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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Icy Madness

« on: February 20, 2018, 06:25:16 pm »

Icy Madness

This dedck wants to win with delver/horrors and a madness subtheme. Thing in the ice will leave chasm skulker, which will grow large quickly via the many card draw options, and bedlam reveler, which should be castable quickly again due to card draw and madness, alone. Delver of secrets seems a natural fit here. Blue isn't really my color so with the remaining slots I'm not really sure whether to focus on burn, counters, disruption, etc.

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Abyssal Shadows!

« on: August 02, 2017, 01:30:06 am »

Abyssal Shadows!

So, this is at heart an abyssal persecutor deck Abyssal Persecutor is, as a creature, exceptionally strong, being a 6/6 flying/trample with a CMC of 4. It comes with a pretty hefty drawback, of course- you cannot win nor can your opponent lose while it's on the field, so we need a way to get rid of him when our opponents are in the negatives, health-wise! To do this we use Tymaret, the Murder King, and cards such as bone splinters, altar's reap, or endless sands.

A second theme is Death's Shadow, giving us a payoff from those fetch and shock lands, dark confidant, thoughtsieze damage, and potentially browbeat and lightning bolt!

Aether membrane is an amazing staller, and provides us with an additional bone splinters / altar's reap target should the need arise!

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Vile Living End! Twisted!

« on: July 16, 2017, 08:22:39 pm »

Vile Living End! Twisted!

Okay, so this is essentially version two of my VILE MANIFESTATION Living End deck!

The basis of this deck is having more win conditions than vanilla Living End. With this deck, you start off hardcasting vile manifestation(which grows EXTREMELY quickly as you cycle), hollow one (which can be cast VERY early particularly if you have street wraith or faerie macabre in hand- I've cast multiple hollow ones for free turn 1 several times in testing), and optionally curator of mysteries / architects of will if your board presence is superior. As for Living End, you cast it with either As Foretold of Yahenni's Expertise. (Incidentily, Yahenni's Expertise is an excellent board wipe when you're keeping board superiority, as nearly all of your creatures are 4toughness. Keep in mind that if you cast living end with yahenni's expertise, no creature killed by yahenni's expertise will be brought back with living end!) This deck can require a bit of thought in when you prefer to cast living end. If your board presence is superior, it's better to continue hardcasting creatures and cycling to grow vile manifestations, holding living end back as more of a trump card. On the flip side, you can comfortably throw away your creatures as chump blockers if you know you're about to living end and want to bring them back for round 2!


However, I recognize that this deck doesn't do what traditional Living End decks want to do quite as well- that is, cycle half your deck into a cascade immediately. This deck is susceptable to hand disruption- if your opponent starts picking out your LE/as foretolds right off the bat, you're at a disadvantage if you're wanting to living end until you obtain the necessary pieces, made worse by the fact that you hactually have to have living end in hand. Recently I've found the solution to be sideboarding ardent plea! Obviously, for this to work, you trade them out 1 for 1 with vile manifestation, as vile manifestation is the only other card in the deck that can be ran into with cascade. Now you have As Foretold, Yahenni's Expertise, and Ardent Plea to find and cast living end- and ardent plea is the perfect topdraw-able answer!


Another plus side to this deck is that graveyard hate does NOT equal concede! Drake Haven gives you the option of trading your expensive cyclers for a swarm of drakes, and hardcasting creatures is viable here with the average CMC being lowered drastically from the original Living End!


Well, I'd love to hear ideas in keeping with this theme. I'm having a ton of fun playtesting it, and while I'm going to keep my other living end deck pieces intact- it does what it does well and no point in fixing what ain't broke- I plan on picking up the pieces to play this one at FNM as well on fun days

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Living End: As Foretold!

« on: July 09, 2017, 06:17:32 pm »

https://deckstats.net/decks/65144/766615-living-end-as-foretold-/en

Okay, so this is an idea that's been bouncing around in my head all morning, not sure if it's feasible yet- but the idea behind this deck is to cast living end with As Foretold, rather than cascade. That allows us to use
vile Manifestation without risking cascading into it, and gives us an additional venue of getting creatures onto the field- HARDCASTING them rather than just cascading! The idea is to be able to cast a steadily growing vile manifestation, Hollow One, maybe even the cheaper hardcasted curator of the mysteries, and use discretion as to when to cast living end through as foretold. Of course these cards can also be cycled themselves so if you know you're going to be casting living end soon, just cycle them!

Now, I would LOVE some ideas for this deck, particularly in the sense of removal and sideboard options. Since cascade is no longer an issue, cards under 3cmc are viable again. A third color can easily be splashed on a budget, with cycling creatures such as jhessian zombies to grab shock lands. I'm a bit torn between splashing green or red.

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Sigarda, Heron's Grace

« on: July 04, 2017, 01:03:37 am »

Sigarda, Heron's Grace


Looking for suggestions- this is my Sigarda themed human tribal deck! Trying to keep it budget, I own most everything of cost in here except for descendants' path, a couple thalia's lieutenants, and the champion of the parish.


