Topics

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] I Miss Panharmonicon

« on: December 03, 2018, 10:22:29 pm »

I Miss Panharmonicon

Quasiduplicate creatures with underrated etb effects or abilities. Siren's Ruse to double up on etb triggers and protect creatures from removal.

1st target is demanding dragon. I kinda want more removal in the deck to try to ensure its five to the face or getting rid of a hexproof/indestructible creature.

2nd target is timestream navigator, for obvious reasons.

3rd target is sailor of means for additional blocker and to get to 5 mana faster if lands are not coming.

Draw cards instead of removal for now. Siren stormtamer is a useful 1cmc play, but not really on theme except for interacting with siren's ruse.

I'll probably find better targets to duplicate/blink, but these are the fun ones in UR that fit a curve without thinking too hard.  Leave a comment if you have a suggestion.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] 1000 Year Basic - Plain Rice No Spice

« on: November 25, 2018, 09:13:41 pm »

1000 Year Basic - Plain Rice No Spice

1000 year shell to adapt in order to copy whatever trash spell you want,  facilitated by the treasure color fixing. 4 copies of Unmoored Ego sounds fun.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Dark Purple - FNM Jank

« on: November 23, 2018, 09:19:51 pm »

Dark Purple - FNM Jank

Dimir Control with mostly early hand disruption followed countering the midgame threats I learned about by looking at opponent's hand, with a smaller removal package to back that up. Surveil bolsters smaller set of draw spells, making them worth more.

MAIN JANK WINCON: Cast unmoored ego T5 (or whenever counterspells are unlikely) then while it is on the stack, copy it with expansion//explosion. The copy resolves 1st, and by turn 5 or later - and by peeking at opponent's hand with duress and thought erasure - you should have a good idea of what card to name when the copy resolves. You get to search through the opponents library to find the best card to name when the original spell resolves.

Teferi and crackling drake (or seal away / settle, chemister's insight)
Carnage tyrant and find//finality
Arclight phoenix and goblin electromancer (or enigma drake)
Niv Mizzitt and crackling drake
History of benalia and benalish marshal
Experimental frenzy and risk factor

This can screw with a whole lotta popular, competitive standard decks. It can also get smashed by a whole lotta popular, competitive decks. It's definitely FNM level.

Traditional Finisher is Doom Whisperer or large Expansion//Explosion, with the walls on early defense for whatever gets through the hand disruption and counters - if the walls survive, they can also act as finishing pressure after Surveil triggers beef them up.

Expansion//Explosion is a phenomenal card. Doubles your removal spells or an opponent's chemister's insight in a pinch, or copy their counterspell. If you don't need it for anything like that, late game it is removal or burn with big card draw to let you turn the corner. Can't believe it is still uner $3.

Sideboard is a switcheroo-type thing, siding in 13 creatures. Take out duress, thought erasure, unmoored ego, mission briefing, 2x expansion//explosion. Usually effective once opponent sides out most removal after 1st game, or they use it up on early thoughtbound phantasm because they only saw 1 or 2 creatures in the 1st game.

If you successfully stole game 1 by playing and copying unmoored ego - a card players have universally categorized as 'unplayable trash' - this switcharoo sideboard plan will help you steal game 2.

Using isareth's attack trigger to bring back lazav is great. Isareth either gets through or kills a decent blocker as she dies. If she diesin combat, next turn give lazav isareth's ability to bring back isareth, total of 5 mana for that turn.

The deck is over 60 cards and that's ok. You can't have gotten this far reading the deck summary and still be expecting peak competitive tailoring

Just opened a 3rd Doom Whisperer and I'm not even sure I want to add it. 2 have been just fine.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Graveyard Turnstyles

« on: July 21, 2018, 05:58:54 pm »

Graveyard Turnstyles

Graveyard abuse. This is a new deck strategy for me, so it is a work in progress. Trying to find the right balance between sac outlets, cards that return from graveyard, and sac fodder. Then of course, how much does one value strong 'enter the battlefield' effects to take advantage of rebirth from the graveyard.

Oh, also has to to have some removal and draw.

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Deck Reviews / [EDH / Commander] Commanderp Cats REBUILD

« on: July 04, 2018, 03:37:06 am »

Commanderp Cats REBUILD

A rebuild of the C17 Feline Ferocity deck. Most of the value comes from the 5 or so cards from the prebuild that have spiked.

Not meant for competitive edh, just a combat-based deck that can kinda fit into several power levels - good at many tables, not going to dominate many, if any.

Only played it once, but it was really fun. 14 Bloodstained Battleaxes all equipped and swinging was funny.

Multiple commander choices seems cool, only ran under arabho, and never cast him.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Demons For Days

« on: June 23, 2018, 05:01:16 am »

Demons For Days

Use Arcane Adaptation to make everything a demon to win through Liliana's Contract. Other spells make multiple tokens or holds off opponent  to buy time for combo.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Panharmoniconica

« on: June 20, 2018, 07:22:29 am »

Panharmoniconica

I'm pretty sure this is not competitive, but I like complicated combos in standard and hitting for 8 or more to the face when casting a 2 cmc creature...even if it takes a 3 card combo that is fragile to either creature or artifact removal, that is good, clean fun.

Wizards have enter the battlefield effects, copy them with naban. Copy them again with Panharmonicon which also makes a copy of Naban's copy effect.

