Magic the Gathering XX: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS!!!

[Khay]

Well, there is Man-o-War beatdown, I guess?
My reasoning for not including any win conditions on their own is: sure, I could play an Archangel or the dragon or some other large creature from the block. But chances are that my opponents creature are much better than anything I could find within the block. Remember, I won't play this deck against other Mirage block decks. I will play against decks that include Archangel of Thune, Prime Speaker Zegrana or Lord of the Void. Thus, I would rather steal my opponents better creatures than to settle for something mediocre.
But you're right. Against decks without splashy creatures (or artifacts, I guess, since those can be stolen by Desertion, too) this deck my struggle. In the end it is a matter of the decks I will play against with this. The Dragon is a good suggestion, though, should the need arise to play an actual win-con

Oh yeah, that definitely makes sense. Creatures have come a long way since Mirage - though I still like the dragon, simply because it's so painfully hard to remove. (Though it was better when damage still used the stack.) It's something I'd consider running as a one-of, just in case your opponent plays a weird deck that doesn't run big and flashy creatures or artifacts. Depends on the matchups, though!

Yeah, I've contemplated between Memory Lapse and Power Sink. I ultimately settled for Power Sink as it actually deals with the countered spell. I feel Power Sink fits this type of deck better then Memory Lapse which I feel would be more at home at a tempo deck (and this deck is so very much not a tempo deck). But I could see arguments for Memory Lapse too. Maybe a split between the two?
Under which circumstances would Memory Lapse be better then Power Sink?

I was thinking of a different spell, oops. I forgot that Power Sink is the one with the take-all-your-mana-anyway clause; that makes it significantly better. What I like about Memory Lapse is that, even though it very much is a tempo play, it can be an absolutely backbreaking loss of tempo because it takes away their next draw step, too. It's hard to play around, too. Though if your opponents start playing around Power Sink if you don't have it, that's also quite a tempo hit... hm. I'm not actually sure which is better. That might call for some experimentation.

Hm, the leaves-play-effect of floodgate IS nice. One could play Abjure as an enabler. With that and Boomerang it could be consistent enough. If a sideboard would actually make sense for casual play I would definitely put 4 Floodgate and 4 Abjure in the 'bord. But it is a card that I will keep in mind. I could see them in other decks as a main piece

The weakness against fast decks is probably not that problematic as those kind of decks are rarely played in my "meta" (fast aggro decks tend to suck in multiplayer).

What I like about Floodgate in multiplayer is that it says, in no uncertain terms, "you don't want to attack me". I agree that it's probably superfluous if nobody in your 'meta' is even trying to go for the fast aggro route; your deck is already pretty good against large aggro after all. I've actually had people go the fast-to-midgrange aggro route in multiplayer; they tend to lose, but they do get to knock a player out of the game, and that's all some people want, apparently.

I've considered it, but it is a total blowout if the Vale gets destroyed. And while dedicated land-destruction decks are not a thing in my meta, individual land destruction is: Acidic Slime, Ghost Quarter, Beast Within, Capsize...
It's way to risky.

Oh geez, no kidding. Yeah, in that case, you really don't want to run Lotus Vale. Such a shame the Oracle wording makes it so hard to abuse...

Also, unrelated to the deck, but related to Mirage: Am I the only one who keeps thinking that Rite of the Serpent's art would be sort of at home there? I keep being surprised by that art.

[Boci]

How do you search for good advanced lands when building a deck? Gatherer.com is pretty good for narrowing down the parameters for any creature, artifact, instant, sorcery, ect, but not for lands, because they are all colorless, they all have the same CMC, and have very few variables that feature in the search parameter, except for artist which does not help me. There are 506 lands, and 238 of them are rare. Adding the "tapped" key word to the rules text narrows this down to 87. Anything else I can do, or will I just have to browse them all?

[Khay]

How do you search for good advanced lands when building a deck? Gatherer.com is pretty good for narrowing down the parameters for any creature, artifact, instant, sorcery, ect, but not for lands, because they are all colorless, they all have the same CMC, and have very few variables that feature in the search parameter, except for artist which does not help me. There are 506 lands, and 238 of them are rare. Adding the "tapped" key word to the rules text narrows this down to 87. Anything else I can do, or will I just have to browse them all?

I'm a really big fan of Magiccards.info, because its advanced search lets you use quite a lot of parameters and logical oeprators; you can create basically arbitrarily complex searches. Here's a search for Modern-legal lands that can produce Green mana and do not enter the battlefield tapped, as an example.

