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Messages - Lance28

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1
Commander Deck Reviews / Omnath Locus of Creation
« on: September 16, 2020, 12:38:02 am »
Omnath Locus of Creation

This is my take on an Omnath Locus of Creation deck. Its a combination of tokens, lands matters, and value. The goal is to out value your opponents using landfall abilities and while amassing an army of tokens. This is just the preliminary build and I'm certain that it could be better and more efficient. I welcome any suggestions, however if you do say to add something please also say what you would replace it for.


2
Commander Deck Reviews / Re: Illuna Permanents and ETB
« on: June 13, 2020, 12:09:13 am »
I consider 7's and 8's to be just under cEDH but stronger than a slightly modified (mana base fixing and few staple cards and tutors that weren't included in the precon) precon deck.

I'm basically looking to cheat permanents (preferably big strong ones with ETB effects) onto the field and to gain value off of that and ramp to outpace my opponents. 

3
Commander Deck Reviews / Illuna Permanents and ETB
« on: June 07, 2020, 11:40:35 pm »
So I really like Illuna Apex of Wishes, and they have a really nice effect to boot. I built this deck to take advantage of that effect but because it relies on mutate to work I'm worried that it won't function as well as I would like it to and I feel like I'm forgetting some very good/useful things that should be in here. You won't find many instant or sorcery spells because I wanted to focus on permanents to take advantage of Illuna's effect and the Genesis wave and Genesis ultimatum. I would really appreciate some feedback on this, but I want everyone to keep in mind this deck is just a casual one (more or less) so I'm looking to either increase or keep it around a 7 or 8 which is what my playgroup tends to play around.

[deck="Illuna ETB Permanents"]
1 Dreamtail Heron
1 Gemrazer
1 Sawtusk Demolisher
1 Sea-Dasher Octopus
1 Trumpeting Gnarr
1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
1 Oko, Thief of Crowns
1 Vivien, Monsters' Advocate
1 Acidic Slime
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Etali, Primal Storm
1 Farseek
1 Nature's Lore
1 Three Visits
1 Genesis Ultimatum
1 Genesis Wave
1 Ulvenwald Hydra
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Zendikar Resurgent
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Wood Elves
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Spark Double
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Tempt with Discovery
1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
1 Panharmonicon
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sunbird's Invocation
1 Temur Ascendancy
1 Rhystic Study
1 Mind's Dilation
1 Sylvan Library
1 The Great Henge
1 Arcane Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Abundance
1 Coastal Piracy
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Kruphix, God of Horizons
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Snow-Covered Forest
3 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bonders' Enclave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Fabled Passage
1 Fiery Islet
1 Frontier Bivouac
1 Gruul Turf
1 Ketria Triome
1 Maze of Ith
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Temple of Abandon
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Waterlogged Grove
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Expedition Map
1 Pestermite
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Illuna, Apex of Wishes
[/deck]

4
Deck Reviews / [EDH / Commander] Rankle Master of Pranks
« on: September 23, 2019, 04:16:59 am »
Rankle Master of Pranks

This deck is based around the discard effect and using the graveyard as a resource. It also has an aristocrats sub-theme. most cards in it synergize with discard effects.

5
Deck Reviews / [EDH / Commander] Trostani
« on: September 13, 2019, 03:32:51 am »
Trostani

Thoughts and opinions welcome. I tried to make this within a budget of $300 not counting the cost of basic lands and the commander and I think I did a good job, but I'm always looking for second opinions on how to improve it. I know the mana curve is pretty high as far a cmc goes so I'm a little worried about that, even with all the ramp I put in.

6
Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH / Commander] Scarab God -- Zombie Tribal
« on: August 05, 2019, 02:40:58 am »
disdainful stroke is far more limiting than disallow so the extra U mana is worth it.

you could also run Triskelion and go infinite with Makius the unhallowed.

