Magic: The Gathering XIII: What A Horrible Night To Have An Enchantment- Curse

[Duos]

Yet another Magic thread by me, Shas'aia Toriia Duos! 'Cause I'm sure you weren't sick of looking at me yet!
All art by Uncle Festy. Worship him for his god like art skills.
Also, he takes requests. Sometimes. Usually he bites your head off if he isn't in the 'art' mood.

It's the 13th official Magic: the Gathering thread on Giantitp forums!
This is the place for everything regarding the game - rules questions, your own card creations, decks, reports, rants about recent sets/cards/rules changes, the storyline, favorite cards/colors/sets/characters/pros/articles, the absolute glory/terrible creation that is Elder Dragon Highlander Commander, or any other awesome Magical exploits.
And definitely don't be shy if you're new to the game or think about starting. We would love to bring more players in, and help you get started!

If you want, you can post decks and have them placed here in a list similar to the one below! Shoot me a PM if you're interested and I don't have my Ivory Mask.
The Deck Gallery:

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Mirrinus' "Norg'

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Creatures:
4 Cloud Sprite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Pestermite
3 Thieving Sprite
3 Latchkey Faerie
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi

Instants:
4 Mana Leak
4 Agony Warp
3 Rend Flesh
2 Condescend

Lands:
4 Terramorphic Expanse
7 Swamp
12 Island

Sideboard:
2 Mistblade Shinobi
3 Echoing Truth
3 Negate
3 Remove Soul
4 Peppersmoke

The basic strategy is to play evasive creatures with nice CIP abilities, then bounce them with ninja to replay them again, gaining tons of card advantage. Save the instant counters for things you can't handle, like high cost spells that Spellstutter Sprite can't hit, or board-wiping spells. The deck has lots of disruption and can usually play pretty aggressively. Nearly every spell can potentially 2-for-1 the opponent, giving me control of the game thanks to my strong card advantage. It's a very cheap deck to build due to being made entirely of commons, yet I find that it's still a solid deck to play in other casual formats as well. Its biggest weaknesses appear to be board-sweeping spells and pingers, so my sideboard is built to accomidate either of those threats. Peppersmoke handles most pingers and can decimate casual aggro decks. Remove Soul is also good against aggro, while Negate is for control decks that have been popular lately. Echoing Truth is to stop pauper storm decks based on Empty the Warrens, and the Mistblade Shinobi is for keeping midrange creature decks off balance.

Mirrinus' Pauper Mono White Control

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Deck: Sarutabaruta (or just call it Pauper Mono-W Control)
Format: MTGO Pauper Classic

Creatures
4 Order of Leitbur
3 Shade of Trokair
4 Noble Templar

Instants
4 Judge Unworthy
3 Dawn Charm
3 Holy Light
4 Fire at Will
4 Unmake

Sorceries
1 Cenn's Enlistment

Enchantments
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Faith's Fetters

Lands
20 Plains
4 Secluded Steppe

Sideboard
4 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Circle of Protection: Black
4 Kami of Ancient Law
1 Holy Light
1 Cenn's Enlistment
4 Relic of Progenitus

(Note: the circles of protection were common when printed in 7th edition, so they're legal for pauper.)

Anyway, I realized that most decks for pauper are creature-heavy, due to the lack of mass removal. So I built a deck designed to crush aggro strategies. I run a wealth of removal spells, some of which can earn card advantage. My creatures are few, but are versatile and are great both early and late game, oftentimes utilizing my excess mana to the fullest. The Kami of Ancient Law in the sideboard is mostly to switch in against creature-light decks as an early beater, or to replace Holy Light against white decks. I figure that if a deck is playing white, it's likely to be playing white enchantment-based removal like Oblivion Ring or Temporal Isolation, so the Kami would be great at keeping my other creatures clear of these answers.

What I'm still considering, though, is the removal suite. I like Fire at Will for its potential for card advantage, particularly against weenie swarms like Slivers. Unmake is also great simply for the lack of the attack/blocker clause. The Dawn Charms are there mostly for versatility, as I can usually think of a good use for it. I'm not sure if I should be maindecking the Holy Lights, though. So far, they've only been useful against pinger decks, Empty the Warrens, and certain elf builds. However, given that Storm may be one of the best pauper builds, Holy Light affords me with my best chance of trumping Empty the Warrens. But most of all, I'm debating Judge Unworthy. On one hand, having 8 removal spells that require attacking/blocking is kind of restrictive; on the other hand, it's my cheapest removal spell, and my only removal option for turn 2. The Scry is oftentimes a toss-up; getting rid of excess land is great, but I've had instances where I needed to draw another land, but can't put a land on top of my deck with Scry if I want to kill a creature. I guess Temporal Isolation is a possible substitute, but it's pretty lousy in the Silvers matchup, which is perhaps the most common deck played in the pauper casual room as of late.