[Boci]

I'm a really big fan of Magiccards.info, because its advanced search lets you use quite a lot of parameters and logical oeprators; you can create basically arbitrarily complex searches. Here's a search for Modern-legal lands that can produce Green mana and do not enter the battlefield tapped, as an example.

Thanks a lot, this is a great help.

[Zombimode]

The Gatherer also has a powerful search function (you can use regular expressions, iirc). For lands, you can use the "Rules Text" field. If you want a list of all lands that produce, say, black and white mana, you can search for "{W}" AND "{B}". This will result in a list of all lands that include both a black mana symbol and a white mana symbol somewhere in its text box.

[sonofzeal]

New-ish player here, looking for deck-building advice. I know now the game works, but I only really understand how to build creature-heavy decks. I think I'm fair at judging card value, and finding synergy, and I've got some decks that seem to do pretty well - mostly green and white. I like red and blue cards individually, and I especially enjoy the feeling of using those cards creatively, but I can't figure out how to actually build those decks. They can be annoying as heck, but there's a difference between being annoying and, y'know, winning.

[ChaosOS]

New-ish player here, looking for deck-building advice. I know now the game works, but I only really understand how to build creature-heavy decks. I think I'm fair at judging card value, and finding synergy, and I've got some decks that seem to do pretty well - mostly green and white. I like red and blue cards individually, and I especially enjoy the feeling of using those cards creatively, but I can't figure out how to actually build those decks. They can be annoying as heck, but there's a difference between being annoying and, y'know, winning.

Deck building is a huge learning curve, but here's some basic questions

1. What format are you shooting for? I'm guessing kitchen table, but at the tournament level there's a variety of formats like Standard and Modern that have different restrictions on which sets cards can be from to be legal

2. What kinds of resources do you have to build decks? Just your private collection, or do you look up specific cards and buy those individually?

Given those, here's some general guidelines

1. Mana matters. Your land count should be between 22 and 26, rarely deviating higher or lower, based on how aggressive you're trying to be.

2. What's your strategy? Are you trying to be aggressive, winning within a couple turns with offensive creatures between 1 and 3 mana? Are you trying to focus on larger, more efficient creatures costing 3-6 mana? Or are you trying to just stall out the game with spells, until you finally drop one really nasty thing that's 5-8 mana that you'll just ride to victory?

[sonofzeal]

Deck building is a huge learning curve, but here's some basic questions

1. What format are you shooting for? I'm guessing kitchen table, but at the tournament level there's a variety of formats like Standard and Modern that have different restrictions on which sets cards can be from to be legal

2. What kinds of resources do you have to build decks? Just your private collection, or do you look up specific cards and buy those individually?

Given those, here's some general guidelines

1. Mana matters. Your land count should be between 22 and 26, rarely deviating higher or lower, based on how aggressive you're trying to be.

2. What's your strategy? Are you trying to be aggressive, winning within a couple turns with offensive creatures between 1 and 3 mana? Are you trying to focus on larger, more efficient creatures costing 3-6 mana? Or are you trying to just stall out the game with spells, until you finally drop one really nasty thing that's 5-8 mana that you'll just ride to victory?

1/2) I've got a big box of old cards from a friend, a small box of new-ish cards of my own (mostly 2013-2014), and MtG:DotP 2014 and 2015. The 2014 one was fun because it gave pre-gen decks that I just needed to tweak them, but the 2015 one is far more freeform, much more like the actual game, and thus requires more in the way of deckbuilding skill. "Kitchen table" definitely applies, though.

#2) My strategy generally is to stabilize early board control (get enough out there to discourage/prevent early aggression, or punish a vulnerable early game), stall out the mid game, and scale hard as things go. "Doubling Season" + "Jade Mage" + "Seraph of the Masses", say. Or multiple "Advocate of the Beast". "Armored Ascension" is an old favourite. Recently I've had some success with "Bloodflow Connoisseur" too. That sort of thing.

[CantigThimble]

So I was bored and isolated for an hour or so, so I made cards of the OoTS team. I'm sure this has been done before but I'm quite happy with how they came out:

Spoiler: The Cards

Show

Roy Greenhilt 3WWW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier Ally
Whenever Roy Greenhilt or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on each ally you control.
You may use white mana as though it were mana of any color to cast ally spells you own.
If Roy Greenhilt is your commander you may include ally spells in your deck that are not in his color identity.
3/4

Roy's main role seems to be making battle plans and keeping the rest of the order working together, this seems to fit, though with the commander clause I think he might have too much text to fit on a card!

