1 Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
1 Terra Stomper
1 Engulfing Slagwurm
1 Gaea's Revenge
Other spells (12)
3 Giant Growth
2 Nature's Lore
1 Elephant Guide
2 Lead the Stampede
2 Serrated Arrows
2 Overrun
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Wall of Vines
3 Grazing Gladehart
2 Rites of Flourishing
2 Beast Hunt
2 Giant Spider
1 Hunted Wumpus
3 Hunters' Feast
1 Craw Wurm
DLC 1 cards
Heartwood Storyteller: Although 2/3 for 3 mana is not great especially for
green, its ability to help you draw cards can give you a way of recovering from
your creatures getting blown up, and dissuade the opponent from casting other
spells. Since this deck has the highest proportion of creature to non creature
spells, you can expect to draw more cards than your opponent. A deck that wants
to kill your creatures will most likely target this one first, to stop you
continually drawing cards. You will draw a card for the spell they use on it,
making this essentially a free card in that situation as well as having drawn
out the kill spell early. If they won't or can't kill it, they will have to
think very seriously about what else they cast. Although I feel Apex Predators
got a raw deal out of the DLC, this is a reasonably good card and can help the
general strategy. Obviously it will be more efficient the less non-creature
spells you include in the deck. This can be considered a priority play as soon
as you have the mana for it, unless you plan to use some non-creature spells
soon, in which case use them first. It will get a bit ridiculous in multiplayer
formats, but if you are the Archenemy this will be amazing as you will draw
cards for all of your 3 opponent's non-creature spells.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace both Lead the Stampede. Their random
element makes them unreliable, and removing them will help improve the
efficiency of the Storyteller.
Fresh Meat: Again not as strong as I would have hoped for this deck, but this
offers you another way of recovering from heavy losses. This is likely to be
most useful in the mid/late game, where you are able to keep 4 lands available
for this and to wait for the right moment. That may be when the opponent plays
a sweeper on you killing multiple creatures, or during a heavy combat phase
where both sides take a lot of casualties. Either way, you can restock your
troops with the considerably sized tokens. Note that this card will count token
creatures that went into your graveyard, even though they don't stay there,
such as those from Wolfbriar Elemental. This card is currently heavily bugged,
see the "bugs and issues" section.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace Craw Wurm, easily the worst card in the
list.
Copperhoof Vorrac: This is rather an oddball creature, and quite hard to
evaluate. His effectiveness is going to vary wildly depending on the situation
in each game. I still think that on average he's going to provide better stats
for his mana cost than Stomper Cub, which is an underperformer of the deck. You
will have to watch out for your opponent taking advantage of his ability by
tapping lots of their permanents during combat. If they tap 3 lands to cast an
Instant for example, he will suddenly drop by 3 power and toughness. If you can
keep your opponent on the defensive, this card is going to work quite well. For
each untapped creature they keep for defense, he gets bigger and bigger. And
they may have to consider not playing as much land as they would like, for fear
of leaving it unused and pumping up your guy.
Recommendation: Probably worth playing. Replace a Stomper Cub, whose low
toughness really lets him down for his mana cost.
Good cards
Terra Stomper: This is insanely efficient and easily your best high mana
creature. It's stats are terrific, trample makes it hard to stop and not being
able to be countered makes it a headache for blue as well. For those of you who
remember Force of Nature, compare and contrast.
Serrated Arrows: Finally some real creature control! Coming all the way from
the Homelands expansion, this is really handy for either picking off several
weenies, slowly killing a medium size creature, or using during combat to fix
fights. While it's untapped, it can be used to quickly get rid of a 2 toughness
creature your opponent casts. Activate it near the end of their turn targeting
the creature, then when you untap you can target it again and finish it off.
Note that creatures can't regenerate from having their toughness lowered to
zero, so three counters from this will kill Cudgel Troll outright. But this
doesn't combine with damage. Although the game displays damage and toughness
reduction as the same thing, they are in fact different. If Cudgel Troll has
taken 2 damage and then gets a -1/-1 counter, he is really 3/2 with 2 damage
and can regenerate, staying at 3/2 but removing the damage. The game displays
the damage as the toughness going down which is misleading, it doesn't actually
make the toughness go down.
Giant Growth: One of the best surprise combat spells, this is brutally
efficient. Even when your opponent suspects it is coming, there is often not
much they can do about it. If they have tapped out to cast a 4/4 creature and
see you attacking with three 2/2 creatures, they know you are going to Giant
Growth whichever one they block, but their only alternative is to let them all
through! The best time to use this is during the blockers phase, after blockers
have been declared. Don't use it earlier as you only make the opponent's
decisions easier. Save it for when it really matters, don't use it to keep a
lowly creature alive. Be wary of opponents using direct damage or a kill-spell
in response to your Giant Growth. The damage will resolve first before the
bonus takes effect.
Dungrove Elder: Showcasing the new hexproof, this is a really nasty creature.
For 3 mana he is 3/3 at the very least, which is nice stats, and then grows
just by playing land. If he's not big enough to beat your opponent's largest
creature, you need only wait a few turns until you have more land. He's
unlikely to die in the mean time thanks to hexproof. You can still use your
beneficial spells such as Giant Growth and Elephant Guide on him, making him
even less likely to die!
Thrun, the Last Troll: Similar to the above, but with fixed stats and added
regeneration. 4/4 is hefty for 4 mana, and he's probably never going away
thanks to his abilities. A terrific blocker and attacker. Watch out for your
opponent pulling their own combat trick like Giant Growth on a small creature
while you are tapped out.
Leatherback Baloth: With crazy amounts of beef for your buck, this guy just
looks wrong when he hits the table on turn 3. Sadly you can't get him out any
quicker than that, but it's still quick enough. He'll likely tower over
anything else around at that stage and can keep on attacking until the opponent
finds an answer.
Wolfbriar Elemental: Again 4/4 is great for 4 mana when you need it, even
without the kickers. If you need him right away, don't feel you have to hold
him back, sometimes it is better to cast him especially if you are short on
other creatures or need a blocker fast. But when you can afford to hold him
back and cast other things in the meantime, or pick him up late game, spend a
whole turn paying as many kickers as possible. He's the new and more effective
Howl of the Night Pack, and is amazing when followed up by Overrun next turn.
Often you'll have enough tokens to overwhelm your opponent by just attacking
with them all anyway.
Nature's Lore: I'm glad to see them make the swap from Rampant Growth which
made no sense for mono green. This works exactly the same, except the Forest
comes in untapped. When using it on turn 2 to accelerate your mana this
probably won't make any difference, but it becomes more useful later on. If you
have an extra land available you don't need that particular turn, you can use
it to your advantage with this card. Say you have just played your fourth
Forest, and you have in hand Nature's Lore, another Forest, a 3 mana creature
and a 6 mana creature. At first glance you are choosing between casting the 3
mana creature and casting Nature's Lore to get the 6 mana creature out next
turn. But in fact you can do both. Cast Nature's Lore first, and the new
untapped Forest will leave you with 3 still to use. Then you can cast the 3
mana creature. Next turn you'll get to play your Forest and cast the 6 mana
creature, so you have made use of the spare mana to be able to get both
creatures out without losing anything.
Overrun: This is your big play card, and you should normally hold this back
until it is likely to win you the game. You want to get as many creatures in
play as possible, no matter how small, as they will all become big threats once
you cast this, and it's an extra 3 potential damage per creature. They all gain
trample, so it becomes a matter of comparing how much total power your
creatures will have after casting this with the total toughness of your
opponent's creatures. If the difference between these is equal to or higher
than their life total, you will probably win by using this. Watch out for your
opponent interfering if they have mana available by using spells to boost their
creatures or kill yours. You can sometimes use this even if you can't win
outright with it just to force your opponent to make lots of awkward blocks
costing them many creatures. If you cast it when they will lose unless they
block with almost everything, they will often lose a lot more creatures than
you will, leaving you in a powerful position.
Garruk's Packleader: A new very useful addition to the deck. His stats are only
average for his cost, but his strength is in his card drawing. Get him out as
soon as you possibly can, so that you get maximum card draw from further
creatures. Most creatures in the deck will net you a card, even the very cheap
Garruk's Companion. If not dealt with, this amount of card advantage will be
quickly overwhelming. You even get a card for the token from Elephant Guide.
Note that the power of the creature is checked as soon as it enters the
battlefield, so don't try and use Giant Growth on a 2/2 creature you just cast
to try and get the Packleader to count it!
Cudgel Troll: I really like this guy, he has decent stats and a cheap
regenerate cost. This makes him hard to stop as an attacker, and a brilliant
defender when you need one. When pumped with Giant Growth he will kill almost
anything and survive, and if you have at least 6 mana he is brilliant in
combination with Overrun as he can regenerate even if ganged up on. Remember,
don't use his regenerate ability "just in case", only ever do it in response to
a spell or ability that threatens to kill him, or in the blockers phase just
before a creature is about to deal enough damage to kill him. Using it at other
times is a waste of mana.
Garruk's Companion: Runeclaw bear on steroids, you might say. Incredible stats
for the cost, he is a big threat as early as turn 2. His trample makes him
combine really well with Giant Growth, not only can he grow and kill the
blocker but he will deal any excess damage as well. An excellent target for
Elephant Guide on turn 3!
Lead the Stampede: A quite amazing new spell for mono Green, out performing
Beast Hunt quite considerably. You may not want to cast this on turn 3 in case
you draw more creatures than you can keep on your hand, but if your hand isn't
too strong you may not care about dumping the weaker cards to get more
firepower. Later in the game this is really strong as you may be able to cast
one or more of the creatures you get right away. Unfortunately it's down to
chance how many creatures you get, but you'll be very unlucky to get none at
all and with such a high creature percentage in this deck you'll get at least 2
quite a lot. Currently it's bugged so that you don't see all 5 cards, just the
creature cards that you draw. See the next section, "Beast Hunt/Lead the
Stampede Analysis" to help you find out the number of cards you would expect to
draw.
Elephant Guide: A reasonable alternative to the unfair Blanchwood Armor which
was almost unstoppable along with Troll Ascetic. I'm glad they made the switch,
as Blanchwood on one of the new Hexproofs would be just as unfair. This gives a
static bonus, but still a very nice one. You can put it on any creature and it
will be effective, but trample ones will be the best. It gives you some
protection against 2 for 1 losses by giving you a token when the creature dies,
but note that if the opponent kills your creature in response to you casting
Elephant Guide, you won't get a token since the Aura won't be on the
battlefield yet. For that reason it's at its best cast when the opponent is
tapped out. This is a lot weaker against Realm of Illusions and Ancient Depths,
as they can return the creature to your hand quite easily and then you lose the
Aura without getting
Gaea's Revenge: Haste is rare in green, and this one packs quite a punch. Along
with Terra Stomper, this makes blue mages quite infuriated by being
uncounterable. This can also hardly be targeted by anything, only from green
sources, which are unlikely to kill it. Only the low toughness lets it down,
but if needed you can still use Giant Growth etc. on it. Since it has haste you
may not need to for its first attack as the opponent won't be prepared for it
and may not have any blockers available. It may also be the only attack you
need. Ancient Depths is the biggest threat to this card, as it can return it to
your hand with Aether Mutation, and even worse steal it with Yavimaya's
Embrace.
Engulfing Slagwurm: A nice top end creature to make use of all your mana, and
very hard to stop. The creature he destroys can still regenerate, but you gain
the life regardless of whether the destruction works. He's great on defence if
needed as well. Since the creature is destroyed as soon as he blocks or is
blocked, it doesn't get to hit him at all with any damage, making him almost
impossible to kill apart from with an indestructible creature. He will even
kill a creature with protection from green that blocks him since his ability
doesn't target the creature, and you'll get the life bonus from Illusions that
block it for the same reason. The opponent can't even gang up to kill this,
since all blocking creatures will be eaten! And since he eats creatures before
damage is dealt, the creature disappearing may impact play, for example if it
was an Illusion then all Krovikan Mists will instantly drop by 1 power and
toughness before damage is dealt.
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer: Obviously intended to be great for Archenemy, and is
cool for two headed giant, but for now he's decent enough to take a 6 mana spot
in one on one I think. I'd rather use him than a Craw Wurm, and against a slow
deck he is going to be lethal, especially as they can't target him with
kill-spells. Between you and your opponent you will probably have enough cards
to make him a reasonable threat, and you can allow him to grow just by holding
back cards while your opponent may be forced to chuck stuff out prematurely
just to keep him lower. Watch out for your opponent using cards up during
combat causing him to shrink. Remember you can't target him either with Giant
Growth etc. If a better 6 mana cost creature turns up, he'll probably be
replaced.
OK cards
Borderland Ranger: He's not ideal and I would rather have something else that
actually accelerates your mana rather than finding you more, but he does the
job. You can think of him as a creature that gets you a free land, or another
land that you pay for and get a free creature. He effectively raises the land
count in the deck, making the higher casting cost creatures viable, so some of
them have to be kept in for that reason. At least he builds up your creature
base ready for Overrun. When you can afford to, cast him and then play the land
afterwards, rather than playing it first, to reduce the amount of information
your opponent has about your hand.
Stomper Cub: A very aggressive card that sits fairly well in the deck. His low
toughness is a shame, but the trample is great. A surprise Giant Growth may
keep him alive against a medium size blocker and deal a lot of damage at the
same time.
Centaur Courser: Decent stats for the mana, but compared to the heroes of the
deck he doesn't excel. He's worth it to fill the mana curve at the moment.
Runeclaw Bear: Bog standard, but at the moment just about worth including to
keep the speed of your deck up. At least being fast he helps you get more
creatures on the board ready for an Overrun. Also gives you an early target for
Giant Growth or Elephant Guide if the opponent drops something nasty early on.
Bad cards
Giant Spider: Too defensive for this deck, and wimpy for his cost. Although
this deck is vulnerable to flying creatures, it's best to concentrate on
pounding your opponent into keeping their fliers back than having this guy
waving his legs around trying to scare them off. There are much better reach
creatures that could have been included, I don't know why they insisted on
keeping this. If you do use him, he can at least take out a big flier by
surprise with a Giant Growth while blocking.
Grazing Gladehart: In the wrong deck, again. Oopsey! Life gain is not important
for this deck, it's about finishing off the opponent as quickly as possible
with efficient creatures. This is not efficient at all, and is not part of your
strategy. If you do want to play him, you can hold back lands you don't need
later in the game to benefit from his landfall ability should you draw him.
Craw Wurm: Why they insist on keeping crud like this in the game, I don't know.
Green is meant to have the biggest and best creatures, and this is a
shrivelled-up counter example to that. Really un-scary stats and no abilities.
Doesn't really compare well to Terra Stomper in this deck huh? With that and
Multani Maro-Sorcerer you don't need these unless you need something big to
make up the numbers.
Beast Hunt: I'm glad they moved this over to this deck where it makes much more
sense. Strange how they then included a strictly better card in Lead the
Stampede. Cast it when you can spare the mana and need some more threats. See
the next section, "Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis" to help you find out
the number of cards you would expect to draw. I would not recommend using this
card after doing the analysis, the amount of cards you expect to draw is very
low for 4 mana.
Hunted Wumpus: This is way too risky in one on one, as your opponent could
easily put out a huge creature that this deck has no way to deal with and lose
you the game on the spot. Even if they put out something average, you are
giving away serious momentum, especially if they then hit your Wumpus with a
kill-spell which is quite likely. This is great however for Archenemy, where
both your allies get a creature too, giving you 3 good creatures for just 1 to
the big bad man.
Wall of Vines: Better than Wall of Wood, but still hopelessly in the wrong
deck. This deck is pure offence, and this card is pure defence, it doesn't fit.
It can never damage your opponent, can't even kill an attacker without help,
and sits by idly when you cast your Overrun. A good aggressive ground-based
deck wins by keeping the pressure on the opponent and forcing them to defend
with their flying creatures, not wasting time with half-baked defensive cards.
Rites of Flourishing: I wouldn't recommend using this in one on one, it gives
your opponent the same advantage as you and they get to use it first. It's just
too risky, and it will mean a bigger threat coming out for you to deal with
than you would normally face, and you don't have enough creature control to
handle it. This is really good however in Archenemy, since you and your allies
all get the benefit, 3 cards a turn and only one for the Archenemy, plus you
all get to play another land.
Hunters' Feast: That may look like a lot of life, but it's still not worth it
in one on one, especially in an aggressive deck. You'll draw this when you need
either another attacker to seal the game or a much needed blocker, this will
only serve as a stall. Save it for Archenemy or Two Headed Giant if you're
going to use it.
===============================================================================
Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis
===============================================================================
I have done some rough calculations to estimate the number of creature cards
you would expect to draw, on average, with Beast Hunt and Lead the Stampede. It
depends on how many creature cards you have in your deck, as this increases the
chance of drawing more. These are my results:
+=========================+=========================+=========================+
| Number of creature | Average number of | Average number of |
| cards in deck | creatures drawn with | creatures drawn with |
| | Beast Hunt | Lead the Stampede |
+=========================+=========================+=========================+
| 18 | 0.98 | 1.61 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 19 | 1.04 | 1.70 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 20 | 1.09 | 1.79 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 21 | 1.15 | 1.88 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 22 | 1.20 | 1.96 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 23 | 1.25 | 2.05 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 24 | 1.31 | 2.14 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 25 | 1.36 | 2.23 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 26 | 1.42 | 2.32 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 27 | 1.47 | 2.41 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 28 | 1.53 | 2.50 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 29 | 1.58 | 2.59 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 30 | 1.64 | 2.68 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 31 | 1.69 | 2.77 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 32 | 1.75 | 2.86 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 33 | 1.80 | 2.95 |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
If you're interested in knowing how I arrived at these figures, I assumed that
I have cast Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede, and have the 4/3 land required
respectively, leaving 55/56 cards between my hand and my deck. Assuming these
are randomly distributed, I calculated the probabilities of getting different
numbers of creatures from the 3/5 cards you draw by considering the possible
combinations. I then used this to calculate the average. I'm happy to send
anyone a copy of the spreadsheet I used to speed up the calculations on
request!
This is only a simplified estimate, but I hope it gives a good indication of
overall usefulness. The amount you expect to draw would go up very slightly
each time you remove a non-creature card from your deck, such as pulling out a
land with Nature's Lore or Borderland Ranger. This means that the inclusion of
Nature's Lore as a non-creature card is ever so slightly better than other
non-creature cards for the effectiveness of Beast Hunt and Lead the Stampede.
I think it's pretty clear that Beast Hunt isn't worth it. Considering Lead the
Stampede for my current setup of 24 creatures, here are the probabilities of
drawing different number of creatures out of the 5 cards:
+=========================+=========================+=========================+
| Number of creatures | Probability | Probability of drawing |
| drawn | | at least this many |
+=========================+=========================+=========================+
| 0 | 5.3% | 100% |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 1 | 22.6% | 94.7% |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 2 | 35.8% | 72.1% |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 3 | 26.3% | 36.3% |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 4 | 8.9% | 10% |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
| 5 | 1.1% | 1.1% |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
===============================================================================
Gideon Jura - Wielding Steel
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a mono white aggressive weenie swarm style deck that uses lots of
Equipment, loosely based on Weapons of the Warrior from D09. It has become more
focused, and has addressed a lot of the decks weaknesses to both creatures with
nasty abilities and to artifacts and enchantments. It has a lot of creatures
that get better simply by being equipped, which are very cheap, and so a
powerful offence can launch very quickly.
Strategy
This deck needs to get out lots of creatures quickly, and then back them up
with equipment to help them break through or give them evasion. It has ways to
sabotage the opponent's creatures, by tapping them or making them useless with
Arrest. They should be used both to help your creatures keep attacking, and
when things are going badly to stop yourself getting beaten up. Move the
equipment around when you have spare mana, so you can take it off your creature
that attacked and put it on an untapped creature ready to defend. Later in the
game your 5 and 6 mana spells will help you break through.
Pros
> * Very fast, aggressive and efficient creatures
> * The best artifact and enchantment control in 2 Revoke Existence
> * Fair amount of creature control/disruption
> * Lots of quick and powerful equipment
Cons
> * Can sometimes stall if equipment doesn't show up or gets destroyed
> * Lack of mid range creatures, reliant on mainly small creatures
> * Creature control relies on cards remaining on the battlefield
Example decklist
24 Plains
Creatures (23)
4 Elite Vanguard
2 Gideon's Lawkeeper
2 Kitesail Apprentice
2 Kor Duelist
3 Kor Outfitter
1 Puresteel Paladin
1 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Sunspear Shikari
1 Gideon's Avenger
3 Kor Hookmaster
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Captain of the Watch
Other spells (13)
1 Brave the Elements
1 Infiltration Lens
2 Trusty Machete
2 Kitesail
3 Arrest
1 Pennon Blade
1 Strider Harness
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Conqueror's Pledge
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Angel's Feather
4 Glory Seeker
2 Revoke Existence
2 Congregate
1 Harmless Assault
2 Serra Angel
1 Argentum Armor
1 Archangel of Strife
DLC 1 cards
Sunblast Angel: Wielding Steel came out better than it deserved from the DLC in
my opinion, given the fact it was already one of the top decks, it got some
very nice cards and this is the cream of the crop. I consider this the new best
6 mana spell for the deck. At first you may worry that this is going to kill
your creatures as well as your opponent's, but that's actually going to be
quite unlikely. Unless they have ways of tapping your creatures easily (which
is mainly going to be in the mirror match) all you have to do is cast this
before you attack, and all your creatures should be untapped. At its worst,
this is going to kill one creature that attacked you last turn, and give you a
big flyer. That's still a pretty good deal for 6 mana. But it has every chance
of being a huge surprise card, coming down to kill any number of creatures that
the opponent has tapped either to attack or to use tap abilities. It's the only
sweeper effect available for the deck, and it doesn't target so it will destroy
things with shroud, hexproof, even protection from white won't help. I think
the best way to use this is think of it as a mass kill spell with a free
creature on it. So hold it back until you can get the most amount of kills with
it. If you are heavily winning, you can alter your strategy and just cast it
anyhow as a decent flyer to help you finish off the opponent. This versatility
to make a massive comeback or to seal a victory makes it a top card for me. You
can also combine with Gideon's Lawkeeper and Kor Hookmaster to get more
creatures tapped before casting it. Even casting the Hookmaster the turn before
will leave the creature still tapped for you to play the Angel next turn.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace Captain of the Watch. Great though he is,
this is even better for the 6 mana slot, and I don't like having more than one
at that cost in such a fast deck, especially as your mana is often being used
up by moving equipment around.
Guardian Seraph: Not quite as amazing as the Sunblast, but still an excellent
creature. It also fills a much needed hole in the mid-range for this deck.
Nothing to do with the general theme, like all the Angels, but simply too
powerful to ignore anyhow. 3/4 flying for 4 mana is very good, and it has a
free inbuilt way of reducing damage to you. It will work against any seperate
source trying to damage you, so even twenty 1/1 creatures attacking you won't
damage you at all! This will be really bad for any deck trying to kill you with
direct damage, they'll usually have to take care of this first. Also great on
attack and defense, and will be lethal with any kind of equipment!
Recommendation: Must include. Replace Gideon's Avenger. Although that's a good
card, it's one of the few that doesn't quite fit the theme of the deck, acting
in a more defensive role unless backed up by tapping the opponent's creatures.
Loxodon Gatekeeper: This is a harder one to evaluate. He's certainly very
interesting, and will slow down the opponent considerably. But I'm concerned
that it is too expensive for what it does, and isn't quite good enough to
replace what is already in the deck. Although there doesn't seem much
difference between 3 and 4 mana, with a deck this quick it's a big difference
and I'd personally stick with Kor Hookmaster for its instant, aggressive effect
rather than the more plodding Gatekeeper. I feel this one will need a lot of
testing to properly decide its place, and whether or not it should be in the
deck. My first impressions lead me to leave it out. The deck is so aggressive
that this doesn't quite fit, it's more of a denial card. For those of you old
enough to remember the Stasis decks, you'll notice this is a walking Kismet!
Recommendation: Worth giving a try to see how it goes, but I feel it should be
left out.
Good cards
Arrest: This card mostly sorts out the biggest problem that Weapons of the
Warrior had, which was annoying ability creatures. Sadly it still doesn't stop
continuous effects like Captivating Vampire giving all other Vampires +1/+1, or
triggered abilities like with Goblin Arsonist. Use this sparingly to either
nullify huge threats, remove a blocker if victory is close, or to stop a
creature with activated abilities. Watch out for the opponent destroying this
during combat, suddenly making another blocker available for them.
Baneslayer Angel: Along with the other Angels, this is really nothing to do
with the deck and its strategy. But it's too strong to ignore, one of the best
creatures of all time, sickeningly overpowered. It will most likely win the
game if the opponent can't kill it, it's usually that simple. Amazing on attack
and defence, and really hard to kill thanks to first strike. Some of the huge
fliers that might have done the job are dragons, and they can't even block it
or use their abilities on it thanks to protection. The life gain means you can
usually just keep attacking and can afford to take damage back, it's hard for
the opponent to keep up in that race.
Stoneforge Mystic: Unbelievably awesome, I think I read that this is even
banned now in standard play. It's probably best there is only one in the deck
for balance. This essentially gives you an extra copy of every equipment in the
deck, along with a way to get them on the battlefield at a reduced cost for the
expensive ones. Note that it doesn't have to be the one you fetched that you
put onto the battlefield, you can use it for any equipment in your hand, and
multiple times over several turns. If you don't have the mana to equip what
you're going to play anyway, it can be better to hold back your mana and
activate his ability near the end of your opponent's turn. This puts the
equipment in as a surprise ready for you to untap, rather than letting your
opponent plan their strategy around it by putting it down on your turn. When
you cast him, the equipment you fetch will depend on the situation and the
cards in your hand. Plan your next few turns mentally, looking at what your
opponent has, and decide what best fits your mana curve.
Puresteel Paladin: If you play with 6 or more equipment cards, this is an
awesome creature to include. He turns all your equipment into "free" cards,
replacing them instantly with another card. And if you're lucky enough to cast
several in a row this way and get 3 or more on the battlefield, his other
ability then lets you equip them all for free. And at 2/2 he's capable of
handing out the beats with the rest of them. Keep him alive is a priority for
his abilities. Cast him before any equipment cards.
Gideon's Lawkeeper: This is in my opinion the best of the 1 drops in the deck,
and in the game. Tapping creatures is a very powerful ability. If you use it
offensively, make sure you tap a creature before the opponent chooses their
blockers in your turn. Once a creature has blocked, tapping it will make no
difference. If you're using it defensively, you need to tap a creature before
the opponent declares their attackers, which will be in their first main phase.
Again, once a creature has attacked, trying to tap it makes no difference. If
this creature is untapped during your opponent's turn you can also use it
extra-offensively by tapping one of their creatures during their turn, then
untapping and tapping another creature in your turn. This way he can clear 2
blockers out of the way.
Trusty Machete: The most efficient and dangerous of the equipment in the deck.
It comes out quickly, the only drawback is the slightly annoying equip cost
which can be awkward early on. It helps your smaller creatures punch through.
Once you have a reasonable amount of mana it becomes a permanent boost for any
available creature. Very nasty on Kor Duelist or Kitemaster Apprentice.
Kor Outfitter: These are essential to the deck strategy. They enable you to
continue to get a creature into play while equipping your gear, and sometimes
to avoid paying a large equip cost. You'll usually want to save these until you
have some equipment in play that you want to equip to something. Cast other
creatures and equipment first, then cast this guy. Attach something to one of
your other creatures and it can attack holding the gear right away. If you have
no other creatures to play first, play your equipments and then cast this so he
can at least pick up the equipment himself.
Sword of War and Peace: This equipment is a bit mental. Although slightly on
the expensive side, its benefits are worth it. Protection from red and white
has a fair chance of being relevant. Note that protection from white stops the
creature being targeted by your own abilities such as Kor Outfitter. The life
gain can really hurt direct damage decks, and the damage is harsh against
slower decks. Perfect for putting on Kitesail Apprentice, as it will be harder
for the opponent to avoid these effects by chump blocking. This works really
well in combination with Infiltration Lens if you get them both on the same
creature. The opponent is then damned if they block, damned if they don't. They
let you get 2 cards if they block, or else take extra damage and let you gain
life.
Kitesail Apprentice: I really like this one, he gives you a way to easily get
some evasion damage from flying. This guy takes to the air with whatever you
put on him, plus a +1/+1 bonus, to keep on doing damage even if the ground has
become clogged up. This can help break stall situations.
Kor Duelist: He becomes scary very quickly, even with just a Trusty Machete he
can deal 6 damage thanks to double strike. After testing, I've found it's worth
including these along with the Kitesail Apprentices if you are using 7+
Equipment cards, as they make the most of the theme. If he gets hold of
multiple Equipments, he's usually unstoppable.
Sunspear Shikari: He is a bit of a mental case, going ape when he gets hold of
some equipment. He's got decent stats anyhow, and lifelink and first strike
make him really hard to deal with, especially after stat boosts. Getting him
out with something on him is a priority, since the life gain will help you be
able to keep attacking recklessly, and not much will be able to stop him early.
Neither ability will be redundant since none of your equipment offers either of
them.
Elite Vanguard: To my knowledge this is only the second ever 1 mana creature
with 2 power and no drawback, the first being Savannah Lions. It's ridiculously
unfair, and should be a green creature! But since no one cares what I think
about it, it's here in white, and it's a Soldier too. A great creature to cast
first, getting maximum power on the table. He can trade with most 2 drops, and
gets even more scary once he gets hold of equipment. He would be higher on the
list, except for his lack of interaction with Equipment. Still well worth
including.
Kor Hookmaster: This guy can look a bit wussy on first glance, but I have found
him to be quite effective. He doesn't permanently deal with a creature, but he
gets it out of the way for an attack both on this turn and the next. You can
deal a lot of damage in that time if you pick your moment. After that you may
have another Hookmaster to lock it down again, or a diferent way to deal with
it. While he does this he provides another reasonable creature and a target for
your equipment.
Gideon's Avenger: This guy is a lot more effective than he looks. He acts as a
deterrent against your opponent attacking with anything. Right away he gets a
counter for each attacking creature, and then has the option of blocking after
that, potentially now big enough to kill something. Also he combos well with
the Lawkeeper and Hookmaster, gaining a counter each time you tap an opponent's
guy. He often gets big enough to demand an answer fairly quickly, or at least
makes your opponent hold up on their attack.
Conqueror's Pledge: Forget the kicker which is unlikely to ever happen. Just
the standard effect of this card is very strong. 6 creatures for 5 mana is
really good (anyone remember Icatian Town? That was in a tournament deck
once...) and gives you huge amounts of targets for equipment, and the ability
to overpower your opponent with huge attacks. Or a bunch of chump blockers if
things are going badly while your flying creatures do some damage. My favourite
5 mana spell for this deck, after the infamous Baneslayer. If you are choosing
between this and Serra Angel, I'd go with this, because the 5 creatures are
harder to kill in just one spell, and this fits the theme of the deck better.
Serra Angel: Not quite as good as Baneslayer, but good enough to hold a 5 mana
slot, at least for now. The age old creature which can attack and then still
defend thanks to vigilance. If you're going to cut a 5 mana spell for speed,
I'd cut this one.
Brave the Elements: A very useful cheap spell, and one of your few combat
tricks. You can use this in several ways, by choosing the appropriate colour-
> * By casting before blockers are chosen, no creatures of the chosen colour
can block your creatures this turn. Against a mono deck, this means all your
creatures are essentially unblockable.
> * By casting in response to a spell or ability that targets one or more of
your creatures, you make the targets invalid and the spell or ability will
fail. This will also prevent any extra side effects that would have happened,
such as gaining life from Corrupt.
> * By casting in response to a spell or ability that deals damage to one or
more of your creatures but doesn't target them (such as Pyroclasm), all the
damage will be prevented.
> * No combat damage will be dealt from creatures of the chosen colour to
your creatures. This is useful if your opponent plays an unexpected Giant
Growth or similar during combat, to save your creature.
> * It makes any nasty Auras your opponent has put on your creatures, such as
Arrest, fall off.
This spell is no use against untargeted effects that don't deal damage, such as
Damnation or Evacuation. Also it's usually bad to cast this "just in case". For
example, say I cast this with the idea that I don't want the opponent to
Incinerate any of my creatures this turn. If my opponent does have an
Incinerate he can use it in response and it will resolve first killing my
creature. If I'd have waited and an Incinerate does come, I can cast this in
response to save my creature.
Captain of the Watch: This is my favourite top-end spell for the deck. It has
an immediate impact, pumping up all your Soldiers (which is most of your
creatures) and vigilance allows them to defend as well after attacking. This is
best cast when your opponent is tapped out so they can't kill this guy and make
you lose the bonus mid combat. But even if he does die right away, you get to
keep the 3 tokens which give you plenty of targets for equipment. Keep him out
of combat if he's likely to die, to keep his bonus in operation.
Infiltration Lens: I find this equipment very useful, mainly because of its
really cheap mana and equip costs. Since you have as many as 6 creatures that
get a bonus just by being equipped, this makes getting those bonuses very easy.
It also fits the strategy of the deck perfectly. You want to keep attacking,
and this makes one of your creatures undesirable to be blocked. Your opponent
has the choice between taking the damage, or letting you draw 2 cards. You can
attack recklessly with the creature it's on, even if the opponent can block it
with a bigger creature and survive. Gaining 2 cards for your 1 creature is
great. Your opponent can't handle this kind of cheap card advantage, and an
experienced player will most likely let your creature through each time until
they can do something about the situation.
OK cards
Revoke Existence: The best artifact and enchantment control in the game. It
ignores being indestructible, and regeneration. Also, the targeted card can't
be retrieved from the graveyard. Unfortunately, 4 of the top 5 decks don't have
more than 1 card that needs removing and some have none, so it can often be
useless. It can be useful against the new Grave Whispers and Auramancer decks,
although I feel not essential. Going with just 1 of these as a way of sitting
on the fence may be a good strategy. I've rated it as OK simply because of the
general lack of powerful artifacts/enchantments in the game in general, and
particularly in the top decks. As decks chance in popularity, so will the
usefulness of this card.
Strider Harness: Although initially a little expensive, once on the table it's
easy to use. You can equip it to the new creature you cast each turn, allowing
it to attack right away along with everything else. You can also cheaply move
it around after combat to provide a suitable blocker. Very nice for keeping the
pressure on, and lethal on a big Angel! You can also use this nicely with a
Gideon's Lawkeeper that you just drew. You can cast him, attach the Harness,
then use his tap ability right away to tap a potential blocker. Then put the
Harness on something else, and attack!