Descendants' path is an incredible card in this deck. Between that and duskwatch recruiter, I find that I'm always casting stuff, and there's no technical draw to prevent a miracle bomb if Entreat the Angels comes up.

Anyway, the deck is testing extremely well and I'm about ready to buy it in paper I think the biggest thing I need is budgetable sideboard options! Haven't thought too much about that yet honestly, I'm not that great at creating sideboards!

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Unbelievable Demons- Hour of Devestation!

« on: June 28, 2017, 06:13:46 am »

Unbelievable Demons- Hour of Devestation!

Sooo, this is the rebuild of my old unbelievable demons deck- not just new in the sense of including Hour cards, but redesigned for consistency and effectiveness!

Heartless summoning is still an extremely powerful tool, particularly early game when we want to empty our hand onto the battlefield as quickly as possible, but with the addition of hand disruption and removal, you'll have stuff to cast even if you don't draw the perfect hand. In addition, the myr superion and sire of insanity were taken out, among others- sire of insanity, while potent and allowing you to cast shah of naar isle and master of the feast without the drawbacks, really narrowed your options down and myr superion of course was a dead draw without heartless summoning. With this version, the average cmc of the creatures has been lowered to fit in a strategy in which you don't draw heartless summoning; the curve is far, far smoother. Now the most expensive card in the deck is the scorpion god.

The scorpion god is testing VERY well on untap!!  Extra cards with dusk urchins, gives you a benefit if your opponent kills off Ammit Eternal, and for 3mana you can kill off pesky 1drops- or drop counters on creatures that are in the process of dying to combat to give an extra card. And the recursion, of course. My LORD that's nice! Particularly with Fling. I've taken a liking to Flinging god on eot when my next turn is empty and recasting immediately. Fling, of course, is primarily there for abyssal persecutor shenanigans, but it's a nice combat trick regardless! Terminate is another way of getting rid of abyssal persecutor when the time comes.


I've been playing with this deck all day, and it's working excellently, but I would love suggestions. For a while I dipped out heartless summoning altogether, replacing it with generator servant, dragon tempest, and the 3drops with fliers, and various combinations in between, but I feel that heartless summoning is less subject to removal than any of them- and it's just such a damned GOOD card in this deck. Haste is the one thing I've not found a way to work into this deck yet.

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Grixis Demigod of Revenge!

« on: June 27, 2017, 09:33:38 pm »

Grixis Demigod of Revenge!

All right, so this is a heavily madness themed Demigod of Revenge deck with a blue splash for izzet charm and thing in the ice. To turn it back towards its budgetable origins, the blue splash can be done without.

This deck aims to win through demigod(the reason there are no straight blue lands in the deck; five lands is typically our wincon), looting demigods into graveyard while we search out our land and keep our opponent pinned down.

This deck also utilizes the new Hollow One. Twice now during testing I've gotten not one but multiple Hollow One onto the field on turn 1 with burning inquiry- but it's easily and often cast for 1mana in conjunction with another loot effect!

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Locust God Jank!

« on: June 21, 2017, 04:00:18 am »

Locust God Jank!

IMPORTANT:

As I type this, the locust god has not yet been added to the database! http://mythicspoiler.com/hou/cards/thelocustgod.html

The two swamps in the deck are placeholders for this card.



So, the moment I saw The Locust God I KNEW I had to revisit this super-janky deck I built with the same concept earlier- except it was more horror-themed, using thing in the ice as well as chasm skulker. The concept of the deck is to get out chasm skulker, and now The Locust God, and draw a TON of cards to build them up very very quickly with all the red draw/discard effects giving you ton of draw card despite leaving your hand relatively the same size, it works quite well!

This is what I excitedly put together the moment I got home from work, and it's fun testing on untap.in, but I'd love input and suggestions I don't expect this to place top in anything but making jank work is always a pleasure ^^

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Deck Reviews / [EDH / Commander] Kaalia EDH

« on: June 11, 2017, 07:58:39 pm »

Kaalia EDH

So, having just bought Anthology, this is what I've changed Kaalia into based on cards I own. Suggestions very welcome, new to EDH!!!

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Mono Red Aggro Dragons

« on: May 29, 2017, 09:59:32 pm »

Mono Red Aggro Dragons

This deck aims to get dragons out FAST and break the game with synergy.

Dragonlord Servants and Generator servants provide ramp.

Avaricious Dragon and Sin Prodder provide very hefty benefits. The worse thing that can happen in this deck is dead-drawing a land and not being able to cast anything. Once you have four of five lands out, any land is essentially a dead draw. Sin Prodder will ONLY be non-beneficial to play when you have less than four lands out; after that, if your opponent makes you discard a land to reach a creature, you're in excellent shape! Most of the time your opponent is going to have to choose between, say, taking 4 or 5 damage UP FRONT to make you discard a dragon, or giving you the dragon. And you're going to get your draw step afterwords anyway! Being a 3/2 menace is handy as well.

