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Deck Reviews / Re: [Casual/Modern] Red Vamps Wins: To aggro? Or to go madness? Advice Appreciated

« on: August 05, 2016, 10:02:41 pm »

thanks for the headsup!

Hmmm... Goldnight Castigator not meeting expectations huh? I was hoping a heavy hitter by turn 4 would help the board.

I thought she would be a big ole beatstick, but her abilities really suck if you lose the upper hand on them. The only real heavy hitters in vampires right now are in black. If you wanna get cheeky with Goldnight Castigator you could try to use Harmless Offering and then Fiery Temper them to death. lol

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About Deckstats / Re: [Test] Find decks with cards from your collection

« on: August 01, 2016, 11:08:23 pm »

Very cool, I'm not at all surprised to see a lot of vampires. Thank you Nils!  If this were to be a feature on the site that anyone could use, would we be able to refine the search with keywords or specific cards like in the current deck search? 

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General Magic / Re: Spell Queller Questions

« on: August 01, 2016, 10:58:03 pm »

Thank you guys! I am going to play my vampires at FNM this weekend and I was hoping that would be the case so that I can play around Spell Queller. Glad to know that's how it works before I bank on it in a tournament.

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General Magic / Spell Queller Questions

« on: August 01, 2016, 09:48:40 pm »

Hey guys. So spell queller is obviously becoming a problem in Standard events right now. What I'm wondering is this... Say I cast a legendary like Olivia, Mobilized for War and someone counters with Spell Queller. Since the card is technically in exile can I cast another Olivia, Mobilized for War and would the legendary rule then make the new one permanent on the battlefield and the exiled one would just be useless?

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Deck Reviews / Re: [Casual/Modern] Red Vamps Wins: To aggro? Or to go madness? Advice Appreciated

« on: August 01, 2016, 09:25:39 pm »

I play both aggro and madness in my current B/R vamps, but that is in standard. For your deck I would probably take a stab at the aggro and leave madness out to see what happens. Rakish Heir is great with Bloodcrazed Neonate so I would probably trade him for Falkenrath Gorger. Insolent Neonate is great for buffs since he is a one drop with menace if you hadn't considered him. I also like Bloodmad Vampire if you are trying to build counters and buff creatures. Stensia Banquet is a great tribal sorcery to consider for this and Fiery Temper is awesome if you decide to go with madness. Just my experience with Goldnight Castigator.... she will break your heart.

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Deck Reviews / Re: [Standard] Mono Black Vampires

« on: August 01, 2016, 09:16:51 pm »

I run a B/R vampires deck at my shop and so far it does very well. I usually place top 8 with it but I do have problems with Languish, Spell Queller, and my least favorite... Reflector Mage. However, this deck is usually aggressive enough to overwhelm most opponents before turn 6 which is about when those U/W decks get hopelessly nasty. My sideboard usually is able to deal with problems pretty efficiently. I use Magmatic Chasm and biting rain specifically for token decks which are popular at my particular shop, but you could throw alms of the vein or dead weight and a few more copies of sinister concoction in there for more removal. Most people don't have destroy enchantment spells at tournaments right now. If you can be super fast with them the vampires can really have some teeth.

http://deckstats.net/decks/63728/475179-skeri-s-vampires/en

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Deck Reviews / Re: [Casual] My 2nd ever MTG Deck [B Zombie/Vampire]

« on: August 01, 2016, 08:59:15 pm »

Welcome to the forum and MTG! I am also a budget player (college is expensive) so I can sympathize with you there. I was ecstatic to pull Liliana, the Last Hope in the Eldritch Moon sealed event I played at. I also like to play aggro or tribal decks (both if I can get it) and my current favorite is my B/R vampire tribal so I'll offer you some advice! I'll apologize now for a long post. 

One thing you need to keep in mind when building a deck is strategy. How are you going to win? Are you going to play aggressively (more offensively focused) and overwhelm your opponent with a horde of cheap creatures? Are you going to play control (more defensively focused) and counter every move your opponent makes? Or are you going to play Mid-range and adapt to whatever situation you find yourself in? Your deck right now doesn't have a clear plan for winning. You have some life drain/gain, some counters and madness, and graveyard recursion, but there is no big combo or creature strategy for sealing the deal on your victory.

Also consider your synergy. Synergy is what happens when all of your cards work well together. Your creature types are all zombies and vampires yes, but do they work well together? You want cards that have abilities and spells that help each other out. Like playing Macabre Waltz with Alms of the Vein; they help each other out because you can discard Alms when you play the Waltz and then play Alms for one mana at it's madness cost. You want to play cards that work well together. Another example is your Gavony Unhallowed with a card like Nantuko Husk; Nantuko Husk would let you sacrifice a creature at will which in turn would put a counter on Gavony Unhallowed as you need to instead of waiting for your opponent to kill your creatures.

You could try playing more than one color. Most starter decks are two colored. This is so that you can play cards that work well together and have the advantages of more than one color. Black, as you've noticed, is great for graveyard/sacrifice perks but blue, for example, offers some more control and draw card options. U/B zombie tribal decks can be a lot of fun. Since you are playing with cards you own this also gives you the option of having more cards to choose from rather than limiting yourself to cards from one color.

Lastly, I tend to order cards online when I can't get to the shop to buy them. Opening packs is exciting, but you will save money if you build a deck on a site like this and then buy the specific cards you need.

 I hope that helps you a little bit on your deck building journey! It's great that you are building your own decks from scratch. This site is a great place to ask people for help. 