Kitesail: I used it to keep the equipment count up, although I'd like to
replace it if DLC offers something better. A little bit pricey for what it
does, it can be hard to use early on in the game, so I only like using 1 of
these. It does help keep the damage going through a stall situation, and for
when need a blocker against the opponent's flying creatures.
Pennon Blade: Although on the expensive side, I've been including this to keep
the equipment count up again, and as a late-game breakthrough since this deck
can stall. Hopefully a Kor Outfitter can save you the big equip cost. Great in
combination with the token generation cards in the deck. Could possibly be cut
for speed.
Argentum Armor: I feel that this is just slightly too expensive for this deck
with its current setup. When it works it's going to be great, but I think the
risk and the cost may be too much. It will be amazing if you get both a
Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Outfitter to avoid paying both the big costs, but
with only one Mystic you can't rely on this. And if the creature you go to
equip gets killed in response you're stuck with a huge equipment you won't be
able to use again without another Outfitter for some time probably. And played
from your hand it will take a whole turn to get it out, once you finally reach
6 mana, and unless you've been holding back an Outfitter (clogging up 2 cards
in your hand) another turn to equip. You risk that creature being killed in
response leaving you very vulnerable after such a big commitment. You may
decide it's worth all this risk for the times it works, but I would rather
stick with Captain of the Watch for its immediate impact as my 6 mana spell and
leave it at that. For a compromise, Pennon Blade has a big effect and for more
manageable mana.
Glory Seeker: Your standard grunt, who becomes totally surplus to requirements
as you unlock the 2 cost 2/2 creatures with abilities.
Bad cards
Congregate: Life gain is no good for this really aggressive deck, although this
one does give you quite a lot of life. I still wouldn't bother, concentrate on
nailing your opponent. It'll be more useful in Two Headed Giant or Archenemy
where there will be huge amounts of creatures.
Archangel of Strife: This is too expensive for this deck, and not game
clinching enough for the stretch. It can also backfire quite badly. Save it for</pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
Archenemy where all 3 of you can choose attack and wreak havoc!
Angel's Feather: I hate life gain!
Harmless Assault: This is well overpriced anyway for what it does, and it's
still in the wrong deck. This is a very aggressive deck, and doesn't want to be
standing around trying to fix fights on the defence or fogging the opponent.
Steer clear!
===============================================================================
Jace Beleren - Realm of Illusion
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a mono blue Illusion based deck. It's vaguely like Thoughts of Wind
from D09, but has had a complete makeover. A lot of its Illusion creatures die
just from being targeted by a spell or ability, which I'll refer to as "shy"
creatures. They make up for it with generally very good stats for their mana
cost. It has plenty of countermagic, and much improved support cards, making it
a competitive deck at last. It is also able to tap out much more safely with
more reliable bounce options (returning cards to their owners' hands).
Strategy
This can be a very aggressive deck, and you want to try and swarm the opponent
with Illusions, right from turn 1 if possible. You expect some of the shy ones
to die, but it will usually still cost the opponent a card, and you have plenty
more where they came from. The Krovikan Mists are big hitters early on, so keep
the number of Illusions in play high. Keep on the offensive whenever possible,
and use your bounce spells such as Repulse to return expensive creatures to the
opponent's hand to slow them down. Use your countermagic to stop big threats,
and to protect your important cards like Lord of the Unreal. He is the bomb for
this deck if you can keep him out, making your shy creatures untargetable and
thus removes their disadvantage. Press for the win with flying creatures, aided
by unblockable Phantom Warriors.
Read carefully: don't ever try to stop one of your shy creatures from getting
killed by countering the spell that targeted them. It won't work! Their own
ability to kill themselves exists independently and it doesn't matter what
happens to the spell after that. There is only one way to save them from their
own ability, and that is to use Evacuation in response to whatever has targeted
them. You must have auto-resolution set to Off, otherwise the self-kill
abilities resolve instantly. This works because Evacuation doesn't target
anything, so doesn't set off their ability like trying to save them with
Repulse would.
Pros
> * Beefy creatures can dominate the board from early on
> * Lots of countermagic and bounce spells
> * Plenty of fiers and unblockables
> * Good card drawing
> * Some nice creature stealing
> * Mono deck means no colour problems
Cons
> * Relies on just one card for enchantment and artifact control, and that is
by bouncing them (Quicksilver Geyser)
> * Shy creatures obviously very vulnerable without Lord of the Unreal
> * Cannot destroy creatures, only steal/bounce them
Example decklist
24 Island
Creatures (19)
4 Phantasmal Bear
4 Krovikan Mist
2 Lord of the Unreal
2 Aeether Adept
3 Blind Phantasm
2 Phantom Warrior
1 Phantasmal Dragon
1 Sower of Temptation
Other spells (17)
1 Fleeting Distraction
2 Counterspell
2 Cancel
2 Divination
3 Repulse
1 Concentrate
1 Summoner's Bane
2 Jace's Ingenuity
1 Mind Control
1 Quicksilver Geyser
1 Time Warp
Cards to exclude to build this deck
1 Prosperity
1 Aeether Figment
3 Kraken's Eye
1 Mind Spring
1 Wall of Air
1 Disorient
3 Phantom Beast
2 Air Elemental
1 Drake Umbra
1 Evacuation
1 Mahamoti Djinn
DLC 1 cards
Bribery: The new ace card for Realms, this is bordering on insane. The only
saving grace for the other decks is that Realms will have to take a really good
card out of its impressive roster to make room. It's probably been the most
discussed card already, and I'm sure everyone has their strategy worked out!
Against most decks, you're probably just going to want to take the biggest,
most powerful creature they have. This stops them being able to draw it, and
makes them have to probably kill it themselves or lose to it. Be wary about
decks that can return cards to their hands, primarily the mirror match and
Ancient Depths. In the mirror I would recommend taking Phantasmal Dragon if
available, since at least if the opponent tries to return it to their hand, it
will be sacrificed instead (unless they use Evacuation or catch you with only
that creature when they have Curfew). If not, take a Phantasmal Beast if it's
there. Anything else is very risky unless you are confident you can protect it
being bounced with counterspells. Against Ancient Depths, don't go for the
Eldrazi unless you are absolutely certain you can keep them safe with
counterspells! If they get hit with Aether Mutation, you'll be facing them
yourself. The best targets are the shroud creatures, like Inkwell Leviathan and
Simic Sky Swallower. Against any deck, you're likely to have a great selection
to choose from for each situation, and you'll often get a more expensive
creature than you paid for with this spell. And there's no enchantment or
creature that can be removed to get them back as with Mind Control and Sower of
Temptation.
Recommendation: Must include. Remove a Jace's Ingenuity. I wouldn't want to
lose a creature from the deck, and to keep costs down you don't want too many 5
mana spells. It's a painful cut, but this seems like the right move for now.
It's the weakest 5 mana spell.
Curfew: This is a card that looks very helpful for the deck, but I worry that
it isn't quite powerful enough to merit removing any of the current incredibly
powerful spells for. This is one of the tightest decks in the game already, and
a card has to be pretty amazing to even consider replacing something. It does
have a lot of uses though. You can use it to save your "shy" illusions from
their own abilities. If an opponent targets your Phantasmal Dragon say, this
will trigger its ability to sacrifice itself. But as long as you have auto
resolution turned off in the options, it won't resolve right away. You can
respond by casting Curfew. Since it doesn't target your creature, it won't make
its ability trigger again like if you tried to save it with Repulse, which
wouldn't work. Curfew resolves first, allowing you to return the Dragon safely
to your hand while at the same time forcing the opponent to return something to
their hand, slowing them down. I think it could be considered as part of a very
fast build focusing on speed and bouncing creatures, since it's such a cheap
spell. It can be used to save your other creatures too such as Lord of the
Unreal for just 1 mana, or by saving an Aether Adept, you get to use his bounce
ability again once you recast him. Also you can get back Sower of Temptation
once his "host" has been killed.
Recommendation: Worth considering for highly aggressive speed builds, but
generally I would say leave it out.
Cultural Exchange: This is more of a multiplayer format card, where it could
prove to be very useful. In 1 vs 1 I think this is too expensive for what it
does. It costs 6 mana, and I think it is not even as good as the 5 mana spells
already in the deck. You don't want to be giving away your creatures with this
deck, as your strategy involves controlling as many Illusions as possible. If
you give them away, your Krovikan Mists get weaker and Lord of the Unreal gets
less effective. On the plus side, if you hand over "shy" illusions, they are
then vulnerable to be killed by targeting them, which isn't hard for this deck
to do. And in a drawn out game that has reached a stalemate, this could be a
great breaker card by swapping several of your smaller creatures for the
opponent's best ones. But since this deck is so fast and dominant, you are
likely to have the best creatures anyhow and plan to counter or bounce big
threats, there probably won't be much you need to worry about swapping for.
Recommendation: Don't include.
Good cards
Counterspell: Ouch! Banned from standard for being too good, for some reason
it's back again. The counterspell that all other counterspells are named after,
and probably the third best of all time after Mana Drain and Force of Will. But
enough with the history lesson... This is your best counterspell in the deck,
and the only one that requires just 2 mana. My rule of thumb with counterspells
is the more you have in your hand, the more sparing you can be with them. And
the less you have, the more careful you have to be with each one. So with a
handful of countermagic it can be worth countering even a lowly 2/2 creature if
it's going to help your game plan. But when you just have one in your hand, you
can't assume you're going to draw more any time soon. Save it for something you
really can't cope with any other way, or that will seal your victory. When you
can afford to, use your other countermagic first so that you save this more
efficient one for later.
Mind Control: This is a huge game changer, and you want to make it count. By
stealing your opponent's huge creature, you've not only removed the threat to
yourself but turned the tables by making your opponent have to find an answer
to it. Knowing the decks well helps a lot to decide what to steal. Take into
account whether the deck you are facing has enchantment control too. If it
does, it may be better to wait until you have enough mana to defend this with
countermagic. Otherwise, you can tap out to steal the creature quite safely.
Cancel: Exactly the same as Counterspell, but costs one more. Still very
powerful and worth including.
Sower of Temptation: Stealing the opponent's creatures is one of the most
powerful things you can do in Magic. To add more injury to the insult and the
injury, you get a 2/2 flier out of the deal as well. Although it's not an
Illusion and doesn't fit the theme particularly, it's too good to ignore. It's
generally easier to kill than Mind Control being a small creature, but it's
also cheaper. And if the opponent can't deal with it, they are in big trouble.
If you cast this when they are tapped out, even if they can untap and then kill
this right away, the creature you stole will regain summoning sickness. Later
in the game, you may have enough mana to cast this and then protect it with
countermagic.
Lord of the Unreal: This is your boss guy, who makes everything alright. 2/2
for 2 mana is unusually efficient for blue anyway, and his ability works
wonders for this deck. As long as he remains on the battlefield, all your shy
creatures suddenly lose their disability since they can no longer be targeted
by anything. And your other Illusions becomes similarly shielded. Short of mass
destruction, the opponent has to deal with this card before he can do anything
about your Illusions. Early in the game he can provide a quick boost to your
guys before the opponent gets round to removing him, but later on, at only 2
mana, you can fairly easily cast him and then protect him with countermagic. If
you can do this, the sheer size of your Illusions should win the game. Along
with Krovikan Mist, he gives a reason to use as many Illusion-type creatures as
possible.
Repulse: This is so much better than the bounce spells in the old Jace deck
which almost always lead to card disadvantage. This spell means you can tap out
much more safely, knowing that even if a big creature comes down, you can at
least bounce it. If you also want to counter it, make sure your opponent can't
cast it again the same turn if you don't have the mana to counter it. If they
can you may have to wait until your turn and untap all your lands. This card
has all sorts of uses:
> * To play with your opponent's momentum by making them cast an expensive
creature again, and make it have to go through summoning sickness again.
> * To get rid of any counters or Auras on a creature, and make it drop any
Equipment it has.
> * To stop a creature that has been pumped with Giant Growth etc. from
killing your creature by bouncing it before damage is dealt.
> * To temporarily get rid of the bonus a creature is providing, for example
bouncing Captivating Vampire in the middle of combat so all the Vampires
suddenly drop their +1/+1 bonus before damage is dealt.
> * To kill creature tokens, since they cease to exist when they are put back
in your opponent's hand.
> * To save your own creature, by casting in response to something that will
kill it, or in combat before damage is dealt. You can block an attacker, and
then Repulse your creature. The attacker then won't deal you any damage unless
it has trample.
> * To get rid of nasty Auras that your opponent has put on your creature by
being able to recast it. This includes things that steal it such as Mind
Control.
Phantasmal Dragon: This is the best of the shy creatures, quite amazing stats
and also flying just for 4 mana. Unfortunately he's going to be a prime target
as well. You may want to throw out Phantasmal Beasts first if you have both in
hand, if you suspect the opponent will likely have something to target them.
Left unchecked, this guy is going to rule the air and probably the game,
especially early on.
Krovikan Mist: This can prove to be one of the most effective parts of your
offence, and the main reason to use as many Illusions as possible in your deck.
He counts all Illusions, including himself and other Krovikan Mists, quickly
growing very large and becoming hard to deal with. It's a good play on turn 2,
even if the opponent has something to kill it, that's one less for use on your
shy creatures. And if it remains, every Illusion you cast next turn will pump
him up before he attacks. Along with Air Elementals, he can often provide the
finishing touches to your win. Late in the game, in any stalled position, he's
likely to come out huge and you'll have the mana to protect him.
Divination: Very simple and effective card drawing. Useful both early and late
in the game. Always put a lot of thought into whether you should commit your
mana to card drawing, casting creatures, or holding it back for countermagic.
Each situation is different, try to imagine what your opponent has in their
hand, and what will happen over the next few turns. As you gain experience in
the game this will become easier, but in the end you often have to rely on
intuition and rough probabilities. Pay careful attention to the number of cards
the opponent has in their hand at all times.
Concentrate: This is the same as Divination, but one more card for one more
mana. Really great for refilling your hand if you've cast a lot of cheap
illusions early.
Jace's Ingenuity: Although at first glance this just seems worse than
Concentrate, its power lies in it being an instant. For the other card draw
spells in this deck, you have to decide on your turn whether you want to commit
the mana to getting the cards. With this card, you don't have to decide. In
fact, unless you have enough mana to make use of the cards you draw, or
desperately want another land to play, it's best to not cast this in your turn
at all. Leave your mana open, and see what the opponent does. Wait until at
least after they have attacked, and if they appear to have finished you can go
ahead and cast it. If they do something awful and you decide you must counter
it, then you have kept your options open to do that, which you wouldn't if you
cast this in your turn. Be wary of people "baiting" you though, pretending they
have finished their turn when they haven't. If you cast this on their turn,
they can then start casting creatures etc. and you may not have the mana to
counter them. You have to decide whether this is worth the risk. How many
bounce spells are in your hand will help with this decision. You can even cast
this in response to a spell, and if you draw any counterspells from this and
have the mana, use them to counter the spell.
Mind Spring: This is very flexible, and normally I'd recommend putting this in
as it's a great card, but the sheer number of other efficient card drawing
spells makes me think this isn't needed. If you want to concentrate even more
on card drawing though, this is the way to go. At least you can be fairly safe
tapping all your lands with this deck with bounce spells in hand. At other
times, you can play it more safely, leaving some mana back for countermagic. If
you haven't played a land this turn, and all you have is Cancel for
countermagic, you could risk tapping all but 2 Islands, hoping to find another
Island in the cards you draw.
Phantasmal Bear: Although the smallest, this is my favourite shy guy. He
absolutely owns the field by coming out 2/2 on the first turn, and he can be
followed by another or even 2 more the next turn. Even if the opponent uses
something to kill it, it will usually be a card for a card, and since you only
put 1 mana into this guy you're not going to be too worried. Use him to pound
the opponent early, getting them low enough for your eventual bigger creatures
and fliers to finish the job, and to force the opponent onto the defensive.
Phantom Beast: Although not as good as the Dragon, this is still very hefty.
He's likely to be bigger than anything else out on turn 4, and if the opponent
can't swipe him then he'll be able to bully them quite badly. Also a huge
blocker if needed. You may find that against some decks his big mana cost makes
him a liability if the opponent has a lot of cards that can target him easily.
I would say when facing Unquenchable Fire, Wielding Steel, Strength of Stone
and Dragon's Roar you would be better off using Blind Phantasm. This is 4 out
of the 10 decks, so it comes down to which you expect to face and how scary you
find each matchup. You can even use a mixture of the two to hedge your bets, if
playing against an unknown deck.
Time Warp: This is the "fair" Time Walk, and I'm glad to see it make an
appearance in Duels. Once you hit 5 mana you can't go wrong by casting it, as
at the very least it will replace itself in your hand. But you want to cast it
when you can get maximum advantage. If you have more than 5 lands, it lets you
use the remainder without having to worry about being tapped out since you will
get to untap again before your opponent does. It will let you play an
additional land in your extra turn. You can attack recklessly without worrying
about blocking since you get a full untap. The later in the game you use this
the better usually, but look out for any situation where you can gain a big
advantage, or even kill your opponent just by attacking twice with flying and
unblockable creatures. This is amazing in Two Headed Giant or Archenemy, since
it gives your whole team another turn!
Summoner's Bane: Although narrow in focus, it's worth including as every deck
uses creatures and there's always going to be nasty ones you want to stop. Use
this in preference to any other counterspell when you get the chance, to save
the others for more flexible targeting. The token you get counts as an Illusion
as well, which helps your theme, and gives you another attacker or blocker.
Phantom Warrior: This fits much better here than it did in the old Jace deck.
Because this is much more aggressive, you're more likely to want to keep
attacking with this and not having to keep it as an overpriced blocker. If the
game gets stalled he's the perfect card to keep applying damage since almost
nothing can stop him. Plus he's an Illusion!
Quicksilver Geyser: I feel this card, although a little expensive, is an
essential include because it is the only way you can do anything about
artifacts and enchantments on the battlefield. And on top of that, it can be
used as a mini-evacuation against your opponent, leaving your own creatures in
place. This can cost them a lot of momentum. It can be used in many
dual-purpose ways, such as bouncing your own creature which just got targeted
by a kill-spell, while returning their annoying creature/artifact/enchantment
to their hand ready to counter. Use carefully and sparingly.
Aether Adept: Although it's a shame he's not an Illusion, his ability is very
strong. It's worth considering as they play havoc with your opponent's momentum
and complement nicely the other bounce effects in the deck. Follow the same
strategies as with Repulse, although of course this can't be used as an
Instant. He allows you even more to be able to tap out with the knowledge you
can bounce anything that gets cast.
Air Elemental: Not an Illusion, but I feel he is strong enough to fill out the
top of the creature mana curve and provide some late game punch. 4/4 flying is
always going to be big, and there's nothing else to challenge him at this mana
range. But it doesn't fit the theme of the deck, and you'll often leave
yourself, and this creature, vulnerable tapping out to cast it.
Evacuation: A very nice card, and it's the only way to save your shy creatures
once they have been targeted (make sure you have auto resolution turned off for
this to work). I personally prefer dropping this for Quicksilver Geyser, since
I feel that is the more important card, and since this deck is very fast I
don't like how it halts your own momentum as well. I feel this is the weakest
of the 5 mana spells available and is too negative for the overall strategy. If
you do use it, save it for when your opponent has a large number of creatures
in play, and preferably when they have tapped out so they can't cast any again
that turn. Use it during their turn when you can, leaving your mana untapped to
start casting yours again.
Mahamoti Djinn: A good old fashioned huge flier back from the mists of time! He
is nice, but I feel he's not quite needed in this deck. You already have 2 Air
Elementals for big finishers, and this is just a bit more of a stretch so I'd
prefer them and wouldn't want another expensive non-Illusion. You'd probably
also rather be spending the mana on card draw when you get to the stage you can
cast this. He could be useful if you plan for a really long, drawn out game.
OK cards
Fleeting Distraction: This is a baby version of Disorient, which is much
better. It can be used to either reduce the combat damage that will be dealt to
you, or fix a fight, such as dropping a 2/2 to 1/2 so it falls to your
Phantasmal Bear. Even when you don't have a particular use for it, cast it on
anything (except your shy creatures!) just to draw a card whenever you have a
spare mana. I like including this to complement the card draw, and it
effectively reduces the deck size.
Blind Phantasm: This is OK to start with, but doesn't quite pack enough punch
to hang with the rest of the potential unlocks. It does have quite nice stats
and is an Illusion that's not shy, but it tends to just sit around after the
first few turns. The impact of Aeether Adept is much better for the mana, and
Phantom Warrior is preferable. You'll often be wanting to hold the mana for a
counterspell if you don't have either of these rather than casting this.
However, he can provide an alternative to Phantom Beast if you are worried
about him being too vulnerable to targeting. He can then more reliably defend
and help pump up your Krovikan Mists. Because he is cheaper, changing a Beast
for one of these can also smooth out your mana curve.
Wall of Air: This would have been good in the old Jace deck, but here it is too
defensive. Plus it's not an Illusion. You have plenty of fliers which can
defend if need be, and better things to play on turn 3 that fit your strategy.
Bad cards
Aeether Figment: I just can't like this card, it's not a good deal with or
without the kicker. 1 damage a turn is puny, and for 5 mana you have much
better spells. Phantom Warrior is much better in my opinion. And at the 2 mana
slot, you have 4 Krovikan Mist and 2 Lord of the Unreal which are both much
better than this.
Drake Umbra: An Aura this expensive has to be really good, and this isn't. Plus
you can't use it on your shy creatures without killing them, and a lot of your
creatures have flying already. And if they kill the creature in response to
casting the Aura, the totem armor effect won't kick in. Too clumsy for this
deck.
Prosperity: This is no good in one on one without something particular to combo
it with, and this deck has nothing suitable. Your opponent gains the same
amount of cards as you, and will probably get to use them first if you put a
lot of mana into this. The deck has plenty of other reliable card drawing, you
don't need this. Save it for Archenemy, where it will be really good, letting
your team draw X cards each against just one lot of X for the Archenemy.
Kraken's Eye: I hate life gain!
Disorient: The Firemind deck from D09 gave this card to Jace as a joke, and he
mistakenly put it in his deck. Don't make the same mistake! Remove this as soon
as possible and keep it out. It's stupidly overpriced for what it does, and it
doesn't guarantee you will kill a big creature with your one since you still
need enough power to do the job. As a one-shot way of stopping damage against
you, it's a terrible deal too. This deck is aggressive, and this is a silly
defensive kind of card.
===============================================================================
Kiora Atua - Ancient Depths
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a brand new blue/green deck, which is quite different to anything else
you will have seen in D09. It is capable of getting out huge numbers of lands
very quickly, and then uses them to cast powerful expensive spells that you
would normally never even consider trying to use, including two Eldrazi! On the
way it draws lots of cards, messes with and steals your opponent's creatures.
Strategy
In the early game your goal is to get as much land into play as possible while
keeping yourself alive. You don't have much to defend yourself with early on, 2
Kraken Hatchling are your best hope. If you're getting beaten really bad you
have Coiling Oracles as chump blockers. Once you get a bit of mana on the
table, Ondu Giant can be really useful for keeping the lands coming while
giving you a blocker. Once you have lots of mana, you then want to start using
your expensive spells to draw lots of cards and get huge creatures out. The
situation will dictate the priority of all of this, and the most important
thing is to manage your mana effectively. If you can stay alive long enough,
you will usually win just by the sheer power of the threats you put into play.
If you have enough mana to play both a land fetcher and a card draw spell,
consider which order you should play them. If you want to draw more non-land
cards, use your land fetcher first to thin out your library. If you're trying
to draw lands, use your card draw first.
Pros
> * Insane mana development leading to awesome spells early in the game
> * Good card drawing
> * 2 creature stealing spells which can turn the game around
Cons
> * Can't easily destroy creatures
> * Vulnerable in the early game when trying to develop lands, especially to
fliers
> * Little artifact and enchantment control
> * Can get stuck on not enough mana to get going, or sometimes far too much
and not enough to do with it
> * Two colours can cause problems, especially if you don't draw Forests
early
Example decklist
13 Island
12 Forest
Creatures (14)
4 Coiling Oracle
2 Ondu Giant
1 Primeval Titan
1 Isleback Spawn
2 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Lorthos, the Tidemaker
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Other spells (21)
4 Explore
1 Compulsive Research
3 Cultivate
2 Explosive Vegetation
1 Polymorph
1 Rite of Replication
2 Skyshroud Claim
3 Aether Mutation
1 Mind Control
2 Tidings
1 Yavimaya's Embrace
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Kraken Hatchling
2 New Frontiers
1 Treasure Hunt
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
2 Assault Zeppelid
1 Elvish Piper
2 Giant Octopus
1 Levitation
3 Living Destiny
1 Tidal Kraken
I created this alternate list as I was unhappy with the performance of the
original list after a lot of testing. This version concentrates less on early
defence, and much more about getting your own big creatures into the game as
soon as possible. 2 Kraken Hatchling and 2 Assault Zeppelid make way for 2
Explosive Vegetation, Isleback Spawn and Inkwell Leviathan. Although these are
not great creatures, in fact the Spawn is pretty bad, at least they have shroud
and you can count on them staying in the game after all the investment of cards
into ramping up. I felt Elvish Piper is a slight underachiever, early in the
game he hogs mana away from your ramping and is extremely vulnerable; and
useless if you don't also have a big creature to go with him. Later in the game
you usually have enough mana to cast anything anyway, and he isn't a lot of
help. So in this version I cut him for Polymorph, which I don't generally like,
but now there are only 6 smallish creatures and 8 huge ones. And the 6 small
ones at least either give you a card back (Coiling Oracle) or fetch another
land (Ondu Giant). I've been quite pleased with this version.
DLC 1 cards
Mass Polymorph: This is going to be rather obscene when it works, quite
possibly sealing the game in one go. The perfect play is going to be Aether
Mutation on an opponent's big creature, try to keep as many of your tokens
alive, and then next turn Mass Polymorph. If you can morph 3 or more creatures,
I would fully expect that to be game clinching. I'd consider this a direct
upgrade to Polymorph, and the additional cost isn't a problem for this deck.
This is going to be much more reliable; giving you usually more than one chance
to find a big creature. It's harder to stop since the opponent can't just
kill/bounce one creature in response like with Polymorph, the others will still
get morphed. Obviously later in the game when you have lots of big creatures
out already, you're not going to want to cast this. But if you're at that
stage, you expect to win anyway.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace Polymorph.
Windstorm: This is an excellent addition to the deck, and addresses one of the
decks biggest weaknesses, flying creatures. Although Levitation was a possible
solution, I found that rather unsatisfactory, since it does nothing on its own,
and requires you to have lots of creatures in play to work. You can't always
count on that. This is a much more reliable way of dealing with them, and
killing them for good rather than stalling. Use your knowledge of the decks to
judge the best point to use this. Have they got out the best flying creatures
already that they are likely to, or are they probably going to be playing more
soon? You want to hold off as long as you can with this, to take out loads at
once. Sometimes of course you'll just have to use it to kill one big flying
creature that is threatening to do you in. The fact that it is in instant is
useful, since you can use it in response to something that pumps up a creature,
or wipe out your opponent's flying army near the end of their turn ready for
you to untap and cast your own monster.
Recommendation: Must include. I would probably stay on the fence and include
only 1, as they will not always be useful and some decks don't have many flying
creatures. Also they are not part of the overall ramp strategy. Replace
Compulsive Research, which is probably the weakest card in the list as it
relies on having a land to pitch for full effectiveness. If you feel you need a
second due to the decks you expect to face, finding another cut is hard but I'd
suggest a Coiling Oracle due to their hit and miss nature.
Mold Shambler: This would appear to be a handy card, but I feel that it is too
costly for what it does compared to the available targets in this environment.
You would pretty much never consider casting this without the kicker unless
you're totally desperate, as it's a rubbish deal. With the kicker it's fairly
good, giving you a wide variety of targets. As there are no planeswalkers in
the game and destroying land is unlikely to be a priority, it's going to be
enchantments or artifacts. 4 of the current top 5 decks don't have much worth
worrying about, and out of the 3 new decks only Grave Whispers has anything
you'd want to get rid of, but I wouldn't consider it essential against that
either. For the Auramancer you'd much rather use Aether Mutation to bounce an
enchanted creature, or steal it with Mind Control or Yavamiya's Embrace. So it
rather depends on what you expect to face, but I'd be inclined to leave this
out. You do have Ulamog that can destroy artifacts and enchantments if you're
desperate. It does have the up side that you can always destroy a land, which
if you accellerate fast and the opponent comes out slow, could throw a monkey
in the works. Or you could pick on multi-coloured decks by taking out a
singleton land for one colour. It will be much more useful in multiplayer
formats, where the chances of a nasty artifact/enchantment coming up is
greater.
Recommendation: Don't include unless you expect to see a lot of Wielding Steel,
Machinations etc.
Good cards
Mind Control: This deck doesn't have a lot of ways to directly remove creature
threats, so this is an immensely important card when you draw it. Save it for
the biggest threat you are likely to face (knowing the decks well helps), or
something that is beating you up really badly. It will help buy you time until
your own huge guys turn up.
Explore: This is a brilliant card, and perfect for this deck. This is usually
the priority spell for turn 2. You will likely have a third land in hand, and
you get to draw a card and then play your land. Even if you don't have one, it
is often worth the chance of casting this and hoping you draw one, and then
playing it. Even if you don't, you've replaced the card and got closer to the
next land in your deck. Later on, you can sneak this in if you have exactly one
more mana available than you need to cast the spell you want to, and a land in
hand. Cast this first, then play your land, and that will leave you with
exactly the mana you need to cast your spell as well.
Primeval Titan: A huge threat, and not even that expensive by this deck's
standards. Even if he dies right away, unless he is countered, you get to keep
the 2 extra lands you fetched. If he doesn't die, he can quickly start emptying
your deck of land and pumping up your mana to ridiculous proportions. It's
sometimes worth attacking with him even if he will die, just to squeeze out
some more land. That's a judgement call for each situation. He is an insane
choice, in a good way, for Rite of Replication. Each copy also fetches you land
upon entering the battlefield, so if you copy him 5 times that's a bucketload
coming out at once!
Rite of Replication: This is a way of sort-of dealing with an opponent's scary
creature by making a copy of it, which can normally either block it and survive
or trade with it. You get any entering the battlefield abilities, they will
trigger just as if you had cast the creature you copied. Paying this with the
kicker is not out of the question for this deck, and when you can, it's worth
holding back until you can do this. It's often a game ending play. Note that if
you copy a legendary creature, the creature and all the copies will go to the
graveyard because of the "legend rule". For this reason, don't copy your own
legendary creatures! But by copying an opponent's one, this effectively becomes
a kill spell. No need to kick it in that case, there's no point. For a list of
interesting creatures you can copy with this spell, see the posts by
Eonblueapocalypse1 on the forum topic below:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28078581/Ancient_Depths_Deckl
ist_and_Strategies?pg=2
Cultivate: This gives mana acceleration and card advantage, all at one low
affordable price. You normally want to cast this on turn 3, unless you can
happen to have ramped up to 4 mana for Skyshroud Claim or Explosive Vegetation.
You can play the land that gets put into your hand if you haven't played one
already, or if you also cast an Explore. Later in the game, cast this when you
have the spare mana to keep ramping up the lands.
Skyshroud Claim: This and Explosive Vegetation perform similar roles. I
slightly favour this one, because the lands come in untapped. Explosive
Vegetation obviously has the advantage that you can fetch Islands as well as
Forests. The 2 Forests coming in untapped essentially makes the spell cost 2
mana, as long as you have the 4 mana to play it in the first place. So by
casting this first, you can often cast another spell that turn that uses those
two Forests, either on their own such as for Explore or with other lands for
something more expensive.
Explosive Vegetation: This can provide more mana acceleration and also can get
exactly the land types that you want. If you have both this and Skyshroud Claim
in hand, play this one if there is nothing you can do with the 2 untapped lands
you'd get from Skyshroud Claim. That way, you save them for when you can use
them.
Compulsive Research: This is efficient and cheap card drawing, and perfect for
this deck. It's at its best when you already have a land in hand that you can
afford to discard to guarantee you the full card draw. But even if you haven't
you can be reasonably sure you're going to draw at least one land in your 3
cards.
Tidings: This is vital for the deck, helping you rake back cards for all the
resources you put into developing your mana. With lots of land, you can often
make use of at least some of the cards you draw right away. As soon as your
hand is getting a bit low and you can afford the time to spend the mana on
this, normally it's a good idea to do so.
Coiling Oracle: An excellent complement to Explore, and quite similar. He
always replaces himself, and is an excellent chump blocker. Early in the game,
if you trade him for a 1/1 or 2/1 attacker, that's a great deal for you. On
turn 2, if you have a choice between this and Explore and have no land in hand,
play this. If the card you draw is a land it will be played for you, just as if
you'd got it with Explore. If it isn't a land just draw it, as you would with
Explore. Either way, you get the same result but a free 1/1 into the bargain.
Later in the game, he is a cheap way to keep ripping through your deck to find
the cards you need.
Simic Sky Swallower: The big daddy of the skies, and one of your most reliable
creatures. The great thing about him is the shroud, which means you can cast
him and hardly need to worry about him suddenly getting killed after putting
your resources into him. 7 mana is reasonably cheap for a big creature in this
deck too, and he is an excellent blocker while you are developing your
position. Once you're ready to start attacking, he's really hard to stop thanks
to flying and trample. I'd always keep both of these copies in the deck.
Yavimaya's Embrace: Even though the cost of this spell looks outrageous, it's
not that hard to achieve with this deck. It has the same strategies as Mind
Control, but of course you get an additional bonus of +2/+2 and trample making
it even harder for your opponent. You can also cast this on your own creature
just to boost it up, although you better be certain that's really worth it! It
could win you the game giving a huge creature trample, if the opponent is
tapped out and unable to interfere with a kill-spell.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: He's a walking Tidings with a rocket launcher, or
something like that. He's one of the best ways to spend all that mana you've
built up, since you get 4 cards just for casting him, even countering him
doesn't stop you drawing the cards. Note that you don't get any cards if he's
put onto the battlefield another way such as with Elvish Piper. Although he
doesn't have trample, this hardly matters since annihilator is even more
effective. If your opponent can't stop him from attacking even a few times,
they will not have enough permanents left to stop you doing anything. Even if
they can team up to kill it, it's usually worth attacking anyway, since they'll
probably lose 2-3 creatures in battle plus 4 permanents to the annihilator,
that's a lot of attrition. His graveyard shuffling ability can be useful if
you're running low on cards in your library due to putting almost your whole
deck onto the battlefield as land. If you use Tidings to get to 8 cards,
discard him at the end of your turn when prompted and he'll shuffle your
graveyard into your library, saving you from running out of cards. Note that
Eldrazi are not artifact creatures, just colourless creatures.