I'm still debating whether Relic of Progenitus should be in the sideboard; perhaps I could use more aggro options to switch in against creature-light decks, even though those tend to be fewer in number for this format.

Mirrinus' Countersliver

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Deck: Pauper UW Countersliver
Format: Extended Pauper

Creatures:
4 Azorius First-wing
4 Bant Sureblade
4 Deft Duelist
4 Ethercaste Knight
4 Esper Stormblade

Artifacts:
4 Fieldmist Borderpost

Enchantments:
4 Temporal Isolation

Instants:
4 Mana Tithe
4 Mana Leak
3 Remove Soul
3 Hindering Light

Lands:
4 Terramorphic Expanse
7 Island
7 Plains

Countersliver is a classic and effective Magic deck archetype that seeks to win by playing a few cheap, efficient threats to take the early game lead, then using permission and light removal elements to prevent the late-game from coming as you press your advantage. The archetype is named after the original version, which played Crystalline Sliver as its flagship creature.

Countersliver is a good example of an effective aggro-control deck. Your creatures are weaker than your opponent's best aggro creatures, and your removal and card advantage suite isn't nearly as strong as a dedicated control player's. What you do have, though, is tempo. You have superior early-game creatures to all but the best aggro decks, and you'll be shaving pieces off your opponent's life very quickly while trying to maintain your board advantage. Countersliver especially likes to prey on slower decks. Compare a Countersliver deck to a normal permission control deck. Against a mid-range deck, both are able to stall for several turns with their counterspells. However, while the permission deck is just buying time to play a big finisher, Countersliver will have a guy in play by turn 2, and attacking the opponent relentlessly while stalling for time. In other words, it has a tangible clock in play, which will likely win before the late-game hits.

Countersliver is normally weak against fast aggro decks with superior creatures. However, my personal build contains a few elements that help that matchup. First is the high number of first-striking creatures. Bant Sureblade and Deft Duelist make formidable blockers, easily dispatching lots of popular aggro creatures with high power but low toughness. Deft Duelist is also impossible to burn out of the way, making it a particularly impressive defender. Of course, both are also rather nasty on offense as well. Another nice card in the aggro matchup is Ethercaste Knight. 3 toughness means it can handle many early-game opposing creatures with ease, and it can lend power to my offense without ever having to tap. My favorite starting plays with this deck involve Esper Stormblade on turn 2, followed by Ethercaste Knight on turn 3 with one land up for Mana Tithe. I get to swing for 4 points of flying starting on turn 3, which can lead to a turn 7 win. With Ethercaste Knight blocking on the ground and a slew of countermagic and removal, I'm likely to win a damage race with just those two creatures.

The key to playing this deck is to not overextend with your creatures, and to keep mana open for counters available as often as possible, even if you aren't actually holding a counter. Exalted lets you finish games quickly without having to play many additional creatures. I prefer my fliers for attacking while keeping the first strikers back for defense to win the damage race against aggro. Of course, if you have a clear creature advantage, by all means attack en masse! Just be sure to have countermagic on hand in case they drop a big creature or removal spell. The good thing about this deck is that practically every single spell costs just 2 mana or less (I don't count the borderposts, as I usually pay their alternate cost), which means by turn 4 you can feasibly drop another threat and still have Mana Leak or Remove Soul ready. The deck desperately wants to hit UW by turn 2 (an opening hand that can't do this should be mulliganed), but with 4 Terramorphic Expanses and 4 Borderposts, that shouldn't be too hard to do, at least in my testing thus far.

If you want a sideboard, I would recommend trying out Steel of the Godhead. Against decks light on removal but heavy on aggro, this card is a total beating that almost ensures victory in the damage race. Just keep in mind that you can't enchant your Azorius First-wings or Deft Duelists. In such a matchups where I'd want Steel of the Godhead, such as against aggressive red decks, I'd probably swap out the griffins for Vedalken Outlander.

