Magic: The Gathering

[Isawa]

Tome/Scepter... don't be so literal! lol
The best thing about Magic, is there is always a different way to do things.
All I am saying is to find some self drawing permanents and toss the Howling Mines.
I understand it's all you have now, but make it a goal to find something else.
That way, your advantage isn't your opponent's advantage.

The Howling Mines aren't for getting cards for me, it's for forcing my opponent to discard. Which has worked well for me the times I have used the deck.

[yotevol]

I... don't understand.
The Howling Mines force your opponent to draw cards and your deck is centered around making your opponent discard cards. If they have enough cards in their hand, that the Howling Mine forces them to discard, then your deck doesn't seem like it's doing the job intended. Additionally, eventually you will want control over their hand to protect your megrims and prevent them from playing multiple big nasty creatures- and the Howling Mines make that difficult because you are doubling their chances to get cards they are hoping for.

Maybe I don't understand the full concept of your deck.
But, from what I've know in my 15+ years of experience, drawing cards is power.
And the Howling Mines give you a lot of power, for a cheap cost, but expensive price- drawing power for your opponent.

Think of this:
Your opponent is land screwed early on, while you get a Howling Mine out.
Now he has to discard for a few turns, but he's also drawing cards twice as fast to get the land he needs to kill your creatures and stop your deck.

But... I could be wrong.

[Isawa]

I... don't understand.
The Howling Mines force your opponent to draw cards and your deck is centered around making your opponent discard cards. If they have enough cards in their hand, that the Howling Mine forces them to discard, then your deck doesn't seem like it's doing the job intended. Additionally, eventually you will want control over their hand to protect your megrims and prevent them from playing multiple big nasty creatures- and the Howling Mines make that difficult because you are doubling their chances to get cards they are hoping for.

Maybe I don't understand the full concept of your deck.
But, from what I've know in my 15+ years of experience, drawing cards is power.
And the Howling Mines give you a lot of power, for a cheap cost, but expensive price- drawing power for your opponent.

Think of this:
Your opponent is land screwed early on, while you get a Howling Mine out.
Now he has to discard for a few turns, but he's also drawing cards twice as fast to get the land he needs to kill your creatures and stop your deck.

But... I could be wrong.

Nothing in this deck is permenant, it's a work in progress until I feel comfortable with it. You thought I kept the Howling Mines in for personal use, I stated a different usage. While you might not agree with it, to me it has it's advantages and disadvantages and it's a risk worth playing. If I find a card that suits the deck better, I will replace the Mines, but for now they do what I need them to.

Simply put, no one has the same play style or mindset. Where you might see it as pointless, I see promise in it.

[Zilong]

Running howling mine when your deck's focus is discard is really, really counterproductive.

Also, running 16 lands...is kinda unheard of unless you're playing vintage, at which point you'd be looking at a few thousand dollars worth of artifact to support that kind of land counts.

Your curve caps out at 7 with cruel ultimatum, running 16 lands means that you'd pretty much will never cast it before the game is over unless your opponent is playing a really bad decks or making a really bad play. To put it into perspective, most White Weenies in standard runs 22 lands, and the bulk of their spells are like 1-3 cc. On the other hand, you run 16 lands, with a good bulk of your spells in the 3-4 cc. You WILL miss land drops, and you really have nothing going on the first three turn that will affect the board enough for you to be able to maintain any sort of control. You're also running mind sludge on a non-mono black deck, which really decreases its overall potency. Your removal slot consist of 4 cards, I'd suggest running at least 4 more lightning bolts to fix that.

And I dunno about your metagame, but a popular deck theme these day is aggro (jund, ww, vampire, esper, boros bushwhacker). If your FNM is anything like that, you'd get murdered so hard so fast in those first few turns.

Anyway, I'd suggest you revamp the hell out of your manabase and curve before anything else, then focus on whether or not you want your deck to be a zombie aggro, or a discard control/combo deck utilizing megrim, because combining both just isn't gonna work. For an aggro deck, the creature base is waaaay too slow, and for a combo/control deck, you really don't have much of card advantage or anything to hold your board position before the other side runs you over.

Of course, if you're playing casual, then it wouldn't really matter, but I'd imagine anyone wants to play the game to win, or at least annoy the living fuck out of the other deck. So far, I don't think your deck would accomplish either, but who knows, maybe you can just mise every turn and pull off miracles in your FNM

[yotevol]

Currently looking at cards that are in "Type II".
There are a lot of ways to draw, but no artifact drawing ability.
Howling Mines seem like a pretty cheap way to draw cards.