Lorthos, the Tidemaker: Sometimes even more devastating than the Eldrazi, this
octo-plus can totally lock down all your opponent's permanents. It's usually
most important, if you can, to lock down the opponent's lands. Tap all the
lands, then use any of the remaining 8 targets on their best creatures. This
way you totally stunt their development and they can't increase their board
position hardly at all. Of course, sometimes you need to tap more creatures,
either to get your guys through or to stop them beating you up. Use your
judgement as to what's best to tap in each situation. You can choose targets
that are already tapped, just to stop them untapping next turn. There's no
penalty for choosing all 8 targets, even if you don't intend to pay the 8 mana,
you are not forced to do so when the time comes. And the permanents still count
as targeted so this kills any of the die-by-target Illusions for free. It may
take almost all your mana to pay the 8, but you should find that you can
continue to develop by playing more lands and mana development spells. So you
can carry on casting things while your opponent keeps getting locked down and
can barely move. This is an excellent card in Archenemy, if you can keep the
big man locked down in this way, often the Schemes aren't even enough to dig
them out of that hole. Please note that when he attacks and you are asked to
pick 8 targets, it's not asking you which land to pay the ability with! It's
asking what you want to tap. So don't select your own lands by mistake. You get
asked afterwards if you want to pay or not, and then your land is tapped for
you automatically.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: Similar to Kozilek, except this time your reward for
casting him is destroying a permanent. Again this ability can't be stopped even
by countering him, and only applies if you actually cast him. This is one of
the few ways this deck can directly destroy a permanent. Being indestructible
means that you can send him crashing in to attack each turn and not worry about
any amount of blockers stopping him. Only a very few cards can deal with him,
most of them being in the Wielding Steel deck. He is very expensive, but I feel
he is worth it, and you will often achieve this amount of mana.
Aether Mutation: Although this is essentially a stall card and I generally
don't like those, this is an uber-stall and has other applications as well. It
plays with your opponent's timing by returning hopefully a huge creature to
their hand, and adding a nice army of 1/1 creatures for you to chump block
with. Apart from fliers, these can usually keep you going for a really long
time, helping you develop your mana while hiding behind them, until you can put
out threats of your own. The deck just doesn't have hardly any other way of
dealing with creatures, and I feel these are needed. Sometimes the army of
little guys can join in your attack and prove overwhelming to an opponent that
has developed slowly. And if there's nothing worth using this on and you
desperately need more cards, you can use this on your own Coiling Oracle so you
can cast him again. Or if you need more mana, bring back your Ondu Giant for
another use. It can also be used to get stolen creatures back to your hand,
such as from Mind Control. It will kill a token since they disappear after
going to a player's hand. Usually you won't get any Saprolings as tokens have
zero mana cost by default. But if the token is a copy of a creature, such as
from Rite of Replication or Mirrorworks, the mana cost is copied also. Then you
will get Saprolings as usual.
Ondu Giant: You often have to make difficult decisions about when to cast a
creature for defence, and when to press on with mana development. This guy
offers a useful way to do both at once. His high toughnes makes him a great
roadblock, and even if he does get killed by a spell right away you get to keep
the land, maintaining card advantage.
Elvish Piper: You can use this chap as a way to "cheat" in your huge creatures
without bothering to pay the cost. Although he is very fragile, I feel it is
worth the risk, and at the very least your opponent has to stop what they are
doing and deal with this card. It's often best not to use his ability in your
turn, instead waiting to see what your opponent does. Let them declare
attackers, and if they do choose any, use his ability in the attackers phase to
drop down something huge. It can then be used to block, probably making a mess
of one of the attackers. Even if they don't attack, which they may well not if
they know what you're up to, you can still use the ability near the end of
their turn once you've seen what they wanted to cast.
Kraken Hatchling: This is the kind of card you would normally expect to see me
scoffing at and moving to the bottom of the list. But I make an exception,
because this fits well into this deck. You are very vulnerable in your first
few turns, and apart from chump blocking with Coiling Oracles you have nothing
to protect you. This can soak up a huge amount of damage for you. Even for a
pansy defensive card 4 toughness is impressive. You have nothing else you can
cast on turn 1, so he doesn't interfere with your mana curve. Later on, you
only have to find one spare mana to cast him. He is worth considering for extra
ground defence.
OK cards
Inkwell Leviathan: He looks good and talks big, but I feel that he's a bit
expensive for what he offers. He is certainly hard to stop, but not that much
harder than the cheaper Simic Sky Swallower, and not as devastating as the
Eldrazi or Lorthos. If you are looking for another big threat that can look
after itself though, you could do worse.
Polymorph: I can see the idea with this card, but I find it too risky. You're
meant to cast it on something menial like a Coiling Oracle or a token generated
by Aeether Mutation and turn it into one of your big nasties. The problem is,
the deck has quite a few support creatures, like loads of those Coiling
Oracles, Kraken Hatchling, and various 4 mana creatures which would make you
facepalm if they got turned over. When it works it may be really good, but I'd
rather use cards I can count on. If you are playing a version with much less of
the smaller creatures, then it would be much more viable, being quite likely to
turn up a monster. You can of course use it on your opponent's creature. This
can be risky, but you may consider it an option since the deck is so lacking in
creature control. Note that if the creature you target doesn't get destroyed,
like if it's indestructible or saved by a totem armor, the second part about
searching for a creature to put into play will still go ahead regardless. So
using this on your own Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre will just fetch you a free
creature!
Assault Zeppelid: With this deck being low on creatures, this provides a
reasonable mid-range attacker and defender. The deck is vulnerable to flying,
and this helps with that somewhat. It's easy to cast colour wise. Judging when
to cast this and when to keep going with the mana building is difficult. It
depends on what the opponent has out, what your life total is and what is in
your hand. Plan your next few turns out mentally, and what your opponent is
likely to do. Unfortunately it doesn't fit in with the overall theme of the
deck.
Isleback Spawn: I've never much cared for this card. It's just way too
expensive for what it does. It's usually a huge, untargetable defender, which
sounds great, but at 7 mana you want something better than that. Its boost
ability isn't something you can rely on either. Some games you may deplete your
library really heavily by land searching and drop it to 20, but by that time
you'd have the mana to cast any big nasty in the deck and there's plenty more
scary that this. However, at least having shroud means it is likely to stick
around and help keep you alive. This is its only redeeming factor.
Tidal Kraken: He looks really cool, and when you start playing the deck he's a
reasonable threat to use after getting all your mana out. But once you unlock
other types of big threats, you'll see they are much more efficient and this
guy is a bit overpriced for what he does. He doesn't even compare favourable to
Simic Sky Swallower which already starts in the deck. Replace him with one of
the better huge cards, and then you shouldn't need him anymore.
Bad cards
Levitation: You don't have enough creatures in this deck that you plan to
attack with, that don't already have flying, for this to make much of a
difference. For 4 mana, you'd much rather be developing your lands or casting a
creature than this. It does help with chump blocking, your Coiling Oracles can
get in the way of big fliers, and this deck does have an overall weakness to
fliers. But I still don't think it's worth a whole card slot. I would rather
use the 4 mana for an Assault Zeppelid which can block and kill small flying
creatures without relying on anything else.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest: This doesn't work well in one on one, simply because
you don't have enough fast creatures to make use of his ability, nor ways of
clearing blockers early. He'll likely get out-muscled, and not achieve much.</pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
Late in the game when you have your huge buddies, he may start getting you
cards, but that defeats the point of him being so cheap and you may as well
have had another giant threat. He is wonderful however in Archenemy! When
played aside 2 Sorins busting out Tormented Souls on turn 1, he turns them into
crazy card machines, and your Vampire friends will be loading up on goodies.
Even the Archenemy will have trouble keeping up with all the firepower they
will draw.
Treasure Hunt: I initially thought this looked great, but I've decided it's not
necessary. Early in the game, with the deck having around 42% land, you are
about 58% likely to just draw 1 card, and for 2 mana that's not good. The rest
of the time you'll usually draw 1 land, which is good, and sometimes more. But
I'd rather not gamble like this, as Coiling Oracle and Explore are really
important to cast early on and are more reliable. Later on in the game, you're
likely to have stripped a lot of land from your deck, and the chances of just
drawing 1 card get even higher. The deck has better more reliable card draw,
I'd leave this out.
Giant Octopus: Just about acceptable to begin with, certainly nothing special.
As soon as you unlock the 2 Assault Zeppelid, they are clearly better and
should replace these. Those, along with the 2 Ondu Giant, are all you should
need at the 4 mana creature range, so these can stay in the box.
Living Destiny: This is rather expensive, relies on having a big creature in
hand which you don't always, and is at best only a stall tactic. There's too
many other important things to do for 4 mana, mainly boosting your land up
quickly to get something really scary into play that will make a real
difference. That's better than mucking around like this and giving away card
advantage. I'd stay clear.
New Frontiers: I don't recommend using this for 1 on 1, even though the mana
acceleration is great, you give the same advantage to your opponent. And they
get to untap and make use of it all before you do. It's just too risky, I'd
stick to all the more reliable ways that don't help your opponent. However,
this is an absolute bomb for Archenemy play! For any amount of X, even as
little as 1 but hopefully more, you are boosting all 3 of your allies' land
supplies, while only boosting the Archenemy once. And they often get loads of
free land from their Schemes and have more than enough, a few more often
doesn't make that much difference. But it will raise the curves of all your
team, and help them get bigger threats out early.
===============================================================================
Koth - Strength of Stone
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a new mono red deck, which is quite hard to describe as it doesn't seem
to have any coherent theme or strategy. It's got a bit of direct damage, a bit
of creature pumping, some temporary creature-stealing tricks, and some haste
creatures. It's not very good at all, and is easily the worst deck in the game.
I'm really hoping to see it get some good DLC cards to fill in some of the gaps
and give it some direction.
Strategy
Unfortunately, this amounts to just doing the best you can with what you've
got. Save your direct damage for really important creatures, as your creatures
are poor and will not likely match up to your opponents' very well. You have a
few fatty creatures that can prove a menace if you can survive long enough to
get them out, and Spire Barrage can be a good finisher if you can get enough
damage through to your opponent somehow. Claws of Valakut often provides your
best threat, making a creature having a huge power and first strike.
Pros
> * Has a bit of direct damage, and a couple of 1 mana creatures that can
deal damage
> * Good artifact control with 2 Oxidda Scrapmelter
Cons
> * Poor creatures and notably no mana cost 2 creatures at all which wrecks
the curve
> * Relies too much on pumping up creatures
> * Not effective enough to make use of many of the themes the deck tries to
have
> * No coherent strategy
Example decklist
25 Mountain
Creatures (22)
3 Goblin Mountaineer
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Spikeshot Elder
2 Koth's Courier
2 Molten Ravager
2 Vulshock Heartstroker
1 Hero of Oxid Ridge
1 Lavaborn Muse
2 Oxidda Scrapmelter
1 Vulshok Berserker
1 Flowstone Overseer
1 Magma Phoenix
2 Tephraderm
1 Conquering Manticore
1 Earth Servant
Other spells (13)
2 Darksteel Axe
1 Fault Line
3 Spitting Earth
2 Volcanic Strength
2 Claws of Valakut
1 Cerebral Eruption
2 Spire Barrage
Cards to exclude to build this deck
1 Assault Strobe
3 Golden Urn
2 Act of Treason
2 Rockslide Elemental
1 Vulshok Berserker
4 Earth Elemental
2 Flameborn Hellion
1 Bloodfire Colossus
DLC 1 cards
I think this deck made out best with the DLC. All 4 cards are playable and
improve the deck, and 3 of them are awesome. The strategy of the deck changes a
lot, with 2 Slagstorm making the move towards bigger creatures and moving away
from the quick Goblins which were really only placeholders. From my list, I
suggest removing 3 Goblin Mountaineer and 2 Volcanic Strength, adding all 4 new
cards, and an Act of Treason. With the greater sweeping power, it will become a
much more viable card for getting your big creatures through and dealing a lot
of damage at once. I consider all 4 must includes for the moment, simply
because they improve the overall quality a lot compared to what you take out.
Slagstorm: Almost all the time you are going to choose damage to creatures. Its
Pyroclasm's big brother, taking out even some of the medium size creatures. A
lot of your creatures have high toughness and are able to survive it. Even if
they don't, you can often kill more of the opponent's than your own. This is
the new super-ace card, so play it sparingly and hold it back until you can get
the biggest effect. Against any weenie rush decks, taking out their whole early
army is going to be devastating and leave you well ahead on cards. Then your
bigger creatures can come out and dominate. Even better, it can be used as a
finisher by choosing damage to players instead. Or in a desperate situation
where you're going to lose, you can force a draw by killing both players!
Cyclops Gladiator: This is huge, literally. 4/4 for 4 mana is a great deal,
especially for red. It can also wipe out something every time it attacks. Watch
out for antics during combat, for example after you select a target, they Giant
Growth it. This could lead to your Cyclops losing the "fight" and not even
making it to combat. Note that abilities such as first strike make no
difference to his ability, he will always get hit back even with Claws of
Valakut on. If you don't want him to fight with anything, when asked to pick a
target after selecting him as an attacker, press the continue button instead (Y
on Xbox). This will make the ability not resolve at all so he won't take any
damage. Remember that after his "fight" he will keep the damage he takes, so he
will then be easier for a blocker to kill him. Regardless of the potential
drawbacks, he is an awesome creature with an ability that can win the game on
its own in the right situation.
Stuffy Doll: Not quite as amazing as the above two cards, but still a much
needed improvement to the deck. The opponent cannot afford to attack with just
one ground creature, you just block it, your Doll won't die and they take the
damage that gets dealt. So to achieve anything they must attack with multiple
creatures, and you get to reflect back the biggest attacker. You can then use
its ability in the opponent's second main phase to damage itself, doing them a
further damage. If they don't attack at all, then you can still safely do this
to slowly wear them down. This will work really well with Fault Line and
Slagstorm, all the damage done to the Doll gets done to the opponent in
addition to any they take anyway. He can still be killed by having his
toughness reduced, being exiled, being sacrificed etc. But you can expect him
to live a long life most of the time. He fits the new slower control strategy
well and combines with the other direct damage nicely.
Good cards
Fault Line: I want to follow the "Fault Line" to find out who's fault it is
that this deck is so messed up. The most powerful card in the deck, and your
best defence against a weenie rush. With enough mana, it can even clear the
board of medium size creatures. It's an instant speed Wrath of God against
ground creatures, often best used in your opponent's turn either after they
have tapped lots of their land to cast creatures or have pulled a combat
surprise you don't like. Use very sparingly, it's a nuke but you can only use
it once. Don't worry about killing your own creatures, which you most likely
will, as long as you kill more of your opponent's. Hold out on casting it as
long as possible, in the hope that the opponent will commit more creatures that
you can kill. Use what you have to chump block, faking that they are getting
the upper hand before levelling the playing field. You may want to hold some
creatures back ready to cast in your turn after using this in your opponent's
turn. The damage is really just a side effect, but occasionally you may be able
to combine it with your other direct damage to kill the opponent, so keep a
close eye on their life total.
Spire Barrage: A hugely improved Lava Axe that can also deal damage to
creatures, and can go beyond 5 damage. Save this for killing your opponent's
biggest, scariest creatures, or to finish the opponent off.
Spitting Earth: Very useful for getting rid of an annoying little creature
early on, or a bigger one later in the game when you have more land. This can't
hurt players, so your only decision is how long to hold this back before
killing something.
Spikeshot Elder: My favourite creature in the deck, and what you want to see in
your opening hand. He can get some quick damage in, and then once blockers
arrive he can sit back and start pinging things for you. Excellent for taking
out weenies, and can combine with other direct damage once you have enough mana
to take out bigger things. He can finish off creatures that are nearly dead
after combat, or just do damage to your opponent. If you're desperate, he can
kill a 2/2 creature on his own by blocking it and dealing it 1 damage in the
blockers phase, causing them both to die when damage is dealt. But keep him
alive whenever you can, his ability is very valuable. He combos well with
Volcanic Strength, Claws of Valakut and Darksteel Axe, increasing his power and
the damage his ability deals.
Grim Lavamancer: Similar to the above, but cannot operate without fuel from the
graveyard. Early in the game there may not be any for a while, but later in the
game he'll probably be able to keep firing for several turns. 2 damage is a lot
for such a cheap ability, and you may sometimes want to engineer ways of
getting more cards into your graveyard (such as suicidally attacking with other
creatures) just so you can use it to kill a vital creature. It currently has a
bug on the Xbox version where the targeting lines for his ability don't appear
while it is resolving. I've reported this and hopefully it will be fixed soon.
Flowstone Overseer: One of the few truly scary creatures in the deck. Not so
much because he can pump the attack of your creatures, although that can be
helpful, but because he can kill creatures. He will easily pick off smaller
ones, and after combat he can lower the toughness of any that are nearly dead,
and at that point increasing their power won't matter. You can combine with a
Spitting Earth to take out something huge. He is also not too shabby at 4/4 and
can hand out some pain while you clear the board of your opponent's creatures.
Darksteel Axe: I like this because it's likely to stick around for the whole
game. Only two cards can currently do anything about it directly once it's on
the table, Revoke Existence and Quicksilver Geyser. Everything else will bounce
harmlessly off it, unless you are forced to sacrifice it to an Eldrazi. It
makes your undersized creatures more competitive, and will be good to put on
almost anything in the deck.
Conquering Manticore: One of the best creatures in this deck, 5/5 flying is
good for 6 mana, and you get to borrow a creature. You'll usually want to cast
him whatever the situation, and just nick the best creature the opponent has.
He's too good to be holding back. Ones that can somehow kill themselves are
good targets, such as Vampire Aristocrat or Prodigal Pyromancer, so you can do
them in once you've finished with them rather than giving them back.
Magma Phoenix: One of the few fliers in the deck, and offers another way to
protect against an overgrown enemy creature population. If you need to clear
the way, just block with him and get him killed to trigger his ability. When
you can spare the mana, pay to get him back in your hand, and eventually he'll
be useful as an attacker once you're in a better position. He's hard to stop
permanently, unless he's disabled by Arrest or similar. Even then you have the
option of killing him yourself to get him back in your graveyard.
Oxidda Scrapmelter: A very nice way to deal with artifacts, giving you a decent
size creature as well. If the opponent is using a deck that doesn't have
artifacts or you just really need a creature, you can cast him without there
being an artifact on the battlefield. Even if you're forced to target your own
Darksteel Axe, that doesn't matter since he won't destroy it.
Hero of Oxid Ridge: A clearly better version of your Vulshok Berserker, who
also pumps up any other attackers you have. Good for making those 1/1 creatures
more worthwhile on the attack, and the 4 damage he deals is a nasty surprise
for an unprepared opponent. Battlecry can be very useful for Two Headed Giant
and Archenemy, since the bonus applies to all attacking creatures. So it pumps
up your allies' attackers too.
Claws of Valakut: One of the few Auras I'm fairly happy to play with. This
instantly turns even the crummiest of your creatures into a virtually
unstoppable powerhouse, with hugely inflated attack and first strike. This
ability is relevant to every one of your creatures, except Rockslide Elemental
which has it already. Even a first turn 1/1 can be pumped to 4/1 first strike
on turn 3 with this, and will probably be able to kill anything around. Later
in the game the stats can get just silly. If you have enough mana and your
opponent has just attacked with all their creatures, you can cast one of your
haste creatures and then immediately enchant it with this and attack for
massive damage.
OK cards
Molten Ravager: 4 toughness is pretty high for 3 mana, shame about the 0 power.
But you often only need to put enough mana into him to kill what blocks him, as
the opponent may be scared of letting you pump it to the max. If he does get
through, consider how much it's worth pumping him, as getting more threats on
the table can often be more important than a bit of damage. He makes a good
blocker as well.
Lavaborn Muse: A Hill Giant with a fairly nasty ability. It can at make the
opponent choose between taking damage and holding their cards back. If you cast
it when their hand is empty, it's pretty nasty.
Koth's Courier: Reasonable stats for his mana makes him a fairly good attacker
and blocker. Forestwalk is just a nice bonus when it applies.
Tephraderm: A better version of Earth Elemental, with two alright abilities.
Nice against direct damage decks, as they suffer if they try to burn him out.
And he tends to kill whatever he fights, giving them a low blow after the fight
is done. Even if something with first strike and 5 power takes him down, he
will still hit back for 5 and probably kill them too.
Earth Elemental: The fatty from Hands of Flame, nothing special about him but
he's alright. The high toughness makes him annoying to get rid of. As the worst
of the 5 mana creatures available, I have found he's not needed.
Goblin Mountaineer: Not one of the best 1 drops, but the deck is so slow and
relies on some Auras and Equipments, so it needs something quick to put them
on. The mountainwalk is only good against 3 of the 10 decks, but handy when it
happens.
Vulshok Berserker: One of the better cards in the deck's mini-theme of haste,
but still not great. He would be fine except for the puny 2 toughness, but if
you can find your opponent with no untapped blockers, it doesn't matter so
much.
Volcanic Strength: It's OK, not quite good enough for the risk of being an
Aura, but it does the job for the moment. It goes some way to making up for the
missing 2 cost creatures by instead putting this on a 1 cost creature making it
a more impressive size. The mountainwalk is just an added bonus if it happens
to apply. I'd want to replace this when better cards become available, but for
now it helps your weaker creatures to try and compete. Best used when the
opponent is tapped out to force them to either block and lose a creature or
take a lot of damage.
Vulshok Heartstoker: With few evasion creatures, there's often not much to use
this on that's going to be much of a threat. No 2 cost creatures is a problem,
meaning on turn 3 you're probably using this on a 1 cost creature at best. The
opponent get to see this all coming, and can either just take a little extra
damage or block accordingly. At least it can make your 1/1 creatures able to
muscle through bigger blockers for a turn.
Rockslide Elemental: Really puny initially, but if you can get him to survive,
he can grow to annoying proportions. His problem is that currently there isn't
enough ways for you to kill creatures in this deck to reliably let him sit
around growing big. Keep him out of combat where possible so he doesn't get
killed early, and let him benefit from creature trades and by killing things
with your spells and abilities. He can be tricky in combat, if two creatures of
the same size as him try to gang up and kill him, they will fail. Say he is 4/4
and gets blocked by two 4/4 creatures, the opponent thinking one will die to
first strike and the other will kill your Rockslide. But he deals his damage to
one of them, and straight away gets his +1/+1 counter after the first strike
damage, but before normal damage is dealt. He's then 5/5 when the other 4/4
hits him back, and he'll survive.
Earth Servant: For this much mana you want something that will make a decent
impact, and this isn't very scary for your opponent. It will have an insanely
high toughness though, and if you are concentrating more on defence up this
will at least help keep ground creatures at bay.
Flameborn Hellion: Unimpressive for 6 mana. The stats aren't good, but
hopefully you can surprise your opponent with this and knock them down to a
range where they may fear direct damage finishing them off. If you need this as
a blocker, at least for one turn, cast it after combat so that it doesn't have
to attack and will remain untapped. You could replace with Earth Servant to go
more defensive.
Cerebral Eruption: I tend to include this as another come-back card, although
it's far from ideal. When it works it can be great, but it can also totally
miss the mark if a land is turned over so you can't rely on it. You get the
card back, but it uses up a lot of time and resources to cast it again. I'd
happily replace this if some better control cards become available. I don't
like using hit and miss cards very much, but for now there's not much to take
its place. You could just use another creature if you don't like it. Please see
the section after this one, "Cerebral Eruption Analysis", for how effective
this is against each of the 10 decks.
Act of Treason: A pretty good card, but it's in the wrong deck. This deck isn't
fast, powerful or aggressive enough to make good use of this. It amounts to
some extra damage against the opponent, and doesn't help when you are losing,
which you normally are with this deck.
Bad cards
Assault Strobe: Only any use when you are winning, being a sorcery it is purely
offensive. Seeing as you will usually be struggling to stay alive with this
deck, this won't help you dig your way out of a hole. Also the deck has a lack
of evasion creatures, so your double striker will be seen coming a mile away
and probably chump blocked.
Golden Urn: I hate life gain! Similar to and not much better than the standard
life-gain artifacts.
Bloodfire Colossus: He is just too expensive for this deck, even with 25 lands.
You won't get him out consistently, he'll mostly sit in your hand for ages.
Even if you do eventually get him out, he could have been something cheaper to
have an effect on the game many turns before.
===============================================================================
Cerebral Eruption Analysis
===============================================================================
I have done a study to estimate the average amount of damage you would expect
from this card against each of the 10 decks, and the percentage chance you have
of it working. This is based on the total converted mana cost of all the cards
in each of my decklists, and the number of land/non-land cards. For the ones
with multiple decklists I used the average total cost. The numbers will vary
for different lists, but it probably won't be too far off. The maximum and
minimum possible damage is based on all available cards for the decks. Here are
my results:
+==============+==============+==============+==============+===============+
| Opponent's | Percentage | Average | Minimum | Maximum |
| Deck | chance of | damage dealt | damage | damage |
| | working | | | |
+==============+==============+==============+==============+===============+
| Unquenchable | 60 | 2.25 | 1 | 7 |
| Fire | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Apex | 60 | 3.64 | 1 | 7 |
| Predators | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Wielding | 60 | 2.42 | 1 | 7 |
| Steel | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Realm of | 60 | 2.94 | 1 | 6 |
| Illusion | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Ancient | 58 | 4.26 | 1 | 11 |
| Depths | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Strength of | 58 | 3.14 | 1 | 8 |
| Stone | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Guardians of | 60 | 2.92 | 1 | 6 |
| the Wood | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Dragon's | 58 | 3.17 | 1 | 7 |
| Roar | | | | |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Blood Hunger | 60 | 3.08 | 1 | 7 |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
| Machinations | 60 | 3.17 | 1 | 7 |
+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+
===============================================================================
Nissa Revane - Guardians of the Wood
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a black/green aggressive Elf deck, quite similar to Ears of the Elves
from D09. It has thankfully lost the Elvish Champions which gave it such an
unfair advantage against green decks from all the forestwalk. Also gone are the
cheap and nasty Coat of Arms. In their place, the deck concentrates more on a
swarm strategy with cards like Elvish Promenade that doubles your elf
population, and Heedless One who grows stronger with each Elf you have. It's
one of the best decks in the game in my opinion.
Strategy
You generally win with this deck by getting a lot of Elves into play quickly,
which pump up a huge Heedless One who tramples through. Churn out as many
creatures as you can, stopping to kill creatures only if really needed. The
ideal play would be a turn 4 Heedless One, followed by Elvish Promenade next
turn which will make him pretty unstoppable. Otherwise it's a fairly simple
deck, keep attacking whenever you can to keep the pressure on.
Pros
> * Lots of fast, nasty Elves with good abilities
> * Good creature, artifact and enchantment control
> * Lots of ways to gain card advantage
> * Good combat tricks with Might of the Masses and Epic Proportions
Cons
> * No evasion (only Elven Riders which is rubbish)
> * Sometimes you end up with more land than you need, and not much at the
top end of the mana curve
> * Relies on keeping large numbers of Elves in play
Example decklist
17 Forest
7 Swamp
Creatures (23)
1 Joraga Warcaller
2 Elvish Visionary
4 Nissa's Chosen
2 Sylvan Ranger
3 Viridian Emissary
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Jagged-Scar Archers
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Heedless One
1 Lys Alana Huntmaster
1 Wildheart Invoker
1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Other spells (13)
3 Might of the Masses
2 Eyeblight's Ending
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Elvish Promenade
3 Essence Drain
1 Epic Proportions
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Elvish Euologist
1 Elvish Lyrist
2 Ezuri's Archers
4 Norwood Ranger
1 Plummet
1 Viridian Emissary
2 Titania's Chosen
1 Wildheart Invoker
1 Elven Riders
DLC 1 cards
Elvish Champion: I was personally rather sad to see them add this card. I had
repeatedly asked for the Champions to be replaced in the original Elves deck,
because of the luck factor they gave of near instant wins through mass
forestwalk. I was happy to see them not appear in the new Elves deck, so
disheartened that it's here now. At least there's only one now. Anyhow, this is
an essential card for the deck. It's always going to be good, pumping up your
army, and especially your tokens from Elvish Promenade. Against any green deck
it will give you an overwhelming advantage as they won't be able to block
anything (except the card below!) Try and protect him with Might of the Masses
when you can against direct damage, and keep him out of combat unless he is
sure to survive.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace Wildheart Invoker, probably the weakest
creature in the deck.
Hydra Omnivore: I don't understand what is going on with this. Surely this
should have been given to Apex Predators? Especially as it is struggling. I've
no idea what this is doing in an Elf deck. However! It's an amazingly efficient
creature even for 1 vs 1, and since the deck lacks high end spells this is a
must. It gives you something else to ramp up to, this is only the second 6 mana
spell available. It won't receive bonuses from your Elves, but at 8/8 it hardly
needs any help. Even more amazing in 2 Headed Giant or if you are the
Archenemy, where it will hit for 16 and 8-8-8 respectively.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace a Viridian Emissary, 4 ramp/fixers is
probably enough now you can improve the creature base.
Fog: No. It's one of those cards that looks useful, but really isn't any good.
Especially for an aggressive deck like this, it's a waste of time. Even though
its cheap, it still costs you a card. It doesn't deal with any threats, and it
doesn't help you win. If you're getting beaten up badly, all it does is stall
for a turn, and then put you in the exact same situation, so you may has well
have drawn something else. If you're winning, you don't usually need it. It's
only good if the opponent overcommits to what they think is a winning attack,
and you surprise them with this, leaving them open to a lethal counterattack.
But the amount of times this will happen is not worth all the times it will be
a serious underachiever in the deck. There's no spells I would take out for
this.
Recommendation: Don't include. Rip up all copies you find in real life as well.
Good cards
Maelstrom Pulse: One of the best control cards ever, this deals with almost
anything. Most of the time you'll only expect to kill one card, but that's
plenty good enough since you can pick from anything your opponent has. If you
can afford to wait and cast some things in the mean time, you might get lucky
enough that they'll drop a duplicate of a card and you can sweep both at once.
This is great for getting rid of loads of tokens, as it will wipe out all of
the same type. It doesn't matter if the tokens were created by different cards,
as long as they have exactly the same name.
Eyeblight's Ending: Amazing creature control, useful in every matchup except
the mirror match. Save it for your opponent's best creatures. It is also
counted as an Elf spell by Lys Alana Huntmaster giving you an Elf token.
Imperious Perfect: I always liked this more than Elvish Champion, it is always
really good, can't backfire and can win the game on its own. Also it's easier
to cast. You'll usually want to create tokens rather than attack with this, for
more damage over time, and they will stick around after this dies. Until he
does, he pumps up the tokens too making them formidable 2/2 guys. You can use
this ability in your opponent's turn after they declare attackers, dropping
your token ready to block, or wait until near the end of their turn if you want
to keep your mana open for other things you might want to cast.
Joraga Warcaller: A nice replacement for Elvish Champion, and sometimes even
stronger. You can play him as just a 1/1, although I'd almost never recommend
doing that. Hold back until you can play the kicker once, preferably twice. He
can turn the smallest of your Elves into considerable threats.
Might of the Masses: A fairer replacement for Giant Growth, but which can
sometimes be even more effective. Keep an eye at all times on the number of
creatures you have, and the bonus this will give. Be wary of your opponent
killing something in response to this, which will reduce the bonus it gives.
Awesome after you've flooded the screen with Elvish Promenade, and on your
tramplers like Heedless One.
Essence Drain: A bit expensive, but handy anyway to take out small or medium
size creatures, finish off a creature after your combat phase, or provide some
direct damage for the win.
Sylvan Ranger: Along with the card below, he provides your land fetching
abilities. After lots of testing, I have come to prefer this one. He is more
reliable, you always get your land. You don't have to get him killed first like
the Emissary, so he helps your Elf population more. He doesn't accelerate, but
then this deck doesn't have a very high mana curve so it's not too important. I
feel that a total of 3-4 land fetchers, between this and Emissaries, is enough
to find what you need if you don't want to include them all.
Viridian Emissary: I love this guy, although he looks more like an Elf Zombie
to me! You can attack recklessly with him, happily swapping him for a 1/1 or
just running him into a bigger creature, because you want him to die so you can
accelerate your mana. Your opponent faces the tough choice of letting you
sucker punch them each turn with him, or taking him down and risking you coming
out with scary things much quicker. He's also a brilliant blocker, again your
opponent might think twice about giving you the chance to get him killed. His
only drawback is when the opponent refuses to kill it and you really want a
particular land, usually a Swamp. But unless your opponent is using primarily
flying creatures, this isn't too much of a problem since to kill you they're
probably going to have to let you block with this sooner or later. Most of the
time one Swamp is enough for this deck, so if you have one in hand or on the
battlefield already, I'd recommend fetching a Forest since the deck sometimes
needs a lot of green mana.
Nissa's Chosen: Almost the same as Elvish Warrior, except this goes back to
your library rather than the graveyard. This doesn't generally make a lot of
difference, but it does stop graveyard triggers for your opponent such as
Sangromancer. There's also a chance it'll get shuffled to the top again when
you search for a land card with one of the 2 cards above. Still an awesome beat
stick, and hard to compete with at the 2 mana range.
Elvish Visionary: An excellent way to boost your Elf population without even
costing you a card. Easy to cast and always replaces himself. Great early or
late in the game.
Heedless One: This is often your big winner, and rewards all your hard work
making lots of little Elves. He can get huge in a hurry, and hard to stop with
trample. Follow him up with Elvish Promenade when possible. Watch out for your
opponent killing one of your other Elves during combat, suddenly lowering his
stats. Try to cast lots of other Elves before you cast this, getting him out
too early sometimes makes him not too scary and vulnerable.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf: Back from Ears of the Elves, one of my favourite
creatures. It's pretty hard to get rid of, although there are more ways in this
game and less non-black restricted kill-spells. The discard is really nasty,
especially being random. If you can get this out quickly using Viridian
Emissary, you may clean out quite a few cards. That's normally too much to come
back from, and the extra Elf tokens help your strategy really well. Also once
the opponent's hand is empty, they are forced to either use every card they
draw right away or lose it on your turn. This means they often have to play
non-creature spells prematurely that they may have usually held back, and
counterspells will all be lost. If they draw cards they don't have the mana to
cast, they will have to be discarded. In this way, you stop the opponent
building up their hand for the future.