Shas'aia Toriia's Orzhov Control

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Creatures (13)
4x Divinity of Pride
4x Graveborn Muse
2x Shimian Specter
3x Oriss, Samite Guardian

Artifacts (1)
1x Sword of Light and Shadow

Instants (4)
4x Mortify

Planeswalkers (2)
2x Liliana Vess

Sorceries (16)
4x Demonic Tutor
4x Vindicate (substituting in a couple Oblivion Rings until I can afford a playset)
4x Gerrard's Verdict
2x Wrath of God
2x Damnation

Land (24)
4x Godless Shrine
4x Fetid Heath
4x Caves of Koilos
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Eiganjo Castle
2x Orzhova, Church of Deals
3x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Forbidding Watchtower
2x Swamp
1x Plains

To start off with this deck, you want to either strip their hand away with Gerrard's Veridct or search for something good with Demonic Tutor. Once you have Graveborn muse in play, just start accumalating card advantage. If they try to attack, prevent the damage with Oriss, or block with Forbidding Watchtower. Finish off the game with Liliana Vess or Divinity of Pride. Above all, though, don't be afraid to Wrath often. With 4 wrath effects and 6 tutors, you can always get more.

Lastly, there is a soft lock in this deck. See if you can find what it is.

MountainKing's UBR Elemental Shenanigans:

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Creatures:
Supreme Exemplar x2
Mulldrifter x3
Mournwhelk x3
Shriekmaw x3
Spitebellows x3
Inner-Flame Acolyte x3
Stingscourger x3

Artifacts:
Proteus Staff x3
Cauldron of Souls x3
Cloudstone Curio x3
Armillary Sphere x3

Sorceries:
Heat Shimmer x2

Instants:
Peel from Reality x2
Turn to Mist x4

Lands:
Basic Swamp x6
Basic Mountain x7
Basic Island x7

Sideboard (aka the Experiment Pile):
Thrumming Stone
Coalition Relic
Cruel Ultimatum x3
River Kelpie x2
Heat Shimmer
Mana Echoes x2
Dawn of the Dead
Tar Fiend x2
Footbottom Feast x3

The basic premise of the deck is to use the triggered come into play or leaves play effects on creatures, repeatedly, in order to bring about an effective soft lock on the game through denial. This is achieved through taking two keywords abilities (Evoke and Persist)... and breaking them soundly over your knee.

The core of the deck is the interaction between Cauldron of Souls (the only card in the deck that gives creatures Persist) and Elemental creatures with Evoke alternative casting costs. In response to the Evoke's triggered effect, you tap Cauldron of Souls to give the Evoked creature Persist. It leaves play, then returns to play, causing its triggered come into play ability to go on the stack a second time, for no additional mana cost.

Example: If I evoke a Mulldrifter for 2U, when it comes into play, I draw two cards. Since I paid the Evoke cost, the triggered effect goes on the stack. I give it Persist via Cauldron of Souls, and when it comes into play a second time, I draw two more cards.

Example 2: The interaction between Spitebellows and Cauldron of Souls is fundamentally the same, except that the creature's ability triggers when it leaves play, rather than comes into play. However, when Persist brings Spitebellows back into play, it has a zero toughness courtesy of its -1/-1 counter from Persist, sending it cheerfully back to the graveyard a second time, allowing for either 12 damage to be done to one creature, or 6 damage to be done to two separate creatures.

The typical play of the deck leaves it feeling like its ramping a little slowly. Turns 1-5, you'll probably only have played an Armillary Sphere, Cloudstone Curio, Cauldron of Souls, and land. ***NOTE*** This deck likes its mana, and digging up lands with the Armillary Sphere is crucial.

Once turn 6 hits, however, you'll be causing some serious hurt, having surprisingly rapid, effective tools at your disposal during your turn. Mournwhelk empties your opponent's hand, Shriekmaw and Spitebellows tear down your opponent's creatures, while Stingscourger stalls out their creatures. Supreme Exemplar is the only huge beater in the deck, though clearing the opposing board, casting a Spitebellows (not Evoking), and then giving it +2/+0 and Haste via Inner-Flame Acolyte (if not +4/+0) can give you a suitable beater as well. Otherwise, your damage comes from lightweight, evasive creatures like Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter.

This deck isn't especially meant to play against terribly competitive players, but it *can* perform against moderately fast decks. The difference is that it moves slightly slower, and loses out on creatures, because instead of holding on to your Evoke creatures, you'll be playing them in to deal with threats on board. I've got a list of cards that I personally intend to use to tinker with the deck even further, but I'll leave the deck *as is* for the purpose of posting it. I want people to be able to tinker with it, and the deck *does* work well in its current form.

