Messages

1

Deck Comments / Re: Jund Aristocrat Midrange - Comments

« on: January 16, 2019, 09:04:09 pm »

I personally don't think Captive Audience is all that great in a midrange deck, but if you wanted to run it I'd replace Carnage Tyrant or Journey to Eternity. It's better off in a control deck if at all.

2

Deck Comments / Re: Zur the Enchanter - Comments

« on: October 09, 2018, 07:12:06 pm »

Thanks for the kind words and feed back. This was one of my favorite builds. I was inspired to build this deck after seeing some Solemnity + Phyrexian Unlife shenanigans done in modern. The deck isn't very optimized and I haven't revisited it since I first put it together. I mostly throw these together quickly to play with my group and I switch between decks pretty often. I put things like Auramancer in the deck just as simple value cards.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to revisit this deck soon. I'd love to take the cards and interactions you've recommended and put them in.
Feel free to take this deck and make it your own.

3

Deck Comments / Re: Oona, Queen of the Fae - Comments

« on: May 20, 2018, 06:31:36 am »

Glad you guys liked the deck. It's for a themed week that my friends and I are doing. Unfortunately each of us have a budget of $200 so I couldn't fit in Cryptic and Bitterblossom.

4

Deck Reviews / Re: [Modern] Greater Balance

« on: June 21, 2017, 04:33:05 am »

Also be weary of running Wheel of Fate. Your deck can cascade into it and that might not always be what you want.

5

Deck Comments / Re: White humans - Comments

« on: June 20, 2017, 04:14:49 pm »

Kazandu Blademaster is a 2/2 for 2 with first strike and vigilance which makes it nuts in this deck even without other allies.

6

General Magic / Re: Hour of Devastation SPOILERZ

« on: June 20, 2017, 04:10:50 pm »

I am a little surprised that the scorpion god has no real weaknesses. It is a creature regardless of the amount of red and black creatures in play. I guess its only real weakness is that it is not indestructible but with 6/5 and basically returning to your hand when it dies, it practically is indestructible. I am going to add it to my -1/1 counters deck. I wonder the other god will be, I am thinking something like a cobra or jackal to fit with probably being more corrupted than the other five gods.

There are already exists a cobra and jackal god in Rhonas the Indomitable and Hazoret the Fervent. I'm thinking more along the lines of a hippo or a scarab. Hell, I'd love to see a camel god.

7

Deck Reviews / Re: [Modern] Greater Balance

« on: June 20, 2017, 03:56:57 pm »

18 lands is just not enough considering how mana specific your deck is. Especially when you factor in your only land filtering is a single evolving wilds. Simply put, you're nearly never going to feel consistent when playing this deck. There will be turns when you do nothing because you're waiting on drawing the right land.
There is just no way you can build a 4 color deck and go super budget on the lands and have the deck be playable.

In terms of the deck itself, you really go deep into borderposts and your only win condition is beating in with Greater Gargadon. The point of boarderposts is for you to have mana in order to cast spells after you've cascaded into Restore Balance. You're not trying to cascade into it multiple times. It's about creating a board state in which you can win within 1-3 turns while severely limiting what your opponent can do. Simply put, what you're trying to produce a bunch of mana, only to cast Greater Gargadon, when you should have a Greater Gargadon ready to come out by the time you cascade into Restore Balance.

Here is a boarderpostless version that I build a while back.
Notice how there are multiple suspend creatures that can come out after I've cascaded into Restore Balance.
This build also uses planeswalkers as an alternative win condition since they are not affected by Restore Balance.
The idea is to create a boardstate you can win with after you've resolved Restore Balance.
Boarderposts are a contingency plan for decks that do use them.

Here is a more recent build that incorporates As Foretold.
As Foretold replaces your need for borderposts since it lets you cast free spells. It also eliminates the need to cascade because you can cast no mana cost spells with As Fortold since it gives them a mana cost of 0.

I hope this helps. Restore Balance is one of my most favorite archetypes and I love seeing more people try to make it work. Its a hard deck to build so kudos to you.

8

Deck Reviews / Re: [Modern] Mono Red Aggro Dragons

« on: June 20, 2017, 03:35:16 pm »

This is an old G/R Dragon deck I built for a friend a while back.
It's not budget due to the land base and some cards here and there, but that can be ignored.
I feel like green is necessary to ramp into the big dragons that you want to play.
Maybe you'll get some ideas from looking at it.

9

Deck Reviews / Re: [Modern] Anti Infect?

« on: June 20, 2017, 03:27:27 pm »

The deck really doesn't seem to do anything. How you do benefit from simply being anti-infect? If we're talking modern meta infect, it would completely blow through this deck before you play anything. If we're talking even a casual infect build, they have ways of pushing through damage with unblockable creatures
The Stuffy Doll + Pariah combo doesn't work against infect damage. Since the damage being redirected from you is still applied as -1/-1 counters, Stuff Doll, despite being indestructible, would die from a state of having consistent 0 toughness. Here is a forum thread explaining the interaction and ruling: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/magic-rulings-archives/284101-pariah-stuffy-doll-infect

Your concept suffers from being too narrow. Your deck in concept is very defensive, however you barely have a win condition. You seem to want to create a stable boardstate against a very specific deck archetype, but what happens after you do so? You don't have any big payoff for once you take control of the game. Nothing you can play will win the game on its own. You rely on attacking in with very expensive creatures. You also plan on using very offensive creatures such as Strangleroot Geist and Young Wolf defensively.