Elvish Promenade: Along with Heedless One, part of the main combo of this deck,
although it's really good anyway to make a huge number of Elves. Hold it back
until you have at least 3 to make it worthwhile, but of course the more the
better. With anything that pumps them up like Imperious Perfect, the tokens
become more scary. It counts Elf tokens you already have as well.
Jagged-Scar Archers: A mini-Heedless One that has the bonus of taking care of
fliers for you. That's a good bonus, since this deck doesn't have any flying
creatures to block them. It can really put a flying heavy deck on ice until
they can deal with this, it just can't cope with losing a creature every turn.
Viridian Shaman: A great way to get rid of an artifact while adding to your Elf
population. If the opponent is using a deck that doesn't have artifacts or you
just really need a creature, you can cast him without there being an artifact
on the battlefield.
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: A very handy mid range creature which can help keep all
your other guys alive, and replaces the previous Overrun in the deck with his
second ability. Also that ability can be used anytime, so save it for after
blockers have been assigned and you can even use it on the defence. As long as
you have some Forests untapped, your opponent is usually going to have to kill
this before he can kill any of your other Elves.
Lys Alana Huntmaster: This is back from Ears of the Elves, and I still
recommend using it. It really helps build up your Elf numbers to pump your
Heedless One up. It can also provide a near endless supply of chump blockers or
extra attackers, depending on how the game is going. Normally the opponent will
try and take this out quickly, as if they don't they are usually in trouble. If
you cast Elvish Promenade while you control a Huntmaster, its ability will put
an Elf token into play before the Promenade resolves. The token then gets
counted by Promenade, giving you an extra Elf token on top of all the others
you would receive!
Epic Proportions: Not really in fitting with the deck, but since this is the
only 6 mana spell available and it's pretty good, I think it's worth including.
Especially as you'll probably be running 4-6 Elves that fetch you extra land
and you usually end up with a lot. The flash means you can cast this as if it
was an Instant, so use it either in the blockers phase as a
permanent-super-Giant Growth, or in response to direct damage that would kill
your Elf.
Wildheart Invoker: Pretty good stats, and a nice ability although I wouldn't
count on getting enough mana to use it regularly. I find it is competing
directly with Heedless One at the 4 mana slot. You may feel like playing one of
these anyhow, just in case you can't find any other Elves, he will still be 4/3
rather than a 1/1 Heedless.
Elvish Lyrist: Useful extra backup against nasty enchantments. Following my
analysis on enchantment control at the end of the guide, I'd be inclined to
leave him out, but it depends on what decks you expect to face the most.
Ezuri's Archers: Pretty crazy abilities for a 1 mana creature! As well as a
fast and efficient guy to get your Elf population started, he's a really good
defence against fliers, able to take down even an Air Elemental. Possibly a bit
too defensive for such an aggressive deck.
OK cards
Elvish Eulogist: The classic 1 drop from Ears of the Elves, still decent
although I feel there are better 1 drops available now so this isn't needed. If
you do use it, don't sacrifice him until he's just about to die, either from a
spell, ability or combat. Doesn't work well with Nissa's Chosen which won't be
in the graveyard when it dies.
Norwood Ranger: A nice little weenie, but outclassed by Ezuri's Archers, and
there are better 1 drops in the deck.
Plummet: This will be good when it works, but a bit of a gamble to include. Not
every deck has flying creatures, and some only have a few and they might not
come out. It's a tough call as to whether to stick with this anyway, but I feel
there's enough control in the deck that will work against virtually anything,
so I'd rather leave this out and concentrate on the attack. However, if certain
decks like Blood Hunger are running rampant, it would be worth including to
pick on their numerous fliers.
Bad cards
Elven Riders: Your only evasion creature, sadly it's stats are too rubbish to
consider using. I'd rather rely on my Heedless Ones to break through the
defences than put a lot of mana into this guy. Just not good enough for his
cost.
Titania's Chosen: This is only going to be any good in 2 headed giant or
Archenemy where you are all playing this deck or Apex Predators so it benefits
from loads of spells. Too wimpy and slow for one on one play.
===============================================================================
Sarkhan Vol - Dragon's Roar
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a black/red Dragon style deck, loosely based on Scales of Fury from
D09. Obviously green is gone, and in its place there are a lot more Goblins,
making it a sort of strange mix of big Dragons and weenie Goblin rush. There is
a crossover card, Voracious Dragon, which can eat the Goblins to inflate itself
and do damage. There isn't a lot of black in the deck and because of this not
many Swamps are added, and this causes problems since you often don't draw any.
Strategy
There's two ways you can go with this deck. You can go mono red and drop every
black card, which makes the deck focus more on the fast Goblins. You lose some
creature control but tend to do more damage early on, and lose the mana colour
problems. Otherwise you can keep black/red, in which case I tend to cut down on
some of the Goblins, using them mainly to keep alive until the Dragons show up,
playing as more of a control deck. Either way the deck is fairly simple, you
aim to survive long enough to get out big Dragon creatures which will be how
you usually win. Your creature control will normally be used to kill threats
early in the game, or sometimes blockers later on when you are in attack mode.
Which build is better is a close call. Black/red gives you more powerful
spells, but relying on just 6 Swamps is very risky. You often get either Swamps
and no black spells, or black spells and no Swamps, causing you a lot of
problems. I'd give the slight edge to mono red for now just for its
consistency. You can get more Swamps in your deck by adding more black cards,
and removing red ones, particularly those with more than one red mana in the
cost.
Pros
> * Good, cheap creature control
> * Lots of big, powerful flying Dragons that must be dealt with or they win
for you in short order
> * Ways of reducing the cost of your Dragons to get them out faster with
Ruby Medallion and Dragonspeaker Shaman
> * Artifact control, although just one card
Cons
> * No enchantment control
> * Problems with getting black mana
> * Early Goblin creatures aren't generally very good
Example decklists
Red/black version
18 Mountain
7 Swamp
Creatures (21)
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
2 Festering Goblin
2 Slavering Nulls
2 Dragonspeaker Shaman
2 Giant Scorpion
1 Manic Vandal
2 Furnace Whelp
2 Gravedigger
2 Voracious Dragon
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Rorix Bladewing
2 Volcanic Dragon
Other spells (14)
2 Burst Lightning
3 Disfigure
3 Dragon Fodder
1 Pyroclasm
2 Ruby Medallion
2 Assassinate
1 Crucible of Fire
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Raging Goblin
3 Dragon's Claw
2 Goblin Piker
1 Goblin Wardriver
1 Goblin Offensive
2 Rally the Forces
1 Furnace Whelp
2 Volcanic Dragon
1 Furyborn Hellkite
Mono red version
25 Mountain
Creatures (24)
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
3 Raging Goblin
1 Goblin Piker
1 Goblin Wardriver
2 Slavering Nulls
2 Dragonspeaker Shaman
1 Manic Vandal
3 Furnace Whelp
2 Voracious Dragon
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Rorix Bladewing
4 Volcanic Dragon
1 Furyborn Hellkite
Other spells (11)
2 Burst Lightning
3 Dragon Fodder
1 Pyroclasm
2 Ruby Medallion
2 Rally the Forces
1 Crucible of Fire
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Disfigure
2 Festering Goblin
3 Dragon's Claw
1 Goblin Piker
2 Assassinate
2 Giant Scorpion
1 Goblin Offensive
2 Gravedigger
DLC 1 cards
Earthquake: Finally a really good card for this deck. Sadly the only one
probaby worth including, poor Dragon's Roar does not do well out of the DLC.
Although this is likely to wipe out a lot of your weenie creatures, they are
mainly there to help you survive until the dragons show up anyway. Save this as
long as possible and try to take out lots of your opponent's ground creatures
at once, hopefully leaving mainly just your dragons. Be careful of the damage
it deals to you in the process. By damaging your opponent with this it can be
used as a finisher, or to force a draw if need be. If this is in your opening
hand along with a lot of weenies, you may wish to hold them back and pretend
you have a slow hand, clear the board after a few turns with this then start
playing them.
Recommendation: Must include. Replace Dragonmaster Outcast in the black/red
version, and a Raging Goblin in the monored version. These are probably the
least important creatures in each list (considering cutting a black creature
will drop the Swamp count) and won't be missed too much. Plus less weenies to
die to this spell and Pyroclasm.
Malfegor: He's an awesome creature, and I would recommend using him except for
his irritating mana cost. It can be hard enough getting 1 Swamp together for
this deck; getting 2 could be seriously problematic. On the other hand, it
won't be until at least turn 6 so you have longer to come across them. You
could replace one of the more insignificant creatures in the black/red version,
and hope that the times he comes out he will be worth the punch. But I think
he's too much of a gamble. If you do use him, it gives you a reason to hold
back cards, such as late game weenies that won't do much, and extra lands, so
you can force your opponent to lose more creatures. Trading your generally weak
cards in this deck for your opponent's creatures is going to be really good for
you, unless they have generated a lot of tokens, and could be game winning.
It's a difficult call as to whether this is worth the risk of mana cost. If you
could tweak the land ratios, it would be a different matter. His ability does
get around shroud, hexproof, protection, even indestructible creatures, if you
can force them to be sacrificed.
Recommendation: Don't include, unless you like to gamble with his cost.
Breath of Malfegor: This is not good for 1 vs 1 at all, an inflexible and more
difficult to cast Lava Axe. I don't like cards that only hit players in
general, and this one isn't even good for one of those. This deck doesn't have
enough clout or direct damage to rely on this as a finisher. Save it for Two
Headed Giant where it will deal 10 damage to the other team, or as the
Archenemy to take a chunk out of each of the 3 weaklings facing you.
Recommendation: Don't include.
Good cards
Burst Lightning: Amazing direct damage, which can be used to take out a small
annoying creature, or finish something off, very cheaply. But when you can
afford to, it can kill a medium size creature with the kicker. The key is
deciding which way to use it. Also 4 damage is considerable against the
opponent, when you have them on the ropes this can be a nasty finisher.
Assassinate: Very useful because it can target and destroy any type of
creature. It will have to have attacked you already to be tapped so you've
taken damage or chump blocked it, but getting rid of the threat for good is
what's important. Save this for your opponents best creatures.
Pyroclasm: This is your one comeback card against a weenie rush from the
opponent. You can often maximize it's impact early in the game by continuing to
chump block with anything you have out, trying to tempt the opponent into
casting some more creatures before pulling the trigger. Hold back creatures in
your hand to cast afterwards. You can combine with Burst Lightning to take down
a larger creature at the same time.
Flameblast Dragon: One of the best creatures in the game, and fits the control
theme perfectly. Usually you'll want to take out your opponent's creatures
instead of damaging them directly with his ability, unless you can finish them
off. Killing one a turn is usually enough to turn the momentum of the game.
Hellkite Charger: This guy is a bit crazy, 5/5 flying haste is good enough for
6 mana. When you can afford to pay for his ability it is probably worth it. If
he got through once he'll likely get through again. Add any other attackers to
that scenario and it's probably close to game over.
Rorix Bladewing: Another nutcase of a Dragon, his mana cost is a little
demanding but since the land base is almost all Mountains it shouldn't be a
problem. He hits hard and fast, and wants to put the opponent down in just a
few attacks.
Voracious Dragon: This is the combo centrepiece of the deck, and a good
creature in its own right. 4/4 flying for 5 mana is good, especially unusual in
red which often has notoriously bad creatures at that cost. You can feed any
number of your creatures to him as he comes into play, and gets a +1/+1 counter
for each. And you get to target a creature or player for damage equal to twice
the number of Goblins he ate. You can still choose a target to kill an Illusion
even if you don't devour anything. It's usually worth eating at least one
Goblin for this purpose, more if you can take out a decent creature or if you
think your opponent cannot handle a huge Dragon. If they are playing red and
relying on direct damage to kill creatures, it may put it out of blast range.
Disfigure: A nice way to take out small annoying creatures, or finish off
bigger ones. It can also fix fights, use it in the blockers phase before damage
gets dealt to suddenly lower the stats of your opponent's creature. Lowering
toughness also stops regeneration, but only if it's completely lowered and not
combined with damage. So two Disfigures will be needed to take down a Cudgel
Troll so it can't regenerate, a Disfigure and Burst Lightning won't do the job.
But a Disfigure could combine with Festering Goblin's ability successfully.
Dragonspeaker Shaman: Poor stats, but an amazing ability for this deck. A
reduction of 2 mana for your Dragons make them come out scarily fast,
especially in combination with Ruby Medallion. Your opponent will probably have
to kill this very quickly or else face serious fiery wrath. Definitely worth it
if you're playing with a lot of the expensive Dragons.
Dragonmaster Outcast: A weenie creature with an overwhelming ability that won't
turn on until you have 6 lands. You can either risk casting it and getting
early damage in and hoping it will survive, or hold on to it until you have 6
lands, hoping your other creatures will have drawn away the kill-spells. This
will depend on the rest of your hand. I'd usually favour casting it, unless I
have a Pyroclasm in hand in which case I'd hold onto it until after I've had to</pre><pre id="faqspan-5">
use that. If you can get the ability going, you should win in short order.
Volcanic Dragon: Feels a little bit weak for the expensive cost, but it will
prove an important part of your offence. Hopefully you will be enough in
control of the game to be able to attack and not have to keep it back as a
blocker. If you can't afford to attack yet, cast another Dragon first in you
can, so that you can hopefully make use of the haste ability this has by the
time you cast it.
Ruby Medallion: With the beef of the deck being huge Dragons, this is very nice
for helping them come out early. It can also help you cast several spells in
one turn, for example two Dragon Fodders will only cost you 2 red mana. It can
also reduce the cost of the kicker on Burst Lightning, you'll only have to pay
4 mana total. It can't reduce coloured mana, so can never help with Goblin
Wardriver for example.
Manic Vandal: The deck's only artifact control, and although totally out of
theme he's important to keep in. A red rip-off of Viridian Shaman, shameless
really. He's good at what he does, which seems to be smashing things. If the
opponent is using a deck that doesn't have artifacts or you just really need a
creature, you can cast him without there being an artifact on the battlefield.
It can cause a problem if you really need a creature and have to cast him while
the only artifact on the battlefield is your own Ruby Medallion, since you will
be forced to target it for destruction.
Slavering Nulls: It's Goblin Piker with an ability, and a scary one at that.
Early in the game this can be a real threat as you use your cheap spells to
remove blockers. Causing a discard each turn will really hurt and is hard to
come back from after a few turns. The opponent has to find an answer to this
quickly. In mono red it's just a Piker again, but your opponent won't know for
sure you're playing mono red and may freak out and kill it anyway.
Furyborn Hellkite: He's very expensive, but with 4 cards in the deck making him
easier to cast he is just about worth the stretch. Of course try and get the
bloodthirst bonus when you can, which will make him almost unstoppable in
creature combat and probably too big to kill by direct damage. You my consider
cutting him to keep costs down.
Festering Goblin: This guy is good for controlling the pace of the first few
turns. If the opponent has two 1 toughness creatures out and you just have
this, they will be forced to hold back or else you can block one and use his
ability to kill the other. He can also kill a 2 toughness creature by using his
ability on it after it kills him. If your position is good enough to attack, he
can often to do recklessly, particularly if you have your eye on a 1 toughness
creature you'd like to be rid of. Be careful about his ability, since it's not
optional. If only you have creatures when he goes to the graveyard, you have to
use his ability on one of those. So if you have him and a Goblin Piker and the
opponent has a 1/1 creature, you don't want to trade him for the 1/1 as your
Piker will bite it too. To take down bigger creatures, you can combine with
Burst Lightning to kill even a 6 toughness creature.
Goblin Wardriver: This is a nice creature, but it fits much better with lots of
smaller creatures to pump up and not so much with the Dragons and a control
setup. It's mana cost can sometimes pose a problem on turn 2 if you're playing
red/black, but is easy if you go mono red. Battlecry can be very useful for Two
Headed Giant and Archenemy, since the bonus applies to all attacking creatures.
So it pumps up your allies' attackers too.
OK cards
Furnace Whelp: These are not great due to their low intial stats, but are the
only mid range creatures you have at the moment. They usually make you
vulnerable when you cast them, since they are just a 2/2 and you probably can't
pump them much. Even smaller creatures will probably get sent in against you,
happy to trade with him. Keep this alive when you can, using all your little
creatures for defence, and use this for its damage which is its strength.
Sometimes when things are going badly you don't have a choice, you may have to
trade it for a small creature if you are being overwhelmed.
Giant Scorpion: He's not much to look at, but he fits the control theme
perfectly. 3 toughness is handy for surviving against the common 2/2 creature
stats, and deathtouch will take out just about anything even if it kills him
too. You'll rarely want to attack with this as it works much better on defence.
Crucible of Fire: This is more useful here than it was back in Scales of Fury,
because this deck has more actual Dragons in it. It is mainly of benefit to
your Furnace Whelps and Volcanic Dragons which are lacking in stats for their
mana costs. The other Dragons are generally big enough, but the boost certainly
doesn't hurt and will help you win quicker. It's no help to all your Goblins,
but as long as you're using a fair number of Dragons this is worth including.
Dragon Fodder: This is handy even for the control version, providing at the
very least 2 chump blockers for 1 card. Works well with Voracious Dragon, and
they can take down weenies that are bothering you early in the game. Don't feel
bad about using both tokens to kill a 2/2 creature, sometimes that's better if
you have no other way to deal with it at that time than chump blocking it twice
if you're doing badly.
Gravedigger: He is OK, although not greatly efficient for his cost. He can be
useful for digging up one of your better Dragons for another round, but not
much use early in the game.
Rally the Forces: The effectiveness of this depends on how many small creatures
you are using. The bigger creatures generally don't need this as much, and you
want it to affect as many creatures as possible. Cast it in the blockers phase
after blockers have been chosen for maximum surprise value.
Raging Goblin: A pure aggression creature that doesn't really fit into this
deck. It's more about winning with huge Dragons while holding on for the early
game. I feel red/black plays more like a control deck and these don't fit, but
mono red has to use more cards and these make it more aggressive.
Goblin Piker: Your bog standard creature, who you are only going to include if
there's nothing better. In red/black you have plenty of other options, but
running mono red you may be forced to consider them to make up the numbers.
Bad cards
Dragon's Claw: I hate life gain!
Goblin Offensive: I have found this is just too expensive. You need 5 mana to
get 2 tokens, compared with 2 mana for Dragon Fodder. Whatever you spend, it's
not an impressive amount of smelly Goblins you get and since they only interact
with Voracious Dragon it's not worth the investment.
===============================================================================
Sorin Markov - Blood Hunger
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a mono black aggressive Vampire deck, quite like Master of Shadows from
D09. It has a new focus which is bloodthirst, creatures which get a bonus if
the opponent has been damaged the turn you cast them. That's not hard to
achieve with this deck as it's very fast and has a lot of evasion creatures. It
also tends to gain plenty of life through spells and lifelink creatures, which
allow you to ignore counter-attacks to some extent. Certainly the best deck in
my opinion, with the strongest card selection on offer.
Strategy
You should be always on the offensive with this deck. Hopefully you have
Tormented Soul for your first turn, and he can keep attacking, providing you
your bloodthirst bonus for anything else you cast. Keep casting creatures,
unless you need the mana to take out a blocker or a threat. You should gain
enough life in a variety of ways to not worry too much about defending unless
things are going badly. Keep the pressure on, and hopefully you will finish the
opponent with flying creatures and direct damage from Corrupt. When things are
going badly, you may have to cast bloodthirst creatures without getting the
bonus if you can't afford to attack but need the defender.
Pros
> * Lots of lifelink and evasion creatures
> * Plenty of creature control
> * Good threats all the way up the mana curve, fast and deadly creatures
> * Lots of incidental life gain
> * Mono deck so no colour problems
Cons
> * No enchantment or artifact control
Example decklist
24 Swamps
Creatures (24)
3 Tormented Soul
1 Bloodghast
2 Child of Night
2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Ruthless Cullblade
3 Bloodrage Vampire
1 Captivating Vampire
2 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Mirri the Cursed
1 Sangromancer
1 Vampire Nocturnus
2 Vampire Outcasts
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Skeletal Vampire
Other spells (12)
1 Blade of the Bloodchief
2 Feast of Blood
2 Urge to Feed
2 Vicious Hunger
3 Spread the Sickness
2 Corrupt
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Quag Vampires
2 Vampire's Bite
3 Demon's Horn
3 Duskhunter Bat
2 Barony Vampire
2 Vampire Aristocrat
1 Stalking Bloodsucker
1 Repay in Kind
Pure Vampire alternative decklist
24 Swamps
Creatures (24)
2 Quag Vampires
1 Bloodghast
2 Child of Night
2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Ruthless Cullblade
2 Bloodrage Vampire
1 Captivating Vampire
2 Vampire Aristocrat
2 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Mirri the Cursed
1 Sangromancer
1 Vampire Nocturnus
2 Vampire Outcasts
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Skeletal Vampire
Other spells (12)
1 Blade of the Bloodchief
2 Feast of Blood
2 Urge to Feed
2 Vicious Hunger
3 Spread the Sickness
2 Corrupt
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Tormented Soul
2 Vampire's Bite
3 Demon's Horn
3 Duskhunter Bat
2 Barony Vampire
1 Bloodrage Vampire
1 Stalking Bloodsucker
1 Repay in Kind
This version takes full advantage of the Vampire synergy within the deck,
making even more sure you have 2 in play to cast Feast of Blood. Also every
creature then benefits from Captivating Vampire, Urge to Feed, Vampire
Nocturnus and gets full counters from Blade of the Bloodchief. This comes at
the expense of the Tormented Souls, which makes your offence slightly less
reliable and bloodthirst harder to achieve. For this reason, I take out one of
the Bloodrage Vampires as well. The Quag Vampires are at least versatile and
can get counters from Spread the Sickness. The Aristocrats offer flexibility
too, being able to instantly grow to big amounts, feeding off your lesser
Vampires. It's been testing pretty well, I'm undecided as to which is the
better list.
DLC 1 cards
Barter in Blood: You can consider this a mini Damnation, sometimes even better
because it can get rid of indestructible creatures. The problem is this deck is
really fast so you are likely to kill some of your own creatures too. But that
can sometimes work to your advantage, say you have sped off and got four
creatures out to your opponent's two, this will leave your strongest two and
the opponent with nothing. Generally this can be viewed as a panic-button card,
for use when things are going badly, your creatures are getting killed or you
got a slow start. If it's in your starting hand, you may intentionally get a
slow start. It can very cheaply get you back in the game, and since you can't
always bank on being ahead this is a good get-out-of-jail-free card. The deck
is already overflowing with kill spells, though.
Recommendation: Probably worth including 1, to replace one of the expensive
Spread the Sickness. You could consider replacing another as well, or Skeletal
Vampire, to drop costs further. But I think 1 should be enough. If you expect
to see a lot of Auramancer, it will be great against them since Totem Armor
doesn't save a creature from being sacrificed and you'd want both.
Bloodhusk Ritualist: This is an interesting card and a little hard to evaluate.
My first impression is that it's a bit too slow and expensive for this deck.
It's only going to be worth casting once you hit 5 mana, making it a Mind Rot
plus a 2/2 for 5 mana. I'm not sure that's good enough for this deck. He can
make use of any spare mana you have around when you cast him though; say you
have 4 lands out and nothing but 3 mana creatures in your hand, you may as well
drop the extra mana into him and get the card advantage. With a lot of mana you
can expect to empty the opponent's hand, but with no accelleration in this deck
they may have virtually emptied their own hand by that stage. This will be best
against the slower decks, where they are more likely to be holding back cards.
I think overall the standard of other available creatures is too high and this
doesn't fit the theme of the deck. He's worth considering as a replacement for
a Bloodrage Vampire to give him a try, but I prefer the 3 mana creatures the
deck already has. He will be better in multiplayer where speed isn't so
important, and there's more likely to be an opponent you can rob of more cards.
Recommendation: Probably not quite worth including.
Butcher of Malakir: He looks impressive and talks a big game, but for such a
mind-meltingly fast deck the game is often going to be finished before you even
get 7 lands out. Most of the time he'll sit idly in your hand, where he could
have been another threat to seal the game in short order or snuff out an
opponent's nasty. With just 24 lands this is too costly, and he's not even
particularly scary. His stats are poor, and his ability more defensive in a
wildly aggressive deck. If you do use him, he will combo well with cards like
Vampire Aristocrat, giving you the chance to quickly swap off creatures if you
have more on the battlefield. When killed he will take something down with him
which is good. Much better in a multiplayer format where he will affect more
opponents and you have more chance of getting him out.
Recommendation: Don't include.
Good cards
Urge to Feed: Incredibly efficient, instant speed removal. The first part is
good enough, getting the counters on your Vampires is just an amazing bonus.
Even if this doesn't kill a creature outright, you can still use it either just
for the counters, or in combination with another spell or combat damage to
finish it off. You can pull off some tricks with this when on the defence. Let
things advance in combat until you have blocked whatever you need to, and then
cast this on a creature. You can now tap all your Vampires, even the ones that
have blocked. They will still damage the attackers as normal, but with an added
+1/+1. This could make your 2/2 blocker take down a 5/5 creature that you
target, and survive. Otherwise use it to remove blockers or take out key
ability creatures. Note that you can tap vampires to get a counter even if they
have summoning sickness, so it may be worth casting some first if you can.
Feast of Blood: Having 2 Vampires out isn't at all difficult for this deck, and
this spell can target any kind of creature without the normal black kill-spell
restrictions. You just have to control two Vampires, no matter if they are
tapped, untapped, or under Arrest. Save it for the scariest of your opponent's
creatures, or to make way for your attack if you can smell blood for the
finish. The life gain will help get back any beatings you have taken while
holding on to this card. You can, in dire situations, target your own creature
just to gain life, but this is probably hardly ever going to occur.
Vampire Nighthawk: This has to be one of the best stand-alone creatures ever,
the fact that it's also a Vampire is just gravy on the cake. It pretty much
does everything you could ever want. Usually he can just keep attacking, slowly
winning you the game and gaining you life to cover possible counter-attacks. It
will take something with flying and either first strike or protection from
black to not get taken down as well. When things get tough he can block and
kill almost anything. Even something pumped with Giant Growth is still going to
die. The 3 toughness makes him not that easy to bring down, he's an amazing
powerhouse.
Vicious Hunger: Simple and effective removal, either for killing a small
annoying creature or finishing off a bigger one after combat or another spell.
You can make what looks like a stupid attack when the opponent has a bigger
blocker you really want to kill, then do the final 2 damage with this in your
second main phase. Use this to take out your opponent's key ability creatures,
which are often small enough to be killed by this. As usual, the life gain is a
handy side-effect.
Vampire Nocturnus: He's back from Master of Shadows, and still as dangerous.
That difficult looking mana cost is no problem for mono black, and as soon as
he hits the table he has the chance to boost up all your Vampires to ridiculous
amounts. It will be pure luck whether or not you have a black card on top of
your deck. When you do, you should normally be able to attack with almost
everything right away unless the opponent has a lot of big fliers. The next
turn he can join in the assault if he has the bonus, 5/4 flying is awesome for
his cost. When he doesn't give the bonus he's best kept out of combat if he may
die as he's so valuable. Having the top card of your library on show is a
double edged sword. Your opponent can plan for your next move, and so can you.
Make sure you take it into account when you plan your strategy.
Corrupt: This is my choice pick for the 6 mana slot, and it's quite likely to
win you the game by the time you get to cast it. You can use it as a finishing
blow if your offence has been running well, or if a big creature is getting in
the way or threatening to do you in, you can kill that instead and reap the
life benefit. Normally 6 damage is enough for either purpose, but you can hold
onto it until you've played more Swamps if you need a bigger blast. If you're
concentrating on pure speed, you could consider dropping 6 mana spells
altogether, but I think it's worth having 1 or 2 of these for games which go
the distance.
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief: Even more powerful than Sengir Vampire, this is
just deadly. 4/4 flying is decent for 5 mana, and her ability is going to rip
through your opponent's creatures once you have enough mana to keep using it.
You can even use it multiple times a turn to kill several creatures if you can
afford to. Since it lowers toughness the creature can't regenerate either. You
can use it when you are attacking to remove a blocker and have her do more
damage. On the defence you can kill an attacker and then she is more powerful
that turn if she needs to block and kill a huge creature. Keep her alive
whenever possible as she will usually win you the game just by killing
creatures one by one. You can even use her ability on herself or one of your
other creatures just to pump her power up. For example, you may do this when
your opponent has no creatures so you can do more damage, or to help her kill a
big untargetable creature like Simic Sky Swallower. Note that you can pump more
mana into this than is needed to kill a creature, just to raise her power even
more.
Captivating Vampire: His stats are not great, but he has two amazing abilities.
Since almost all your other creatures are Vampires, they all get boosted up,
making it really hard for your opponent to keep up with your already efficient
creatures. And if you can get enough Vampires on board, you can start stealing
your opponent's creatures! You can use this ability as soon as you cast him as
it doesn't require tapping. But sometimes it will be better to wait and do it
in your opponent's turn, particularly after you have assigned blockers. You can
block with whatever you like as normal, then use his ability (note that he can
be one of the 5 Vampires you tap) and steal a creature. If it's an attacking
creature you steal, it is removed from combat and won't hurt you. The fact that
some of your blockers tap won't stop them dealing damage. Because he is so
valuable you want to keep him out of combat if there's a chance he will die.
Gatekeeper of Malakir: He has 2/2 for 2 mana which is good enough, but you'll
almost always want to pay the kicker too. He is best used when the opponent has
just one creature that you want to get rid of, since they must sacrifice that
one. This ability even kills indestructible creatures, they can't regenerate,
and it gets around hexproof and shroud also. If the opponent has lots of
creatures they will just sacrifice their weakest one, but you are still getting
card advantage. If the opponent has 2 creatures one of which is small, you can
pick off that little one with Vicous Hunger for example, then cast this with
the kicker to kill the bigger one. He's a must have for the 2 mana slot.
Mirri the Cursed: This is a crazy efficient scary creature. It flies, attacks
right away, and hits first, making it a really nasty aggressive creature that's
hard to see coming. You'll usually want to keep attacking with this unless
you're in a very bad way and need the blocker. It can be tricky in combat, as
it gets the +1/+1 counter right away on dealing damage. Say this blocks a 2/4
creature- it deals its 3 first strike damage, and then gets a counter and goes
up to 4/3. Then the other creature hits it for 2, and this ends up surviving.
It didn't kill the attacker, but has got stronger and can kill it next turn.
Because this deals it's damage before your other creatures, it can put the
opponent below 10 life suddenly raising your Ruthless Cullblade to 4/2 before
it deals its damage.
Spread the Sickness: This is somewhat pricey, but it is effective as it can
target any creature. Save it for big threats, or for clearing the way for a
victory in short order. Try to plan around it so that you get best use of the
proliferate. For those who haven't seen it before, I'll explain how it works.
For each player or permanent that has a counter on it, you may add another
counter of the same type. For the purposes of this game, it's usually +1/+1
counters on creatures, and it automatically adds them to your (and your
allies') creatures but not your opponents'. If the opponent has a creature with
a -1/-1 counter on it (like from Serrated Arrows) then this adds another of
those counters, but wouldn't do so to your own creature. In one on one, this is
mainly going to benefit your creatures that got their bloodthirst bonus, or
counters from Blade of the Bloodchief or Urge to Feed.
Sengir Vampire: The classic Vampire which has survived through the ages. Just
like Vampires will do given half the chance. He's always been good and
efficient, and can kill the opponent very quickly on his own. The extra counter
gain is a bonus, making the opponent pay for chump blocking him. He will
usually be best on the attack, but if you do need him for defence he is great
since if he can survive an attack he will get stronger. Also once he has a
counter, he qualifies for an extra one when you cast Spread the Sickness.
Bloodghast: This guy is going to really annoy your opponent by coming back time
and time again. He gives you a reason to hold back lands whenever you have
enough already just in case you draw him. You can use him recklessly, even
suicidally as part of a big attack just to overload blockers. You know you can
bring him back, even on the same turn by playing a land after combat. Not being
able to block doesn't matter too much since this deck is so aggressive and you
have plenty of better blockers. Having haste as well makes him even more of a
threat when the opponent is on 10 life or less.
Blade of the Bloodchief: This is really cheap to cast and equip. Although it
doesn't do anything on its own, creatures always die in games and you also have
loads of creature removal. You can put this on anything really, whenever you
have the mana to do so. Of course a Vampire will gain the most counters from
it, but even 1 counter per death on your Tormented Soul can be very effective
since he's guaranteed to get his damage through every turn. When put on a
lifelink creature it makes them gain even more life as they get bigger. I'd
recommend equipping this to a creature that isn't likely to be targeted for
destruction by the opponent at that particular time. If you keep putting it on
your best creature, when they kill it you get no bonus. By putting it on a
second best or lower, you force them to choose between killing the one with the
Equipment or killing your better one and letting you get counter(s) on the
equipped one. If you're going to kill something, and before a battle likely
resulting in casualties, make sure this is on something first if you have the
mana!
Tormented Soul: Even though it's not a Vampire, this works so amazingly well in
this deck that I would always keep it in regardless. Being totally unblockable
means you can just peck away every single turn no matter what is going on, and
it provides an ever decreasing timer for your opponent. Often they are forced
to eventually use a card just to take out this guy, which is hilarious for you.
Even if things are going badly, keep attacking with him anyway, there is no
point keeping him back as he can't block at all. His greatest achievement
however is how easy it makes it to get your bloodthirst! If you get one of
these early, you are almost guaranteed to get all your bloodthirst creatures
coming out with their bonus.
Child of Night: A simple and effective 2 drop. It can trade with most other 2
drops in the game, but gives you 2 life in the process. If the opponent has
nothing to block it, your life total goes up while theirs goes down, making it
a steeper climb once they get back in the game. A good chump blocker as well if
needed thanks to the extra life gain.