The deck also has a number of specific weaknesses, none of which should be terribly worried about. It's meant to be a fun deck... for you. It won't be fun for them.

Maho-Tsukai's The Black Plague, a deck for multiplayer

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Deck:
Lands:
3x Cabal Coffers
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
20x Swamp

Creatures:
2x Pestilence Demon
4x Stuffy Doll
4x Cemetary Gate
4x Reassembling Skeleton

Enchantments:
4x Pestilence
4x Circle of Affliction

Sorceries/Instants:
2x Consume Spirit
4x Diabolic Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
2x Bubbling Muck
4x Dark Ritual
1x Culling the Weak

Description:
This is one deck that will make you absolutely hated in multiplayer. It's a mono-black deck that focuses on using the combination of Pestilence + Circle of Affliction (set to Black) to lock down the game by wiping the board every turn and kill your opponent(s) all at the same time.

This deck acts very similar to the old school W/B decks that pared Pestilence with Circle of Protection: Black and Pro Black creatures like White Knight. However, due to the printing of cards like Reassembling Skeleton, Stuffy Doll and Circle of Affliction white this deck no longer needs white to run properly. Mono Black now has enough cards to emulate the white cards that this kind of deck used to rely on and by using only black you have more mana to pour into your main win condition, pestilence

As for how the deck should be played, it's really a combination of combo and control, leaning heavily towards combo. As stated before, pestilence is your main wincon, as it can burn all players for damage continually. However, to prevent your own death, circle of affliction(set to black) is used in tandem with pestilence, the one life gained offsetting the burn from pestilence, while burning your opponent more in the process. As a result you goal should be to assemble this combo as soon as possible, using your defensively-minded creatures and removal from pestilence itself and twin consume spirits to stall out while you use your various tutors to assemble all the cards you need.

The real beauty of this deck, though, is that pestilence also hits all creatures, meaning that each time you burn your opponent your also wiping his board clean of threats, essentially locking down any deck that tries to win with creatures. However, pestilence dies when you have no creatures, so you have to play creatures that can survive the enchantment. Cemetery Gate has protection from black. Reassembling Skeleton can revive himself after pestilence wipes him off the board. Stuffy Doll is indestructible....and as mentioned before all of them are strong defensive walls that can stall for time if you don't have a pestilence in play.

As for the rest of the cards, most of them are devoted to gaining tons of black mana that can be poured into pestilence. One thing this deck tries to do is maximizing Pestilence by providing lots of ways to gain extra mana to pour into it. Dark Ritual is an old standby that's great for this kind of deck while bubbling muck essentially doubles your mana for a turn. This deck features the infamous all-star of black mana gain, Cabal Coffers which can make ridiculous amounts of mana, and Urborg makes this even more ridiculous. Culling the Weak is like a stronger dark ritual with a drawback....that happens to play well with Reassembling Skeleton.

Consume Spirit provides a "finisher" as well as a way to pad your life from the times you may have had to use pestilence to wipe the board without a circle of affliction to prevent it's self-burn. It can also double as removal in a pinch, too. Also, if you find that you just need something really big and scary to beat face with, Pestilence demon comes ready to serve you, and can double as pestilence #5-6 too.

The main thing you should remember in this deck is that while the combo is nice, you should not be a slave to it. If you have a pestilence in play but no circle you should not be afraid to wipe the board and eat some damage yourself. Losing a bit of life to end the thread of a creature hoard coming your way is a worthwhile trade, and one that could save your life in the long run.

Please include lots of info on how to play the deck so that others can partake in the fun that is whatever deck you have destroyed the Multiverse with or help suggest other cards to increase the awesomeness contained in your 60 (or more) cards.
Also, it should be noted that this list was maintained by Squark, tgva, and Johnny Blade before Shas and Duos.
Also, if anyone wants to drop/update any of these decks, let me know.