My advice is instead of trying to make a deck that's strong against one type of deck, make a deck that is strong against a plethora of decks. If you're new to deck building and the metagame in general, I you invest into something you can enjoy playing for a long time that has potential for upgrades. Think about what kind of archetype you want to play instead of what archetypes you want to beat. Do you want to sling spells at your opponents face? Do you want to attack in with a lot of creatures? Do you want to ramp and play big creatures? Do you want to control your opponent and grind out a long term win? Do you want to make some ridiculous combo and have your opponent sit and watch in agony? After you're decided this, you can then build a deck and adjust according to what match ups you're strong against and what you're weak against.

It's also important to understand which colors do what. This deck you've built is Green/White aka Selesnya. Selesnya is known for mass producing tokens and +1/+1 counters, creatures that provide great value for their mana cost such as Loxodon Smiter and Voice of Resurgence, its ability to fight against artifacts and enchantments, and using enchantments themselves.

The following are a few Tier decks in the Selesnya colors. They might not be exactly what you're looking for and they're quite expensive (most tier modern decks range $400 - $2000+) but I hope they can provide examples and inspirations for something you might want to build in these colors.

Little Kid GW
Hatebears
Aura Hexproof

10

Deck Reviews / Re: Feedback on a first-ever deck?

« on: May 02, 2017, 05:43:26 am »

Hey welcome to the wonderful world of Magic the Gathering.
My recommendation to start off by thinking about what you want your deck to accomplish.
Right now you have a lot of single cards and your deck doesn't have a general plan of attack.
The best kind of deck to start off with is an aggressive creature deck.
In standard, those typically have 25 lands, 20 - 25 creatures, and 10 - 15 non-creature spells.

11

Deck Reviews / Re: Abzan Aggro.... Anti Mardu Vehicles.... Opinions?

« on: April 27, 2017, 06:57:48 pm »

With Felidar Guardian's banning just yesterday, Standard is currently in a state of disarray. Mardu vehicles was expected to fall out of favor since all the hate the new set introduced. However, the recent banning of Felidar Guardian, Saheeli Cat decks have been gutted. This also directly influences Mardu since it's fast clock isn't the necessary thing to outrace Saheeli Cat anymore.
Right now things are very experimental in Standard and people aren't sure what to expect. Planeswalkers are still going to be huge. Midrange decks are expect to rise.
Keep an eye on things and adjust accordingly.

12

Deck Comments / Re: Tezzerator - Comments

« on: November 22, 2016, 11:15:26 pm »

I actually haven't gotten around to playing with this deck much, but I built it based off of the Ray Thomas version that was showcased on MTGoldfish. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-tezzerator-modern
I watched the matches that were played and adjusted the deck to what I think would work better within the metagame.
I took out Vault Skirge because often you would be paying the two life for it to get it out early, but it would easily die to lightning bolts or paths. It's a nice idea to turn it into a 5/5 with lifelink using Tezzeret's -1, but that never really got to happen.
The next change I made was swapping Black Sun's Zenith for Damnation. Just having the unconditional board wipe is just good in how the meta right now is very aggressive. The addition of Ensnaring Bridge is also to counteract the aggressive meta game.
Against slower decks, this deck performs a lot better because of how much redundancy is built in to the deck.
The Time Sieve infinite combo from the original deck was pretty awesome, but I took it out for the sake of consistency.
Let me know how the deck works out for you. I would play around with the numbers of the cards. Maybe up Ensnaring Bridge to 4. Maybe mainboarding 2 Nihil Spellbombs over the 2 Relic of Progenitus.
From what I've seen, the biggest thing this deck needs to over come is surviving aggro decks.

13

Deck Reviews / Re: [Modern/Fun] U/W/R Burn/Control with Soulfire Grandmaster

« on: November 08, 2016, 06:15:51 pm »

The walls aren't really doing anything for you in the midgame if you don't have a way to close things out. Normally in white control decks people will run Wall of Omens to give early game card draw as well as a early blocker in hope to stall the game out long enough to win with a big threat like Dragonlord Ojutai , Tasigur, the Golden Fang, or Nahiri, the Harbinger. Mantis Rider just isn't on the same level as them. Its a 3 drop that goes down to lightning bolt. Yes, haste and vigilance is nice, but most decks I've seen run Mantis Rider use pump spells or put counters on it to protect it.
If you're looking to play aggro you really just wanna take out your opponent as quickly as possible. If it reaches the midgame, you're not gonna have the reach to close it out anyway.

14

Deck Reviews / Re: EDH (Anafenza the Foremost) Abzan Human Armies

« on: November 07, 2016, 10:24:49 pm »

Half of the battle in multiplayer commander is convincing your opponents not to kill you. Politics are a huge part of the game. If everyone wants to kill you, there's a reason. Build alliances throughout the game, but don't expect them to be kept for very long.

15

General Magic / Re: Let's Break 'Quicken'

« on: November 07, 2016, 10:15:13 pm »

I've mostly seen Quicken in Scapeshift decks that use Bring to Light. I like your idea for Quicken in a Polymorph deck. Opponent's end step, Quicken + Polymorph and get an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.