Magic: The Gathering

[Tricen]

Like random rogue decks can get there because no one is prepared for it. If you ball lightning gets mana leaked then you have a dead card in your hand. If you have the nuts hand as RDW, then you're probably just gunna wind. I mean, if I had the nuts hand with Naya, RDW wouldn't stand a chance at all. U/W control just plays wall of omens and spreading seas and RDW is just sadfaced until they can hit RR or RRR, then it just eats negates or mana leaks. But like I've been saying, it's not bad, it's just not that great. Like any random rogue deck, sure it *can* get there, but the ratio of getting there and not getting there is pretty awful lol.

[Tomiko]

Stoneforge mystic cost 4 total. Quest costs 1.

Actually, Quest costs a minimum of 6 mana since you still have to cast 5 creatures after Quest is on the board. Yes you can spread this out over turns, but the 4 cost of Mystic is also split over 2 turns.

Stoneforge Mystic
+Gets you the single equipment now, thus making sure you don't draw it later.
+Is still playable even if you did draw your equipment.
-It costs more ($) than Quest.

Quest for the Holy Relic
+Puts the equipment into play and attached.
-Requires 5 other cards to even be active. (The 5 creatures you have to cast)
-Is completely dead if you already drew your equipment.

I don't know how many times I said i'm not gonna get cards that would only help me for a month, so no path to exile or O-ring for me.

Pick up some Baneslayers then since those will still be legal after a month.


Ghost: I'll probably be going to Portland for the Saturday.

Zoobernut: Yeah, you can only have one of a certain Planeswalker in play at a time. You can use Jace beleren to kill JaceTM due to the legend rule. As for how many to run, I wouldn't run more than 2-3, partially cause I only own 2 Jaces at the moment and partly because I only need to resolve 1 and can usually protect it (in legacy).

For Liliana, I would probably run 2 due to the 5cc. That's just not a cc you want to see multiples of in your opening hand.

[Weltall]

Portland is about the farthest city from civilization ( Wanted to go, but NYC coming up shortly

[Tonko]

I once won a 60 man FNM with a Warp World deck I brewed up the day before during lorwyn Alara standard. Shit was soooooo cash.

Warpworld Ally deck was fun, rarely effective, but nothing like dropping 2 Diabolists in a 6 ally return after a Warp World cast at 1 life and smacking your opponent for 72 damage and winning.

[zoobernut]

Thanks Tomiko that was the exact kind of advice I was looking for. I am not even sure yet if Liliana will fit into my deck but I will try it out with 2 and see how it plays.

[SubzeroDiabolos]

Double post.

[SubzeroDiabolos]

Actually, Quest costs a minimum of 6 mana since you still have to cast 5 creatures after Quest is on the board. Yes you can spread this out over turns, but the 4 cost of Mystic is also split over 2 turns.

Stoneforge Mystic
+Gets you the single equipment now, thus making sure you don't draw it later. (possibility to get mind rot'd, or any other discard ability)
+Is still playable even if you did draw your equipment. a whooping 1/2
-It costs more ($) than Quest.


Quest for the Holy Relic
+Puts the equipment into play and attached.
-Requires 5 other cards to even be active. (The 5 creatures you have to cast) 1 mana I would not spend if I had something else to play, i'd just bear with it has dead card.
-Is completely dead if you already drew your equipment. concur. Not the end of the world. Keep in mind I will test it more, and if it happens to be dead more often then i'd like, I will take it out np. Cloak isn't a wincon in this deck, just a big boost.

As for the planeswalker question, I use 2 Garruks in my simili-elfdrazi and I haven't drew both at the same time since it's creation a week ago. There were times I wish I had it sooner, but that can also apply to most of the cards in the deck.

[zoobernut]

So here is my current black/blue deck that I am playing with. I am a casual player, I don't spend much money on cards, I usually play with friends though I sometimes go to FNM which is why I am trying to keep it legal for Standard constructed. I would really appreciate any comments or suggestions on how to improve it. I did do fairly well at FNM when I brought it. Two of my losses were due to mana shortage, and the one major whooping I took was from a deck destruction deck. It had 0 creatures in it so I had a hard time with it and by the time I started to whittle my opponents health down with the small creatures I do have my deck was gone and I lost. I am going to list my current deck but keep in mind I might be adding 2 more liliana's caress and 2 liliana vess. Let me know what you think I can improve. I need help building my sideboard which needs cards to counter deck destruction and flying I think.