Durkon Thundershield 3WW
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Cleric Ally
Whenever Durkon Thundershield or another ally creature enters the battlefield under your control put a +1/+1 counter on Durkon Thundershield.
Prevent the first 2 damage that would be dealt to each ally you control each turn.
1/4

I considered making Vampire Durkon but we really don't know anything about him so I just made regular Durkon. He used a wide variety of spells like Thor's Lightning or Might but those strike me more as instants or sorceries than creature effects. The one thing he always does is heal.

Belkar Bitterleaf 3RR
Legendary Creature - Kithkin Berserker Ally
Double Strike
Whenever Belkar Bitterleaf or another ally creature enters the battlefield under your control put a +1/+1 counter on Belkar Bitterleaf.
3/3

Belkar may have had some character changes and such but he's really still a Sexy Shoeless God of War, nothing says that like a constantly growing 3/3 double strike.

Haley Starshine 3RU
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue Ally
First Strike, Reach
UR[T]: Gain control of target ability or target non-creature spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of allies you control. You may choose new targets for it.
3/2

Haley's diplomancy and thievery are well represented by this ability I think. She was one of the hardest to design because of how widespread her abilities are under the color pie.

Elan, Dashing Swordsman 2WU
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue Ally
Flash, First Strike
You may cast ally spells as though they had flash.
Whenever Elan, Dashing Swordsman or another ally enters the battlefield put a +1/+1 counter on target ally you control and it gains your choice of Hexproof, Lifelink or +0/+3 until end of turn.
2/2

Elan is very good at timing and dramatic rescues. I really like how this one turned out.

Vaarsuvius 3UR
Legendary Creature - Elf Wizard Ally
Flying
[T]: Deal 1 damage to target creature or player, copy this ability for each other ally you control. You may choose new targets for the copies.
2/2

MAGIC MISSILE! Like Durkon, he has so many varied and complex abilities that I decided to go with the most most common for him and save the rest for tribal ally instants and sorceries.

Mr. Scruffy 1W
Legendary Creature - Cat Ally
[T]: Counter target spell or ability that targets an ally you control unless it's controller pays 2.
1/2

Mr. Scruffy, get the caster! I gave him two toughness so he eats a commoner in combat.

Blackwing 1U
Legendary Creature - Bird Ally
Flying
Whenever Blackwing or another ally enters the battlefield under your control, target opponent reveals a random card from their hand and you gain 1 life.
1/1

Blackwing has shown his value several times by helping to deduce enemy plans and provide moral support. There you go.

On a seperate note I have a complete set of conspiracy that we've been redrafting for quite a while. It is getting a little stale though as we've done it so much. It's still a fantastic format and I loved drafting Gamekeeper-Born, Infectious Horde, Deathforge Geyser and all the other silly decks that are possible but I kinda want to try something new. I've been looking up Cube and there's a lot of quite varied information about making one. It seems like the simplest and cheapest way to do it would be to go through my collection, put a relatively balanced set of the best cards together and adjust it afterwards instead of making a list. Also, planeswalkers seem entertaining but the only ones I have are Tamiyo, Ashiok, Venser, Jace, the living Guildpact, Garruk Relentless, Tibalt. Meaning BLUE, green and red. If I can't balance them in the colors should I just not include any?

[Ninjaman]

I made a Commander deck.
Suggestions are welcome.

@ CantigThimble
I think they are too expensive, what would xykon be? CMC 8? 9?


I made my own order and choose to go full cheap and make them 2 drops, (these are based on the start of the story, they would be 3 drops later on.), but that is probably too cheap.

Spoiler: OotS Cards

Show

Roy Greenhilt - 1W
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier - R
Vigilance
T: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
2/2

Durkon Thundershield - 1W
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Cleric - R
3W: Durkon Thundershield gets +3/+3 until end of turn. Activate this ability only once each turn.
W, T: Choose one — Target player gains 3 life; or prevent the next 3 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn.
2/3

Belkar Bitterleaf - 1R
Legendary Creature - Hafling Warrior - R
Double strike
Unless you control a soldier, Belkar Bitterleaf attacks each turn if able.
2/2

Haley Starshine - 1R
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue - R
T: Haley Starshine deals 1 damage to target creature or player
2, T: Gain control of target noncreature artifact with a converted mana cost 3 or less.
2/2

