[Modern] Humans & Demons

[Jtpvdmark]

Humans & Demons

Stay as defensive as possible and attack when you have the chance!

[Warden of Silence]

Hello.

So the very first thing is to fix your mana base. Your deck uses needs more Black mana than White mana, yet White is the color produced the most. You want the two pie charts to be as close as possible.

Now, your run 71 cards, many of them being single copies. This creates the problem of your deck not being consistent. Being defensive is pretty vague, and due to the number of cards and the fact that many are only a single copy, there is no reliable general strategy with each game, but one that has to be made up on the spot, more than other decks will. This is also an issue that an opponent will have there own deck doing its own thing, which will not wait for a deck to get all of its pieces in place. Math is a major part of this game, and it needs to be taken into account. Also, due to the deck size, the current land base doesn't fit. The roughly 20 lands idea only really works with a 60 card deck, and as yours is 71, you have a good chance of not getting enough land during a game.

Sorry if this sounds aggressive or mean, but Math is very important in Magic. By no means should you take my words as a personal attack, but as a means to improve. Everyone started off somewhere, and nobody is perfect at the game. Good luck.

[Jabilac]

You deck link is dead but I can give you some basic examples deck building principles.

First off when I am building a new deck I find 9-10 (could be as many as 12 cards) that I really like or work together very well.  Then I pick up 3-4 copies (4 copies of any 1 card is the max you can have in your deck or sideboard at any time in most Formats of Magic) of each of those cards.  Then I decide on what lands I will need by counting how many of each mana symbol I need to cast the spells.  I start out by splitting my mana base up based on the % of each symbol.  If I have 50% Black and 50% white then I do an even split but if its 75% Black and 25% White I split the base along those lines.  After you get your cards decided you will come back to your mana base and make changes.  Add some dual lands (lands that tap for 2 different colors) or remove a few of one color for the other color if I find I need more of one color earlier in the game.

The main reason we get 4 copies of each card is because Magic is a game of statistics and probabilities.  We want to tip the scales as far in our favor as we can so we include as many copies of the cards we like in our deck to increase our chance of drawing that card while we play.  If you have 1 copy of a card in a 60 card deck your probability of starting with any of those 1 of cards is 11.6% and it gets up to 25% on turn 8.  Now if we bump that up to 4 copies of each card then we have a 39.9% chance to start the game with any 1 copy of that card and by turn 8 we are at 69.4%  As you can see by including a few more copies of the cards we want to play we can greatly increase the chance of drawing that card.

Repost your decklist when you can so we can all see what you are working with.

[Jtpvdmark]

http://deckstats.net/decks/72050/558594-humans-demons-/en

Use rakshasa gravecaller and the cheap white creatures for the defense and master of the feast as a defensive tank. Use archfiend of depravity, subjugator angel, Thalia, heretic cathar and carnifex demon for their (de)buffs and faithbearer paladin and thalia's lancers mainly for the offense.

[Jtpvdmark]

https://deckstats.net/decks/72050/558594-humans-demons-


Use Champion of the Parish to get a first turn creature and boost him by casting Steadfast Cathar or other Humans.

Use Steadfast Cathar for some quick assault on your enemies and to buff champion of the parish.

Use Thalia's Lancers to get Thalia, Heretic Cathar. After casting her your enemy's creatures and nonbasic lands will enter the battlefield tapped.

Use Siguardian Priest to tap target creatures and buff champion of the Parish

Use Faithbearer Paladin and ondu rising to get some life back and get even more counters on champion of the parish.

Use Master of the Feast to get a 5/5 flyer on turn 3.

Use gisa's bidding and Rakshasa Gravecaller to summon 2 zombie tokens onto the battlefield and use those for the defense.

Use collective effort for counters or removal together with Humble.

Use Carnifex Demon and Archfiend of depravity as removal for unwanted (token) armies.

Use Boon of Emrakul as removal or to make one of your creatures a glass cannon.

Use Nahiri's Machinations to protect your creatures from unwanted deaths and spells.

Use Liliana Vess to empty your opponents hand so they can't use any instants, or to get the cards you want to get combos.

Combos:

Use archfiend of depravity to change the maximum creatures of your opponents to 2, after they only have 2 creatures tap those on there turn by using siguardian priest. If you're able cast Thalia, Heretic Cathar so that the creatures with haste enter the battlefield tapped. After this combo they won't be able to use any of their creatures.

A simple combo in this deck is to cast gisa's bidding first so you have 2 zombies on the battlefield and then cast rakshasa gravecaller and exploit one of those zombies, so you don't need to sacrifice one of your demons or other strong creatures. after this you'll have 3 zombies instead of 4.