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General Magic / Pro Tour victories shape your LGS meta (Or: ALL HAIL CHAINWHIRLER!)

« on: June 03, 2018, 09:58:46 pm »

Another Pro Tour finished, another dominant showing for Red; this time the card of the weekend was Goblin Chainwhirler, with 28 copies in the decks of the top 8 - that's right, 7 decks were red or red-black (and red-black was heavy in red, black mostly for scrapheap and unlicensed disintegration) and all decks in the top 8 running red had a playset of chainwhirlers.

How do you see this affecting your local meta? Pro Tour standouts always have an impact.

Was red already a dominant archtype at your FNMs? What about WU control (teferi or approach, which is almost the same deck)? Will more red decks push them out as a weak matchup, or make WU control more appealing?

What are you poor token / go wide people gonna do about chainwhirlers in droves? Green stompy is also hurt by the llanowar elf killing goblin, if the mono green deck doesn't start fast.

Anyhoo, I thought it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of others who watched the Pro Tour, find out how it might change things at various local metas.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Best Buds

« on: May 05, 2018, 05:46:08 am »

Slimy Feet of Fury

Make saprolings; make them bigger; sacrifice for profit.

Trying out the strategy. I could see going several different ways: song of Freyalise; torment of hailfire.

2-2 after the first FMN; I consider that ok when just trying out an idea.

The name for saproling migration during R&D testing was 'Best Buds'.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Golgari Being Golgari

« on: April 17, 2018, 09:57:44 pm »

Golgari Being Golgari

Golgari crawls, Golgari skulks. Unwanted, unnoticed. The small; the reviled.

The Golgari will rise by bringing down all others.

More fun with negative counters. A modification of a Jund Deck played before the ban of attune with aether.

Removal, menace, deathtouch, swarm. So, Golgari.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Mono Green Monument $20 Standard Tournament

« on: April 13, 2018, 09:31:21 pm »

Mono Green Monument $20 Standard Tournament

My LGS has a tournament at the end of each standard, before the new set comes out.  Rules are 60 card minimum, sideboard is optional; total deck must not exceed $20, based on that store's pricing (not tied to tcgplayer, etc.). If a card isn't specifically priced at this store (ie, Chandra TOD = $23 at this shop) price is: $1 for rares, $0.25 for uncommons, and $0.10 for commons; basic lands have no cost. Standard legal cards only.

I'm using a budget deck (about $100) idea, and converting it to ultra budget, $20 or under. Based on my Mono Green Monument deck: https://deckstats.net/decks/82140/873771-mono-green-monument

Loses majority of instant speed protection, some card draw, and value from rares that cant fit into budget. Main theme preserved with a cheaper deathtoucher, and less of a concern about hitting 4 power without rhonas. Instead, going with +1/+1 counters to help push through damage cheaply and making pounce suck less as my only removal stuck in monogreen. Armorcraft Judge replaces Lifecrafter's bestiary as best it can under new theme. Lifecraft cavalry is a terrible facsimile of verdurous gearhulk.

I'd really like to find room for maulfist revolutionary because its a cheap value card with the new +1/+1 counter angle.

I could see cutting resilient khenra to make room, but it gives me that late game, got-6-mana-and-no-cards option.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] WIP Sunburn's Doomy Cavalcade $20 Tournament

« on: April 09, 2018, 12:42:24 am »

WIP Sunburn's Doomy Cavalcade $20 Tournament

$20 dollar tournament time.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] BR Reckless Treasure $20 tournament

« on: April 03, 2018, 10:27:52 pm »

BR Reckless Treasure $20 tournament

My LGS has a tournament at the end of each standard, before the new set comes out.  Rules are 60 card minimum, sideboard is optional; total deck must not exceed $20, based on that store's pricing (not tied to tcgplayer, etc.). If a card isn't specifically priced at this store (ie, Chandra TOD = $23 at this shop) price is: $1 for rares, $0.25 for uncommons, and $0.10 for commons; basic lands have no cost. Standard legal cards only.

Use gy recursion to make sure reckless fireweaver is on the battlefield as token artifacts are created. With panharmonicon out, both the token creation etb triggers and reckless fireweaver's damage triggers are doubled.

I'd like to have more instants and less sorceries, but these spells seem like the best fit for what I'm trying to do. The sorcery treasure tokens don't hit on panharmonicon but the do hit fireweaver, and panharmonicon will double that trigger. Blue mana for maverick thopterist from treasure.

Sideboard is not even close yet.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Mono Black Monumental Sacrifice

« on: February 14, 2018, 05:32:50 am »

Mono Black Monumental Sacrifice

Infinite loop of drain from monument is 1st win condition.

Damage from marionette master is 2nd win condition.

Indestructible Yahenni pumped with +1/+1 counters is 3rd win condition.

Small removal package and supernatural stamina to protect key combo pieces, or pump MM while triggers are on the stack. Treasure Map for digging via scry and treasure draws.

Could add noxious gearhulk for additional removal and wincon, or maybe revel in riches. Probably not, though.

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General Magic / Rekindling Phoenix is missing the "...if you do..." language in text

« on: January 30, 2018, 04:31:29 pm »

Rekindling Phoenix comes back when the token is sacrificed at upkeep. But there is no "if you do" language specifying the sacrfice as a cost.

I think I could sac the token at upkeep for another reason (Yahenni, for example) and still get the Phoenix back.

Am I wrong?  If so,  please help me understand why.