Elan the Bard - R/W
Legendary Creature - Human - R
W, T: Another target creature you control gets +0/+1 and vigilance, until end of turn.
R, T: Another target creature you control gets +1/+0 and haste, until end of turn.
1/1

Elan, Dashing Swordsman - 1 R/W
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue - R
First strike, vigilance
W, T: For each creature you control, prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to it this turn.
2/2

Vaarsuvius - 1U/R
Legendary Creature - Elf Wizard - R
1R, T: Vaarsuvius deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
1U, T: Tap target creature, that creature doesn’t untap during it’s controllers next untap step.
1/1

Made some other cards as well:

Xykon - 2BBB
Legendary Creature - Skeleton Wizard - M
Flying
B, T: Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn.
B, T: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield.
4/4

Nale - 1R/B
Legendary creature - Human Rogue - R
B, T: Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
XR, T: Gain control of target creature with toughness X or less until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
2/2

Sneak Attack, Bitch! - R
Sorcery - U
Sneak attack, Bitch! deals 3 damage to target creature.
Prowl 0 (You may cast this for its prowl cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with a Rogue.)

[Duck999]

I still have an unopened conspiracy box after last time I invited 7 people, and one brought their own box. I will probably use it soon, but I need some advice on redrafting: How exactly do you do it? How do you remake the packs?

[ChaosOS]

So I was bored and isolated for an hour or so, so I made cards of the OoTS team. I'm sure this has been done before but I'm quite happy with how they came out:

Spoiler: The Cards

Show

Roy Greenhilt 3WWW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier Ally
Whenever Roy Greenhilt or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on each ally you control.
You may use white mana as though it were mana of any color to cast ally spells you own.
If Roy Greenhilt is your commander you may include ally spells in your deck that are not in his color identity.
3/4

Roy's main role seems to be making battle plans and keeping the rest of the order working together, this seems to fit, though with the commander clause I think he might have too much text to fit on a card!

Durkon Thundershield 3WW
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Cleric Ally
Whenever Durkon Thundershield or another ally creature enters the battlefield under your control put a +1/+1 counter on Durkon Thundershield.
Prevent the first 2 damage that would be dealt to each ally you control each turn.
1/4

I considered making Vampire Durkon but we really don't know anything about him so I just made regular Durkon. He used a wide variety of spells like Thor's Lightning or Might but those strike me more as instants or sorceries than creature effects. The one thing he always does is heal.

Belkar Bitterleaf 3RR
Legendary Creature - Kithkin Berserker Ally
Double Strike
Whenever Belkar Bitterleaf or another ally creature enters the battlefield under your control put a +1/+1 counter on Belkar Bitterleaf.
3/3

Belkar may have had some character changes and such but he's really still a Sexy Shoeless God of War, nothing says that like a constantly growing 3/3 double strike.

Haley Starshine 3RU
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue Ally
First Strike, Reach
UR[T]: Gain control of target ability or target non-creature spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of allies you control. You may choose new targets for it.
3/2

Haley's diplomancy and thievery are well represented by this ability I think. She was one of the hardest to design because of how widespread her abilities are under the color pie.

Elan, Dashing Swordsman 2WU
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue Ally
Flash, First Strike
You may cast ally spells as though they had flash.
Whenever Elan, Dashing Swordsman or another ally enters the battlefield put a +1/+1 counter on target ally you control and it gains your choice of Hexproof, Lifelink or +0/+3 until end of turn.
2/2

Elan is very good at timing and dramatic rescues. I really like how this one turned out.

Vaarsuvius 3UR
Legendary Creature - Elf Wizard Ally
Flying
[T]: Deal 1 damage to target creature or player, copy this ability for each other ally you control. You may choose new targets for the copies.
2/2

MAGIC MISSILE! Like Durkon, he has so many varied and complex abilities that I decided to go with the most most common for him and save the rest for tribal ally instants and sorceries.

Mr. Scruffy 1W
Legendary Creature - Cat Ally
[T]: Counter target spell or ability that targets an ally you control unless it's controller pays 2.
1/2

Mr. Scruffy, get the caster! I gave him two toughness so he eats a commoner in combat.

Blackwing 1U
Legendary Creature - Bird Ally
Flying
Whenever Blackwing or another ally enters the battlefield under your control, target opponent reveals a random card from their hand and you gain 1 life.
1/1

Blackwing has shown his value several times by helping to deduce enemy plans and provide moral support. There you go.