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About Deckstats / Re: [Test] Find decks with cards from your collection

« on: August 01, 2016, 08:17:33 pm »

This is a very cool idea. I would love to see what turns up for my collection. It's interesting to think that there could be a deck lurking in there that I just haven't thought of.

http://deckstats.net/collection/896/

Standard

1 like

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General Magic / Re: Brainstorming Deck Ideas (Standard)

« on: August 01, 2016, 06:58:03 pm »

Sorry I didn't get on all weekend and had a lot of reading to catch up this morning. lol

I agree that running green is just going to make things more complicated and that does kind of suck because it has almost an exclusive hold on mana fixers.

I think I mentioned this before so I might be restating, but why wouldn't Holdout Settlement be a viable land option for this deck? It allows you to tap a creature, which in an aggro deck we should have plenty of, and produce any color we need. As an aggro player myself I know it's not entirely ideal to tap down creatures on the board when you are trying to swing wide with as many as possible, but if what we need is just one color to add to our colorless sources to put cards into play I think there is value in it. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but do the human tokens generated by Hanweir Garrison stay on the board or are they only out until the end of turn? If they stay out then you essentially have mana sources with Holdout Settlement.

As far as dual lands, if we are trying to win a quick aggro style game we don't really care if we get pinged a few life points from shock lands. But in a long game would we be hurting ourselves with them? If we are splashing for Red and Blue couldn't we play Prairie Stream to get our blue and Smoldering marsh for our red needs? As long as we have two basics out they don't come in tapped.

That's all I have time for now, but I'll think about it at work today. What do ya'll think?

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General Magic / Re: Brainstorming Deck Ideas (Standard)

« on: July 28, 2016, 04:03:03 pm »

  But if you think about it though, with the ghostly wings you can get madness triggers and pay lower costs for the cards that you pitch away. Also pious evangel//wayward disciple is a good way to stay above your opponent and keep the life drain going. And with the new gavony unhallowed you're giving yourself pretty much 8 copies of unruly mob! And on top of that the hanweir militia captain// westvale cult leader can also pump out some creatures as long as you protect it long enough. With these suggestions i'm seeing a (W/U/B/R) that focuses on haste, life gain/drain, creature tokens and possibly making big creatures when needed to. If you use the right lands such as port town (which enter untapped when revealing a certain land), and maybe even using the investigate mechanic in conjunction with geist of the archives. This can keep you from self milling and work more towards self scrying, especially if you're using cards such as nagging thoughts and catalog. This can help with the card draws and even fuel delirium. Good times.....

If you're going to have black and white in the deck anyway you could always sideboard Not Forgotten or Cemetery Recruitment if the discard becomes a problem. Just the Wind also pairs nicely as the discard in Ghostly Wings but it doesn't help the tempo of this deck.

As far as mana goes I would probably run Holdout Settlement and, like G. Moto mentioned, Port Town and other dual colored that can come in untapped. And of course evolving wilds would be good. I've never run a deck with 4 colors so I have no idea how dependable it is.

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Deck Reviews / Re: G/B Gitrog Aggro - Comments

« on: July 27, 2016, 11:01:54 pm »

You are getting much better at deck creation Skeri, well done. =]

Thank you I've been working really hard at it! I've been playing Magic for 4 months now and this site and everyone on it has helped me learn very quickly.

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General Magic / Re: Brainstorming Deck Ideas (Standard)

« on: July 27, 2016, 10:58:38 pm »

So lets see what we got? hmmm...
Unruly Mob/Thalia's Lieutenant with Hanweir Garrison, added with Ironclad Slayer/Ghostly WIngs. Drop in Sigarda's Aid to give instant speed on Ghostly Wings. Then bring in Hanweir Battlements for haste and if need be meld with Hanweir Garrison. Bring in Westvale Abbey clause for the tokens. Secure the Wastes for more Unruly Mob Shenanigans and to help Westvale Abbey. Zulaport Cutthroat(also a human) for a small life gain threat. Vampiric Rites for the draw aspect of the deck, also good sac fodder/combo for Unruly Mob.
Lol 4 colors is nuts, but boy it looks good on paper.

I know it's not a human but you could toss in Selfless Spirit and then Unruly Mob gets counters while you gets indestructible at instant speed. Adding Zulaport Cutthroat into the mix turns this into a scary sounding aristocrats deck. The cool thing about him is that when he pings your opponent every time one of your creatures die it makes your opponents think twice about pulling languish on your tiny army.

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General Magic / Re: Brainstorming Deck Ideas (Standard)

« on: July 27, 2016, 08:47:30 pm »

  @Skeri, if you wanted to you could combo thalia's lieutenant with ironclad slayer and ghostly wings. This will create a combo that keeps putting +1/+1 counters on Thalia's lieutenant since the slayer is a human.

That's a great combo, I may do that!

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General Magic / Re: Brainstorming Deck Ideas (Standard)

« on: July 27, 2016, 06:18:51 pm »

Surprised nobody has worked around these 3 Humans.
Unruly Mob with Thalia's Lieutenant and runs rampant with Hanweir Garrison. Drop human tokens making Thalia's Lieutenant bigger, tokens die making Unruly Mob bigger. There is to much going on with those 3 cards alone.

I actually threw a deck together that centered the Unruly Mob/Thalia's Lieutenant combo before Eldritch Moon came out. Now that Hanweir Garrison is out I think it could become a threatening deck.

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General Magic / Re: Brainstorming Deck Ideas (Standard)

« on: July 27, 2016, 06:15:45 pm »

I love the idea of wolves/werewolves burn deck. Kessig Forgemaster // Flameheart Werewolf, Assembled Alphas, and Smoldering Werewolf // are all great for this. For an added bit of madness Wolf of Devil's Breach could combo well with Fiery Temper and Alchemist's Greeting for sure.

But also a G/R wolf tokens deck could be good as well. I really love that there are werewolves who have a mana cost to flip in this new set as well as Waxing Moon so that spells are an option now in that tribal.