[Standard] Newbie Mardu Midrange

[CardinalSilence]

Here's the Deck

I'm just going for a pressuring, but not beatdown, mardu midrange, the goal is to be flexibile more than anything, but I also really wanna pack a punch. I have a couple of questions that I think I missed some key points,

Specifically:

Is the manabase proportioned alright? I tried to balance taplands, fetchlands, manlands, westvale abbey, and basics as best as I could, being midrange and tri-color I'm know I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet on taplands but is there anything I can do better?

Are the combinations of creatures, spells, and planeswalkers (including sideboard) effective / are the cards used to achieve my goal of lots of pressure, advantage, and flexibility optimal?

Please keep all suggestions to BFZ, OGW, SOI, thank you

[KouriNick]

Hi! I really like the deck and think you're pretty well dialed in.

The only suggestions I have about the mana base is to consider bringing up the count of Shambling Vent and bringing down the count of Needle Spire. Shambling Vent is a great creature with lifelink and the activation cost of three is really significant compared to 4 from Needle Spire. I know this will throw off the balance, but you may be able to fix it by doing a 2 for 2 swap, then trading out a Swamp for another Foreboding Ruin. it Won't be perfect, but you'll get more utility out of your manlands.

As for extra pressure, one thing to consider would be Tormenting Voice to draw into more threats. You have plenty of madness cards (plus all your vampires with a Falkenrath Gorger on the board) so the discard isn't a big deal, and the two extra cards will really pressure your opponent.

I'm not personally a big fan of Elusive Tormentor, especially with the double black cost. You definitely want to keep the vampire count up, so maybe something like Asylum Visitor (the automatic madness is nice, and a 3/1 body can add a lot of pressure, plus it punishes your opponent for going down to an empty hand). You could do one of each and see how that goes.

I hope you find this helpful!! Good luck and happy hunting

[G. Moto]

   Looking at your deck it seems like it is a cross between most W/B Westvale abbey life gain builds and Mardu Vampire deck. If you are focusing on making many vamps then try adding call the bloodline to get some madness triggers and some new creatures. That way if you go to spring your westvale abbey last minute they don't see it coming. Also be very careful with the creatures that you choose for this deck. My reason is this, sometimes having a whole bunch of good stuff off balances the deck because everyone (for example Kalitas, Olivia and avacyn) are all pulling in different directions. Kalitas focuses on death, Olivia focuses on building an army and going fast and strong, Avacyn wants to protect now and burn later. IF you tried only using two of the three at a time you might be able to pull off some synergies (Avacyn + Olivia/ Olivia + Kalitas/ Kalitas + Avacyn, and etc.). As far as mid-ranged decks go what are some strategies that you plan on implementing?

[CardinalSilence]

W/B westvale abbey and br vampire mix was exactly what I was going for - call the bloodline is sideboarded already, I've found that it gets run over by things like Declaration in Stone too easily to mainboard, but it's too good to leave out completely.

The main strategies I'm going for are pressure and flexibility, nobody expects a Sin Prodder to come down a 4/3 menace because of an Olivia, Mobilized for War trigger that discards Fiery Temper for madness and then the following turn a Goblin Dark-Dwellers re-casting that Fiery Temper.

The deck's main goal is to be just barely pressuring and aggro enough that it forces the opponent to do something, and do something fast, but the deck doesn't plan on saving all of the lower tier creatures to create that pressure, instead the goal is actually to sacrifice as much as possible to Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Ormendahl and Profaned Prince.  The deck plans to switch gears once the opponent has found an answer to the vampire spammy shenanigans by going big instead of going wide - Elusive Tormentor is my natural pivot for this strategy because it's so difficult to take it out but blocks so well that it can generally shift the game pace single handedly.

I've found that Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier's main purpose is that if my opponent survives the vampire rush, she can nuke the whole board once they've launched a counter-attack and start fighting in the air, it destroys strategies like G/W tokens fairly effectively I've found.

That's what's going on in my head at least, hopefully that helps clear it up a little bit, what would you suggest with this strategy in mind? I know kourinick had mentioned how much more efficient shambling vent is but moving around needle spires has sorta screwed me in my playtesting so far, do you have any different suggestions there as well?

Thanks for the suggestions all it helps so much

[G. Moto]

   As far as declaration in stone goes, what if you added multiple other creature type tokens? For example, since you're running Kalitas, traitor of ghet you can use gisa's bidding and rise from the tides to make zombie tokens for Kalitas to sac. Add vampiric rites so if your opponent tries to wipe you out then you can simply sac the tokens, choose to pump up your Vamp warrior in the process, gain life and draw cards. If your opponent ever wants to wipe you out consider these choices: Option A) Wipe yourself out for your benefit, Option B) Wipe out everything to their loss, or Option C) Create problems for them to deal with as a distraction. Everyone hates a red herring in MTG.

  Also as far as the madness goes, and I'm not sure if you're even considering taking this route, but if you add alms of the vein to your deck then  for one mana you can snag 3 life from your opponents. I ran a Grixis devil burn deck yesterday and it did pretty well as far as madness triggers went. Also Sin Prodder is such a good card. I used it for the first time, after the FNM I bought a full playset. Investment...

  Also instead of switching gears why not make the deck flow? Why not build the deck so as it "climbs up" the creatures on the board fill up, then as you start sacrificing the creatures the deck "comes down" sort of like a roller coaster (just less spins). Let the tokens be the objective of the deck but still build it so the deck can function even with minimum creatures on the board.

  As far as the land goes it really depends on how you want to run the deck. Which ever land allow you to play your deck and still stay relevant through the game

[CardinalSilence]

Thank you so much G. Moto! The explanation / metaphor of a rollercoaster, building height and energy and the instead of totally reversing directions going downhill to release the built up strength into a different form really helped put the thoughts of deck constructions into a new perspective - don't know why but that made a lot click for me so thank you thank you!

I'm not sure total token spam or burn / lifedrain procs are what I wanna base the deck around, it doesn't really mesh with my playstyle insanely well, but hey it's worth a shot. Any idea is worth at least trying.

I did change the lands some but not too much, kept the ratios identical but getting more useful lands overall which is a much needed improvement. I may not have changed any creatures spells or planeswalkers much at all but the way I view they setup of the deck has drastically improved performance already - I seriously can't thank you enough, cheers mate

[G. Moto]

   Hey brother, I'm just hear to help and I'm glad some of my wisdom can be passed on to someone else. I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors. If you need anything else let me know, cheers mate!