[Duos]

Past topics since the first post takes up too much space:

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Magic: the Gathering
Magic: the Gathering II - Planeswalkers in the Playground -
Magic: the Gathering III - These Planes Are Made For Walkin'
Magic: the Gathering IV: "Burn, Mana, Burn" as they used to say
Magic: the Gathering V: Ophidians on a Plane
Magic: the Gathering VI: This Thread Dies to Removal
Magic: The Gathering VII: Thopter? I Barely Knew'er!
Magic: The Gathering VIII: We Should have a Mythic By Now
Magic: The Gathering IX: Gone Through Lotus of Threads Already!
Magic: the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.
Magic: the Gathering XI: When this thread has 50 or more pages, transform it.
Magic: the Gathering XII: Vote Nicol Bolas for 2012! Discard their hands!

List of MtG-related websites put together by Johnny Blades and others:

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The official site. From here you can reach:
The page for Magic Online, if you want to give it a try. Note that, while you have to pay/trade for cards, there are bots who give them away for free. I don't have any experience with this, but there are people posting in this thread that do.
The DCI, for organized play.
Gatherer, WotC's card search.

magiccards.info, another place to waste lots of time browsing through cards. It doesn't have the user ratings and comments of Gatherer, but lists the prices of several online vendors and, surprisingly, has more card images. The interface is also better in my opinion.

MTGSalvation. That place has a lot of stuff, including a wiki, a huge forum, and many articles of varying quality. They also spoil all the cards of the next set well in advance, so this is where we'll usually get future cards from.

StarCityGames - they make you pay for much of their newer content, but what you can get for free is certainly good enough.

ChannelFireball.com, where you can hear LSV and Conley Woods (among others) discuss Magic. Many articles and draft videos from the pros are posted here for free. You can also buy cards from this website.

Elder Dragon Highlander, the official page. Always up to date and it has a forum about this popular variant multiplayer format as well. If you want to learn even more about the format, go here!

Le Bestiaire, an online draft simulator. It gives you some pretty odd ratings sometimes, but at least there is actual feedback.

Magic Workstation, a program for...a lot of things, including collection management and online play. Supports more TCGs than just Magic. There's a freeware version available.

Cockatrice, an other program for over-the-web Magic playing for no cost. Also has card images built in. Generally updates pretty frequently.

TC Decks, where you can see which decks have tournament success. The decks are essentially named by the people who play them, and if you're looking for, say, Legacy decks, you'll soon find out that not all tournaments are really at Pro Tour level, but this is still an invaluable site for anyone who wants to keep up with the tournament scene.

Magic: the Gathering Source Forums, which is great for people looking into legacy.

The Mana Drain, more forums, this time for people looking into Vintage.

Tapped Out, a deck building and critique community. Build any number of decks and put them up for review/critique/comment/display. Or, keep them private. They also have pretty graphic representations of your mana curve, colour costs and colour generation.

http://www.highlandermagic.info/ The site for German Rules highlander. It's a 100-card singleton format, but the rules are rather different from EDH. They're more in line with the normal rules, and the banlist is made with a more competitive mindset in mind.

http://deckstats.net/ Calculates mana curve, compares color spread to manabase colors, calculates prices for the deck as well as some other functions. It can handle MWSDeck files and can also save decks pasted into it in the format.

GITP Magicgroup play-by-post

GITP Magic: The Gathering Freeform RP Appears dead, but contact the game creator to be sure.

Card Design Challenge Thread

Requested: A short commentary on sorting your deck, by tgva8889:

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When building a deck, sorting your cards is very important. While the following advice applies mainly to Highlander formats (specifically Commander), you may find it useful in other formats.

The largest problem I’ve observed in deckbuilding is cutting cards. We all know that you have the best odds when you play the smallest number of cards. The difference may seem small, but every difference matters. When you’re trying to remove cards from your deck, you are trying to find the cards you don’t need. However, if your methods of sorting are inefficient, it’s very hard to see what exactly you “don’t need” in your list. I mean, looking at a random pile of 80 cards, which 20 cards don’t you need? You couldn’t know without knowing some aspect of those cards. Sorting allows you to classify your cards by some useful characteristic, so that you can tell whether or not you do have parts that are in excess of what you need or cards that you actually just don’t need.

While there are many methods of sorting, I think the first method of sorting everyone is most familiar with is Type Sorting. This is where you sort your deck list by whatever card types you happen to have. The most common is Land, Creatures, and Non-Creatures. While it is a useful rudimentary step, this form of sorting is fundamentally flawed. Most of the time, this doesn’t help you. For example, let’s take two cards that share a type: Sakura-Tribe Elder and Woodfall Primus. Now, obviously these are both Green creatures. But that’s where the similarity ends. One of these cards is a land-accelerator only pretending to be a creature for long enough to block, while the other is a huge 6/6 that eats a permanent. These things are not very similar. However, a sort by Card Type puts these cards in the same classification category. On the other side, Flame Slash and Flametongue Kavu don’t share a card type, but it’s hard to deny you wouldn’t use both to kill creatures given the option. These cards would be in totally different parts of your list, though!