8 islands
12 swamps
*I am thinking of putting in 4 dual lands from 2011 and maybe 4 of the zendikar dual lands too*

4 mind control
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Rise from the grave (thinking of cutting this down to 2 so I can make room for the liliana vess')
4 mind sludge (thinking of cutting this down to 2 since I really only need 1 or 2 early on in the game to get rid of the opponents hand so they play from the top of the deck)
2 liliana caress
4 Mana Leak
2 wall of frost
4 cancel
2 unsummon (not too sure about these but they have saved my butt many times)
2 giant scorpion
4 mind rot
4 hideous end


I was thinking about doing 2 doom blade and 2 hideous end or 4 doom blade maybe. Also it might be good to replace the giant scorpions with something similar that flies or has reach.

Anyway help me out what do you think?

[Tricen]

20 lands is not enough at all. Your curve is kind of eh. 23-24lands should be fine, you will need the dual lands. Gatekeeper is 3B, and you will want to be able to hit that as much as possible. Mind sludge is probably not a great choice, cause it will probably be 5mana for3 cards, which is ehhh... Maybe Lilliana's Spectre? Lilliana's Caress is also eh, run duress or inquisition of kozilek. Might wanna run 2 Negates, take out the giant scorpions if you need to cut stuff. Doom blade is better, imo. Into the Roil is probably better than unsummon.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Vampire Nighthawk would be a good option over Scorpion.
Depending on budget you might want to try out Grave Titan or maybe a few Jace 1.0 or 2.0.

[zoobernut]

I used to have a vampire knighthawk in there as well as doom blade, negate and duress. I took out the vampire because I only had one and couldn't get more but I can certainly start tracking them down. I agree with doom blade, negate, and duress though I should put them back in because they essentially do the same thing my deck already does but faster and for less mana. I was thinking about that this morning that I could take the mind sludge's out completely and just destroy my opponents hands a single card at a time faster and more often.

My deck usually ends up killing someone with their own creatures (obviously) I either mind control it if they get it out or hopefully I counter it or make them discard it and take it over from the grave yard. Grave Titan would be amazing in this deck but there is little chance of me acquiring such a valuable and hard to find card right now but I did consider those. Liliana's specter would be a great addition because it is flying, relatively cheap and makes my opponent discard a card.

Thanks for the input guys.

Edit: Tricen what do you mean by the curve? As for mana I will add more bringing it up to 22 or 24 lands, I plan on having 8 dual lands in there eventually, 4 from 2011, and 4 of the ones from Zendikar that come into play tapped but give you 1 life. I will replace the scorpions with liliana specters for sure, I might stick with only 2 caress and leave 2 spots open to put in negate or duress. I will take out the mind sludge 2 of those spots will go to vess and 2 for 2 more duress.

I still need to build a sideboard though. I was thinking of something like this:

4 ornithopters
2 platinum angels
4 royal assassins
2 time reversal
and 3 something else... maybe another creature or something...

The ornithopters would be subbed in for defense against swarms of flying creatures, the platinum angels and time reversals would be defense against deck destruction, the royal assassins would be defense again against decks with creatures that have nasty tap abilities.

[SubzeroDiabolos]

If your deck is heavy into discarding you can try Guul Draz specter or that "for each card in opponents hand this creature gets -1/-1".

Platinum angel can be too much of a gamble if you ask me. If your opponent plays control and you lack removal, you're basically giving him the win and get a gigantic slap to the face.
On the other hand, if he doesn't have any 7 mana for a gg...

Pick your opponents wisely when you intend to play it.

[zoobernut]

The platinum angel would be a sideboard card and only go in for appropriate oh shit deck moments. Specifically it would help against deck destruction because not being able to draw wouldn't lose the game for me. I really got destroyed by the deck destruction deck.