Sangromancer: A bit of a strange card to be in this deck since it has no
discard whatsoever. Even without this, it's a decent enough card, having a
reasonable amount of power for an evasion creature, and giving you yet more
life as opponent's creatures die around her. Try to keep her alive for this
reason, her life gain will probably be more worthwhile than a single chump
block unless you are in serious danger of being killed right away. Normally she
can keep attacking along with your other guys, racing your opponent's life
total down. Note that you gain the life even if dies trading with an opponent's
creature in combat. She will become more useful in free for all or 2 headed
giant where her discard ability may come into play, and she will count all
other players' casualties for life gain. Note that her ability will resolve too
late to save you if she kills something while you take enough damage to finish
you off. For example, if you're on 1 life and two 1/1 creatures attack you, you
can block and kill one with this creature. Her ability will trigger, but
doesn't get the chance to resolve since the game checks if you are on 0 life
first.
Vampire Outcasts: At first glance this doesn't look very good when you see the
2/2, but if you've played this deck you'll have seen how easily the bloodthirst
bonuses come. It almost always comes out at 4/4 for this reason, that is really
good stats for 4 mana, plus the lifelink is outrageous. He can normally keep
attacking and gaining you lots of life, and the opponent will have trouble
doing you enough back to even keep up. If the opponent gets bigger creatures
out (and you can't kill them) then he is an excellent blocker while your
evasion creatures do the business.
Skeletal Vampire: This is quite good, and the best 6 mana creature available at
the moment. You get an overall 5 attack power with flying creatures for 6 mana,
and split up so that one card can't usually deal with them all. He's very hard
to kill, since he can regenerate for no mana by sacrificing one of the bats you
get. If you attack or block with him and the bats, after blocking you can
sacrifice a bat that's going to die in combat anyway to regenerate the Skeletal
Vampire. This works well on blocking especially, meaning you've lost just one
bat token to block two attackers. If you have the mana, you can instead pay to
turn the bat that's about to die into two bats and use one of those to
regenerate the Vampire. If things are going well, you can just keep making more
and more bats. You can also sacrifice Duskhunter Bats to his abilities if you
use them. If one of your bats is blocking (alone) or blocked by a creature with
lifelink and you want to stop the opponent gaining the life from it, you can
sacrifice that bat to regenerate the Skeletal Vampire before damage is dealt.
Then the opponent's creature doesn't deal any damage so they gain no life, and
your Vampire gets a regeneration shield at the same time.
OK cards
Bloodrage Vampire: With the amount of aggressive 1 and 2 drops in this deck,
the chances of getting bloodthirst on turn 3 is pretty good. This gives 4/2 for
3 mana, which is a nasty early threat. I feel this earns his place for the
moment. Even without the bloodthirst, 3/1 isn't too bad although not ideal. You
may need to play him anyway if you need a blocker or have run out of other
attackers.
Vampire Aristocrat: Although 2/2 for 3 mana is not very good, his ability to
self pump is handy. He is competing against a lot of great creatures for 3
mana, and the only one he could replace is Bloodrage Vampire. It's close, but I
feel that I'd rather have the extra power, and more often than not two power
with the bloodthirst, than the need to pump him up. Especially as your
creatures are really strong and you probably don't want to sacrifice any of
them to this if you can avoid it! If you use him, make sure you don't use his
ability until blockers have been declared, so your opponent has to make their
decision blind and you can then decide whether or not to pump him. Or else in
response to direct damage that threatens to kill him or another creature you
control. You can also use his ability to eat himself, or any of your other
creatures, to avoid them being stolen by something like Mind Control. If one of
your creatures is blocking (alone) or blocked by a creature with lifelink and
you want to stop the opponent gaining the life from it, you can sacrifice that
creature to your Aristocrat before damage is dealt. Then the opponent's
creature doesn't deal any damage so they gain no life, and your Aristocrat gets
bigger at the same time.
Ruthless Cullblade: This is the weakest of the two mana creatures I would
recommend using, but still just about good enough to make it. 2/1 isn't too bad
early on, and late game it's likely to come out as 4/2 which is good value.
Dispensable extra offence.
Vampire's Bite: This deck normally hammers down your life totaly very quickly,
and the threat of these can make it even more scary. Be wary of the opponent
using an instant to kill your guy in response to this, so it's best used when
they are tapped out if possible. It can also be used in a desperate situation
to fix fights, allowing your smaller creature to kill one of their big ones.
And if you can afford the kicker, the extra life can keep you ahead in an
aggression race or against direct damage. Don't both paying the kicker if you
are using it on a creature that already has lifelink, since double lifelink
doesn't get you any more life. I found this effective for a while, but decided
in the end to cut it because it's not great when you're losing, usually at best
giving you a 2 for 1 trade in your opponent's favour and/or some life. But it's
certainly worth considering for extra-aggressive strategies.
Barony Vampire: Reasonable stats for a standard grunt Vampire, but with so many
good creatures already demanding the three mana slot, this doesn't quite make
the cut.
Quag Vampires: This is alright, but not great whatever amount of kickers you
use. The swampwalk is handy but is only relevant against 3 out of the 10 decks.
However, 2 of those are this deck and Guardians of the Wood which are the best
decks in my opinion, so you may consider including him just to pick on those
deck types. I feel overall Tormented Soul is better for the one slot though,
and the other Vampires out-perform this guy. For a really fast swarm strategy
and his flexibility, you may consider including him.
Duskhunter Bat: He is OK and may have just about made the cut, except for the
fact he's not a Vampire so doesn't help the overall theme. He is highly
aggressive and efficient when he works though. I feel he's not quite good
enough to justify taking away a Vampire, and you can't always count on getting
a bloodthirst bonus on turn 2.
Bad cards
Stalking Bloodsucker: This guy has weak original stats, and with every card
being so effective in this deck I'd rather play them out than chuck them to him
for an extra 2 damage. He's hopelessly outclassed by the other creatures in
this deck, and by the other 6 mana spells.
Demon's Horn: I hate life gain!
Repay in Kind: This is way too expensive for one on one, considering this deck
is so aggressive it's most likely your opponent will have a lower life total
than you. This is only any use in Archenemy for bringing down the big man's
life total!
===============================================================================
Tezzeret - Machinations
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a blue/black/white artifact deck, and is sort of like Relics of Doom
from D09. The cards it uses are almost all new however. Its main theme is
metalcraft, which grants bonuses for having 3 or more artifacts on the
battlefield under your control. To this end, every creature in the deck is an
artifact creature like in Relics. This deck has quite a range of interesting
cards.
Strategy
You want to get your metalcraft bonus as soon as possible, so this means
getting out artifacts quickly. Hopefully you will have an Etherium Sculptor to
play on turn 2, he will speed everything up by reducing the cost of all
artifacts you cast by 1. You basically just keep getting out artifacts and hope
you can overpower the opponent with your weenie fliers and some bigger ground
creatures at the 5-6 mana range later on. Use countermagic to protect your most
important artifacts and stop threats, and the white and black support cards to
remove creatures. When you have a creature with a metalcraft bonus such as
Razorfield Rhino, be wary of the opponent removing your other artifacts in the
middle of combat, dropping your artifact count below 3 and making it lose its
bonus at a crucial point.
It's possible to cut out either black, white, or both from this deck once you
have all the cards unlocked. At the moment I'm slightly favouring just taking
out white. Although it has some strong cards, it messes with your land setup
quite badly and I think the consistency may be worth the slight drop in power
overall. It's a close call though.
Pros
> * Good countermagic and reasonable creature control
> * A lot of fliers/potential fliers
> * Can be quite fast with Etherium Sculptor
Cons
> * No artifact or enchantment control
> * 3 colours can lead to mana problems
> * Creatures a bit on the weak side overall
Example decklists
Tri colour version:
6 Plains
11 Island
4 Swamp
3 Terramorphic Expanse
Creatures (24)
4 Etherium Sculptor
2 Gust-Skimmer
2 Steel Overseer
2 Tidehollow Strix
1 Etched Champion
1 Master of Etherium
2 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Snapsail Glider
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
2 Stone Golem
2 Razorfield Rhino
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Magister Sphinx
Other spells (12)
2 Go for the Throat
1 Darksteel Plate
2 Dispense Justice
3 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Undermine
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Sleep
1 Mirrorworks
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Signal Pest
2 Alpha Myr
3 Golem's Heart
1 Hunger of the Nim
1 Dead Reckoning
1 Snapsail Glider
1 Shape Anew
1 Psychosis Crawler
1 Venser's Journal
1 Razorfield Thresher
1 Soulquake
1 Darksteel Colossus
Blue/black version:
14 Island
7 Swamp
3 Terramorphic Expanse
Creatures (25)
1 Alpha Myr
4 Etherium Sculptor
2 Gust-Skimmer
2 Steel Overseer
2 Tidehollow Strix
1 Etched Champion
1 Master of Etherium
2 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Snapsail Glider
1 Psychosis Crawler
2 Stone Golem
2 Razorfield Rhino
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Other spells (11)
2 Go for the Throat
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Dead Reckoning
3 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Undermine
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Sleep
1 Mirrorworks
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Signal Pest
1 Alpha Myr
3 Golem's Heart
1 Hunger of the Nim
2 Dispense Justice
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Shape Anew
1 Venser's Journal
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Razorfield Thresher
1 Soulquake
1 Darksteel Colossus
DLC 1 cards
Damnation: In my opinion this is now the number 1 card in the game in terms of
raw power. It gives you potentially unlimited card advantage by wiping out
virtually anything the opponent can have. It ignores hexproof, shroud,
regeneration, even protection from black. Annoyingly, a Totem Armor can still
be used to save a creature from it! And indestructible creatures will remain
(useful if you have Darksteel Plate on something!) People often yell, "But it
kills all my creatures!" It sure does, but that just doesn't matter. You keep
it in your hand, and you wait until it is needed. If you always stay ahead on
creatures, you are likely to win the game anyhow. As soon as things go wrong,
which could be at the start of the game if you get a slow start, or later on
when the opponent goes nuts and kills loads of your stuff, this wipes the slate
clean and gives you a fresh start. An experienced opponent will be playing
cautiously against this deck now, just knowing that you may have this in your
hand, even if you haven't. The threat of losing 3 or more creatures by playing
them all out against you when you don't have many is too much, if you drop this
bomb the momentum swing may be too big to recover from. Although this deck can
be fast, there are faster still decks such as Wielding Steel, Realm of Illusion
and Blood Hunger, and they are likely to build up creatures faster than you. I
think that this has sealed the fate of the tri-colour deck, it pushes me to the
dark side more and I would say blue/black is the way to go now. This is dicey
to include in tri-colour thanks to the double black requirement, but it's
probably worth the risk anyhow given the deck's slight underpower and the
various mana fetchers.
Recommendation: Must include. In the tri colour version replace a Snapsail
Glider, in the blue/black version replace Alpha Myr. These dodgy creatures
won't be missed.
Cumber Stone: At first glance this can not look like a big deal, but I think
the effect is far more scary than it seems. That 1 power difference across the
board can be a real stumbling block for the opponent, and suddenly matchups
usually in their favour lean towards yours. Given the previous need to include
some medicore cards, this is a great addition to replace some. It helps you
keep alive on defense, and makes it easier to punch through on the attack. Also
it helps you get metalcraft, since it's much more likely to stick around not
being a creature, and given the general lack of artifact control around. It's
easy mana cost makes it fit into both builds nicely. This is probably going to
be a priority play as soon as possible in most situations, as it will almost
always be really helpful and will set you up for the rest of the game.
Recommendation: Must include. In the tri colour version replace a Snapsail
Glider and a Stone Golem. In the blue/black version replace a Snapsail Glider
and Psychosis Crawler. These are filler creatures, and the Stones will help the
rest of your creature base greatly.
Sphinx Sovereign: This is a really cool creature with amazing abilities, but I
think 8 mana is asking too much. You do have the 4 Etherium Sculptors, but they
are very often bullseyes for the opponent as they want to slow you down, so you
can't rely on them too much. That leaves just 24 land plus your 2 fetchers, and
I don't think that's enough to get this out early enough to justify it. I
personally would prefer the Magister Sphinx over this anyway, even though it is
cheaper, and I wouldn't consider including both due to the chances of clogging
up your hand. The Magister (except when countered) usually has a big impact on
the game even if killed immediately, whereas this doesn't. I don't think it's
enough of an immediate and scary threat to justify 8 mana. If you do use it,
then if you are losing you sit back with him for a while, use him as a big
blocker and gain life until you're in a position to start attacking. When you
are winning, if unblocked he can dish out 9 a turn, winning you the game in
short order. Even if blocked, he will likely survive and still make the
opponent lose 3 life. He is much more viable in any multiplayer format, where
you'll have that bit of extra time to get him out, and his life loss ability
will hit every opponent.
Recommendation: Don't include.
Good cards
Go for the Throat: Amazingly efficient creature control, and at instant speed.
Be very sparing with this! I'm glad to see them ditch Terror due to its
non-black requirement making it a dead card in so many games. Sadly this is
still dead in the mirror match. This kills anything except artifacts, but note
that you can regenerate from it. For those creatures use it only when the
opponent is tapped out and can't regenerate, unless you are happy for it just
to end up tapped. This card is mainly going to be used on big creatures or
little ones with really good abilities, and provides a safety net for creatures
getting past your counterspells. A must include.
Stoic Rebuttal: It's a cross between Cancel and Counterspell. Either way you
need two Islands untapped for this, so manage your mana carefully. This is your
only way of stopping artifacts and enchantments, so consider that when the
opponent drops a really nasty one of these. It may be better to counter that,
and rely on your creatures and kill-spells to deal with the opponent's
creatures. Obviously sometimes a creature is just too much of a threat and if
you have nothing else in hand to deal with it, go ahead and counter it. Getting
to metalcraft quickly means you don't need to leave as many lands behind, and
you can use this offensively to protect your most valuable creatures. It's more
important to keep your land untapped for this spell if you hand is poor and
anything that hits the table could go unchecked for a while.
Undermine: Same strategy as the above, except of course you always need a Swamp
too making it a bit more fiddly to use. If you're just playing blue/black this
should be no problem though. The 3 life lost can be handy since this deck is
quite aggressive when it's running well, and gets you closer to the finishing
line.
Dispense Justice: Without metalcraft this is handy but not wonderful, since to
be useful it requires your opponent to have just one creature or several good
ones so that they can't just sacrifice a weenie to it. Once you get metalcraft
though, two creatures lost for 1 card is devastating in most situations so try
and hold on for this. Along with Sanctum Gargoyle this is the main reason to
keep white in.
Wurmcoil Engine: This is an insane creature for any deck! It puts your
Razorfield Rhinos to shame. You can probably just keep attacking with this, and
the lifegain you get will help deal with any damage you get back from your
opponent. If they do have something big enough to kill this and they end up
trading, theirs will die and you get two more tokens! It's rather unfair, so
this is a must include.
Steel Overseer: This is a new "boss" of the artifacts, being even cheaper than
Master of Ehterium and able to indefinitely keep pumping up both himself and
all your creatures. You'll most likely want to keep him out of combat unless
you need him for a final attack, or are desperate for a blocker. If you do need
to block with him, block first and then use his ability in the blocker's phase.
This may make him big enough to kill the attacking creature, or even survive as
well. And if not, at least you get some counters on your other creatures before
he dies. He's a prime target to get back with Sanctum Gargolye and Dead
Reckoning. If you follow my strategies, you will know that I recommend normally
casting creatures after combat to reduce the amount of information your
opponent has. When you have this guy out and ready to use his ability though,
it is often best to cast them before combat if you intend to attack. This is
because you will want to use his ability to make your attackers stronger, and
you won't want your other creatures to miss the chance to get a counter to by
not being around when you use the ability.
Master of Etherium: One of the survivors from Relics of Doom, and still as
deadly. Just the one now, but still a must include. He instantly boosts up all
your guys, and he gets ludicrously bigger and bigger the more artifacts (not
just creatures) you churn out. Keep him out of combat unless he is sure to
survive, as he is too valuable to lose that way. He is often big enough to
attack though, and if the opponent has to combine two blockers to kill him you
can always use Go for the Throat after they declare blockers to take one out,
leaving the Master to kill the other and survive. Sometimes he will just be a
huge blocker for you while the fliers do the work on the offence.
Etherium Sculptor: An essential part of the deck, you hope to always have one
of these for turn 2 and it should be your priority play. You will then be able
to get much more for your mana as long as he sticks around. You'll achieve
metalcraft very quickly, and also get out your big mana artifacts a turn
earlier than usual. Note that he can't reduce the coloured portion of costs, so
he does nothing to help cast Tidehollow Strix. His 2 defence makes him handy as
a blocker for early 1/1 creatures.
Tidehollow Strix: This is your premium small flier, excellent on both offence
and defence. He can keep pecking away for 2 while the opponent has no fliers,
and if you get in trouble you can keep him back and his deathtouch will kill
almost anything. The exceptions are things that can regenerate and
indestructible creatures. I feel this is a must include.
Etched Champion: This is pretty poor until it gets its metalcraft, at which
time it becomes awesome. Protection from all colours means that, except from
artifacts and artifact creatures, it can't be blocked by anything, killed by
damage, have any nasty enchantments put on it (neither can you put any on it!)
or be the target of any spell or ability. Also any Auras on it will fall off.
This all makes it almost invincible, aside from non-targetting mass effects
like Evacuation and Damnation. If you have other artifacts cast them first, so
that ideally this gets its metalcraft bonus as soon as it hits the table and
will then be harder to get rid of. If you cast this first, it can be picked off
quite easily. Of course if you're low on resources you may have to cast it
anyway and hope it survives. Once it has its bonus it is virtually a free 2
damage on the attack each turn, or else a perfect ground defender, letting only
trample damage through from coloured creatures.
Sanctum Gargoyle: The other big reason to have white in the deck, this is
really useful to get easy card advantage and provide another decent attacker.
Obviously don't cast it until there is something worth retrieving from your
graveyard, unless you desperately need another attacker/blocker. He can fetch
any of your many artifacts, both creature and non creature, giving you two
towards your metalcraft once you cast it again. You will probably bring back a
key creature most of the time like Steel Overseer or Master of Etherium, but if
you're getting really beat up you may need a Tidehollow Strix. If you have
loads of land you may want the card advantage from Mirrorworks or Seer's
Sundial.
Mirrorworks: If the game doesn't finish quickly one way or the other, you can
often end up with more land than you need with this deck. This card along with
Seer's Sundial gives you an excellent way to use that extra mana for card
advantage. The tokens will act as exact replicas with all the abilities,
including entering the battlefield abilities. So it can double up things like
Master of Etherium for twice the bonus. It gets quite crazy when you have the
mana, and it becomes hard for the opponent to keep up. Use Mirrorworks' ability
whenever you can, but sometimes you just need to cast something huge or several
things at once, so don't always force yourself to use it. Don't cast this until
you can afford the mana, since it doesn't do anything on its own. Think of it
as a payment towards a big future payoff, once your board position is stable.
Seer's Sundial: A pure card drawing engine, I find this a really great way to
get an advantage mid/late game. You can make it part of your general strategy
to hold back some lands when you have as many as you need, either in case you
draw this or if you already have it in hand. Once it's out, pay the cost
whenever you can afford to, the card advantage will put you way ahead if you
can manage it. Of course it might not be possible every turn, so again don't
feel obliged. You can use Terramorphic Expanse to get two for the price of one.
You can activate the Sundial when you play it, then wait until next turn to
activate the Expanse, and use the Sundial again when it fetches the land. You
can then play another land that turn, and pay for another card!
Darksteel Plate: A really handy bit of Equipment that not only makes one of
your creatures really hard to get rid of, but is itself indestructible making
it resistant to almost all the removal in the game. The only things that can do
anything to it once it's on the battlefield are Quicksilver Geyser which can
return it to your hand, and Revoke Existence which can exile it. You can use
this to make a really hard to stop attacker, or a solid blocker, particularly
good on Tidehollow Strix. Once you have enough mana you can do both, move it</pre><pre id="faqspan-6">
from the attacker to another creature ready to defend, then move it to the
attacker again next turn and so on. It can also be great for keeping your key
creatures alive that normally die such as Master of Etherium or Steel Overseer.
Be careful because the opponent can respond to the equip ability and kill the
creature before the Plate takes effect. But you can then just put it on another
creature! This really helps with Metalcraft as it's likely to stick around for
the long haul.
Razorfield Rhino: The theory with this creature is that by the time you can
cast it, you are likely to have at least 2 other artifacts on the battlefield
so it comes in at 6/6. That's a pretty good deal for 6 mana, especially 6 of
any colour(s). Obviously without the bonus he's pretty poor, so do everything
you can to keep him pumped up. He can often dominate the board, especially if
he comes out quickly using Etherium Sculptor, and will demand an answer before
he batters the opponent to death.
Magister Sphinx: This guy is very expensive, even for a big flier, but his
effect is quite game changing and I think it's just about worth the stretch. By
setting your opponent to 10 you can effectively do 10 damage to them if you've
got off to a slow start and haven't done any damage yet. He then only has to
attack twice for the win. Alternatively by setting your own to 10, you can gain
some life if you've been badly beaten and are close to death. If you're more
focused on speed, there is an argument for removing him as he doesn't help with
quickly getting metalcraft going and is never going to come out particularly
quickly so can clog your hand up early. Obviously if you drop white (or black)
you lose him too. He can be great for Archenemy since he can drop that big 40
life total down to 10!
Terramorphic Expanse: This is an amazingly helpful card, especially if you are
using all 3 colours. It can find whatever land you need in the circumstances,
and it can be played penalty-free on turn 1 since there's nothing to cast
anyway (besides Signal Pest if you use it). Later in the duel, play one
whenever you don't need mana right away from an additional land. There's no
point activating it right away on your turn since you can't use the land as it
comes in tapped. It's better to wait until near the end of your opponent's turn
to use it. This avoids giving away early what your choice is, and you may want
to change your mind once you've seen what the opponent has done on their turn.
I still recommend keeping these in if you drop to 2 colours, especially since
the game doesn't replace them with other lands if you remove them. This is the
only way in the whole game you can effectively drop your land count in fact,
you could in theory make the deck have 21 lands if you took them all out.
Finding enough worthwhile cards, and cheap enough for the low land count, to
fill the gaps is another matter!
OK cards
Pilgrim's Eye: Although he's puny, he is very handy in this deck, particularly
if you are playing all 3 colours. He is easy to cast, but fetches whatever land
you need. He then provides either a little attacker or a chump blocker, and
helps towards metalcraft. Great if copied by Mirrorcraft as you get a land for
the token too! Certainly worth including.
Gust-Skimmer: This is the Alpha-Alpha Myr! If the opponent doesn't have
creatures just roll him in on the ground, and if you need him to fly make sure
you activate his ability before blockers are declared. Doing so after he's been
blocked doesn't stop him being blocked. And if you want him to block a flying
attacker, again activate the ability before it gets to the blocker's phase.
Make sure you don't spend a blue mana on him when you desperately need it for a
Stoic Rebuttal. Along with all your permanent fliers, he can help peck away at
your opponent.
Sleep: This may look like a defensive card at first glance, but in fact it's
more of an aggressive card. It effectively gives you two free attacks, both the
turn you cast it, and next turn after they haven't untapped anything. Save this
for when you have enough muscle on the table to finish the opponent with these
two attacks. If the game reaches a stalemate with lots of creatures around and
you draw this card, it's likely to be a game winner. If you're badly losing and
need some breathing room, go ahead and use it just to stop the opponent
attacking you next turn; this isn't ideal, but it may just keep you in the
game. Attack them anyway after you cast it since they can't attack back, but
then don't attack on your next turn, hold for defence. I rate it as only OK
because it's not very good when you're losing and needs you to have several
creatures out to be effective. But I think it's worth including at the moment.
Stone Golem: Not a wonderful card, but he does his job, and is easy to get out.
You should reach 5 mana fairly easily with both Etherium Sculptors helping you
and Pilgrim's Eye getting more land. He can either be a fat blocker to keep the
attackers away while your fliers peck at the opponent, or if you have a good
board position and life total he can smash in with the rest of them.
Psychosis Crawler: He can be a little inconsistent, but I think he just about
makes the cut at the moment. If you're off to a slow start, he's probably going
to be quite big. Even if he comes out small, you can hold back cards for a few
turns allowing him to grow. His insulting life loss can be handy for finishing
off an opponent in a stalemate situation. Be very careful with your cards in
hand when you have him out, it's very easy to play a land without thinking
about it and have him drop in stats when you really need him big. Don't play
anything before combat unless you really need to so he stays as big as
possible. Works nicely with Pilgrim's Eye since it replaces itself in your hand
and he doesn't get smaller.
Snapsail Glider: This is a bit crappy really, but I grudgingly find it a
necessary part of the offence with the current card selection. At least it's
easy to cast not needing any particular colours, and 2 damage a turn from him
flying in isn't bad once you've got 2 more artifacts out. He can be considered
disposable though, don't worry about trading him for a 2/2 ground creature if
you are getting beaten up. If you really, really hate him and want something
quicker you could go for Golem Hearts to play more defensively, or Alpha Myrs
or Signal Pests to play more aggressively. But I find him just about adequate
for now.
Dead Reckoning: This is quite handy and duel purpose, giving your important
creature a second chance (although it costs you a draw) and hopefully killing
something annoying your opponent has out. Since Steel Overseer and Master of
Etherium tend to get killed very quickly, these are good candidates as they
help you so much. The card is held back by the fact that you can't use it until
something is dead, and because it's limited to the power of the dead creature.
I'd include only if you are dropping white, especially because the two black
mana required can be a pain for 3 colours and low Swamp count. It's because of
the mana cost that it's lower on the list than it would otherwise be.
Alpha Myr: Bog standard artifact creature, 2/1 is alright but obviously he is
outclassed by Gust-Skimmer. The 2 mana slot already has Tidehollow Strix, Steel
Overseer and Etherium Sculptor. But he can be used as a filler if you cut out
one of the colours.
Signal Pest: This guy seems like he might be a good idea for a few reasons.
He's the only 1 mana artifact you have so he gets metalcraft off to a fast
start and you have nothing else to play anyway on turn 1, and he can normally
attack safely while pumping up your other guys as long as the opponent has no
fliers/reach creatures. This almost sounds tempting, but I would rather go with
something more reliable and that can deal damage on its own. Obviously if you
have no other creatures this is useless. And once fliers hits the table he's no
good unless you can keep killing them all. But if you are interested in pure
speed and swift metalcraft, he may be worth considering. Battlecry can be very
useful for Two Headed Giant and Archenemy, since the bonus applies to all
attacking creatures. So it pumps up your allies' attackers too.
Bad cards
Venser's Journal: At least this can offer a reasonable amount of life, but I
still don't think it's worth the big mana cost. You're rarely going to need
more than 7 cards in your hand anyway as the deck is quite quick and you're
racing out artifacts to get your metalcraft bonus. I'd only recommend using
this while unlocking cards if you're playing against direct damage, I found it
helpful against Koth.
Soulquake: This is a cool looking and interesting card, but I think it's too
expensive and not right for this deck. There's no reason to expect you will
have any more dead creatures than the other player, so you can't count on
raking the graveyards for an advantage. As for returning everything in play to
your hand, you lose your metalcraft bonus and you're probably completely tapped
out. Your opponent gets to play everything again first and will have control of
the game. You'll rarely have enough mana left to counter anything they cast.
For 7 mana I think the Sphinx is far better.
Hunger of the Nim: The fact that this is a sorcery means you can't use it for
surprise value in combat, making it limited to trying to finish your opponent
off. But they can then either kill the creature you pumped up or block it. It's
main use is going to be on a flier when your opponent doesn't have any. I don't
like the card because it's useless when you are losing, and relies on having
lots of things in play to be any good at all. Only worth considering if you are
insanely focused on a quick attack. I mistakenly thought it was an Instant to
begin with! That would have made it much better.
Golem's Heart: I hate life gain!
Shape Anew: This is an interesting card, but unreliable. You're probably going
to want to cast it on your own cheap artifact and hope that something big
churns out. Sometimes you'll get something else small that wasn't worth your 4
mana and two cards to fetch. I prefer not to gamble like this, but if gambling
is your thing, go for it! It can be cast on the opponent's artifact, probably a
big one, in the hope that they churn out a little one. There may be some value
in this, but again I don't like the risk and you're still spending a lot of
mana and giving away card advantage.
Razorfield Thresher: I don't understand why they make cards like this. It's
obviously terrible stats for its cost, and has no point to it whatsoever. Why
it's been included in this deck I have no idea, all your 6 mana creatures are
better than this. The flavour text is quite funny, making it officially a joke
card, I guess.
Darksteel Colossus: This is just not right for this deck, I would never include
this. It will be extremely rare, even with the help of Etherium Sculptors, that
you will get enough mana to cast this. The only other way to get it onto the
battlefield is with Shape Anew, which I don't recommend using, and even if you
try that there's very little chance you'll actually hit this.
===============================================================================
Ajani Goldmane - Auramancer
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a brand new green and white deck, which is based mainly around Auras
that enchant creatures. It has creatures that benefit from just having Auras on
them or on the battlefield, or help you draw cards when you cast them. It has a
lot of evasion creatures, making it easier to get damage through with your
pumped up creatures. It is lacking in removal, but the idea is to outrace and
outdraw your opponent instead. The creatures are very fast, getting you targets
for your Auras quickly. A lot of the Auras are Totem Armors, which can save the
creature once from being destroyed. Note that currently you don't get to choose
which Totem Armor to get destroyed instead of your creature if it has multiple
on it, the game does it for you by choosing the lowest cost one. Hopefully this
will be changed.
Strategy
The idea is to flood the battlefield with your creatures right away, and then
quickly back them up with Auras. Try to get out your card drawers early if you
can, Mesa Enchantress and Kor Spiritdancer, so that you start drawing cards for
each Aura. Spread the Auras among the creatures if you can, to avoid having too
many on one creature and risking losing them all in one go. Totem Armor helps a
lot against this, as it can be destroyed instead of the creature. But against
some things even that won't help, such as returning to hand effects, exiling,
toughness reducing to zero or being sacrificed. As the game progresses you have
ways of retrieving cards from your graveyard, choose the ones most suited to
the situation, as with the cards that fetch Auras from your deck. If you put
your power boosting Auras on evasion creatures, this will help get lots of
damage through and end the game quickly. Beware of the opponent killing your
creature in response to casting an Aura on it. Even if it's a Totem Armor,
their instant/ability will resolve first, killing it before the Totem Armor is
on the battlefield and you lose 2 cards for 1.
Pros
> * Lots of fast and evasive creatures
> * Many powerful Auras to quickly build big threats
> * Ways to draw extra cards from the Auras and fetch them from the deck
Cons
> * Two colours can sometimes lead to mana problems
> * Only creature control is one Pacifism
> * No enchantment or artifact control
> * Relies heavily on Auras to win and runs the risk of losing 2 or more
cards for 1
Example Decklist
13 Plains
11 Forest
Creatures (18)
4 Suntail Hawk
1 Femeref Enchantress
1 Kor Spiritdancer
1 Silhana Ledgewalker
1 Spectral Rider
1 Stormfront Pegasus
3 Aura Gnarlid
2 Auramancer
2 Mesa Enchantress
1 Sacred Wolf
1 Totem-Guide Hartebeest
Other spells (18)
1 Hyena Umbra
2 Lifelink
1 Rancor
1 Canopy Cover
2 Fists of Ironwood
2 Nature's Spiral
1 Pacifism
1 Armadillo Cloak
2 Boar Umbra
1 Griffin Guide
1 Snake Umbra
1 Angelic Destiny
1 Gigantiform
1 Three Dreams
Cards to exclude to build this deck
1 Lifelink
1 Wreath of Geists
1 Divine Favour
1 Fists of Ironwood
1 Heroe's Reunion
4 Silvercoat Lion
1 Lure
3 Oakenform
1 Retether
2 Bramble Elemental
1 Gigantiform
1 Mammoth Umbra
1 Siege Mastodon
1 Mythic Proportions
Good cards
Kor Spiritdancer: This is the ruler of the deck. It's an obviously much better
version of Mesa Enchantress, and you'll want to draw this every game. Being
very cheap, you can get this out on turn 2 as a priority, and if it survives it
turns all your Auras into "free cards", instantly replacing themselves. And if
you cast them on her, she gets bigger as well in addition to the bonus of the
Aura. Keep her out of combat if there's a chance she will die as her ability is
really important.
Pacifism: This is the only real creature control the deck offers. I think it's
essential for either stopping a big attacker that is threatening to out-race
you, or for removing a big blocker which is stopping you reaching the winning
post. This will often be a big flying creature, as a lot of your creature use
flying for their evasion. Although you'll only have this one copy, you have two
other ways to fetch it, with Three Dreams and Totem-Guide Hartebeest. And if
the opponent destroys it, you have many ways of getting it back again from the
graveyard to reapply it.
Rancor: This was introduced a long time ago (in a galaxy far far away) as the
start of an attempt to make Auras better. They have always suffered from the
problem that if their host dies, so do they, losing you two cards for 1. This
was part of a cycle of cards which return to your hand if they get put into the
graveyard from the battlefield, allowing you to re-use them. A preliminary to
equipment, really. This is probably the best one they could have included,
being super cheap and giving a huge bonus and nice trample ability. You can
pretty much put it on anything, and recklessly attack with it. Once the
opponent finally deals with the creature by blocking it or using a kill spell,
the Rancor comes back and you can repeat on the next available creature.
Beware, as always with this deck, of the opponent using an instant or ability
in response to you casting Rancor. Theirs will resolve first, and if it
kills/removes your creature, the Rancor will "fizzle" and it's ability won't
trigger as it never enters the battlefield at all. This is perfect for early in
the game when the opponent is likely to be tapping out each turn to develop
their position.
Mesa Enchantress: Same strategy as Kor Spiritdancer. Her card drawing is just
as valuable, even though she is more expensive and doesn't get the free boost.
Get her out before casting Auras if possible to maximize your card advantage.
Angelic Destiny: This really is one of the most mental Auras I've ever seen. It
makes the creature huge, hard to block and even harder to kill. It will turn
anything at all into a massive threat that must be dealt with fast. And once
the creature gets killed, back it comes to your hand to put on something else.
It's similar to Rancor in this way, but the return ability isn't quite as
strong, since if this is destroyed directly rather than the creature getting
killed, you won't get this back to your hand like with Rancor. And if the
creature is exiled or bounced, you won't get it back either. But most of the
time it will be the case that the creature will die (or the opponent!) so you
will get another chance with it. Try and catch the opponent tapped out so they
can't respond and kill your creature, again meaning the Destiny's ability won't
trigger.