It is much easier to see a flaw if cards are sorted in a different manner. The manner that I suggest is the Function Sort. Sort all your cards by their intended function in your deck. For example, Sakura-Tribe Elder is a card you play for Mana Acceleration, so I sort it into the Mana Acceleration section. Woodfall Primus ends up in my Kills Non-Creatures secton. Both Flame Slash and Flametongue Kavu end up in my Kills Creatures section. This method allows you to see the cards by the purpose they serve in your deck, rather than by an arbitrary category. (You could sort your Lands this way, too, but I consider “Land” to be a Function, as lands are very special cards.) Some example categories pretty much every deck should be considering:

• Win Conditions
• Mana Acceleration/Fixing
• Card Drawing
• Library Manipulation
• Kills Creatures
• Kills Non-Creatures
• Kills Lots of Stuff (Wraths)

Now, you can also condense those categories if you want. For example, “Kills Creatures” and “Kills Non-Creatures” could just be listed as “Kills Stuff” if it’s not really significant that you have a certain spread.

(I’ll add an example, but this is the bare-bones of the suggestion.)

Also, please let us know if you want something in the first post added, edited or removed.

[The-Mage-King]

Right. How does one import a decklist from Word to Cocatrice?


Also, good title.

[flabort]

Ah, yes. A Friday Night Magic reference, as the thirteenth thread SHOULD be started on a Friday... Only way that could be worse, is if it were the 13th when it were started, not the 23rd....
That WOULD be a bad night to have that.

[killem2]

Didn't get any pms on cockatrice but I think it timed out on me with out me knowing it :(.

Maybe we can cube soon.

In other news, after tomorrow the blog (sig) will have the pictures up for the rest of the cube beyond 360 :D.

[tgva8889]

I realize now that you guys can only play at a rather ridiculous time for me. So tonight is bad, because I'm going to SCG tomorrow.

I did get in a game of EDH, though. And man did my mill deck get destroyed by Leyline of Sanctity.

[arguskos]

Ok, so, it turns out that there's a R/W control thing that's possible in Standard right now. Heavy countermagic causes issues of course, but can be played through relatively decently. U/W Humans is my only really terrible match-up so far (I guess Heartless Lich is pretty bad too, but meh, that deck never shows up). I'm not sure what to do against U/W Humans beyond "play sweepers" and I already do that (I actually play 8 sweepers, if you are curious).

Any advice that might help me thrash U/W Humans with a R/W Metalcraft control... thing in standard?

[Shades of Gray]

Not without a decklist.

[arguskos]

Not without a decklist.

Away from the deck atm, but it's something like the following:

23(I think) lands

4 Day of Judgment
4 Slagstorm
4 Dispatch
4 Galvanic Blast
3 Kuldotha Phoenix
3 Sad Robots
3 Myr Turbine
2 Myr Battlesphere
2 Tumble Magnet
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Sphere of the Suns

That's most of it? I think that might be everything mainboard. The side is:
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Forest (for boarding in, I have evolvings and sad robots)
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Ratchet Bomb

Sorry for lack of list earlier, I'm damn tired.

[Mystic Muse]

In Standard, is there any feasible way to get out Army of the Damned, or does it just cost too much in terms of mana to ever be viable?

[AgentPaper]

In Standard, is there any feasible way to get out Army of the Damned, or does it just cost too much in terms of mana to ever be viable?

If you're not worried about being super competitive, you can run green/black and use a bunch of ramp spells (rampant growth, sphere of the suns, etc) to get it out fairly quickly. Otherwise, no, not really. A competitive deck would run Grave Titan over Army of the Damned every day of the week.

[Fable Wright]

Away from the deck atm, but it's something like the following:

23(I think) lands

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4 Day of Judgment
4 Slagstorm
4 Dispatch
4 Galvanic Blast
3 Kuldotha Phoenix
3 Sad Robots
3 Myr Turbine
2 Myr Battlesphere
2 Tumble Magnet
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Sphere of the Suns

That's most of it? I think that might be everything mainboard. The side is:
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Forest (for boarding in, I have evolvings and sad robots)
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Ratchet Bomb

Sorry for lack of list earlier, I'm damn tired.