Like I said, I could have been wrong- lol.
I don't even know what's considered legal, restricted or whatever nowadays.

Except Mind Twist... Still hate that card...

[Zilong]

Legal is core + 2 blocks for t2

Right now, that'd be M10, Alara, and Zendikar.

[Isawa]

Of course, if you're playing casual, then it wouldn't really matter, but I'd imagine anyone wants to play the game to win, or at least annoy the living fuck out of the other deck.

^ this

[Zilong]

For a casual deck, it lacks theme, and doesn't seem all that fun to play tbh.

And my comments on manabase stands, the only T2 deck that could run 16 lands decently was affinity, and it's been a good 4 years since that shit was T2.

My suggestion for your mana curve is 24, but feel free to not listen to me, enjoy having a dead ultimatum/mind sludge on your hand on half your game.

[Isawa]

For a casual deck, it lacks theme, and doesn't seem all that fun to play tbh.

And my comments on manabase stands, the only T2 deck that could run 16 lands decently was affinity, and it's been a good 4 years since that shit was T2.

My suggestion for your mana curve is 24, but feel free to not listen to me, enjoy having a dead ultimatum/mind sludge on your hand on half your game.

What cards should I remove then to accommodate the additional mana? And it is fun to me, cause it pisses my brother off beyond belief >.>.

[Tomiko]

What cards should I remove then to accommodate the additional mana? And it is fun to me, cause it pisses my brother off beyond belief >.>.

Decklist;

Creatures:
2x Vedalken Ghoul
2x Sanity Gnawers
4x Drudge Skeletons
2x Grixis Grimblade
1x Death Baron
1x Cemetery Reaper

Sorceries:
4x Blightning
4x Duress
2x Sign in Blood
2x Resounding Scream
2x Diabolic Tutor
2x Mind Sludge
2x Cruel Ultimatum
4x Mind Rot

Instants:
4x Terminate

Artifacts:
2x Howling Mines
1x Spellbook

Enchantments:
3x Megrim

Lands:
4x Crumbling Necropolis
6x Mountain
6x Swamp

As stated, the mana issue is a rather big one. Especially if you want to cast Cruel Ultimatum which requires 2 Blue and you only have 4 sources of Blue in the deck.

The even bigger issue though is the lack of focus with the deck. It looks like you're trying to have discard and zombies. If you focus on only one of those, the deck will perform better and be easier to tune. Either way, another thing you'll need is more creature control. Doom Blade (new Terror) would help unless you play against black a lot. Upping the count to 3-4 for key cards also helps ensure you'll draw them.

Assuming you like discard more since it annoys your brother, I'd suggest the following as a place to start:

Lands:
12x Swamp
6x Mountain
4x Akoum Refuge (Dragonskull Summit would be better if you're willing to spring for them)

Creatures:
4x Hypnotic Specter
4x Guul Draz Specter

These will make sure your opponent discards every turn. And when they have no cards the Guul Draz Specter will become a nice beat stick.

Sorceries:
4x Duress
4x Sign in Blood
4x Blightning
4x Mind Rot
2x Haunting Echoes - With all the discard you have, this could potentially mill most of your opponent's deck.

Instants:
4x Terminate
4x Doom Blade (or Executioner's Capsule if Black is heavily played)

Enchantments:
4x Megrim


I'm sure there's probably some better stuff out there, but I'm not too familiar with the current card pool. Should be a good place to start though. Lilliana Vess could be worth considering as well.

[Isawa]

As stated, the mana issue is a rather big one. Especially if you want to cast Cruel Ultimatum which requires 2 Blue and you only have 4 sources of Blue in the deck.

The even bigger issue though is the lack of focus with the deck. It looks like you're trying to have discard and zombies. If you focus on only one of those, the deck will perform better and be easier to tune. Either way, another thing you'll need is more creature control. Doom Blade (new Terror) would help unless you play against black a lot. Upping the count to 3-4 for key cards also helps ensure you'll draw them.

Assuming you like discard more since it annoys your brother, I'd suggest the following as a place to start:

Lands:
12x Swamp
6x Mountain
4x Akoum Refuge (Dragonskull Summit would be better if you're willing to spring for them)

Creatures:
4x Hypnotic Specter
4x Guul Draz Specter

These will make sure your opponent discards every turn. And when they have no cards the Guul Draz Specter will become a nice beat stick.