The thing is you don't really want to be sacrificing your zombies because you want as many as you can possibly get and keep on the field for The Scarab God to really do his thing and deal damage (also I take back what I said about mindcrank. Definitely keep it). The big problem with blue black zombie decks is that they take a while to swarm and build up their army because they don't really have any token multipliers like parallel lives or anointed procession. Don't get me wrong they can build up fast with the right set up, but one board wipe and it can take a while to get them back. so unless you're getting something from sacrificing them (recursion, infinite mana/damage, milling) there isn't really any point in running cards that sac them.

As for Prismatic Lens and fellwar stone, you should definetly replace them with mana geode and commander's sphere. They are both cheap cards (pretty sure commander sphere is in virtually every commander precon ever printed) and mana geode is a common from war of the spark (I think...which was the most recent booster set printed I believe) so neither of them should cost very much. I say that because Fellwar stone is just not very good outside of 3+color decks because it relies on your opponen'ts lands, and while black and blue are popular colors, there is no gurantee you'll get one or both of them in any given game and prismatic lens is just garbage. Yeah it lets you "fix" your mana, at the cost of 1 mana and lets you scry upon entering, but Mana Geode lets you scy and taps for one of any color without the need to pay that 1 generic mana to do it and its a common valued at 25 cents and commander's sphere is about $2. well worth it to make your mana base more stable.

I should have mentioned this earlier, but most commander decks are built around their commander and generally have a strategy that they fully commit to, but having a back up is always good. Though if you have too many back ups then your deck will end up being pretty dysfunctional. So if you want to make your wincon passive damage via the scarab god you'll want to focus on token production and not sacrificing them without a reason (like the gravecrawler/phyrixian altar/diargraf captain combo) which also gives you the option of just running opponents over with a horde/army of zombies and not worry about big mana sinks like torment of hailfire (even though it is a really good card and you should pick it up just on principle if you can afford it even if you don't use it in this deck). If you want to go the sacrifice for value route then I would suggest adding blood artist and zulaport cutthroat into the deck even though they aren't zombies they are combo pieces that will let you passively kill opponets by sacrficing or killing large numbers of creatures. Just keep in mind you'll want to maintain that large army of zombies for the scarab god in either situation unless you're going in for the kill.   

7
Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH / Commander] Scarab God -- Zombie Tribal
« on: August 04, 2019, 10:45:25 pm »
you're mana base could use fewer tap lands and a field of the dead.
I would also suggest running altar of the brood to help mill your opponents. Mind crank isn't very effective unless you're attacking and dealing a lot of damage or able to deal passive damage/loss of life through something like blood artist.

If you're going the tribal rout you're going to want to run cards like metalic mimic and vanquishers banner, kindred discovery, etc..

you should also run commander's sphere since its one of the better mana rocks you can run. flewar stone just isn't that great in 2 color decks.

 disdainful stroke is just bad when you could be running Counter Spell. I would also suggest Cancel, Disallow, and Induce Paranoia.

Darksteel Ingot, Chromatic Lantern, and Mana Geode are all better options than Prismatic Lense. I would also suggest running Lightning Greaves  to help protect your commander.

Reliquary Tower is an excellent utility land to run, Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers are excellent options in black if you can afford them.

you also need to decide if you want to take the aristocratic approach or the swarm of the undead/reanimator approach. Because swarming the field with tokens to sacrifice is always a good strategy, but you need to decide what to do with them. Right now it looks like your deck lacks focus and can't make up its mind what it wants to do. I see milling, aristocrat, reanimator, and token swarm but its just kind of all over the place.

Since you're using The Scarab God as your commander I would drop the sacrifice outlets like ashnod's altar and Phyrixian Altar and replace them with Altar of the Brood and Altar of Dementia, they give you the mill effects you want and while Altar of Dementia requires a sacrifice it does more for your deck than the other two sacrificing altars.
If you're not going to generate a ton of mana then don't run a lot of X value spells like Torment of Hailfire. Its a great card and is a win condition all on its own, but to pull it off you need a lot of mana and your opponent's need to be low on resources and you're deck dosen't seem like it would be able to pull that off just yet without something like the urborg and cabal coffers land combo.
You're also running a lot of non-zombies that don't really advance your strategy like champion of wits as well as some zombies that don't advance your strategy either like carrion feeder.
It's always good to have some reanimation cards in black decks, dance of the dead, animate dead, necromancy, rise of the dark realms, and reanimate are all good choices.
You should probably also run cyclonic rift to help clear the field for your zombies. Citadel of Bolas would be a really good card for you to use as well, its pretty much become a staple black card at this point.