[Tricen]

Usually the mill decks run into the roil. So if you play plat angel, they'll just bounce or counter it. As for mana curve, you have a lot of 5CC+ stuff, so you need to make your land drops every time. Night Hawks shouldn't be too difficult to get. To be honest, next time you go to a tourney just shout "I need commons and uncommons" and ppl usually accommodate. Honestly, caress is just not good with your deck. You don't have an aggressive enough discard. There is a megrim/Caress deck out there that is pretty much cheap as fuck lol, but it loses to leyline of sanctity. I would just take them out and put in more controlling cards. As far as sideboard, if your meta is U/W control, I would highly suggest spell pierce. If you have a lot of naya, get some bojuku bogs. Tectonic edge is really nice too, and you could run Grim Discovery to recur it + a creature or something.

[zoobernut]

I totally hear you on the plat angel makes sense. I will put it in and try it out a little bit and see how it does. Thanks for the other suggestions. I agree with you about the relatively high casting cost of my heavy hitter spells. That is why I think I will go in and replace the mind sludges with duress and get some doom blades in there too so I can do stuff early on. I will try to find some liliana specters as well, are there any other decent creatures (besides grave titan since I can't afford it) that you think would be good for my side board for when I play against a deck with nothing to control? That was the other issue with the mill deck I played it had 0 creatures in it therefore nothing to control and I ran out of deck before I could poke him to death with my 2/2 creatures.

Edit: If I did want to be more aggressive with the discarding would it be smart to put cards in to make my opponent draw cards too like sign in blood or something like that? Make them draw 2 cards and lose 2 life then make them discard those cards again and lose more life? Otherwise I might take out the caress's and use that space for something more control oriented like the negates.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Deathmark in the SB is nearly staple if your area runs heavy green or white.

[zoobernut]

In the 5 matches I played at FNM last time, the first was blue/black control just like mine and I owned him, second was all white and I owned him, third was all white and it was close but I beat him too, 4th was all blue mill destroyed me, and 5th was colorless artifact deck that was close but he beat me in the third match due to a bad draw on my part. And the 5th deck I played I can't remember the color or the outcome.

Edit: This is all awesome advice I am going to be retooling my deck a little bit tonight and hopefully be playing against my friend a whole bunch to see how it works out. Then once I feel comfortable with it again I will head back to FNM in a couple weeks. And then I will have to go through this all over again when SoM comes out in October.

So Tricen you said to take out the Caress's but do you think Vess fits into my deck? I felt like even without the caress Vess works because both of her - abilities support the main functions of my deck.

[oldoldman]

If mill is even slightly a problem in your area just put an eldrazi in the SB. Also in a 2 color deck Mind Shatter is gonna be way better than mind sludge, don't forget that Mind Shatter is random discard, making it infinitely better, there's a reason people love Hymn. Also this is strictly metagame but if mill is actually an issue telemin performance just wins the game. That is assuming they don't have crabs, which is actually a dangerous assumption I guess. I'll go ahead and assume jace 2.0 isn't in budget. Infest should be in the board and you should consider Smother, it's so good in current standard that I don't understand not running it. I'd talk more but I have work in 6 hours...

[Linsivi]

Run one of the Eldrazi in the sideboard if you don't want to lose to mill. Get 4 Creeping Tarpits as well for dual lands. Doom Blade over Hideous End (easier to cast). Run Mind Shatter over Mind Sludge (not sure what you should do after M10 rotates out.. maybe that vampire with multi-kicker discard a card). With your current deck setup, you are just going to get overrun by creatures. You need more efficient ways to deal with them. Either something like Infest or Marsh Casualties, or more spot removal. Could maybe go towards Consuming Vapors or Consume the Meek, but these are honestly subpar options at the moment.

Ornithopter to stop flying creatures... please don't do this lol. It doesn't stop anything. It blocks a turn, then dies. Malakir Bloodwitch and Vampire Nighthawk are going to be your best options there. Platinum Angel is a trap, don't do it. Run a minimum of 24 lands here, probably more. Get some Sphinx of Jwar Isle as a finisher.

Just some of the suggestions I have so far on the deck. Oh and Scepter of Fugue is pretty good against control.

[Tricen]

Rise from the grave :O!:O!:O!:O! Also, you will eat shit if anyone plays Obstinate Baloth. At FNM tonight, my opening hand was like: Baloth, Bloodbraid, Verdant Catacombs, Noble Hierarch, Knight of the Reliquary, and 2 other lands I think and I was on the draw. He turn one Mire's Toll'd me (target player reveals cards equal to the number of swamps you control and you chose 1 and they discard it.) When he casted that I was like "deal".