Sorceries:
4x Duress
4x Sign in Blood
4x Blightning
4x Mind Rot
2x Haunting Echoes - With all the discard you have, this could potentially mill most of your opponent's deck.

Instants:
4x Terminate
4x Doom Blade (or Executioner's Capsule if Black is heavily played)

Enchantments:
4x Megrim


I'm sure there's probably some better stuff out there, but I'm not too familiar with the current card pool. Should be a good place to start though. Lilliana Vess could be worth considering as well.

I've got on hand;

Lands:
Swamp x12
Mountain x6
Akoum Refuge x1
Dragonskull Summit x1

Creatures:

Sorceries:
Duress x4
Sign in Blood x4
Blightning x4
Mind Rot x4

Instants:
Terminate x4

Enchantments:
Megrim x3

; ; lol.

I'll start looking for the Specters, hopefully the shop near us will have some for buy/trade. Thanks for the advice~

[Zilong]

Might wanna throw some some hellfire mongrel for another avenue to punish the opponent's deck after your discard cleans their hand.

Also, Burning Inquiry works rather well with Megrim, and can work as a possible disruption (though it is fucking random). Bituminous blast is a nice removal that can cascade into your combo pieces or decent spell, especially if your average cc of your spells are 3-4

[Isawa]

Might wanna throw some some hellfire mongrel for another avenue to punish the opponent's deck after your discard cleans their hand.

Also, Burning Inquiry works rather well with Megrim, and can work as a possible disruption (though it is fucking random). Bituminous blast is a nice removal that can cascade into your combo pieces or decent spell, especially if your average cc of your spells are 3-4

Thanks to my brother and the people at the shop we frequent, I got most of the cards Tomiko suggested, the rest I will probably buy.

The Burning Inquiry and Bituminous Blast can be used in a sideboard, no?

[Tricen]

Howling mine + Runeflare trap = fun times. if you are going for B/R control, just ditch the hippies and run volcanic fallouts/pyroclasms. Or you could just run earthquakes. Also, hellspark elemental is purty gud.

[Zilong]

Hellspark elemental on a control deck is kinda counterproductive, since it's not doing anything to maintain your board position and is more of an aggro card.

Though I agree that board sweepers would be nice if your meta/brother's deck runs lots of small creatures

[Tricen]

Hellsparks come back, which is why they are good. They can be removal and a kill condition late in the game when people are runnin out of gas.

[yotevol]

Bloodchief Ascension- 1B, and is an enchantment and a permanent way to gain life that works well with your deck.

Cunning Lethemancer- 1B 2, a creature that suits your discard deck well.

Guul Draz Specter- 2B 2, another flying creature that forces your opponent to discard and gets bigger when his hand is empty. Works VERY well with your deck.

Liliana Vess- 2B 3, Planeswalker that not only forces opponent to discard, but also helps you draw. Great for drawn out games.

These are just some cards that I looked up that would help your deck instead of the Hellsparks and various other things that should be filtered.

[Isawa]

Bloodchief Ascension- 1B, and is an enchantment and a permanent way to gain life that works well with your deck.

Cunning Lethemancer- 1B 2, a creature that suits your discard deck well.

Guul Draz Specter- 2B 2, another flying creature that forces your opponent to discard and gets bigger when his hand is empty. Works VERY well with your deck.

Liliana Vess- 2B 3, Planeswalker that not only forces opponent to discard, but also helps you draw. Great for drawn out games.

These are just some cards that I looked up that would help your deck instead of the Hellsparks and various other things that should be filtered.

Tomiko mentioned Guul Draz Specter and Liliana Vess as well. I'm 2/4 on the Specters and will probably order Liliana Vess in a few days. As for Cunning Lethemancer, doesn't it force both players to discard, not just my opponent?

[yotevol]

Tomiko mentioned Guul Draz Specter and Liliana Vess as well. I'm 2/4 on the Specters and will probably order Liliana Vess in a few days. As for Cunning Lethemancer, doesn't it force both players to discard, not just my opponent?

You are right, it does.
I was just throwing out suggestions.

Sometimes, by just suggesting alternate ideas, you gain more ideas.
Among these, you may find something very fruitful.

[Tricen]

Gruul specter is kinda high mana cost :<.