...Oddly enough, Circle of Flame and some way to destroy enchantments might do wonders against that deck. X/1s from Hero or Doomed traveler can't attack at all. Or possibly Marrow Shards. At the very least, Gutshot should be in there somewhere to help kill off Champions before they grow, combat tricks, and so on.

Also, I just realized that this matchup gets much, much easier once you start playing black decks, because Fume Spitter, Geth's Verdict, Tragic Slip, Mortarpod, and Go for the Throat. Given that the extent of your white is 4 Dispatches, it might help to try out some black removal packages instead. Fume Spitter/Mortar Pods are good, as you can shoot birds easily. My only complaint about Mortar Pod is that it doesn't shoot a first turn champion, but it can be used with tokens. Fume Spitter is nice because it kills Thalia (who wrecks this deck) for 1, can get rid of two attackers (Block the hero, sac and kill the token), and is in general pretty sweet. And it enables morbid Tragic Slip. And black offers access to Geth's Verdict, which kills GoST.

@Soft Serve: Usually, it's the latter, but some BUG self-mill decks I've seen have gotten the mana to get it out. They often run tons of accelerators which can easily fill the bin or produce mana, even up the the levels required to cast and flashback Army.

[Mystic Muse]

If you're not worried about being super competitive, you can run green/black and use a bunch of ramp spells (rampant growth, sphere of the suns, etc) to get it out fairly quickly. Otherwise, no, not really. A competitive deck would run Grave Titan over Army of the Damned every day of the week.

Alright, thanks for the information.

Can't really afford multiple Grave titans (I could get one with the store credit I've saved up at my FLGS. Maybe 2 in a couple weeks) and was just looking over stuff for a zombie token deck.

I was considering Black and Green, but that's because I want to put the three copies of Glissa the Traitor I have to some sort of actual use. I have no idea how viable it would be. Also, I think my brother is using all our rampant growths already.

[tgva8889]

Day of Judgment is actually highly significant and I'd consider it an improvement over any of Black's options in that category.

1-for-1 removal is not the greatest in this format, as there's so much Undying. This is why a Black base for control doesn't work very well without blue for the additional card draw and advantage from cards like Snapcaster Mage and Blue Sun's Zenith. Also Planeswalkers become key.

I'm honestly not sure about Kuldotha Phoenix. Also, the specific lands you are playing matter a lot. For example, you should be splashing some green with a Rootbound Crag or Sunpetal Grove or so for Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge, because they are worth it. Are you playing Phyrexia's Cores? Those make the Wellsprings a lot more understandable. Also, Buried Ruin seems absolutely sweet.

A version of this deck called Hippo-Blade was played at Pro Tour Dark Ascension. Here is the Deck Tech video on it. This may give you some ideas. For example, Glint Hawk Idol seems like a decent card to build metalcraft and also hit them for some damage.

Timely Reinforcements. They help a lot against purely aggressive strategums like U/W Humans. I do agree that Thalia is just impossibly bad for you, though. Perhaps there is a good way around this. Perhaps...Forge Devil? That sounds laughable, but maybe it's good. I mean, you get quite a bit of advantage with Forge Devil against Humans if you knock a Thalia or (somehow) a Champion of the Parish.

[The Extinguisher]

Forge Devil seems like a pretty good card until you realize that it does everything Gutshot does, except not as good.

Paying 2 life and 1 colourless mana to get rid of thalia seems like a good tradeoff to me. I'm pretty sure Gutshot is just an amazing card in this format. It hits so much for so little.

[Cogwheel]

I'd join in on the whole Cockatrice thing, but I really don't have the time, I'm afraid. That and I'm not too keen on EDH and draft/have no Standard decks.

[Penguinizer]

I'm really tempted to just start drafting on Magic Online since I'm too lazy to go to my card shop. I just can't decide if I want to pay for Modo though. The thing with other online drafts is that you can't keep the cards for anything.

[Ninjaman]

I love the smell of new threads in the morning, smells like victory.

[Nerocite]

Gotta get that new thread smell.

[Ninjaman]

I made a cockatrice user and a standard deck, does anybody want to play?

[Lord Seth]

I'm really tempted to just start drafting on Magic Online since I'm too lazy to go to my card shop. I just can't decide if I want to pay for Modo though. The thing with other online drafts is that you can't keep the cards for anything.