On a seperate note I have a complete set of conspiracy that we've been redrafting for quite a while. It is getting a little stale though as we've done it so much. It's still a fantastic format and I loved drafting Gamekeeper-Born, Infectious Horde, Deathforge Geyser and all the other silly decks that are possible but I kinda want to try something new. I've been looking up Cube and there's a lot of quite varied information about making one. It seems like the simplest and cheapest way to do it would be to go through my collection, put a relatively balanced set of the best cards together and adjust it afterwards instead of making a list. Also, planeswalkers seem entertaining but the only ones I have are Tamiyo, Ashiok, Venser, Jace, the living Guildpact, Garruk Relentless, Tibalt. Meaning BLUE, green and red. If I can't balance them in the colors should I just not include any?

Roy seems fine

Durkon's ability should either be absorb 1 or +0/+2, your current wording is very unusual.

Belkar is a 5 mana 4/4 double strike that can grow. Definitely overtuned. Drop base stats to 2/2 since after he enters he gets +2/+2

Reach is out of color pie for Haley, but I like what you're doing otherwise

Elan's ally ability is too complex, it really doesn't need to be doing everything. I'd change to "allies you control get hexproof until end of turn"

V is on point

Scruffy is crazy broken. Judge's familiar is a 1 mana tax and needs to be sacked for what it does. Drop the counter to a 1 mana tax, that is also more in line with him being mono white.

Blackwing is good.

[Khay]

Here's that Sphinx-Tron thing I was talking about. I... kinda like it, I guess? I definitely feel more comfortable with the ability to play two Oblivion Rings maindeck; they're like a safety blanket. There, there, that mean old Blood Moon/Aven Mindcensor/Tarmogoyf can't hurt you now. There's no Black maindeck 'cause I couldn't find anything I really wanted to run, but maybe there'll be something for the sideboard? Black has spot removal that's almost on par with that of White, which is awkward. The Sphinx really doesn't feel like a Wurmcoil replacement because it's kind of a lot of work to get to a point where I can actually cast it, though.

I still have an unopened conspiracy box after last time I invited 7 people, and one brought their own box. I will probably use it soon, but I need some advice on redrafting: How exactly do you do it? How do you remake the packs?

Labour-intensive but functional: Sort it into piles of Common/Uncommon/Rare+Mythic, shuffle those, then reconstruct boosters by taking cards out of these piles face-down. (So the person to 'open' a booster draws 11 cards from the Commons pile, 3 cards from the Uncommons and 1 from the Rare/Mythic pile.)

[IthilanorStPete]

Here's that Sphinx-Tron thing I was talking about. I... kinda like it, I guess? I definitely feel more comfortable with the ability to play two Oblivion Rings maindeck; they're like a safety blanket. There, there, the bad Blood Moon can't hurt you now. There's no Black maindeck 'cause I couldn't find anything I really wanted to run. The Sphinx really doesn't feel like a Wurmcoil replacement because it's kind of a lot of work to get to a point where I can actually cast it, though.

This is an oddball replacement, but what about [url=http://magiccards.info/som/en/193.html]Platinum Emporion[url]?

[Khay]

This is an oddball replacement, but what about [url=http://magiccards.info/som/en/193.html]Platinum Emporion[url]?

Iiiii don't really like Platinum Emperion. Mostly it just seems like a worse Platinum Angel to me. I guess it prevents your life total from going negative, so you don't insta-die once it's removed... but it also doesn't stop alternative victory conditions at all. (Plot-relevant: It's got nothing against Infect.) I haven't given it much thought, admittedly, as I'm kind of prejuidiced against the card. Maybe it's worth a try, thanks!

[IcemanJRC]

On a seperate note I have a complete set of conspiracy that we've been redrafting for quite a while. It is getting a little stale though as we've done it so much. It's still a fantastic format and I loved drafting Gamekeeper-Born, Infectious Horde, Deathforge Geyser and all the other silly decks that are possible but I kinda want to try something new. I've been looking up Cube and there's a lot of quite varied information about making one. It seems like the simplest and cheapest way to do it would be to go through my collection, put a relatively balanced set of the best cards together and adjust it afterwards instead of making a list. Also, planeswalkers seem entertaining but the only ones I have are Tamiyo, Ashiok, Venser, Jace, the living Guildpact, Garruk Relentless, Tibalt. Meaning BLUE, green and red. If I can't balance them in the colors should I just not include any?