Avaricious Dragon is in there kind of for the same reason. It's a 4drop dragon, which is excellent. It lets you draw multiple cards a turn, lessening the chance of dead drawing a land, and letting you pick and choose the best ones to cast each turn.

Flamewake Phoenix is an excellent card. There is NO downside to putting it in the graveyard- in fact, it's cheaper to play from the graveyard than from your hand!

Scourge of Valkas and Dragon Tempest.. damn, these get vicious QUICK. The more dragons, the more damage going wherever you want it to. And keep in mind, if there are multiple scourge of valkas/dragon tempest on the field, you get multiple triggers. I've won games versus ensnaring bridge players with these triggers ALONE. Trust me, it ramps FAST.


I recently acquired a playset of simian spirit guide for another deck, and they making an excellent addition to this deck, in place of vessel of volatility. However, at heart this is my first BUDGET homebrew, so I put the spirit guides in the maybeboard.

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Restore Balance

« on: May 29, 2017, 01:49:58 am »

Restore Balance

All right, so this is my new restore balance version. Budgetable, for me at least- uses shocks and fetches I already possess, and the only thing in this deck I do not currently own are the Nahiris, which I'm hoping to trade into before friday

Last week I was playing with a five color version that utilized as foretold. It's an amazing card, being able to freecast balance from your hand AND, three turns in, basically eliminating the need for you to even have lands or borderposts on the field! However, most games I was playing, it was simply too slow. If I didn't have a balance in hand, or didn't need to cast balance yet, it ended up being a dead turn- moreso because I felt compelled to get it out on turn 3 if possible to let it ramp up to general usefulness. That, and the simple fact of using five colors instead of four, I felt dragged down the deck a bit. That's partly because I don't possess the fetches/shocks to make five colors work reliably- I used terramorphic expanse, evolving wilds, and straight basics, which is extremely doable with borderposts doing the heavy lifting as far as color distribution goes, but often a bit slow.

This deck is more based off of another deck I recently saw and liked very much, credit where credit is due: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/greater-borders/

I'm unsure if it's wise for myself to only have 3 balances in my deck. After all, I do not yet possess emrakul to let me shuffle them back from the graveyard into my library, and I've lost a few unlucky games where I drew/used all my balances in the first few turns, giving me only the 5cmc 2-of goblin dark-dwellers as a non-instant cast. I may ditch the dark-dwellers altogether and bump the count up to 4, along with a 1-of Kari Zev's Expertise.


I would love to get some input/suggestions before I finish putting this together in paper on Friday!

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Restore Balance on a budget!

« on: May 21, 2017, 07:08:20 pm »

Restore Balance on a budget!

So, my budget living end deck is doing amazingly in paper. Figured I'd give making a budget restore balance deck a shot! With this deck, I DO want to eventually upgrade to 4x nahiri's, emrakul, and 2x idyllic tutor, but even playtesting without them, it's consistent! As Foretold is an amazing, amazing card here.

The thought of budgeting this came to me last night and this is my first attempt, I would absolutely LOVE budgetable suggestions!

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General Magic / question about tormod's crypt

« on: May 20, 2017, 06:52:58 pm »

So I'm brand new to LGS magic and last night was my first FNM modern night. I had a blast but had an interaction which left me with some questions.

I was playing living end, had a bunch of creatures in the graveyard, six lands out, violent outburst and beast within in my hand. My opponent has a tormod's crypt on the field. While I ramped I kept three lands open so I could beast within as a response to a crypt trigger. At six lands, I cast violent outburst for the cascade- in response, he sac'd tormod's crypt. In response to THAT, I cast beast within, believing that as it goes on the stack, it would prevent tormod's crypt from exiling my graveyard.

I'm a bit confused as to why this doesn't work and what I could have done to get around it. The way the other dude and the judge explained it, when tormod's crypt is tapped, it's sacrificed as part of the cost and it's GONE and cannot be responded to. This confuses me because I thought that anything instant-speed could go on top of the stack of, well, anything. Could I have cast beast within first to feint out the tormod's crypt, then cast violent outburst in response to the trigger to get my living end out before the graveyard exiles?

I just want to get this straight in my head

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Deck Reviews / [Modern] Living End on a budget!

« on: May 04, 2017, 05:17:46 am »

Living End on a budget!

So, this is my attempt at making Living End as budgetable as possible while still running fairly smoothly. Landbase wise, we utilize the cheaper painlands, and replace our fetch lands with igneous pouncer and valley rannet, including one of each relevant shock land for options.

Suggestions very welcome!

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Deck Reviews / [Pauper] Golgari Tortured Existence

« on: April 30, 2017, 08:31:48 pm »

Golgari Tortured Existence