Suntail Hawk: These are amazingly efficient and suit the aggressive nature of
the deck down to the ground. They can start the race to smash up your opponent
from turn 1, and with flying they can usually take home any extra damage from
Auras you pile on them. Even unenchanted they can continue to peck away at the
opponent, and it's unlikely they will waste a kill spell on them. If they
don't, they face an ever decreasing timer. If they do, then you are laughing!
Snake Umbra: Although the stats boost is small for the cost, the card drawing
ability is awesome. Make sure you put this on an evasion creature, or one that
has gained trample, as you really want to be damaging the opponent each turn
with this. If the creature survives and continues to draw cards for you like
this, it will be almost impossible for the opponent to keep up with the
advantage and it will be a matter of time before they crumble. Even if you
manage to hit once with it while they are tapped out, you've done some extra
damage and the card has replaced itself.
Femeref Enchantress: She is a walking insurance policy for this deck. She can
make up for any card disadvantage you get from lost Auras by replacing them
with fresh cards. Keep her alive at all costs, as these card draws are really
important. It's not essential to get her out right away like the other card
drawers, but try to get her out before you get too many Auras on the table so
you have her card draw as backup should things start blowing up. It may seem
like a good idea to shove loads of Auras on her, by the reasoning that even if
she dies you'll draw a card for each. In fact this isn't true. Because of the
way the rules works, if she dies while enchanted (and the Auras aren't
destroyed at the same time), she is put into the graveyard first. The Auras
technically "float around" on their own for a short space of time (rules wise,
you won't see it happen visually) and then are put into the graveyard for
having nothing to enchant. This means she's not there to draw cards from them.
So I would advise against putting any Auras on her, unless they are Totem
Armors or Canopy Cover which can protect her.
Stormfront Pegasus: A straight upgrade from the Suntail Hawk, providing even
more of a bashing. Doesn't really need to be enchanted to make a nuisance of
itself, 2 flying damage is great for just 2 mana. As always with this deck,
keep on attacking with it mercilessly unless you really need it as a blocker to
survive. You can't afford to go on the defensive too much with this deck.
Aura Gnarlid: Although really only an average kind of creature, this really
shines in this deck. Both abilities are very useful. The first one stops him
being chump blocked, which is great since this deck has virtually no ways of
removing creatures. And once he becomes big enough he can become completely
unblockable. The second ability complements the first nicely, and since your
whole strategy is to fill the battlefield with Auras, he will get big in a
hurry, making him even harder to block. The Auras don't have to be on him to
count, on any of your creatures will do. It counts ones on your opponent's
creatures as well, and regardless of who cast them. This even includes putting
Pacifism on their creature! Beware of your opponent removing Auras from the
battlefield during combat and thus dropping his stats.
Silhana Ledgewalker: She is a bit of a runt, but her abilities lend herself
perfectly to being boosted up by Auras. Hexproof means it's very hard for the
opponent to kill her, they usually have to do with some sort of mass removal.
This means that she is likely to be able to make use of the Auras you put on
her, and can't easily be killed in response to you casting them either. And her
"sort of flying" ability makes her much harder to block, so she is perfect for
an Aura which boosts her power, giving you hard to stop damage.
Hyena Umbra: The cheapest Totem Armor, and very effective. It gives a little
boost, and first strike is very handy since nothing in this deck has that
ability built in. It can be put on anything to make it more of a threat, and
especially the creatures you want to protect like Mesa Enchantress, Kor
Spiritdancer and Femeref Enchantress. It can save them once from being
destroyed, either by damage or from a destroy effect (like a kill spell). This
goes some way to stopping the 2 for 1 loss from Auras.
Griffin Guide: Similar to Elephant Guide in Apex Predators, this is similarly
excellent, probably better. Although a lot of your creatures have flying
already, they can still benefit from the stat boost if you can't find a
non-flier to enchant. And when this is put into the graveyard, you get a very
decent 2/2 flying creature which is a nice threat in itself. Like with Rancor,
you won't get the token if the creature you target is killed in response to you
casting this.
Three Dreams: Perfect for this deck, as you will have no trouble finding three
different Auras from your deck. As it will be at least turn 5, you will have a
good idea of how the game is going, and which Auras will suit you the best.
Plan carefully your next few turns, and think what your opponent is likely to
do. Often it will be Angelic Destiny and Pacifism at the top of the list, along
with Snake Umbra. But the situation may dictate otherwise. If you have no
creatures, you can fetch Fists of Ironwood to cast on your opponent's creature
to get you some targets for your Auras.
Armadillo Cloak: A brutal Aura which makes your creature big, hard to stop, and
gains you loads of life. This last is a great side effect as it helps you
ignore counter-attacks from the opponent, as you steam towards the winning
post. The trample is only going to matter if they can manage to block your
creature, if it's on an evasion creature they may not be able to. This will
work well on anything, but the bigger the creature the bigger the life return.
Sometimes you may wish to hedge your bets and put it on something smaller
though like a Suntail Hawk if you expect it may die in the near future, so at
least you don't lose your best creature. Note that the ability of Armadillo
Cloak isn't the same as lifelink, although it looks similar. Firstly, the life
gain isn't simultaneous with damage, so if your life goes below zero at the
same time the enchanted creature deals damage in combat, it doesn't instantly
save you with life gain like lifelink. It has to resolve first, and if you're
already dead it's too late. And because it's an ability of the Aura and not the
creature, even if they steal the creature from you, you will continue to gain
the life from it, not the new controller. It could be used as a very strange
form of creature control if you put it on your opponent's creature. You can
then let the creature damage you, and as long as you don't die right away,
you'll get back all the life you lost.
Nature's Spiral: This is rather amazing for this deck, since nearly every card
in the deck falls into one of the categories it can fetch. You can use it to
retrieve one of your card drawers for a second go, get back a powerful Aura you
have lost, or even get a land back if it's been blown up somehow. This gives
you essentially extra copies of everything you draw during the game as backup,
unless they get exiled. If you're heavily winning, it may be worth retrieving
even something small like a Suntail Hawk if there is nothing else in your
graveyard, just to seal the win faster. If things are more slow, you may wish
to wait until a key permanent gets destroyed so that you can retrieve it and
get back in the game. The only drawback is this is not very useful for the
first few turns, where you're unlikely to have anything to get back. But you
should have plenty of other things to cast in the meantime, and this will at
least provide backup for all of those. You may consider dropping 1 of these to
reduce the chance of getting one in your opening hand if you prefer the more
proactive approach.
Boar Umbra: Simple and effective. A hefty stat boost to make anything into a
sizeable threat, with built-in protection. Great for putting on an evasion
creature to get large amounts of damage through, or for ensuring one of your
key creatures sticks around.
Sacred Wolf: Although his 1 toughness is a shame, he is nevertheless robust
thanks to hexproof. As long as you are careful with him in combat, he is likely
to stick around. He is perfect for stat boosting Auras, since his hexproof will
stop naughty 2 for 1 antics from your opponent. Once pumped up he will quickly
be a nasty threat, and one that's not easily stopped.
OK cards
Totem-Guide Hartebeest: The flexibility of searching your varied Auras is just
about worth the expensive cost for the creature I think. At the same time it
provides a beefy blocker, and a target for the Aura if you have no others. If
things are going badly you can fetch Pacifism, if they are going well get an
Aura to seal the game like Angelic Destiny.
Canopy Cover: This is a nice card, the reason I drop it to OK is just because
so many creatures in the deck already have flying or hexproof so can't take
full advantage. Even though it doesn't boost stats, it provides protection for
the creature, which is great for keeping your card drawers safe from all those
kill spells. It also means that if you want to put more Auras on the same
creature afterwards, you are much safer doing so thanks to the hexproof. It can
give evasion to those creatures that don't have it already, and it can make
Spectral Rider really hard to block!
Auramancer: You can think of this guy as the second-chance motel of the deck.
If you've lost an Aura, for whatever reason, you can reclaim it, and at the
same time you have a creature to enchant if you can't find any others. His
biggest drawback is being pretty useless at the start of the game, so you could
consider dropping down to 1 of these if you are looking for something to
replace in the creature base. But I like the instant card advantage it offers,
and it can make up for any nasty 2 for 1 deals you've been forced to eat. He
helps get Pacifism back too if the opponent manages to destroy it.
Fists of Ironwood: The trample isn't as good as it looks due to the large
amount of evasion creatures you have, but it may still come in handy sometimes.
The main benefit is the two free tokens you get, which provide extra attackers,
blockers, and most important targets for Auras. If you run out of creature to
enchant, it can be an awfully lonely place with this deck. So this can interact
with your card drawers and graveyard retrievers, and at the same time provide
you much needed targets. If you're desperate you can even put it on your
opponent's creature if you've totally run out yourself. If you have no
creatures anyway giving their creature trample won't make a lot of difference,
and it's essential you get back in the race as you don't have much creature
control to stop you getting overwhelmed. I've cut it to 2 in the main deck to
share spots in the deck with Lifelink. You may wish to adjust this according to
your personal preference, say going with 3 Lifelink and 1 Fists, or 1 Lifelink
and 3 Fists.
Lifelink: Normally I don't like this card much, but it can be useful in this
deck, particularly as you have few ways to actually stop the opponent from
damaging you. You can't do much to control their creatures, so this is a way of
keeping ahead on the race by adding life gain to your damage. Being extremely
cheap you can slip it out easily when the oppenent is tapped out, for some
instant life gain, or after dropping one of your card drawers to instantly
replace itself.
Gigantiform: Although expensive, it can turn the humblest of critters into a
game winning nightmare. It's original stats will get set to 8/8, but it will
also get on top of that any bonuses which increase its stats from other Auras
and effects. And it will keep all its other abilities too, as well as now
having trample. It's a bit slow for this deck so I would say one is enough,
especially as you have other ways to search for it. Forget about the kicker
part, that's a pipe-dream amount of mana for this deck and certainly not a good
enough reason to include 2 copies.
Spectral Rider: A solid creature for a mono white deck, but sadly a bit awkward
to cast in a dual colour one. You'll probably have other things you can cast
early in the game while you wait for the second Plains to show up, and his
evasion is really good against most of the decks. A nice way to sneak through a
lot of damage with Auras even when the opponent has big flying blockers that
can stop your other creatures.
Retether: This looks great at first glance, and indeed can be, but it has some
problems too. When it works, it can return loads of useful Auras to your
creatures, getting them all back and into action. And it can put Pacifism from
your graveyard onto one of your opponent's creatures, even one with hexproof or
shroud (since this method doesn't target the creature in any way). But firstly
if you've run out of creatures, this is useless. Secondly, it's going to be
sitting in your hand for quite a while at the start of the game before it
becomes useful. Thirdly, if your opponent removes your creature(s) from the
battlefield in response to it, you are forced to put all your Auras on their
creatures instead which could easily lose you the game. I would stick with the
more reliable Auramancer and Nature's Spiral, which can't backfire and are
easier to use.
Oakenform: This is a fairly decent Aura, but is obviously outclassed by Boar
Umbra and doesn't quite make the cut. If you're desperate for more
stat-boosting Auras, you could consider adding one of these.
Bramble Elemental: I initially thought this looked good for the deck, but had
to admit he is too slow. He is not huge for his mana, and lacks any sort of
evasion. It will be turn 6 at the least before his ability comes into play, and
he is so cumbersome that you may as well rely on Fists of Ironwood to do the
job much more quickly if you desire tokens. But if you are looking for higher
cost creatures for the really long game, this is probably the best choice.
Trouble is, you don't want a long game with this deck, you need to win fast.
Lure: To start with I thought this looked good, as a way of using your big
creatures to kill stuff by forcing it to block and to get through other
creatures for unblocked damage. This can be the case sometimes, but the fact
that so many of your creatures have evasion makes this much less effective. If
you put it on a flying creature for example, it will only lure other flying
creatures. If you are desperate for another way to control the opponent's
population then this is the best way to do that, although you'll have to wait
for the right creature to come along that doesn't have evasion and that you're
happy to attack with. On balance best left out I think. This has more potential
in the Archenemy and Two Headed Giant formats. Forcing all the opposing
creatures to all block one of yours will get through not only the rest of your
creatures but all your teammates as well! This could well end a stalemate and
win the game in one go.
Silvercoat Lion: A solid creature, but with no abilities he's redundant to the
deck. There's nothing in the list I think he could favourably replace, so I
think he's best left out. He'd only be useful if you wanted a few more fast
creatures for a creature-heavy strategy.
Bad cards
Mammoth Umbra: It's nice, but just too expensive. You're paying an extra 2 mana
over Boar Umbra just for vigilance, and I can't justify that. 5 mana is a lot
for this deck and you want something really hard hitting, and this doesn't hit
much harder than the 3 mana things in the deck. The vigilance is useful for
keeping ahead on the race by having your big creature able to block as well,
but that's not part of the general strategy of the deck.
Mythic Proportions: An amazing effect, but the cost is too high for this deck I
feel. The game will often be over, one way or the other, before you hit 7
lands, especially as you have no extra ways to search for them. I'd rather have
a slightly smaller bonus and the insurance from Totem Armor, rather than the
"all eggs in one basket" approach here. Most of the time this will waste away
in your hand, and when you do get to cast it probably something cheaper would
have done the job anyhow. The trample isn't such a big deal with so many
evasion creatures.
Divine Favor: This is too weedy and defensive. You are more interested in
pounding the damage to your opponent, and with just 1 extra power for 2 mana
this is a bum deal. It helps defensively, but as soon as you start going on the
defensive you are likely to lose anyhow. I'd stick to the much more effecient
and aggressive Auras. The life gain is nice, but far from essential.
Wreath of Geists: This looks good, but is only actually going to be useful
quite late into the game when lots of your creatures have been killed. That's
if any even have. At that point, the fact that it is so cheap is kind of
pointless as you'll have lots of land anyhow. I'd rather have an Aura with a
bonus I can rely on. On the plus side, it does update itself, so if more of
your creatures die while this is on the battlefield, the bonus it gives goes up
accordingly. Or down if you retrieve them with Nature's Spiral; another reason
to avoid this.
Siege Mastodon: A stupid-headed creature, not very good anyhow, and pointless
for this deck. Very defensive, and not even able to stop any kind of evasion
creature. For 5 mana Bramble Elemental is far better for this deck, I wouldn't
ever consider this guy.
Heroes' Reunion: My usual life-gain rant applies. Yes 7 life is a lot for 2
mana, but it also doesn't get you any closer to winning. Even if you win the
game seemingly "because" of the 7 life, you probably would have won anyway, and
faster, had it been something aggressive instead. Only worth considering if you
expect to see a lot of direct damage, such as Unquenchable Fire. Otherwise,
concentrate on your strategy of all out attack.
===============================================================================
Liliana Vess - Grave Whispers
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a monoblock deck loosely based on Eyes of Shadow from D9. It keeps the
discard theme, and has lots of creature control. It has cards that can deal
damage due to both the discard itself, and due to the opponent having few cards
left in hand. It is slow and defensive, fighting off the early rush while
emptying the opponent's hand leaving them open for your bigger creatures and
direct damage.
Strategy
You expect to take quite a thrashing in the early game, that's pretty much
unavoidable. You hope to get a Reassembling Skeleton out as a blocker early,
and he can keep coming back to keep you alive. Focus on destroying your
opponent's hand, even if it means taking quite a bit of damage. It can often be
a fair trade-off anyhow, as you are avoiding future damage from the cards they
throw away. The more discard you have in your opening hand, the more important
it is to start using it right away. You want to get the most use out of it
before your opponent empties his hand. Use your kill spells carefully, taking
out only the biggest threats while you concentrate on the discard. Once you've
taken care of that, your bigger creatures should be ready to arrive, plus
hopefully The Rack for some damage. The opponent will often be top-decking by
this stage and scared to hold anything back in their hand for fear of losing
it, so you can carefully calculate your strategy knowing they have no secret
cards to use. You have several big direct damage spells, Consume Spirit and
Corrupt which can make a big comeback for your life total, or finish the game
for you.
Pros
> * Lots of discard can easily wipe out the opponent's hand, forcing them to
play off the top of the deck
> * Plenty of efficient creature control
> * Mono colour means no mana problems
> * Direct damage with high life gain for big comebacks
Cons
> * Slow off the mark, struggles early
> * No artifact or enchantment control except by discard
> * Doom Blade redundant against other black decks
> * Creatures quite small until you get to higher mana costs
Example Decklist
24 Swamp
Creatures (15)
3 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Hypnotic Specter
4 Liliana's Specter
2 Guul Draz Specter
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Ob Nixilis, The Fallen
1 Grave Titan
1 Massacre Wurm
Other spells (21)
2 Disentomb
2 Quest for the Gravelord
2 The Rack
2 Consume Spirit
3 Doom Blade
1 Marsh Casualties
3 Mind Rot
2 Quag Sickness
2 Moan of the Unhallowed
1 Beacon of Unrest
1 Corrupt
Cards to exclude to build this deck
2 Unholy Strength
3 Demon's Horn
2 Liliana's Caress
1 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Gloomhunter
1 Mind Rot
2 Underworld Dreams
2 Blood Tithe
1 Mortivore
1 Scavenger Drake
1 Syphon Mind
1 Monomania
1 Syphon Flesh
Good cards
Doom Blade: The new Terror, modified so that it can destroy artifact creatures
as well, but with the drawback that the creature can regenerate. That isn't
much of a drawback in this game, as there's not a lot of regenerating
creatures. This is your top removal card, so use it sparingly and don't waste
it on anything you can take out other ways or can handle with your creatures.
As always don't be in a hurry to use them as soon as a big creature hits the
table, wait until near the end of the opponent's turn to see if they drop
anything else, or put an Aura on the creature for example. This is amazing
against Auramancer, as you can use it in response to an Aura, killing its
intended target and they won't be able to use its Totem Armor ability if it has
one. Unfortunately a dead card in the mirror match, and even more regretably
against Blood Hunger. But for the rest of the time where it is nothing short of
deadly, it's worth the risk. At least in the mirror match it's an easy card to
choose to discard when hit by Mind Rot etc.
Quag Sickness: Although this is an Aura, most of the time this is just a kill
spell. As you are using all Swamps, you will pretty much be using it to do in
the target right away unless it's a huge beast that you just want to bring down
to size. If possible use Doom Blade for that though and save this for something
you can kill outright. This also has the benefit of being able to target black
creatures, and if it reduces the toughness of the creature to 0 or less then it
can't regenerate or use Totem Armor, and even being indestructible won't help.
Save for the bigger threats, or a smaller creature with a really annoying
ability.
Corrupt: Back from Eyes of Shadow, and fulfils the same role. It can take out a
big creature, give a huge life swing to recover from early beatings, or act as
a finisher to end the game. It's similar to Consume Spirit, but assuming you
have 6 or more Swamps it's always more efficient offering 2 extra damage and a
fixed mana cost. Save for huge threats, and the longer you can hold it back the
more life you will get out of it. Keep an eye on the opponent's life total to
see if this can dust off the opponent after an attack.
Grave Titan: An insanely efficient creature, that unless countered gives
instant card advantage. If it survives, you continue to get that advantage
every time it attacks. Being so big it will probably be able to attack every
turn, if it gets ganged up on you can often use a Doom Blade to take out one of
the blockers leaving the others too weak to kill him. Unless dealt with very
quickly, this is likely to win the game on its own. Even if it does end up
tussling with a bigger creature, deathtouch means it will take it down too most
likely. And if it does end up getting killed by gang blockers, you will
probably be able to kill them all since you only need to put 1 damage on each
before moving to the next, and they all get the deathtouch treatment.
Bloodgift Demon: When this was recently previewed, I read it about 8 times to
see what I was missing. Turns out I wasn't missing anything, this is just
completely sick and overpowered. 5/4 flying for 5 mana is already really good,
to the point where it used to have cumulative upkeep 1 life just for those
stats (Morinfen). Not only does this (usually) not have a drawback, it's got a
bonus as well. Almost all the time you will want to use the upkeep ability on
yourself. 1 life for 1 card is a great deal, and always worth it unless you are
extremely low on life and fear some direct damage. Otherwise, keep on drawing
away and the card advantage will more than make up for the life loss.
Eventually you'll hopefully hit a Consume Spirit or Corrupt, then your life
total can shoot up again. If not dealt with the game probably won't last too
long anyway with him thrashing the opponent down. If they happen to be really
low on life, you can use his upkeep ability as a finisher or a prelude to other
finishing damage that turn. The only problem is that you can't refuse to use
the ability, so if you're too scared to use it on yourself you have to use it
on your opponent. This becomes less of a problem in Two Headed Giant or when
fighting against the Archenemy, as you can give one of your
not-quite-so-near-to-death allies a card instead.
Hypnotic Specter: Once the scourge of the standard tournament scene, when I
were a lad. Along with Dark Ritual, this often came out on turn 1 and started
ruining the opponent's game before it has even begun. At least now you have to
get it out honestly, but it's still a horrible creature to face. The flying
makes it hard to step especially early on, and the random discard means you
can't hide your good cards behind others. It will be competing with Lilian'a
Specter for a drop on turn 3, and if you have the choice it will depend on the
situation. The more cards the opponent has in hand, the more it favours the
Hypnotic as he can repeatedly make them discard. Against a deck which you
expect to easily deal with them, such as Unquenchable Fire, it may be better to
drop the Liliana's one just to make sure you get one discard in before it dies.
Keep attacking with this to drive your opponent's hand size down, even if it
means taking damage back. Hopefully your Skeletons and kill spells will keep
their offense at bay.
Massacre Wurm: This is the only non-targeted removal I have in my list (except
Marsh Casualties), and the perfect way to come back from an early rush of
weenies. It will ignore shroud, hexproof, regeneration, indestructibility (if
combined with other toughness reducing effects) and even protection from black.
You'll probably want to cast this as soon as you can, to clear the board of
weenies that are bothering you and to start hurting your opponent each time you
kill something. It will even make them lose life for the creatures it kills
with its own ability. If it kills just one or even no creatures, it is still a
massive threat and provides another way to hurt the opponent directly. This
will be a really sick card for the Archenemy to use.
Mind Rot: The black heart of the deck, back from Eyes of Shadow. Still horribly
effective, giving instant card advantage and quickly driving down the
opponent's hand size ready for The Rack or Guul Draz Specter. It also means you
don't have to worry about the cards that get thrown away being a threat to you.
I've dropped the count to 3 as there are more discard creatures in this deck
than Eyes of Shadow, so this reduces the chance of drawing one late game where
it may be redundant. You could always consider putting this back to 4 though to
try and draw as many as possible. Getting 2 early on can often be game
clinching on its own, given any kind of reasonable support from your other
cards. If your opponent's hand size is low, cast this in preference to a
discard creature to maximize it's use before they can empty their hand. With a
higher count, cast your creatures first so that they can get to work right
away, then follow them up with this.
Consume Spirit: The little brother of Corrupt, less efficient at the higher
costs but with the flexibility of being able to kill smaller creatures for low
mana. Rememeber that unlike Drain Life (for those as old as me) you're not
limited in life gain by the toughness of the creature (or the life total of the
opponent) so if you can spare the mana you can pump as much as you want into it
as overkill, to gain more life. Use for either picking off irritating
little/medium size creatures or going for the kill later in the game.
Liliana's Specter: A very nice upgrade from Ravenous Rats from Eyes of Shadow.
Although more expensive, it hits all opponents which is nice for multiplayer
and provides a decent threat once on the battlefield. Even if killed right away
it offers card advantage. If you can swap it in combat for an attacker, you can
use Disentomb to bring it back to force a discard again.
Guul Draz Specter: I really like the design of this card, as it addresses the
problem that faces most repeat-discard creatures: they become a bit wet once
the opponent empties their hand. This creature takes care of that by suddenly
growing huge and dealing more damage. If the opponent is drawing their 1 card
into an empty hand, they are forced to decide between holding on to it and
losing it to this, or using it and taking 5 damage. Neither prospect is good
for them. Note that this grows instantly to 5/5 as soon as the opponent's hand
is empty. So say their last card in hand is an Incinerate and they cast in on
your 2/2 Specter thinking it will die, as soon as the card leaves their hand
and "floats" on the stack the Specter becomes 5/5. So when when the Incinerate
resolves it won't be able to kill it.
Marsh Casualties: This is a great way to recover from an early weenie rush by
1/1 and 2/1 creatures, and later on when you can afford it even 2/2 ones. It's
a judgement call whether to play it early or hold it back. I would say if you
can kill 2 or more creatures with it certainly go ahead with it. Like Massacre
Wurm it doesn't target so has all the same benefits, and isn't two-sided like
Pyroclasm, so leaves your little guys intact. It can be used after your combat
phase to finish off any creatures which didn't quite die from combat damage.
Moan of the Unhallowed: This is a very interesting card, and a bit hard to
evaluate. I've come to the conclusion that it is pretty good though. I would
consider the flashback to be a bonus rather than something you can count on,
and for 4 mana getting two 2/2 creatures is pretty good. That's 4 power for 4
mana which is a good deal, and spread between two bodies makes it harder to
deal with. It's two blockers if things are going badly, or two attackers if
you're winning. And if the game goes on a long time and mana is no longer an
issue, you'll be really happy to be able to cast it again for some free guys.
As the deck doesn't have much at the 4 mana mark this fits well, and could be a
good stop-gap to help defend until your bigger creatures arrive. It's kind of a
more expensive but more reliable version of Quest for the Gravelord.
The Rack: A really cheap, nasty tool for squeezing the life out of the opponent
once you have forced them down to a low amount of cards in hand. If you've got
a reasonable board position and have successfully used discard, this is often a
game clincher on it's own. If they attempt to get out of taking damage by
holding cards back, any discard you have left comes into play and you can empty
their hand again. Even though it can be played on turn 1, I don't believe it's
always the correct play to do so. I think it depends on your hand. If you have
a lot of discard and can see yourself having no mana to spare over the first
3-4 turns, it may be a good idea to get it down on turn 1 while you have the
mana spare ready to optimize damage as soon as your discard kicks in. But
otherwise, I think it is often better to hold onto it. If you play it right</pre><pre id="faqspan-7">
away the opponent can see the damage coming, and can alter their strategy
accordingly. If you hold it back, even if you don't have much discard they may
frantically play out their hand to avoid having to discard anything, then you
suddenly drop it when their hand it empty. The other advantage to this is that
if they have artifact removal in their deck, you can force them to discard it
and empty their hand before casting this, whereas if you drop this early they
may be able to destroy it with those cards.
Beacon of Unrest: This has been half-inched from Nicol Bolas in D9, but it
fits very nicely into this deck. It can be used to get back your own big
creature that has been killed, or else to steal one the opponent has lost
either through you killing or by discard. Knowing you have this card may make
the opponent have to think very carefully about what they pitch to your discard
for fear of facing it the next turn. In extreme situations it could be used to
get The Rack back if it's been blown up, or to steal a great artifact the
opponent has discarded. The shuffle effect is handy but I don't view it as a
big deal. It's nice to know you may draw it again, but there's a good chance
you won't. Nevertheless, this does well for its cost by giving you a big choice
of targets and mounting a comeback, possibly borrowing from the opponent's
scrapheap to do so.
Quest for the Gravelord: I initially dismissed this card but was convinced by
popular opinion that it is in fact pretty good. It's perfect to have in your
starting hand, since you have nothing else to play on turn 1 (except possibly
The Rack) so it doesn't slow down your curve. It counts any tokens getting
killed as well, and each time your Reassembling Skeleton dies it gets a
counter. Combined with the high amount of removal in the deck, you should
expect it to get 3 counters pretty fast. It may also make your opponent scared
to attack you for fear of the counters building up when you block. Remember
that you can activate it as an instant, so don't put the token into play right
away. It won't be able to attack, and you're just giving the opponent more
chances to deal with it. Save it for the right moment which is the least
convenient for your opponent. Even if they decide to destroy the Quest, you can
always activate it in response. One of the best times to put the token in is
after the opponent has declared attackers but before the blockers phase. If
they've sent in a 4/4 ground creature or smaller, you have the option of
activating the Quest, giving you the 5/5 to block with. Otherwise, you can
still activate it near the end of their turn so it comes in ready to attack on
your turn. On a crowded battlefield you could hold it back if you sense mass
removal is in the air. Sadly it may be a bit slow if drawn late game. If you've
lasted that long you're probably doing well anyhow, but for this reason you
could considering cutting one of them.
OK cards
Reassembling Skeleton: Although not amazing, these kind of form the backbone of
the deck even if theirs isn't always in one piece for long. It's similar to
Drudge Skeletons from Eyes of Shadow, in some ways better, in some ways worse.
It's nice that you don't have to worry about being tapped out in order to block
like with the Drudge, since you can always bring him back in a future turn. The
extra mana needed is a pain, but it means that he's pretty much never going
away unless he gets exiled or Arrested etc. And you'll probably be quite
pleased if the opponent does something so drastic to your Skelly. These are
primarily for defense. But if the opponent is coming out really slow you may as
well nibble for some cheap damage, unless you know the deck you are facing has
a lot of haste creatures. Bringing him back in your turn is usually pointless,
you may as well wait until your opponent's turn, after they have attacked. That
way you've kept your options open with your mana, and if you haven't needed it
for anything else, you can go ahead and dig him up. He'll then untap as you
start your turn, and not any slower than if you brought him back in your turn.
In the mirror match when forced to discard, you can discard this knowing you
can reanimate it later.
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen: I'm not sure what he's fallen from, but I'm pretty sure
he banged his head several times on the way down. I heard someone once
speculate he used to be a Planeswalker. I rate him as OK and the least powerful
of the big threats in the deck just because of his reliance on the landfall
ability. If you cast him when you hit 5 mana for the first time and then don't
draw any more land for a few turns, he's going to be very lame. But if you can
follow him up with lands, he not only grows huge but starts putting the hurt on
the opponent from behind a barricade of your Skeletons. He gives you a reason
to stockpile lands in your hand when you don't particularly need to play more
in case you draw him. Especially so that in the mid/late game you can cast him
then right away have a land to play to boost him to 6/6. Sadly with just 24
land in the deck and no way to fetch more he is going to be slightly
unreliable, but just about worth the place I think. Probably Liliana will be
sending talent scouts to the next DLC to look for a replacement.
Disentomb: A Raise (Dead) by any other name would smell as foul. If you're into
digging up dead things that smelled pretty bad when they were alive, this is
the card for you. It's cheap and cheerful, giving all the creatures in your
deck a second chance unless they get exiled or frozen on the battlefield with
Pacifism etc. In my build there are 12 creatures which benefit from this card.
Sadly it's pointless in regard to the Reassembling Skeletons, and doesn't have
good synergy with the token making spells. For that reason, and since it's not
useful for a while in your opening hand, you may consider cutting down to 1 of
these. But when it works, it's going to be really good. It lets you recast your
Liliana's Specter after it gets killed for another discard, get your Hypnotic
Specter back on the case after taking a fall, and repeat the Massacre from your
Wurm. Since the deck is slightly low on big threats, this will often be a great
thing to have mid-game to recycle them. Also mid/late game Guul Draz Specter
becomes really powerful and efficient and is a prime target for getting back.
Syphon Flesh: This is an interesting card, obviously geared towards multiplayer
formats, but merits at lease some consideration for one on one. I chose to cut
it in the end as it is rather expensive, and because the opponent gets to
choose which creature dies you'll often kill something small. It does provide
possibly the only way the deck has to deal with large hexproof/shroud
creatures, but even then you have to be able to kill every other creature they
have to force them to sacrifice the one you want. I'd say it's just a bit too
slow, but worth thinking about if you want more removal. The extra token does
work well with your defensive theme and other token generators.
Mortivore: I didn't much like this in Eyes of Shadow, as more often than not it
was an expensive Drudge Skeleton and not much bigger. I thought it may be good
for this deck now that you can replace a core card. But since this deck
generates a lot of tokens which won't be counted, your Reassembling Skeletons
won't stay in the graveyard and you have Disentomb, the prospects for this are
narrow. At least his regenerate ability is very cheap, making him a useful
defender. I think it's too unreliable for the large mana investment. Much more
useful in multiplayer formats where it will probably get really big in a hurry.
Liliana's Caress: Although I campaigned for Megrim to be replaced by this in
Eyes of Shadow to at least make it playable as a core card, now I can take it
out I find myself doing so. It seems like an obvious choice for the deck, but I
feel it's just not needed. You often need to be doing other things on turn 2,
like getting out a skeleton or using a kill spell. It will do a bit of damage,
but once the opponent empties their hand it will most likely not do any more.
Later in the game this may already be the case making it pretty much a dead
draw. The Rack is more reliable and will always put the hurt on, as well as
being cheaper. I don't think you need more than 2 incidental damage sources to
complement your creatures and direct damage. It doesn't offer any help when you
are losing, as it amounts to just some direct damage. If you do use it, try to
get it out before you start using your discard for maximum damage. It does
combo rather nicely with The Rack, when the opponent starts holding onto cards
to climb out of damage range you'll be able to use your discard and hurt them
with this instead. It happens to be very nasty against Cloudburst, because
Murder of Crows currently forces you to draw and then discard every time a
creature dies, triggering this. Save this card for multiplayer formats, where
it will affect more players.
Underworld Dreams: This was a strange card to have been in Eyes of Shadow, and
still strange in this deck. It doesn't really have anything to do with the
strategy, other than a slow and painful way to win while hiding behind
defensive cards. It will occasionally be really good, say against Realm of
Illusion and Ancient Depths, where it will punish their large amount of card
drawing. But against most decks it's 1 damage a turn for 3 mana, which isn't
really worth it. The Rack is cheaper and does more damage once it gets going.
Gloomhunter: This is just about OK, but you really should never have to
consider putting this in the deck. You have 4 Liliana's Specters which are
clearly superior, as is Hypnotic Specter. This has nothing else to offer.
Bad cards
Monomania: I initially thought this was great, but quickly realized it's
actually pretty bad for this deck. If this is the first discard you use (which
is unlikely) then by turn 5 there's a good chance the opponent will be down to
3 or less cards, making it as good as, or worse than, Mind Rot. If you have
used other discard before casting this, then it makes all that other discard
almost redundant. For example, say you've used a Mind Rot previously and the
opponent is now on 4 cards. You cast Monomania, losing them 3 cards. But if you
hadn't cast the Mind Rot, they would have had 6 cards, so they lose 5. So
you'll see that the same amount of cards have been discarded (2 then 3, or 5)
either way so the Mind Rot was pointless (except for forcing earlier discard
decisions). It's too expensive and unreliable. Save it for multiplayer formats,
where you can use your other discard on one player, and then hit a different
one with this. There's also more chance someone will have got off to a slow
start and you can get more out of it, especially if you are the Archenemy.