Depends. Creating a draft environment is really hard and including or not including planeswalkers is a matter of balance that you'd have to figure out within the context of the rest of the cube. If you're looking for budget friendly I play Pauper Cube, all commons, the entire 360 cards cost me like 200 dollars if you include the price of sleeves for it and you probably already have the bulk of a good list. If you'd rather just make a regular cu e and flesh it out over time then throwing together whatever you've got and takeing it for a spin is just fine. Things you need to make sure you do is balance all the colors against eachother both in number and in powerlevel and to make sure every color has an appropriate mana curve. You also want to figure out early how many cards you want because that drastically changes how good certain cards or groups of cards are. 360 is enough for 8 players, but you'll always see every card. 360 and 420 are popular sizes. You also want to make sure you facilitate archetypes to be drafted, rather than just having some cards in a pile. It doesn't have to be all that complicated, but even just making sure blue gets card draw to go with their counter spells and red has enough burn and small creatures is technically facilitating archetypes. You just need to be sure that when you're adding cards they always work towards making decks playable. If you want I can be more specific or if you have any questions feel free to shoot them my way, I cube a lot.

[sonofzeal]

So.... no advice on building "control" decks? Cards like "Negate" and "Nullify" look quite strong, but I can't figure out how to transition from there into actually winning.

[ChaosOS]

Control is a finicky beast that is very dependent on your opponents as to what is effective. Basically, you want to have single target, mana efficient answers in the form of counterspells or removal. Then, you want to generate some card advantage via mass removal and card draw. Finally, you want to drop either a planeswalker or a very resilient creature that you can just ride to victory once your opponent has exhausted all of their resources.

[Sith_Happens]

I like red and blue cards individually, and I especially enjoy the feeling of using those cards creatively, but I can't figure out how to actually build those decks. They can be annoying as heck, but there's a difference between being annoying and, y'know, winning.

The trick is that the more annoying you are, the less of your deck needs to be dedicated to winning. A control player's game plan will often look like this:

1. Systematically stall and screw with opponent until drawing one of 3-5 cards in their deck that can actually cause a win condition if left unchecked.

2. Systematically screw with opponent so as to keep that card on the battlefield and doing its thing until victory is reached.

[sonofzeal]

The trick is that the more annoying you are, the less of your deck needs to be dedicated to winning. A control player's game plan will often look like this:

1. Systematically stall and screw with opponent until drawing one of 3-5 cards in their deck that can actually cause a win condition if left unchecked.

2. Systematically screw with opponent so as to keep that card on the battlefield and doing its thing until victory is reached.

Assuming I don't have any Planeswalkers... what makes a good "win condition" card for a Blue-heavy deck? Would triton shorestalker + Bident of Thassa count? Or Kraken of the Straits?

Your patience and help is appreciated. :)

[Ninjaman]

So.... no advice on building "control" decks? Cards like "Negate" and "Nullify" look quite strong, but I can't figure out how to transition from there into actually winning.

Any specific format or just casual?

[IthilanorStPete]

Assuming I don't have any Planeswalkers... what makes a good "win condition" card for a Blue-heavy deck? Would triton shorestalker + Bident of Thassa count? Or Kraken of the Straits?

Your patience and help is appreciated. :)

Something more along the lines of the Kraken is what you want; your wincon should have some resilience to removal on its own. Having a strong impact on the board is also handy. Good finishers from recent sets to look at:
-Pearl Lake Ancient
-Aetherling
-Stormtide Leviathan
-Prognostic Sphinx

EDIT:

Triton Shorestalker and Kraken of the Straits are not your best choices. A lot of RWU control decks use burn. I say that your best way is either burn or kill their creatures while attacking with yours. I don't do much control though.

Burn is an option in URW, but not for pure control decks. Those decks are generally aggro-control/tempo decks, which have a good bit more complexity than classic control.

[Duck999]

Assuming I don't have any Planeswalkers... what makes a good "win condition" card for a Blue-heavy deck? Would triton shorestalker + Bident of Thassa count? Or Kraken of the Straits?

Your patience and help is appreciated. :)

Triton Shorestalker and Kraken of the Straits are not your best choices. A lot of RWU control decks use burn. I say that your best way is either burn or kill their creatures while attacking with yours. I don't do much control though.

[Lhurgyof]

I have encountered an issue recently.

Our EDH group half split up, and so I can only play magic with half of my friends, leaving me with only a few of my friends to play magic with.