Hope this helps, and good luck building your deck :3

8
Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH / Commander] Varina Lich Queen (budget)
« on: August 01, 2019, 09:46:39 pm »
If I get what you're saying, you use it as a starting point and go from there adjusting accordingly?

Basically yes.

I typically start with 38 lands and will reduce to 36 if need be. And depending on what the commander wants determines how much of a certain card type I put in, though I usually have minimums to help me not go overboard and have to spend tons of time making cuts (which takes even longer when you're on a budget ($300 sounds like a decent amount but it can be difficult to do what you want sometimes) so for a creature based commander I typically have a minimum of 25 slots reserved for creatures, but in an enchantress deck I would reserve 25 slots minimum for enchantments and have fewer creature slots.

I also prefer to run utility lands over *utility artifacts because I feel like I get more bang for my buck (i.e. bojuka bog over tormod's crypt)

*I don't consider mana rocks to be utility artifacts because they perform a single function (in most cases) similar to lands making them essentially artifact lands in my view.

9
Commander Discussion / Re: Breaking down The Command Zone Stats
« on: August 01, 2019, 07:37:48 pm »
the whole chess analogy was because the person I was responding to was using it as a basis for a question. I was literally explaining why the two are incompatible on the basis of their question. Because the two are nothing alike. You can't really compare any card game to chess because while you can calculate odds and probabilities for card games you won't always be correct because your using assumed information with a best guess backed up by probability whereas in chess all information is known to both players at any given time (more or less) and there is a best possible move in every situation, granted that just because you make the best possible move doesn't mean you will always win. Chess is a game of skill and strategy and cards games (even games like MTG) are games of chance with some skill and strategy involved, but it really comes down to luck because that can make or break you in any game you play and luck can not be calculated in a mathematical formula.   

10
Commander Discussion / Re: Breaking down The Command Zone Stats
« on: August 01, 2019, 09:07:28 am »
Highly unlikely, you see in chess there are only so many moves you can make and you're only ever playing against a single opponent (no players are removed from the game until a loss because there are only ever two players to start with) and both players start with the exact same pieces. If I'm not mistaken I believe that there was a study done showing that the player that goes first in chess has a slightly higher chance of winning a match because they can make more active moves than reactive ones (i.e. the best defense is a good offense strategy), but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, the point I'm making is that unlike in chess MTG has nearly infinite (if not infinite) possibilities due to the vast number of "pieces" (i.e. cards), combinations of cards, randomness and a much wider range of variables. You could make the "best move" assumption but again there are too many variables from game to game for that to be even somewhat practical because the best move for a blue deck will be vastly different from a green deck (assuming mono colors for simplicity sake) and in a multiplayer game those choices can have vastly different outcomes due to a wide range of variables; is there a red deck that wants the green deck to take out the blue deck? if so how might that other player react to what the blue player does in response to the green player attacking them for lethal? how many players can make responses and how many times can they respond in a single turn? will those responses negatively impact them in the long run or will they have a positive effect on the outcome for that player?
those are just a few examples of variables or questions about variables that have to be considered in MTG where as in chess there are obvious best moves to make for both players in any given situation. There are fewer variables in chess and much fewer outcomes and possibilities (granted there are still a crap ton of them).

I also want to point out that I'm not an expert in math of any kind (in fact I'm quite terrible at anything beyond the most basic of multiplication, division, addition and subtraction (I can do Pythagorean theorem and order of operations and that's about it)) so don't expect me to do any calculations, but I felt that this was probably just a common sense answer to the question (more or less) and I'm not saying that it can't be done with 100% certainty, I'm just saying that the likelihood of it being within the realm of possibility is insanely insignificant (like probably will never be possible). Its essentially a non-possibility because there are just too many variables unless you're basically a god or something. 