Scavenger Drake: The ability is nice, but he's too expensive and puny. He will
take ages to get going, and coming out on turn 4 at 1/1 is a bit of a joke,
especially as you're usually on the defensive at that point. Save him for
multiplayer formats where he will grow much more quickly thanks to more
creatures getting killed.
Syphon Mind: A bit too expensive for one on one, this is clearly designed for
multiplayer. In those formats, especially as the Archenemy, the card draw will
be worthwile. Against a single opponent it's not worth the extra cost over Mind
Rot, and offers almost always the same card advantage. It does have the bonus
that it replaces itself even if cast late game when the opponent has run out of
cards.
Blood Tithe: Similarly designed for multiplayer. It's too expensive and
inflexible for one on one, where the fixed damage and life gain isn't great
enough at any point in the game. Stick to the removal spells which deal with
things for good, or gain life while killing something else.
Unholy Strength: For some reason back from Eyes of Shadow, just be thankful you
can take it out now! This is a highly aggressive and risky card, in a defensive
deck where you fully expect your stuff to die, sometimes planning on it. Doing
a bit of cheap damage here and there doesn't help your overall plan, and you
are generally giving away card advantage by using this as whatever you put it
on will be a prime target for removal. It just doesn't fit the strategy at all.
Demon's Horn: I hate life gain!
===============================================================================
Ral Zarek - Cloudburst
===============================================================================
Summary
This is a blue and red aggressive deck, using red for direct damage and fast
creatures and blue to bounce blockers out of the way and provide big flying
creatures. It's vaguely like Root of the Firemind from D9, but has no counter
magic and a lot of different creatures. It feels a little weak with not the
greatest selection of spells, but can be explosive when the cards come together
in lots of little combos. It has a lot of "suicide" creatures- ones that you
have to sacrifice at the end of the turn. But you can sometimes return them to
your hand to save them so they can attack again next turn. Playing 61 cards is
more of a sensible option with this, due to the high land count of 25 for an
aggressive deck, and because of the need to fix the mana ratios. This has
certainly been the hardest deck for me to write about without being able to
test!
Strategy
The way I see it, there are two ways to go with this deck. You either
concentrate on the suicide creatures, go for lots of low costs and try to win
in short order, or you cut some/most of those out and go for a slower flying
strategy. You want to do as much damage as you can whenever you are able,
keeping the pressure on. Use your direct damage and bounce spells to remove
blockers, and try to seal the game as quickly as you can. Make the most of the
synergy between your instants/sorceries and Wee Dragonauts/Gelectrode by
planning carefully.
Pros
> * Lots of cheap direct damage and bounce
> * Many haste creatures for quick damage
> * Creatures that benefit from the many instants/sorceries
> * Ways to draw and cycle through cards
> * Into the Roil and Aether Tradewinds can remove almost anything, at least
temporarily
Cons
> * Two colours can lead to mana problems
> * Can run out of steam if the game drags on
> * Overall the cards are a bit on the weak side
> * Not enough 1 and 2 mana creatures to make it really quick
Example Decklists
Suicide version
13 Mountain
12 Island
Creatures (21)
2 Spark Elemental
1 Lighting Serpent
2 Sparkmage Apprentice
2 Storm Crow
2 Arc Runner
2 Gelectrode
2 Wee Dragonauts
2 Lightning Elemental
1 Skizzik
1 Air Servant
2 Murder of Crows
1 Spellbound Dragon
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Other spells (14)
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Shock
3 Into the Roil
1 Reverberate
2 Aether Tradewinds
1 Electropotence
1 Prophetic Bolt
1 Time Reversal
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Elixir of Immortality
2 Thunder Strike
2 Turn the Tide
1 Ball Lightning
4 Wind Drake
2 Skirsdag Cultist
1 Air Servant
2 Stormcloud Djinn
1 Mahamoti Djinn
1 Thundermare
1 Thunder Dragon
I made the very painful cut of Ball Lightning for this build, just to be able
to keep 12 Islands in the deck and as this drops the Mountain count to 13. If
you prefer to put it in, the alternative is to replace the Air Servant with
Mahamoti Djinn, keeping the Islands at 12. This puts the deck at 61, which you
can either leave it at or remove a different red card to drop it back to 60.
It's a matter of what hurts the deck least. I don't like having 61 too much
since the extra Island gets diluted right away, and making another cut to the
red cards is really hard without hurting the overall strategy. That's why I let
Ball Lightning take the fall in this build as it has a big pull towards
Mountains. Out of all the cards in the deck it's the one which is most likely
to be uncastable in a game, although Gegliosch tells me he has little trouble
even with just 13 Mountains.
Balanced flying version
13 Mountain
12 Island
Creatures (22)
2 Spark Elemental
1 Lighting Serpent
2 Sparkmage Apprentice
2 Storm Crow
2 Gelectrode
2 Wee Dragonauts
3 Wind Drake
2 Lightning Elemental
1 Skizzik
1 Air Servant
2 Murder of Crows
1 Spellbound Dragon
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Other spells (13)
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Shock
3 Into the Roil
1 Reverberate
2 Thunder Strike
1 Aether Tradewinds
1 Prophetic Bolt
Cards to exclude to build this deck
3 Elixir of Immortality
2 Turn the Tide
1 Aether Tradewinds
1 Electropotence
2 Arc Runner
1 Ball Lightning
1 Wind Drake
2 Skirsdag Cultist
1 Air Servant
2 Stormcloud Djinn
1 Time Reversal
1 Mahamoti Djinn
1 Thundermare
1 Thunder Dragon
This version gambles less with cards like Arc Runner and Time Reversal, and
goes for more of a permanent air presence with Wind Drakes, backed by Thunder
Strikes. It will be more reliable, but less explosive.
Good cards
Lightning Bolt: Probably the most insanely efficient direct damage ever
printed. It can take out anything up to medium size creatures, and at instant
speed, or else be a cheap way of finishing off your opponent. It can take out
blockers to help you keep getting your damage through, or to remove a small
creature with an annoying ability that is causing you problems. Like all direct
damage in this deck, don't just throw it at your opponent's face right away. If
they don't have any creatures and you can't finish them off with it (or have a
plan to) then it's usually best to hold on to it until a creature arrives. You
can always throw it at them later when they are almost dead to finish them, and
if you use it early you'll be kicking yourself when a creature appears that is
killing you or stopping you getting through with your creatures. Take advantage
of the instant speed. You can use it during combat if your creature has been
gang blocked, to take out one of the blockers so your attacker survives. Or in
response to a Giant Growth or such, as your Bolt will resolve before the
Growth.
Shock: An obviously weaker Lightning Bolt, so same strategies apply. Use this
in preference to the Bolt when killing creatures where possible, to save the
Bolt for bigger targets or more damage to the player later.
Into the Roil: This is an amazingly flexible card, with lots of uses. For a
list of "bounce" strategies, see the commentary for Repulse in the Realm of
Illusion section. This can also bounce artifacts and enchantments, getting them
out of the way for one turn at least. You want to pay the kicker whenever you
can afford to, but sometimes if mana is tight you just can't, and you need to
use your judgement as to whether to go ahead and cast it anyway. If it means
getting a lot of damage through or saving something important from being
killed, it's often worth it. Especially useful for bringing your suicide
creatures back to your hand after they have attacked, to save them getting
sacrificed at end of turn.
Prophetic Bolt: Although a bit expensive, it is well worth it for the nice
amount of damage and the card selection you get. Also being an instant, you can
use it at the most inconvenient time for your opponent (usually in their turn,
during or after combat) while setting yourself up for your next turn with your
carefully chosen card.
Murder of Crows: An excellent new creature from Innistrad. A beefy flier at 4/4
is good for 5 mana anyway, and the card cycling ability is brilliant.
Unfortunately, they made the very bad "design decision" that you are forced to
draw and discard every time a creature dies, instead of getting to choose. This
can be annoying, but the creature is still really good even with that
stipulation. This gives you a reason to hold back lands you don't need in the
mid/late game, so that you can draw cards with this and then discard the land.
The improved card selection combined with your numerous ways to kill creatures
will keep the cards flowing through your hand, allowing you to keep just the
most crucial ones for the situation. Along with the kicker cost for Into the
Roil, this is a big reason to try and keep your Island count up to at least 12
in the deck to avoid missing your second Island. Sadly you can't alter it
manually, it has to be done by putting in more cards of the relevant colour.
The more mana symbols in the cost, the more weighting it gives.
Reverberate: The cost is a little awkward, but you're not going to be casting
this really early so it shouldn't be a problem. You can copy an instant or
sorcery spell that any player casts. This is good enough in one on one, but
gives even more scope in multiplayer. Because you are copying and not casting
the spell, you don't have to pay any associated costs. For example, if your
opponent uses Blaze on you with X=5 and you copy it, you don't need to pay any
more than the cost of Reverberate and it will create a new Blaze with X=5 as
well. It should copy whether or not a spell is kicked, but it's bugged
currently so that if you copy a kicked Into the Roil, you don't draw the extra
card. You can use this to double up on your direct damage, bounce extra things,
or just piggy back the opponent's spells to use them yourself as well. You can
also effectively stop a counterspell that is aimed at one of your spells with
this. Target the counterspell with Reverberate, and change the target of the
counterspell to Reverberate. It will then counter this spell instead of the
original target, leaving it safe to resolve.
Gelectrode: With a lot of useful and cheap instants in the deck, this has a lot
of potential for untapping. Every time you are going to cast an instant or
sorcery, use his ability first on something. Then cast your spell, and he will
trigger and untap again. He is great for picking off weenies, or for combining
with your direct damage to take out bigger targets. For example, you can kill a
5 toughness creature with just a Lightning Bolt if you have an untapped
Gelectrode by using his ability before and after the Bolt. Don't use the
ability in your turn, save it until at least after your opponent has attacked
(or during combat to mess with their creatures). If there is no suitable target
by the time your opponent has finished, you can then just target them directly.
You obviously want to keep him out of combat where possible, but if you're
getting thrashed you can use him to block one creature, then before damage is
dealt use his ability to deal a damage to another attacker, potentially
stopping two creatures at once.
Wee Dragonauts: These little guys were heavily requested for Root of the
Firemind, so it's nice to see them appear here. They are perfect for this deck
even more than the previous one. The 3 toughness is nice, and they are easy to
cast. But they come into their own when you use your instants/sorceries. You'll
mainly want to do so on your turn, so that if you kill a blocker for example
your Dragonauts get their +2 power which they can use to damage the opponent in
combat. Combined with direct damage to the opponent, they can provide a nasty
amount of damage in one go making them a great finisher. If you're on the
defensive, you can use them to take out surprisingly big prey. If a 6/6
creature attacks and you're desperate to kill it, block it with the Dragonauts
then before damage is dealt Lightning Bolt the creature. This makes your
Dragonauts 3/3, big enough to add to the 3 damage from the Bolt to take down
the attacker.
Spellbound Dragon: Kind of similar to the Murder of Crows ability, except it
triggers on attacking and also boosts up his power. You have to use your
judgement to decide whether to throw away a large costed spell for high damage,
or to just discard the weakest card in your hand even if it means less/no extra
damage (in the case of a land). Generally the closer your opponent is to death
the more important it is to get more damage. If you're losing, it's better to
just try and improve your hand and keep yourself alive even if this means doing
minimal damage while attacking. If you are forced to keep him as a blocker when
things are really bad, his high toughness is useful.
Skizzik: This kind of puts Stomper Cub to shame in Apex Predators. It offers
good flexibility, giving instant high trample damage for just 4 mana when you
need it, or a permanent creature when you can afford it. If you think it's
likely he will be blocked and killed anyhow, you may refuse to pay the kicker,
saving the mana for something else. When you have the mana to spare, obviously
always pay the kicker just in case he survives. As with all the haste
creatures, they have great surprise value. You don't always have to cast them
as soon as you can, you can wait until you've removed some blockers or else
goaded the opponent into attacking you, thinking they don't need defenders,
then you can drop haste creatures to smack them around in your turn.
Aether Tradewinds: Very useful especially in combination with the suicide
creatures, for saving them after they have attacked while slowing down the
opponent by returning something (preferably costly) to their hand. With the
absence of countermagic, it also provides a way of saving your powerful
creatures from being killed, while again messing with the opponent. If they are
coming out really slow, you can even target one of their lands (unlike Into the
Roil) just to screw up their mana curve. This is much more useful in the
suicide build, you may find you only need 1 in the flying build as you're not
always so keen to return your own stuff.
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind: Although the deck is primarily meant to be very fast,
you are for some reason forced to play with 25 lands. That means that a 6 mana
spell isn't too much of a stretch, and this is a really great one, again
borrowed from D9. As well as just being a big flyer when you need one, he can
be used to sit there on the defense and then ping away at your opponent or
their creatures while drawing you a card. Whether to attack or use the ability
depends on the situation, and I would favour the first option the closer the
opponent is to death. He also gets a free ping every time you draw a card like
at the start of your turn or from Into the Roil, Murder of Crows and Spellbound
Dragon. In a tighter game or certainly if you are losing, keep him back and
make use of the card advantage which will help you more in the long term. He
can take down a 5 toughness creature on his own on defense by blocking and then
using his ability before combat damage to target the attacker.
OK cards
Electropotence: Although expensive, this gives you a great way to spend mana in
the mid/late game and to pull off some impressive finishes. If it's in your
hand at the start of the game, it may be best to hold on to at least some of
your suicide creatures until you have this out. Then you can get the double
whammy surprise of a haste attack and a bunch of direct damage. Works very well
with the cheap Spark Elemental, and can be lethal later on in combination with
an Arc Runner or (if you have enough Mountains!) Ball Lightning. It's kind of
in competition with Skirsdag Cultist, and this is cheaper to cast initially and
more likely to stick around since enchantment removal is scarce in this game.
Also if you cast something, pay for Electropotence and then bounce the
creature, you can repeat it again for another go! It can be very expensive
though, and for your bigger creatures you may never have enough mana to use it
for them. This card makes a lot more sense for the higher power of the suicide
build, for the more moderate flying creatures this is less impactful.
Spark Elemental: Kind of like direct damage on legs, this does an efficient
amount of damage. Although he can be blocked to reduce the damage, he'll likely
kill the blocker unless it's huge and still maybe deal damage through thanks to
trample. If you have a stonker of an opening hand, you may want to cast him to
attack on your first turn while you have the mana to spare, looking for an
early kill. Otherwise, especially if you have some bounce in hand, you may want
to wait until you can get a double hit in by saving him. With all these
low-toughness suicide guys, watch out for first strike creatures which can kill
them before they get to hit back, negating their trample.
Lightning Serpent: A purely offensive suicide creature, with the benefit of
doing flexible amounts of damage depending on how much mana you can put into
it. I would recommend holding it back as long as you for maximum effect, unless
you have a turn where there's nothing else to cast but you expect your mana to
be tied up for a few turns afterwards. If you plan to bounce him for another
attack, be sure to leave enough mana back to cast the bounce spell!
Ball Lightning: Spark Elemental's big brother, the old favourite of the direct
damage deck. The cost is no problem in mono red, but in this deck it can prove
annoying. However, you don't have to expect to cast him on turn 3, you'll have
plenty of other things to do with your mana in the mean time. With 13 Mountains
in the deck on average you'll need to draw about 7 cards before you expect to
have 3 Mountains available. The game is reasonably likely to go on this long,
meaning you can rely on it as a mid/late game finisher. Plus you have several
ways or drawing and cycling cards, setting this up more quickly turns-wise. As
long as you eventually have the mana to play it, it doesn't matter too much at
which stage of the game that is. It can however pull the land ratio in your
deck heavily towards Mountains, making it harder to find two Islands for Into
the Roil and Murder of Crows. It will always contain some risk, but it's
ruthlessly efficient and probably worth it. It's a difficult choice whether to
play it or not.
Sparkmage Apprentice: The deck only has two creatures at the 2 mana mark, this
and Storm Crow. Seeing as this wants to be a fast and aggressive deck, the
inclusion of all of them seems necessary. This is the more handy of the two,
being able to ping away an early weenie clearing the path for suicide
creatures, or combining with direct damage spells to take out something bigger.
This is another creature you can bounce back to your hand if you really want to
repeat his entering the battlefield damage.
Lightning Elemental: Kind of in the same form as the suicide creatures with
high power, low toughness and haste, but this one can stick around for multiple
turns. If the opponent has no blockers and you have a choice of this or a
suicide creature to get a free attack with, cast this one. It will do the
damage and stick around, allowing you to cast the suicide creature next turn
and you can attack with both. Not having trample this suffers from being
obstructed by weenies, particularly 1/1 creatures. But as it's hard to see
coming, you can wait for the right opening where your opponent may attack you
with them thinking they don't need them for defense. Or ping them away first.
If you're taking a beating you can always cast this and not attack, with 4
power it makes a good ground blocker unless the attacker has first strike.
Arc Runner: This is like a watered down Ball Lightning, lacking the trample but
being much easier to cast. If he can attack when there are no potential
blockers, the lack of trample won't matter and he's almost as effective. If the
opponent's only potential blocker is a mid size creature, say a 3/3, you may
feel it's worth casting this anyway, giving them the choice between 5 damage or
trading for their creature. Depending on what else is in your hand, this may be
worth it. He works wonders with Electropotence, and is perfect for bouncing
back after the attack for another run. Pick your moment with him, even if it
means holding him back for some time. If he would be too obstructed, cast other
things first and come back to him later.
Storm Crow: Although he's a bit of a pithy creature, not really very scary or
efficient, I've had to admit he has a place, at least for now, due to the lack
of other fast creatures. I would rather have the Wind Drakes in general as they
are better, but since the deck has a lot of things at the 3 mana range, you can
at least drop this on the second turn and begin pecking away at the opponent,
making more use of the mana curve. The 2 toughness is handy if he comes into a
scuffle.
Wind Drake: He's a reasonably efficient flier, but suffers from competing with
a lot of other creatures at the 3 mana mark. He will more reliably continue to
do damage than the suicidally inclined Arc Runner, but isn't as explosive when
the Runner works well. That's really the difference in the two build
strategies. He is a solid creature to include for some extra evasion damage,
but you probably won't want too many in case you get too bottlenecked at 3
mana.
Air Servant: He has a nice easy cost, and a useful ability. The 3 toughness is
a shame, making him a bit weak in combat and vulnerable to direct damage. But
against a deck sporting a lot of fliers, he could be a real nightmare, keeping
them out of action. To stop a creature attacking you, you need to use the
ability in the opponent's first main phase. If you leave it until combat, it's
too late and tapping a creature that's been assigned to attack you won't make
any difference. You can use any spare blue mana you have to stop fliers
attacking you, and to tap them ready for you to attack in your turn. If you
want to punch flying damage through, you can use it on your turn too before
combat to knock out the blockers, although this may leave you vulnerable to a
counterattack if you can't afford to tap them again after they untap in the
opponent's turn. Due to the expensive nature of the card, probably 1 is enough
in either build.
Thunder Strike: This is handy, but I think maybe a little overrated. You often
intend for your creatures to fly over unopposed or else trample through and die
at end of turn, in those cases you're just adding 2 more damage for 2 mana
which isn't very efficient. When your creatures do come into combat it will be
quite useful, especially with the Lightning Elemental, or if there are first
strike blockers. I think it's more useful in the flying build where tussles are
more likely, and since the suicide build already has many red cards and another
may lower the Island count too much. Always use this during combat (not before,
as you just give the game away) and after blockers have been declared. Then it
has maximum surprise, and you can either help a creature win a battle and
hopefully survive, or else pump an unblocked creature if you're more interested
in getting maximum damage through. It is amazing in combination with Wee
Dragonauts, making them 5/3 first strike.
Skirsdag Cultist: I initially thought he was really good for the deck, but I've
had to admit he is a little slow. His ability won't come into play until turn
5, after using up all of turn 4 to cast him. That's pretty inefficient for this
deck, and he requires keeping a mana open at all times for best use. Don't
attack with him (unless you intend to tap out), instead keeping him untapped
with a Mountain available. If any of your creatures (including himself) are
targeted for destruction, use his ability in response to sacrifice the
creature, killing the best thing you can or else doing 2 damage to the
opponent. You can also use it to sacrifice a creature that is going to die in
combat without taking anything with it (such as a chump block on your part) or
else a suicide creature that has attacked and is going to be lost at end of
turn. This works best in the suicide build thanks to the above extra use, but
even for that can be too slow. You could consider including 1 for the late game
where mana is less of an issue.
Time Reversal: This is a tricky one. It's an amazingly powerful effect, but
also this deck isn't hugely fast and you run the risk of the opponent having
less cards in hand than you, giving them card advantage. Obviously you want to
cast this when you have as little cards in hand as possible, and your opponent
as many as possible. This card will be most worth of consideration the lower
the costs of the spells you include, as you've more chance of making good use
of it. If you draw it in your opening hand you can play recklessly and
over-aggressively, aiming to get whatever use you can out of your cards and
empty your hand before refilling it, hopefully before the opponent empties
theirs. A great trick pointed out to me by Gegliosch is to use a bounce spell
to return something you don't like to the opponent's hand in their turn, then
untap and cast Time Reversal forcing it to be discarded. Like the Djinn below,
the double blue mana cost helps pull Islands into the deck. It's sad to even
have to consider that though as it's not part of Magic, it's just because of
the refusal of the designers to let us adjust our own land ratios.
Mahamoti Djinn: A bit too slow and bumbling for this deck. He has solid stats,
but isn't aggressive or fast enough. His redeeming feature is the two blue mana
in his cost, which means putting him can help you tilt towards more Islands.
Other than that, he's not quite worth all the effort.
Bad cards
Thundermare: When you see this card for the first time, he tends to look mighty
impressive. In the right deck he could be, but he doesn't fit in here. Although
he taps all your opponent's creatures, which is great, he also taps all of
yours. This means that you can only attack with him (unless you have the mana
for another haste creature) and it will leave you totally open to a
counterattack. Although you can have many suicide creatures, there are also a
lot of other creatures which you will want to be attacking with every turn, so
the big damage from him will be less effective considering you're not doing
damage with anything else that turn. So it really has to be a winning play, or
else you're wide open and probably tapped out, so you'd expect a big beating in
return.
Thunder Dragon: It's a cool effect, but I feel 7 mana is just too much of a
stretch for this deck. It could be used as a way of clearing the ground ready
for your low-toughness haste attackers. But since you're often holding back
mana for instants, and the deck is so highly aggressive, waiting for 7 lands
can seem an awful long time and I think he's not quite good enough to justify
the cost. Stick to the lower cost removal, and the more reasonably priced
fliers.
Turn the Tide: This is generally a defensive stalling card, which I don't like
much in general and I feel this deck is too aggressive for it. It can be used
to intefere with combat turning it in your favour, but a lot of the time you
plan to either score unblocked with flying creatures, or attack with creatures
that are going to die at end of turn anyway. If you're losing all it does it
hold off damage for a turn, leaving you in the same position, so you may as
well have just drawn another card.
Stormcloud Djinn: Just not good enough by any standards. He's best taken out as
soon as possible. Not being able to block ground creatures is annoying, and his
pump ability is awkward and even hurts you. The other choices for 5 mana
creatures are much better.
Elixir of Immortality: This doesn't fit well into an aggressive deck. It wastes
your mana on life gain when you should be using every spare resource to nail
the opponent as soon as you can. Shuffling your graveyard isn't a big deal, it
only slightly improves your draws and this certainly isn't worth a whole card
in this sort of deck.
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Bouncing and tapping
===============================================================================
Since there are a lot of cards in this version which can tap creatures or
bounce them (return to owner's hand) I thought I'd write a little extra
strategy about this which may not be obvious.
When bouncing/tapping creatures , usually you'll want to hit the biggest
creature. But not always. Say you're in a situation where you have a 4/4
creature, the opponent has a 3/3 and a 1/1, 4 life, and no cards in hand or
anything else that could help them. You have a card that can bounce/tap a
creature. In this situation I would prefer to bounce/tap the 1/1. The opponent
is going to have to block with whatever they have, and it will die either way,
and they take no damage. So you may as well leave the 3/3, force them to block
with that, and they lose a better creature than just a 1/1 which they would if
you bounced the 3/3. Even better if the 3/3 has a regenerate ability and they
are tapped out and can't use it this turn.
If the opponent has cards in hand and other things on the battlefield which may
interfere it gets more complicated, but try to think through what the opponent
will do, and which creature it is good to leave untapped as well as tapped.
===============================================================================
Rules differences to full Magic
===============================================================================
This is (hopefully) a comprehensive list of the main differences between
playing Magic on DoTP, and full, "real" Magic which I shorten to RM. It should
help you bridge the gap if you have learned the game through DoTP, since some
things are quite a bit different. If you find any errors or omissions, or have
any questions, please let me know!
Simplifications
These are ways DoTP has been made simpler than the full Magic rules, in an
attempt to allow a gentle introduction.
---Planeswalker cards do not currently appear in DoTP at all. These are a
different type of card that represent powerful personas comparable to another
"player", although they aren't actually a player. They have their own
abilities, usually 3 or more, but only one can be played each turn. They can be
attacked instead of the player who controls them, and can be killed this way.
For more information see this link:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/rules/planeswalkers
---The turn structure in DoTP is simplified. It consists of these phases:
Start- Incorporates untap, upkeep and draw steps from RM. Neither player gets
to act in this phase unless an ability is triggered. In RM both players get to
act in upkeep and draw steps.
Main- Same as for RM.
Combat- Beginning of combat step from RM is absent, so if you wish to tap a
creature to stop it being able to attack you must do so in the first main
phase. Players cannot act in the end of combat step(s) unless an ability is
triggered in DoTP, in RM you get to use spells/abilities in this extra step,
after combat damage is dealt, before moving to the second main phase.
Main- Same as for RM.
End- Incorporates end and cleanup steps from RM. Players are not allowed to act
in this phase unless an ability is triggered, so you cannot generally play
instants and abilities “at the end of the opponent's turnâ€. You are forced
to play them in their second main phase, and they can then continue in that
phase to cast creatures etc. In RM the end step is a last chance to use just
Instant spells and abilities, and cleanup is where damage is removed from
creatures and the active player discards down to 7 cards.
In the normal course of the game, you won't even be aware that the Start and
End phases exist in DoTP as the game rushes past them unless something triggers
in them.
---In DoTP land is always tapped for you to pay for spells and abilities, you
get no choice in the matter. In RM you make your own decisions about what land
to tap to get the mana you need.
---There is no mana pool in DoTP. Land is always tapped to immediately pay for
spells and abilities. For this reason, there are almost no non-Land cards which
produce mana. There are also only very few non-Basic Lands, and they don't
produce mana. The mana pool is an imaginary place where mana can be drawn into
by tapping your lands (or by other means) and it stays there until you either
use it to pay for a spell or ability, or the step or phase you are in ends.
---A lot of optional choices are made for you in DoTP, when it's fairly obvious
what you would choose. For example, when an effect says you "may gain 1 life"
or "may put a 1/1 Elf Creature token onto the battlefield" the game
automatically makes you choose "yes". In RM, you could decline such choices,
even if it would seem to be to your disadvantage.
---When making decks in DoTP, you get a small card pool to choose from for each
deck, and can use cards only in the quantities present in that pool. In RM, you
can build your deck using up to 4 of any card you like, except Basic Lands
which you can include any number of. Banned/restricted lists may limit your
card choice if you are playing in a particular format or tournament.
---The amount of each Basic Land used in your deck is calculated automatically
for you in DoTP based on the mana costs of the cards you put in your deck.
There's no way to change it manually. In RM, you are free to include whatever
amount of each Basic Land you see fit.
---When multiple creatures block your attacker and you choose the order they
will receive damage, in DoTP the damage is then assigned automatically. It
never puts more on a creature than is needed to kill it. In RM, you are free to
assign as much as you want to each creature, which will then reduce the amount
of damage left for the remaining blockers.
---In RM, there is a coin toss/dice roll at the start of the match, and the
player who wins that can choose to play first or second. In DoTP, it is assumed
that whoever wins the toss (which you don't actually see) has chosen to go
first.
Design differences
These are deliberate ways in which rules have been changed for DoTP from RM.
---The priority system works totally differently in DoTP.
Instead of an ordered system of passing priority and waiting your turn to act,
any player can press a button to “jump in†to play a spell or ability. This
means that a player can pre-empt your chance to play a Land or cast a Sorcery
by suddenly casting an Instant, and you won't be able to use your card until
that has resolved. In RM, the active player (the player whose turn it is) gets
to act first and cannot be interrupted like this.
When there are one or more spells or abilities on the stack, a timer counts
down. Any player can press a button to jump in, and if no one does and the
timer expires the top spell/ability on the stack resolves. In RM players have
to pass priority in a strict order before anything resolves, and there is no
time limit. It is almost always the active player who gets to act first.
When the active player has indicated they wish to finish the current phase, a
timer also counts down. Any player can jump in again, including the active
player. In RM the active player cannot go back on their decision to pass
priority, they only get to act again if another player does something. Again a
strict order is followed to see if anyone wants to act, and there is no time
limit.
---Your abilities are put on the stack automatically
If you have multiple abilities trigger at once in RM, you get to decide what
order to put them on the stack. This will then decide the order they resolve,
which is last-in-first-out, so in the reverse order that you put them on the
stack. In DoTP the game decides for you what order any abilities that trigger
go on the stack.
---You get an extra mulligan in DoTP
In RM, if you don't like your starting hand of 7 cards you can "mulligan",
which means you shuffle your hand back into your deck. You then receive another
smaller hand of 6 cards. You can then, if you wish, mulligan again, this time
receiving 5 cards. You can repeat this right down to 1 card. In DoTP, you get a
"free" mulligan, meaning the first time you decide to mulligan the hand you get
back is still 7 cards. If you mulligan again it goes down to 6, then 5, etc.
This means DoTP is slightly more forgiving than RM!
Visuals
These are ways in which the game displays some information which is intended to
be helpful, but can sometimes be misleading as well.
---When something is reducing the mana cost of a card in your hand, such as
Etherium Sculptor, the card in your hand is displayed with that reduced cost in
the top right corner as if that was its "new" mana cost. This shows you the
cost you will pay, but be aware that the actual mana cost, and converted mana
cost, remain the same if anything else refers to them. You are just being shown
the cost after reductions.
---When a creature takes damage in DoTP, it is shown as its toughness reducing.
This is very misleading, as damage does not in fact lower toughness at all. A
4/4 creature with 3 damage is not 4/1, it is simply 4/4 with 3 damage. If a
spell then gave you life equal to its toughness, you would gain 4 and not 1.
The damage is counted seperately to toughness, and once the damage on the
creature reaches or exceeds the toughness, the creature is destroyed. This is a
particular problem in this game, because there are ways that cards actually
reduce toughness, and the game displays this in exactly the same way as damage
so you can't tell the difference. Reducing a creature's toughness to zero
results in it being put directly into the graveyard, not being destroyed, so
regeneration and even being indestructible can't save it. The game does handle
all this correctly, it just presents it in an often misleading way.
---If you attack with a creature, you get an orange line pointing towards the
opponent showing that the creature is attacking them. This line remains for any
creatures the don't get blocked, showing they are going to damage the opponent.
If one of your creatures gets blocked, this line is redirected to the blocking</pre><pre id="faqspan-8">
creature showing that it will deal its damage to that creature instead. But if
the blocker is then removed, the game unfortunately puts the arrow back
pointing to the opponent. Although it is still an attacking creature and is
"attacking that player", it will not deal any damage in that combat. A blocked
creature remains blocked, regardless of what happens to the blocker. The
exception is a creature with trample, which will deal all its damage to the
opponent if its blockers are removed.
---If a creature's power drops below zero, which it can do in both DoTP and RM,
it is still displayed as zero on DoTP. The game does treat the creature
correctly though, for example a creature that has -2 power is displayed as 0
but if you use Giant Growth on it, the power only goes up to 1. A creature with
negative power deals 0 damage in combat though, which equates to not dealing
damage at all.
Debatable differences
These are “rules differences†that I consider more to be an error of
judgement or programming, and am awaiting confirmation as to whether these are
intended or not. Previous items that would have been on this list have been
corrected such as lifelink and deathtouch.
---In DoTP the point at which you order multiple blockers to take damage from a
single attacker is different.
You make this choice just before combat damage is dealt, after the blockers
step, with no chance to act afterwards. In RM, you make this choice right after
blockers are declared, and then all players get the chance to act in the
blockers step before combat damage is dealt.
---In DoTP triggered abilities being put on the stack do not follow the correct
order as in RM. If several abilities trigger at once, in RM the active player
first puts their abilities on the stack, and then the non-active players in
turn order put theirs on. The result is that the non-active player's/players'
abilities will always resolve first. In DoTP being the active player makes no
difference, some abilities always resolve before others. This has been put on
the official bugs/issues list.
===============================================================================
Analysis of artifact and enchantment control
===============================================================================
In this section I will try to come up with an estimate of the overall
effectiveness of artifact and enchantment control against all of the 10 decks.
This will hopefully be a good guide as to how important it is to include such
cards.
For each deck, I will list the artifacts and enchantments that I consider worth
worrying about, and then rate the effectiveness of control cards against that
deck that affect-
> * A - Artifacts only (such as Viridian Shaman)
> * E - Enchantments only (such as Elvish Lyrist)
> * B - Both artifacts and enchantments (such as Revoke Existence)
And I give each a score:
> * 0 - Not at all effective or barely effective, not worth including
> * 1 - Effective to some extent, worth including
> * 2 - Very effective, big advantage to including
Unquenchable Fire- None
A - 0 E - 0 B - 0
Apex Predators- Elephant Guide, Serrated Arrows
A - 1 E - 0 B - 1
Wielding Steel- 3 Arrest, Lots of Equipment
A - 2 E - 2 B - 2
Realm of Illusion- Mind Control
A - 0 E - 1 B - 1
Ancient Depths- Yavimaya's Embrace, Mind Control
A - 0 E - 2 B - 2
Strength of Stone- 2 Darksteel Axe, 2 Claws of Valakut, 2 Volcanic Strength
A - 0 E - 2 B - 2
(Note that I rate A as zero because none of the artifact control only cards
currently in the game have any effect on Darksteel Axe)
Guardians of the Wood- Epic Proportions
A - 0 E - 0 B - 0
Dragon's Roar- 2 Ruby Medallion, Crucible of Fire
A - 1 E - 1 B - 2
Blood Hunger- Blade of the Bloodchief
A - 1 E - 0 B - 1
Machinations Every non-land permanent in the deck is an artifact
A - 2 E - 0 B - 2
Results
The totals between all decks are:
A - 11 E - 8 B - 13
This gives average scores of:
A - 1.1 E - 0.8 B - 1.3
It seems clear that artifact control is more important than enchantment
control, and that the effectiveness of enchantment control is questionable.