The real problem is that a lot of my decks are way too powerful for them to deal with. I'll describe my current playgroup for you:

Two of them are new to magic, let's call them A and B. A has dropped big money on his decks (He has a $300 Avacyn deck, a $200 Progenitus deck, and a $600 Oloro deck). A, although new, researches what cards work in similar decks and understands the game pretty well. He doesn't make many misplays, but just doesn't have as much experience as a couple of the other players do.

B is a different story. B has a Gahiji deck that is probably worth $40. He understands that Gahiji + Tokens are good, but a lot of the time when he plays cards, all I can think is why?. B seems to kind of do his own thing is most games and comes ahead of mass LD from Avacyn a lot of the time. He plays cards that he thinks work well (i.e. running Ajani's Pridemate with only three lifegain cards in the deck, one being Ajani's Mantra). I've tried to help B, but with a budget of literally $0, it's pretty hard to do much. I try to help him when he makes misplays and remind him that you don't only play on your own turn (he likes to cast instants and activate abilities on his own turn), but he's just a new player and is prone to these things.

C has been playing magic a long time from what I can tell. C has a few decks, but they all have the same problem. He runs Hanna, Shattergang Brothers, Geth, and Sliver Overlord (haven't seen him play this yet, he just made it). C, although having played the game an apparent long time (his parents both play and have played a long time), has lots of problems with deck construction. I feel like he focuses on more than one theme and uses sub-par cards where there's more to be desired. For example, his shattergang deck is goblin tribal. But he still has stuff to work with the gang (rancor, squee, etc.), and I feel like the lack of a clear purpose really hurts his deck. Not only that, but he always complains that he doesn't get what he needs and runs cards that are pretty narrow. I've tried to help him with deck changes in the past, and have told him that there are better generals for goblin tribal out there (Wort and Krenko specifically because the green doesn't add much to goblins), and that if he wants to be using cards to go with the gang that he shouldn't try so hard with the tribal theme. Every game he plays it seems he has very little impact on. Just kind of plays a few creatures regardless of the deck, gets boardwiped, then dies. I know for a fact that C has a job and nothing else to spend his income on, so he pretty much just buys magic. I try to give him lots of advice, but I don't know if it's gotten through to him. He also takes a frustratingly long time on his turns to do the simplest things, so I doubt he really plans in advanced what to do.

D is the last one, and the only other member from our old group. He makes fun decks but operates under a budget. He doesn't quite have the rules mastery that I do nor has he played as long, but he makes many less misplays and plans his turns in advanced. He has a Cromat deck themed on legendary creatures, a Zurgo Helmsmasher sweeper voltron deck, a Isamaru deck where each card is CMC 1, and a Roon group-hug deck. Since we've played together a long time, he's pretty good at deck construction and plays the game well.

A and D are really the only players that can stand up to my decks, but before leaving our old pretty cutthroat EDH group (where I still had the best decks on average), I had invested a LOT of money into magic. I have several decks that are up over a grand in price and it's pretty unfair to the other players. Even with budget decks between one and two hundred dollars, I'm able to put together a cohesive deck that can take on all three of theirs at once.

I'm not winning all the time, and in fact A and D are pretty good at keeping me at bay, but I still win games a lot and I feel like there are a lot of games where I'm in positions where there's no way for me to possible lose, having planned out what to do several turns in advanced knowing that I can deal with what the other players could possibly hand at me. And if I dare play my Karador or Nicol Bolas decks then I'll most likely just blow everyone out. The obvious answer is to find new players, but that's pretty much impossible in my area, and the alternative to building at their level really sucks because many of my decks I put a lot of effort and money into, and I'd hate to just keep my $2,500 Karador deck in a box and never play it.

Does anybody have any advice that could help me? When I build new decks, I try to build around a theme that's not always optimal and make sure to keep the price tag down, but I just hate not being able to play any of my pet decks without it being a total ****stomp.

[Khay]

Something more along the lines of the Kraken is what you want; your wincon should have some resilience to removal on its own. Having a strong impact on the board is also handy. Good finishers from recent sets to look at:
-Pearl Lake Ancient
-Aetherling
-Stormtide Leviathan
-Prognostic Sphinx

EDIT:



Burn is an option in URW, but not for pure control decks. Those decks are generally aggro-control/tempo decks, which have a good bit more complexity than classic control.

Of all these, Aetherling is probably your best bet. It kills your opponent quite quickly, it is very hard to interact with (as it can't be blocked and you can phase it out at will) and, perhaps most importantly, it costs like half a dollar apiece.