11
Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH / Commander] Varina Lich Queen (budget)
« on: July 31, 2019, 06:41:35 pm »
I'm not building the deck by card type, I just like my artifacts that produce mana to be a bit more reliable when they produce color, don't get me wrong fellwar stone isn't a bad option, its typically good in 3 color decks and great in 4 and 5 color decks, but I have a land that's already doing that which leaves room for a non-mana rock type artifact or other card that isn't a land and when it comes to mana rocks I like the color production to be less random. The majority of the cards in the deck are black so (and this is true more for felwar stone than exotic orchard in my opinon) if a mana rock (other than sol ring) isn't able to produce any color I need (typically black mana) then I don't really want to run it. Bojuka bog may not be as flexible as tormod's crypt or the spell bomb, but its still easy to fit into the deck and more justifible. it also performs more than one function which is something that tormod's crypt doesn't do so there is also that. yes there may be times that it comes up at inopportune moments (or not at all) and I will need to play it even if I don't want to and tormod's crypt is better in that regard being a 0 drop artifact that can just sit there until needed, but otherwise its just a useless card that doesn't do anything.

I will admit that I do assign a minimal number of slots for each card type when initially building decks though and depending on what type of deck it is determines how many slots certain card types get. For example this deck has a heavy focus on creatures and using the graveyard(s) so at minimum I use 25 card slots for creatures, 36-38 for lands, 5 for enchantments, 5-8 for artifacts, 10-12 for instants, and 10-15 for sorceries. Of course these numbers fluctuate depending on how well and how many cards fit into the deck nicely. for example Rooftop Storm was originally in the deck, but really all that enchantment did was let me cast my commander for free and ignore the tax on her (I mean I could cast any zombie creature for free but most of them cost 3 or less so I didn't see it as being very beneficial considering the card cost was 6 mana and it would be a huge lighting rod) and there were other more useful less lightning rod like enchantments I could run that were more cost effective etc...

I really hope that made sense. It did in my head, but that doesn't always translate well to paper if you know what I mean.

12
Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH / Commander] Varina Lich Queen (budget)
« on: July 31, 2019, 02:01:23 am »
Took out Mind's Dilation and replaced it with Library of Leng as it was really the only option to take out right now.

13
Deck Reviews / Re: [EDH / Commander] Varina Lich Queen (budget)
« on: July 30, 2019, 09:25:29 pm »
Exotic Orchard is already in the deck, I left fellwar stone out because mana geode is cheaper (in terms of cost) and lets me tap for any color I want without being dependent on what my opponents land base is, exotic orchard does the same thing, but doesn't take up an artifact slot. Bojuka Bog is pretty standard in black decks as graveyard hate over tormod's crypt for the same reason exotic orchard is prefered over fellwar stone. Library of leng will find a spot in the deck, not sure where though. As for Mind's Dilation its in because its a fun card, and yeah its a giant lightning rod, but this is a casual deck to start with so a few "fun" cards don't hurt anything, but it might be subbed out for library of leng if I can't think of anything else to replace.

14
Deck Reviews / [EDH / Commander] Varina Lich Queen (budget)
« on: July 30, 2019, 05:20:16 am »
Varina Lich Queen (budget)

So this is my take on a Varina deck (budget of $300) and basically I wanted it to be a combination of reanimator and zombie tribal. I also wanted to be able to access anyone's graveyard for creatures if possible not just my own, which is why I run cards like reanimate, rise of the dark realms, and beacon of unrest. I don't have many grave to hand recursion spells because I would rather just pull them out of the grave straight to the battle field if possible. I also have some graveyard hate for other reanimator decks which is why I have bojuka bog and withered wretch, etc...
feed back would be greatly appriciated. I had to sub in the mana geode for chromatic lanturn to fit into the budget constraints though...

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