===============================================================================
Bugs and issues
===============================================================================
This is a list of bugs and issues that I have personally confirmed on Xbox 360
and can replicate easily, except where noted. I have put a status at the end of
each (with regard to Xbox 360):
> * Reported: I've noted it in the official bugs and issues thread but it's
not been acknowledged yet.
> * Acknowledged: It's been added to the official list of bugs and issues.
> * Fixed: Issue has been corrected.
> * Bad fix: Issue has attempted to be fixed but has only partially worked or
created new problems.
If anyone has any specific issues they can replicate and think I have missed,
please let me know. I'm not trying to collect general system malfunction type
issues, more "rules errors" and persistent issues with particular cards. This
list is only for those bugs I can personally replicate on the Xbox 360, and is
restricted to the fact that I can only test against the AI at present and
haven't purchased DLC 1.
If anyone has other bugs they have found that they would be kind enough to make
a video link for, please let me know and I will put them in the next section
after this, "user reported bugs". This can include DLC cards, other systems,
online play etc, as I can't test any of these things. I've written some
specific issues that I would like to see tested. If you report a bug to me and
I'm not able to test it, I'll let you know to ask if you can make a video of it
to go in that section. The aim is to build a reliable database of issues.
> * Archangel of Strife: Since multiple players are making choices at the
same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means
that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made
aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently
all choices are made simultaneously. Also when multiple Archangels are on the
battlefield, it's impossible to tell which is granting war/peace for which
players. Reported.
> * Archenemy: The Archenemy should get to draw a card on his first turn,
presently he doesn't. Reported.
> * Blocking: The sequence of ordering gang blockers against one creature to
receive damage is wrong in this game. It should happen right after blockers are
declared, giving you the blocker's phase to use instants and abilities before
damage is dealt. But presently they are ordered right before damage is dealt,
giving you no chance to act inbetween. Reported.
> * Captivating Vampire: Using Brave the Elements in response to his ability
(and choosing black) should make the ability be countered due to an illegal
target. However it resolves regardless. Also, if I steal a creature with my
Vampire, then it gets stolen, and I later kill the Vampire, the stolen creature
returns to its previous controller. Reported.
> * Chandra's Phoenix: If the opponent steals this with Mind Control and then
I kill it, it fails to trigger in my graveyard when I damage them with
instants/sorceries. Reported.
> * Colossus of Sardia: (Karn, campaign) His untap ability is treated like a
triggered ability, as if it said, "At the beginning of your upkeep you may pay
9..." It's an activated ability, so should just be presented as a choice
without first using the stack, since the game doesn't halt in the upkeep to
allow you to stop the timer and activate it. Reported.
> * Curfew: (Realm of Illusion, revenge campaign): Since multiple players are
making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active
player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first,
and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn
order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. Reported.
> * Dead Reckoning: This uses the creature's power when it was last on the
battlefield (if it has been) rather than the printed value, to calculate damage
dealt. Acknowledged.
> * Dead Reckoning vs Master of Etherium: If the Master is discarded from the
hand, and then chosen as the graveyard target by Dead Reckoning, it always
deals 0 damage. It should deal damage equal to the number of artifacts you
control, since this is the Master's power in all zones. By using Duplicant
against the Master I verified that the Master's power and toughness are
generally correct in other zones, as Duplicant tracks this properly. I
concluded it is Dead Reckoning getting this wrong somehow. Reported.
> * Duplicant: (Karn, campaign) You are forced to use his ability, which
means if only you control creatures you have to exile one of yours. The ability
should be optional since it can clearly be detrimental. Also, it can wrongly
target tokens created by Rite of Replication, and takes on their power and
toughness. And if it exiles a creature equipped with Trusty Machete, the
Duplicant gets a permanent +2/+1 bonus as if it too had a Machete. Only seems
to be a problem with that equipment and not any others. Reported.
> * Dragonspeaker Shaman: You continue to get the cost reduction bonus even
if another player takes control of the Shaman, say with Sower of Temptation.
Reported.
> * Gate to the Aether: (Karn, campaign) If the top card of the library is
not put onto the battlefield, it doesn't get revealed, instead it just goes
into the player's hand. Reported.
> * Faceless Butcher: (Archenemy challenge- Seek No Longer) If you have a
Butcher that has previously exiled a creature, and its controller loses the
game, this causes the Butcher's second ability to trigger as it leaves the
battlefield along with the rest of their permanents. But a player who has left
the game cannot put triggered abilities on the stack, so it should never
resolve. It does resolve however in this challenge, also making the intended
solution invalid under correct rules. Reported.
> * Fresh Meat: (Apex Predators, revenge campaign): This is counting lands
that have been put into the graveyard as well as creatures. It also counted
Elephant Guide, so it may well be counting all card types. Reported.
> * Giant Scorpion: If this is gang blocked and then has its power reduced to
zero (say by Disorient) it is still killing creatures. For 2 creatures, it says
"0 damage to assign" for the first, and then even more weirdly "-1 damage to
assign" for the second. After this, the first one gets destroyed which
obviously it shouldn't. Reported.
> * Grim Lavamancer: When using his ability, no arrows appear to show what
has been selected as a target. Acknowledged.
> * Hunted Wumpus: Since multiple players are making choices at the same
time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that
the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware
of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all
choices are made simultaneously. The chosen cards remain hidden until all
choices are made though. Reported. Without access to the card code it's
impossible for me to verify this 100%.
> * Last known information: The game is using default values instead of last
known information for permanents no longer on the battlefield which it requires
information from. For example, Spikeshot Elder is 9/1 thanks to Claws of
Valakut and I activate his ability. In response, someone kills the Elder. When
the Elder's ability resolves, it should use the last known information of 9,
but instead reverts to just 1 damage. The same applies to the victim of
Engulfing Slagwurm's ability, if it's no longer on the battlefield when it
resolves it doesn't take into account modifications to the toughness that were
on it such as Giant Growth. Reported.
> * Lavaborn Muse: This should only be able to deal damage to the opponent
whose turn it is when it triggers. Presently it checks every opponent's
handsize during every opponent's upkeep and can deal damage to all of them.
Acknowledged.
> * Lead the Stampede: The non-creature cards are not shown to you before
being put on the bottom of your library. Acknowledged.
> * Lord of the Unreal: The hexproof bonus is applied to your partner's
Illusions in Two Headed Giant as well as your own. Reported.
> * Malfegor: (Dragon's Roar, revenge campaign) Since multiple players are
making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active
player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first,
and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn
order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. Reported.
Without access to the card code it's impossible for me to verify this 100%.
> * Magister Sphinx: If the opponent uses the Sphinx's ability to set their
life total to 10 when they have less than 10, this is failing to trigger
Punishing Fire in my graveyard. Reported.
> * Multikicker: (Quag Vampires, Wolfbriar Elemental, Joraga Warcaller) The
game does not display how many times the spells have been kicked while they are
resolving. You can only work it out by counting up all the tapped lands which
is hard to do when there are many bunched up, and subtracting all other mana
paid this turn. Reported.
> * New Frontiers: Since multiple players are making choices at the same
time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that
the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware
of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all
choices are made simultaneously. The chosen cards remain hidden until all
choices are made though. Reported. Without access to the card code it's
impossible for me to verify this 100%.
> * Nissa's Chosen: Still using the pre-M12 wording. It should read, "If
Nissa's Chosen would die..." Acknowledged.
> * Oblivion Ring: (Archenemy challenge- Seek No Longer) If you have a Ring
that has previously exiled a permanent, and its controller loses the game, this
causes the Ring's second ability to trigger as it leaves the battlefield along
with the rest of their permanents. But a player who has left the game cannot
put triggered abilities on the stack, so it should never resolve. It does
resolve however in this challenge, also making the intended solution invalid
under correct rules. Reported.
> * Phyrexian Tyranny: (Archenemy challenge- Seek No Longer) The dialogue
prompt asks you to pay 2 life or pay 2 mana. However, it should be lose 2 life
which is not the same as paying 2 life. Reported.
> * Polymorph: The cards before you get to the creature are not revealed.
Reported.
> * Punishing Fire: This can be returned to your hand when 0 life is gained,
such as from having no cards in hand when Venser's Journal triggers. This
should only happen when you gain 1 or more life. Acknowledged.
> * Punishing Fire versus optional life gain: There is no way to stop "you
may gain life" abilities from giving you life, forcing players to trigger an
opponent's Punishing Fire in the graveyard. Either Punishing Fire needs to go,
or we need the choice of when to use optional abilities. Reported.
> * Rotted Ones, Lay Siege: (Scheme) There is no way to tell which Zombie
token has to attack which player. Reported.
> * Show and Tell: (Karn, campaign) Since multiple players are making choices
at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This
means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players
made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on.
Currently all choices are made simultaneously. The chosen cards remain hidden
until all choices are made though. The dialogue prompt box asks you to choose a
creature to put onto the battlefield, but you have more choice than that. And
if you pick an Aura, you are allowed to then cancel it. If there is a legal
permanent to attach it to, you should be obliged to once you've committed to
that card. Reported.
> * Slagstorm: (Strength of Stone, revenge campaign): The chosen mode, either
dealing damage to players or creatures, should be displayed/communicated to all
players upon casting. Presently you are left to guess which has been chosen
while responding. Acknowledged.
> * Sower of Temptation: When the same player controls multiple Sowers, say
by using a kicked Rite of Replication, there's no way to tell which Sower took
control of which creature once all their abilities have resolved. Reported.
> * Spell targets: With simplified targeting turned off, the default target
for any spell is chosen to be the opponent even when the spell is clearly
beneficial (Time Warp, Congregate etc.) It should default to the same target
that would have been chosen with simplified targeting on, that being the most
likely target, to save always having to change it and accidents happening.
Reported.
> * Spread the Sickness: The two parts, destroy target creature and
proliferate, are being conducted simultaneously instead of sequentially. For
example, my opponent has used Sower of Temptation to steal my creature that has
+1/+1 counters on it. I use Spread the Sickness on the Sower. I should regain
control of my creature before the proliferate happens, giving me another
counter. But I don't get a counter presently. Reported.
> * Summoning Sickness: Cards which gain control of an opponent's creature
such as Mind Control and Yavimaya's Embrace occasionally cause the creature to
lose "summoning sickness", and you can attack right away with them as if they
had haste. I can't replicate this at will as it only occurs very occasionally,
but I have witnessed it happening several times. Acknowledged.
> * The Stack: When multiple abilities trigger from different players'
permanents, they should be put on the stack in active player/non active player
order. Presently they are seemingly resolving according to an "ability
hierarchy". For example, if Festering Goblin dies while another player's
Rockslide Elemental is on the battlefield, the Rockslide's ability will always
resolve first regardless of whose turn it is. I have many other examples to
support this theory, and AP/NAP order is certainly not being followed except by
coincidence. Acknowledged.
> * Two Headed Giant: You should be able to assign combat damage to either
defending player, affecting cards like Slavering Nulls. And for one-shot
effects like an Eldrazi's annihilator, you should be able to choose which
defending player is affected as it resolves. Currently you are forced to chose
the opponent opposite you in each case. Reported.
> * Wurmcoil Engine: If this is gang blocked and then has its power reduced
to zero (say by Disorient) it is still killing creatures. For 2 creatures, it
says "0 damage to assign" for the first, and then even more weirdly "-1 damage
to assign" for the second. After this, the first one gets destroyed which
obviously it shouldn't. Reported.
> * Zone Changes: When a card moves from one zone to another, for example
from the battlefield to your hand or the graveyard, it should lose all memory
of its previous existence. However, I have found cases of this not happening.
If a creature uses its own ability to pump itself up (such as Furnace Whelp,
Kiln Fiend) and is then returned to its owner's hand and recast that turn, it
comes back with the pump up still in effect. And if I attack with Lorthos, the
Tidemaker and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Forests that get targeted by Lorthos
and then sacrificed to the annihilator ability retain their "do not untap" icon
when in the graveyard. Acknowledged.
===============================================================================
User reported issues
===============================================================================
This is a section for anyone to submit bugs and issues not on the above list,
which I can't personally verify but for which they have created a video link as
evidence. It can be any problem, on any system and about any aspect of the
game. I will post your name (however you would like to be credited, please let
me know) along with the description of the issue and your video link.
I have some issues I would like to see tested if anyone would be so kind, they
would be good to get things going. Any kind of video is fine as long as it's
clear enough what's going on! I'll add other reports as I receive them.
Possible issues needing testing
Hunted Wumpus: There is a clear rule in Magic that when choices are made
simultaneously like with this card, they should be made one at a time and in
turn order starting with the active player, before finally conducting all the
actions at once. 3/4 friends need to make a free for all game. One of you is
playing Apex Predators, including the card Hunted Wumpus. Keep the game going
(or keep using mulligans and restarts) until the Apex player has the Wumpus in
hand. Cast the Wumpus, and note what happens. Since the active player (A)
doesn't get to choose a creature, the first to choose should be the player to
their left. Their choice should be made public before the next player to their
left makes a choice. Note that (if the game does it correctly) the actual card
that will enter the battlefield won't be revealed (since it's in a hidden
zone), just the fact that the player has chosen to put a creature card onto the
battlefield (or not) will be reported. So I'd hope to see some kind of dialogue
like, "Player B decides to/not to put a creature onto the battlefield" before
it gets to player C to make their choice. And if there is a player D, a similar
dialogue for player C before D makes their choice. Then all the selected
creatures should enter the battlefield at once for those that decided to pick
one. What I suspect will actually happen is you all have to decide in secret
and then they enter the battlefield, which would be incorrect.
New Frontiers: Similar to Hunted Wumpus, but you only need 2 players, one of
which is using New Frontiers in the Ancient Depths deck. When this is cast, the
active player should make their decision first, and it should be made known to
the other player(s) before the next player decides. Again the cards won't be
revealed, but whether or not the player will put land card(s) onto the
battlefield, and how many, should be available information before player B
decides. Again I suspect the choices will be secret.
Malfegor: Similar to Hunted Wumpus, you need 3/4 players in a free for all, one
of which is using Dragon's Roar and Malfegor. Make sure everyone has several
creatures, then the Dragon player casts Malfegor, with a few cards in hand. Now
every opponent, starting with player B, should make their decisions as to what
will be sacrificed. This time, since the cards are in a public zone, the
choices will be explicit as to which creatures will die. Again player C should
know which ones player B will sacrifice before making his choice, and so on.
Again I suspect the choices will be secret.
Barter in Blood: Similar to Hunted Wumpus, but you only need 2 players, one of
which is playing Blood Hunger and Barter in Blood. Make sure both players have
3 or more creatures, then cast Barter in Blood. The active player should have
to make clear (as with Malfegor) which 2 creatures they will sacrifice, before
the next player makes their choice. Again I suspect the choices will be secret.
Liliana's Caress: 4 friends make a 2 Headed Giant game. One team uses Grave
Whispers including Lilian's Caress, and his partner uses Blood Hunger and some
bloodthirst creatures. Get Liliana's Caress onto the battlefield. When the
Whispers player has some discard in hand and the Blood Hunger player has a
bloodthirst creature ready, cast the discard, wait for the opponents to lose
life, then cast the bloodthirst creature. I am interested to see if it will
mistakenly count life loss as "damage", giving the bloodthirst bonus. It
shouldn't give the bonus. Hopefully it won't, if so please let me know that
too! I'm also interested to see whether Guardian Seraph in Wielding Steel will
prevent 1 "damage" from Liliana's Caress, which it shouldn't, because life loss
is not damage.
===============================================================================
Changes Log
===============================================================================
26.09.2011
Finished the Cloudburst section, completing the DLC additions to the guide.
Many thanks again to everyone who contributed. Special thanks to Gegliosch who
has been invaluable to me with the construction of the lists for all the 3 new
decks. My decklists are very closely based on his results and advice from his
testing. Also to Orthor for continued feedback about Cloudburst, on which the
flying version is very closely based.
Made a correction to the Cloudburst flying version decklist, thanks to Orthor
for pointing this out.
24.09.2011
Finished decklist for Grave Whispers, and completed most of card commentary.
Rest to follow shortly. Many thanks to all those named below plus EndarSeth,
Brodo, Bort_, hydramarine and Decaftable for their input which helped me finish
the list and write the commentary.
Now completed the card commentary for Grave Whispers.
23.09.2011
Finished Auramancer section. Many thanks to everyone from the forum for their
testing and suggestions without which I wouldn't have been able to write as
accurately about all the cards. Thankyou to Gegliosch, Ingidion, TimmyBee,
Eonblueapocalypse1, Orthor, Midguy, premiersoupir for their kind input to this
project and for the upcoming sections on Grave Whispers and Cloudburst.
Added to the commentary for Lure, thanks to Antkour for pointing out the uses
in Archenemy/Two Headed Giant.
Added land count to Auramancer decklist, thanks to premiersoupir for this.
22.09.2011
Changed Unquenchable Fire nemesis to Wielding Steel, thanks to zpollari for
pointing this out.
Added an introduction to each of the new 3 decks.
18.09.2011
Finished the commentary for the DLC cards for all 10 original decks.
Added to the commentary for Revoke Existence and moved it down to "OK" because
of the lack of useful targets overral. Thanks to AceMathias for prompting me to
think more about this.
Removed a mistake from Stuffy Doll's commentary, and made clearer the
commentary for Cultural Exchange. Thanks to Orthor for pointing these out!
17.09.2011
Finished the commentary for the DLC cards for the first 5 decks.
16.09.2011
Started work on adding new DLC cards to each current deck. Their commentary
will appear just above the original card commentary along with recommendation
for changes to the decklists.
15.09.2011
Added Archenemy problem to "bugs and issues" section. Credit to Rasphide for
noticing this.
Added more detail to the introduction to "bugs and issues" section.
Added "user reported issues" section.
14.09.2011
Added to Duplicant problem in "bugs and issues" section about Trusty Machete.
Well done to frzz1979 for noticing this one!
12.09.2011
Added Polymorph problem to "bugs and issues" section.
11.09.2011
Updated Two Headed Giant problem in "bugs and issues" section.
10.09.2011
Added to Captivating Vampire problem in "bugs and issues" section. Credit to
Stevolutionary for finding this.
1.09.2011
Made the alternate Unquenchable Fire decklist into its own seperate list to
make it easier to create.
31.08.2011
Made some corrections and clarifications, thanks to Ladenswallow for reporting
these.
Added Summoning Sickness problem to "bugs and issues" section.
30.08.2011
Added to Two Headed Giant problem in "bugs and issues" section.
Added to commentary for Garruk's Packleader.
Corrected some mistakes in the tri-colour Machinations decklist and Wielding
Steel decklist. Thanks to premiersoupir for pointing these out to me.
Added Giant Scorpion and Blocking problems to "bugs and issues" section.
29.08.2011
Added to the Fresh Meat problem in "bugs and issues" section.
Removed Psychosis Crawler from tri colour Machinations deck, added another
Razorfield Rhino. Over time I've found the Crawler less than impressive, often
coming out too small if you have got off to a speedy start. For lack of better
cards I'm keeping it in the blue/black version for now, it will be on the
chopping board come DLC!
Removed Furyborn Hellkite and 1 Volcanic Dragon from Dragon's Roar, and added
another Gravedigger and Dragon Fodder. This puts the Swamp count up to 7,
slightly helping the mana situation. The Furyborn wasn't coming out as often as
I would like, and the Volcanics are very slow and cumbersome so this speeds it
up while providing backup to the other dragons.
Added Wurmcoil Engine problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to Maese_Leo
for reporting this on the forum.
Added Two Headed Giant problem to "bugs and issues". Well done to Ladenswallow
for noticing this.
28.08.2011
Added to commentary for Vampire Aristocrat and Skeletal Vampire. Thanks to
Ladenswallow for these suggestions.
25.08.2011
Added to commentary for Counterspell, thanks to JonnyUtah for prompting me to
think about it more.
Deleted my original Wielding Steel decklist as I feel the second one is much
superior.
Made the alternate Blood Hunger decklist into it's own seperate list to make it
easier to create.
24.08.2011
Added Faceless Butcher problem to "bugs and issues", thanks to Ladenswallow for
noticing this. Also added Phyrexian Tyranny problem.
Moved around the order of some of the cards in Ancient Depths card analysis and
altered some commentaries to allow for my opinions after lots of playtesting
and to bring it in line with my new decklist.
Added "choosing your deck for online play" section. Thanks to Eternal21 for
prompting me to add this.
22.08.2011
Added multikicker problem to "bugs and issues". Also added Oblivion Ring
problem, credit to JaxsonBateman for noticing this.
Added to the commentary for Time Warp.
21.08.2011
Added Chandra's Phoenix problem to "bugs and issues". Thanks to DanRock for
reporting this on the forum.
16.08.2011
Added Colossus of Sardia and Gate to the Aether problems to "bugs and issues".
Added Sower of Temptation problem to "bugs and issues". Credit to
NarcolepZZZZZZ for reporting this on the forum.
15.08.2011
Renamed Master of Etherium problem to Dead Reckoning problem, as I found that
it's definitely Dead Reckoning that is causing the problem with their
interaction.
14.08.2011
Added clarification to the commentary for Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and deleted
my original Ancient Depths decklist as it was performing poorly. Thanks to
Nantes for prompting me to do this.
Added Master of Etherium problem to "bugs and issues".
Changed the commentary for Explosive Vegetation.
13.08.2001
Added more to the Show and Tell and Duplicant problems in "bugs and issues".
Added captivating Vampire problem to "bugs and issues" section. Credit to
Monion_2804 for finding this bug.
Added to the commentary for Lorthos, the Tidemaker.
12.08.2011
Added to the strategy section for Ancient Depths.
Added to the commentary for Polymorph.
Added a new section, "bouncing and tapping".
Added Duplicant problem to "bugs and issues" section.
11.08.2011
Added Archangel of Strife, Hunted Wumpus, Malfegor, New Frontiers, and Show and
Tell problems to "bugs and issues" section. Also for the scheme Rotted Ones,
Lay Siege.
10.08.2011
Added Magister Sphinx problem to "bugs and issues" section.
Added Punishing Fire vs. optional life gain problem to "bugs and issues"
section. Thanks to PugPug and JohnSelden for highlighting this.
Put "bugs and issues" section in alphabetical order.
Added to the commentary for Punishing Fire and Flamekin Brawler.
Added alternative decklist to Unquenchable Fire.
9.08.2011
Added to the commentary for Mirri the Cursed and Banefire.
Added in statuses in the "bugs and issues" section.
8.08.2011
Added Dragonspeaker Shaman problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to
lporiginalg for reporting this on the forum.
Added Lord of the Unreal problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to Toonio
who reported this on the forum.
Added to the commentary for Urge to Feed.
7.08.2011
Added to the commentary for Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Strider Harness
Added a bit more about Dragon's Roar, with regard to improving the Swamp count.
Added to the "getting started" section about choosing which decks to play
against to unlock cards faster.
6.08.2011
Added to and modified the "getting started" section.
Added last known information problem to the "bugs and issues" section. Thanks
to PugPug who reported about Spikeshot Elder on the forums which lead me to
this conclusion.
5.08.2011
Added Dead Reckoning problem to the "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to Minus
Prime who first reported this on the forum.
Added about DoTP not displaying negative power on creatures in the "rules
differences" section.
3.08.2011
Added to Sangromancer's commentary, thanks to ladenswallow for this suggestion.
Added a link to the official decklist page in the introduction, thanks to
premiersoupir for prompting me to add this.
2.08.2011
Added another "con" to Guardians of the Wood.
1.08.2011
Added "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to the following for reporting issues
on the bugs/issues thread on the DoTP forum:
extendoman: Spread the Sickness
Eonblueapocalypse1: Spell targets
ladenswallow: The stack
Brodo: Punishing Fire
Tweakee: Lavaborn Muse
31.07.2011
Added to Lorthos, the Tidemaker's commentary about not tapping your own lands.
Thanks to Ladenswallow for this suggestion.
30.07.2011
Reversed the order of the changes log so that new changes appear at the top, to
save everyone scrolling down each time to check on it!
Added an alternative decklist to Ancient Depths under the current one. Thanks
to fma for prompting me to think more on this. Also altered the order the cards
commentary appears in, in line with my new opinions of the cards.
Added to the commentary for Gaea's Revenge.
29.07.2011
Added a link to Eonblueapocalypse1's post about interesting targets for Rite of
Replication.
Added a link in the introduction to the discussion thread on the DoTP forums.
Added alternative decklist for Blood Hunger. Thanks to hydramarine and fma for
prompting me to think more about this.
28.07.2011
Corrected a mistake in the commentary for Goblin Mountaineer, thanks to
Hydramarine for pointing this out.
Added maximum and minimum damage to the Cerebral Eruption analysis, thanks to
Hydramarine for this suggestion.
25.07.2011
Added to the "rules differences" section about automatic calculation of your
Basic Land numbers.
Strength of Stone:
Removed 1 Flameborn Hellion and 1 Vulshok Berserker, added 1 Earth Servant and
1 Vulshok Heartstroker. Also fixed some errors in the "exclude" list. Thanks to
AceMathias for pointing these out and prompting me to think about my decklist
changes.
The Hellion is too offensively focused I've found for such a slow and defensive
deck, the Earth Servant is still not great but at least holds with the
defensive theme, being able to block nearly anything on the ground. The
Berserkers aren't great for their mana, so to speed up the deck a bit another
Heartstroker can provide a bit of punch to help your creatures break through,
or at least trade with an opponent's better creature.
24.07.2011
Realm of Illusion:
Removed 2 Phantom Beast, added 2 Blind Phantasm
After much thought and testing, I've decided I agree with Gegliosch that the
Blind Phantasm is the better overall choice, despite being only an average
card. It is cheaper and more robust, and the matchups in which the Beasts are
better are not quite worth the extreme vulnerability it has for the bad
matchups. Thanks to him for prompting me to think more about this.
I've added a new decklist variant to Wielding Steel under the current one.
Added about choosing to go first/second in the Rules Differences section.
Added to the commentary for Repulse, Engulfing Slagwurm and Jace's Ingenuity.
23.07.2011
Added about simplified combat damage assignment in the Rules Differences
section.
19.07.2011
Added another column to the second part of the Lead the Stampede/Beast Hunt
analysis showing the probabilities of drawing "at least" each number of cards.
Thanks to Lorenzo for this suggestion.
18.07.2011
Used a more accurate method to calculate the figures for the first part of the
Lead the Stampede/Beast Hunt analysis, updating the commentary accordingly.
This has caused all the figures to go up slightly.
17.07.2011
Added more explanation to the "Rules differences to full Magic section", and
added another part to it, visuals, which describes how the game can often be
misleading.
Added to Sword of War of Peace's commentary to note how it works in combination
with Infiltration Lens. Thanks to LadenSwallow for this tip.
Moved Cerebral Eruption down in the ratings, thanks to feedback from Lorenzo.
Fixed probabilities on the second part of the Lead the Stampede/Beast Hunt
analysis, thanks to Lorenzo for pointing out my error.
16.7.2011
Corrected my analysis on Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede, I'd been multiplying by
the wrong number for Beast Hunt. Thanks to Lorenzo for pointing out my error.
Added more explanation as well. I moved Beast Hunt down to the bad cards
section, as it is even worse than I thought. Also added more detail about how
Nature's Lore and Borderland Ranger interacts with these calculations, thanks
to DEMIURGO83 for feedback which helped me add more to this. I added an
analysis of Lead the Stampede based on 24 creatures, calculating estimates for
probabilities of drawing different numbers of creatures.
Altered the order of several cards due to my changing opinion of them.
Under each example decklist I've included the cards you would exclude to build
that deck. Thanks to Socram_SuR for suggesting this.
Added "Cerebral Eruption Analysis" section underneath the Strength of Stone
section. Thanks to Lorenzo for suggesting this.
Changed layout of "Analysis of artifact and enchantment control" section to
make it more readable.
15.7.2011
Moved the example decklists above the card commentary for each deck so you
don't have to scroll so far to quickly look at them.
Added "Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis" section below Apex Predator
section to show how many cards you can expect to draw from each based on the
number of creature cards in your deck.
Apex Predators:
Removed 1 Beast Hunt, added 1 Craw Wurm.
Much as it pains me to include such a rubbish creature, I decided that Beast
Hunt had to go and this at least gives another high mana creature which are a
little lacking, and gets a card from Garruk's Packleader. After doing my
analysis, I found that you can only expect to draw 1.53 cards on average from
the 23 creature setup that I had which isn't worth 4 mana. This change
increases the effectiveness of the 2 Lead the Stampede. Expect the Wurm to go
as soon as anything better becomes available from DLC. You could go with Giant
Spider if you wanted but I think it's too defensive and you have more 4 mana
creatures already than 6.
Added to Lys Alana Huntmaster's commentary about the combo with Elvish
Promenade.
Added to Manic Vandal's commentary about problems with your own Ruby
Medallions. Thanks to Destruction3402 for pointing this out.
14.7.2011
Added commentary to my deck alterations in the changes log.
Guardians of the Wood:
Removed 2 Ezuri's Archers, added 2 Viridian Emissary.
I feel the Archers are too defensive, and the effectiveness of 1 drops in this
deck aren't good enough to justify the extra speed. I put back 2 of the more
aggressive Viridian Emissaries again, which will also make the mana more
reliable. Definitely feels stronger in this build.
13.7.2011
Added about "free mulligan" in DoTP to the Rules Differences section. Thanks to
zammm for pointing out I had missed this.
Realm of Illusion:
Removed 2 Air Elemental, added 2 Aeether Adept. Thanks to Gegliosch for
prompting me to analyze this. Updated their commentaries.
You can more reliably tap out with the Adepts, knowing you have more bounce as
backup. The Elementals usually require tapping out, leaving it vulnerable to
removal and you unable to counter. The Adepts fit in with the rest of the deck
much more. I really like the change.
Added a new section, "Analysis of artifact and enchantment control".
Guardians of the Wood:
Removed 1 Elvish Lyrist, added 1 Heedless One.
After doing my analysis, I decided Enchantment removal isn't quite so
effective, so the 2 Pulses should be enough. The last Heedless One helps
provide more threats, and round out the top end of the mana curve.
12.7.2011
Fixed a typo (Cerebral Explosion -> Cerebral Eruption) in Strength of Stone
example decklist, thanks to Lorenzo for pointing this out.
Added to the introduction, and created a new section, "Rules differences to
full Magic." Thanks to feedback from Ladenswallow that helped me cut out an
unnecessary section from this.
Wielding Steel:
Removed 2 Elite Vanguard, added 2 Kor Duelist.
I decided it's more important to concentrate on the equipment theme, and
although the Vanguards are amazingly efficient the Duelists can end up dealing
more damage with a lot of equipment in the deck.
11.7.2011
Added correction to Aether Mutation's commentary with regard to using on tokens
that are copies of creatures. Added that battlecry creatures are useful in Two
Headed Giant and Archenemy. Thanks to Ladenswallow for pointing these out to
me.
Guardians of the Wood:
Removed 3 Viridian Emissary, added 2 Sylvan Ranger and 1 Wildheart Invoker.
Updated commentary on these three cards.
I decided the Rangers were more reliable, and help keep the Elf population up.
I dropped the overall number of mana fetchers as I felt there would still be
enough, to put in another big threat.
Realm of Illusion:
Removed 1 Phantom Beast, added 1 Blind Phantasm.
Updated commentary on these two cards. Thanks to Gegliosch for prompting me to
analyze this more.
Since roughly 4 out of the 10 matchups are bad for the Beast, I replaced one
with a Blind Phantasm to "sit on the fence".
10.7.2011
Added another tip to the commentary for Chandra's Pheonix, that Chandra's
Outrage can get it back for you.
7.7.2011
Thanks to Cardio for asking me to elaborate on which build I prefer for
Dragon's Roar, I have done so.
6.7.2011:
Corrected some errors, and added to Aether Mutation's and Repulse's commentary.
Added to Polymorph's commentary and moved it up to OK. Thanks to NLi10 for this
feedback.
Changed and added to the commentary on Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, thanks to
Orthanc_eb for prompting me to elaborate.
Added about deathtouch to the Differences from D09 to D12 section.
Realm of Illusion:
Removed 1 Aeether Adept, added 1 Phantom Beast - Thanks to Lorenzo for pointing
out I had overlooked there actually being a third Beast available!
Unquenchable Fire:
Removed 1 Relentless Assault, added 1 Lava Axe. I changed commentary on
Relentless Assault and moved it down to bad. Thanks to Gegliosch for pointing
out my error.
I had mistakenly thought you could get a double hit in with your Kiln Fiend at
+3/+0! The Lava Axe is not ideal but there isn't much better at the moment.
While writing guide, published 5.7.2011
Blood hunger:
Removed 2 Vampire's Bite, put in 1 Spread the Sickness and 1 Skeletal Vampire
I found I was holding on to the Bites for so long they may as well have been a
higher mana, more powerful spell.
Strength of Stone:
Removed 2 Act of Treason, added 2 Volcanic Strength
Removed 1 Rockslide Elemental, added in 1 Vulshock Heartstroker
The Act of Treasons are only useful for dealing extra damage against the
opponent and are no help if you are losing or dealing with threats. The deck is
on the back foot too much to capitalize on the aggressive nature of the card I
feel. I dropped the Rockslide as the deck is a bit too low on creature control
to pump it up reliably.
Machinations:
Tri colour: Removed 1 Snapsail Glider, added 1 Gust-Skimmer
Blue/black: Removed 1 Hunger of the Nim, added 1 Alpha Myr
The lower cost of the Skimmer I think is worth the drawback of having to pay
for him to fly, which you don't always need to pay anyway. I mistakenly thought
Hunger of the Nim was an Instant and therefore just about playable, when I
realized it's a Sorcery I decided it's rubbish as you can't use it in combat.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This guide was created at
http://www.playhaven.com/. See the full guide here:
http://www.playhaven.com/guides/360/magic-the-gathering-duels-of-the-planeswalk
ers/duels-of-the-planeswalkers-2012-guide/9BTpSAjYWUrU/