Also, reading "deck primers" for control decks can be quite rewarding. I also personally quite like Zak Dolan's report of the 1994 World Championship, where he rode a pure control deck to victory - it's ever-so-slightly out of date (few people these days still play around Chaos Orb) but it's quite a fascinating look at how you can ride cards that are "just annoying" to victory.

[Svata]

So, my local comics/card shop where I play most of my Magic is doing a Tribal deck only night on Halloween and I'm unsure if I should run my Myr deck or my Zombies deck. Mind giving me some advice on which to play?

Spoiler: Myr

Show

19x Island
4x Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
4x Copper Myr
4x Gold Myr
4x Iron Myr
4x Myr Galvanizer
4x Silver Myr
3x Myr Battlesphere
3x Myr Incubator
2x Lightning Greaves
2x Tricks of the Trade
Conjurer's Bauble
Fireshrieker
Flight of Fancy
Myr Mindservant
Myr Retriever
Shield of Avatar
Vow of Flight

(The reason for the two three-ofs is because they didn't have any more than that at the shop.)

Spoiler: Zombies

Show

17x Swamp
4x Jungle Hollow
4x Maggot Carrier
4x Rotting Mastodon
4x Scourge Servant
4x Undead Warchief
4x Vile Rebirth
3x Call to the Grave
3x Sewer Shambler
2x Gravedigger
2x Kheru Dreadmaw
2x Zombie Apocalypse
2x Zombie Giant
Despise
Distress
Necromancer's Assistant
Spiteful Returned
Ring of Xathrid
(The three-ofs and Zombie Apocalypse only being a 2-of is because they only had that many at the shop.)

[Ionbound]

Looking at the zombie deck, wouldn't a Liliana's Reaver work really well? I'm just wondering, not really giving advice if there's a reason.

[ChaosOS]

Of all these, Aetherling is probably your best bet. It kills your opponent quite quickly, it is very hard to interact with (as it can't be blocked and you can phase it out at will) and, perhaps most importantly, it costs like half a dollar apiece.

Also, reading "deck primers" for control decks can be quite rewarding. I also personally quite like Zak Dolan's report of the 1994 World Championship, where he rode a pure control deck to victory - it's ever-so-slightly out of date (few people these days still play around Chaos Orb) but it's quite a fascinating look at how you can ride cards that are "just annoying" to victory.

The report was a fascinating look back at Magic's history, but I'll note that due to the changing power of creatures and spells it's not an accurate assessment of what tools you really need to play in the current game, creatures have become much more powerful and relevant in 20 years.

[sonofzeal]

A couple questions about order of events here. I've been playing DotP 2015, as I mentioned earlier, and I want to make sure I'm not learning things the wrong way. Here's two scenarios.


- A Trained Caracal (1/1 lifelink) and an Ajani's Pridemate (currently 6/6) attack. The opponent only has a 1/2 to block with, so he blocks the Trained Caracal. Does he take 6 damage or 7? What if the Trained Caracal had First Strike?

- A player casts Nimbus Wings on Hero of Iroas. The opposing player interrupts with Nullify. Does Hero of Iroas get the +1/+1 counter or not? Is there a similar scenario where the answer is different?

[ChaosOS]

A couple questions about order of events here. I've been playing DotP 2015, as I mentioned earlier, and I want to make sure I'm not learning things the wrong way. Here's two scenarios.


- A Trained Caracal (1/1 lifelink) and an Ajani's Pridemate (currently 6/6) attack. The opponent only has a 1/2 to block with, so he blocks the Trained Caracal. Does he take 6 damage or 7? What if the Trained Caracal had First Strike?

- A player casts Nimbus Wings on Hero of Iroas. The opposing player interrupts with Nullify. Does Hero of Iroas get the +1/+1 counter or not? Is there a similar scenario where the answer is different?

First scenario, 6 damage. Combat damage happens, as part of that lifelink happens and so you gain 1 life. Then triggers get put on the stack (Such as pridemate getting a +1/+1 counter), then once those have resolved (you can cast instants here) you move to the next step, which is technically end of combat, but very rarely do people bother with doing things separately on that step so it moves to the second main phase. If the carcel had first strike, there's two combat damage phases, so the trigger would be put on the stack after the first (strike) combat damage phase, then regular damage happens after that so pridemate does 7 damage.

Hero of Iroas gets a +1/+1 counter because the heroic trigger is on casting the spell, not on resolution. In fact, if there wasn't the counterspell, hero would get the counter, THEN the aura would be attached. This is occasionally relevant in situations I can't remember right now.