[Modern] Restore Balance

[angorashi]

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!

[G. Moto]

  A big question from me is this, how do you plan on consistently getting out the big creatures every game? What's your game strategy for you 9+ drop creatures?

[angorashi]

Well, it's a restore balance deck- actually having NO creatures except when you're finishing is a big part of the gameplan. With no creatures on the field, cascading into restore balance with demonic dread or violent outburst will wipe your opponent's creatures. Same goes for lands, which is why we run borderposts- you sac your lands to gargadon before restore balance, which speeds up the gargadon timer,wipes your opponent's landbase, yet leaves you with borderpost land rocks! If you cantake out their hand, land AND creatures at the same time with gargadon a couple turns away it's gg.

The alternate win condition is nahiri pulling out worldspine wurm! I mean, ideally it would be emrakul but that's out kf budget for me right now. Also, with a cascadeready or a gargadon suspended, you can sacrifice wurm after attacking to getcha tokens!

[G. Moto]

With the black in this deck have you considered the supernatural stamina before sacrificing the worldspine wurm?

[shinig4mi89]

https://deckstats.net/decks/19289/698271-as-foretold-restore-balance/it
i've been playing this list now for two month and I tried with fetches or without in any game you will be able to cast cascade on turn 3 or 4 and the main plan is land disruption if As Foretold reach 3 counters on it is basically game

[angorashi]

@moto:well, that's a 1drop, and this deck requires restore balance to be the ONLY spell in the deck with a cmc less than 3- so cascade will always pull it out. Besides which that card would be more of a dead draw than anything in this deck since if I've nahiri'd worldspine and sac'd it I've probably won the game :

@shinig- yeah, last week I was playing a similar version with as foretold. In this deck's description I explain why I'm trying something different

[G. Moto]

  I just realized something. Restore balance sacs lands, discards cards and sacs creatures. But It doesn't destroy enchantments. Now I see what you mean, because once as foretold is on your field you won't even NEED lands to play your bigger creatures. It makes sense now.

[angorashi]

Correct- that's also the reason borderposts are played.

[G. Moto]

  So play as many of your mana producing enchants and artifacts as you can, discard all the other stuff, and then drop big creatures. Since you'll be playing restore balance and it makes everybody discard have you considered adding any madness cards to this deck? That way when they are discarded you'll also get a bonus?