Have you tried just ordering cards online?

[Penguinizer]

Have you tried just ordering cards online?

It's more about the drafting part. Getting cards isn't hard but I'm just too lazy to go over whenever I want to draft especially since the shop closer to me doesn't run drafts.

[flabort]

So I'm working on a cycle oh homemade mana-fixers. Basically what they do is you pay 2 mana and tap it, and then you can freely swap mana of three colors. So I have 5 for each shard, 5 for each wedge.
Current problem is naming all 10 of them, figuring out creature types, and mana cost. Here's what I have so far (for an example):

{2}{T}: ~ Gets "{G}: Add {R} To your mana pool", "{R}: Add {B} to your mana pool", and "{B}: Add {G} To your mana pool" until the end of the turn.
~ cannot be enchanted or equipped.
3/1

And meanwhile, what are some popular "control" cards?

[Science Officer]

Oop, new thread. To re-iterate:

eh? people here use Cockatrice?
I'm "Science Offficer" on Cockatrice as well.
But not sure if I'm up for cockatrice EDH...

I think I've got some standard or modern decks on cokatrice atm.

[Mystic Muse]

So, who here has had one of those games with a guy who's just a jerk and a sore loser or winner?

[Nerocite]

And meanwhile, what are some popular "control" cards?

Depends. What format?

[flabort]

Depends. What format?

Any. It's so I can make a sample deck for a new casual format.

[arguskos]

...Oddly enough, Circle of Flame and some way to destroy enchantments might do wonders against that deck. X/1s from Hero or Doomed traveler can't attack at all. Or possibly Marrow Shards. At the very least, Gutshot should be in there somewhere to help kill off Champions before they grow, combat tricks, and so on.

Interesting idea. I'll look into Circle of Flame.

Also, I just realized that this matchup gets much, much easier once you start playing black decks, because Fume Spitter, Geth's Verdict, Tragic Slip, Mortarpod, and Go for the Throat. Given that the extent of your white is 4 Dispatches, it might help to try out some black removal packages instead. Fume Spitter/Mortar Pods are good, as you can shoot birds easily. My only complaint about Mortar Pod is that it doesn't shoot a first turn champion, but it can be used with tokens. Fume Spitter is nice because it kills Thalia (who wrecks this deck) for 1, can get rid of two attackers (Block the hero, sac and kill the token), and is in general pretty sweet. And it enables morbid Tragic Slip. And black offers access to Geth's Verdict, which kills GoST.

Yeah no. Day of Judgment is seriously worth playing. I thought about a black core, but Dispatch and Day of Judgment are amazing here.

Day of Judgment is actually highly significant and I'd consider it an improvement over any of Black's options in that category.

Bingo. The only thing black has in comparison is Black Sun's Zenith (which has a upside; namely that it murders Thrun hard), but I still feel Day is better.

1-for-1 removal is not the greatest in this format, as there's so much Undying. This is why a Black base for control doesn't work very well without blue for the additional card draw and advantage from cards like Snapcaster Mage and Blue Sun's Zenith. Also Planeswalkers become key.

I love that deck, but don't have the walkers to do it.

Also, Dispatch laughs pretty hard at Undying, which is one reason I'm running it.

I'm honestly not sure about Kuldotha Phoenix. Also, the specific lands you are playing matter a lot. For example, you should be splashing some green with a Rootbound Crag or Sunpetal Grove or so for Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge, because they are worth it. Are you playing Phyrexia's Cores? Those make the Wellsprings a lot more understandable. Also, Buried Ruin seems absolutely sweet.

The lands are, IIRC:
4 Clifftop Retreat
3-4 Evolving Wilds
3 Phyrexia's Core
2 Buried Ruin
Mountains and Plains to fill it out

I'm not running a Crag or Grove because I don't have them.

Kuldotha Phoenix has been a beast, actually. The power to just cast it into Mana Leaks then proceed to laugh at my opponent has been invaluable. If it eats a Dissipate, that's great too because it frees the way for a Battlesphere or Turbine. If he gets in, he gets in hard, which is also wonderful. He looks janky, but he's really not.

A version of this deck called Hippo-Blade was played at Pro Tour Dark Ascension. Here is the Deck Tech video on it. This may give you some ideas. For example, Glint Hawk Idol seems like a decent card to build metalcraft and also hit them for some damage.

Idol seems like a solid idea.

Hippo-Blade is an interesting deck. Not really what I want to be doing here, but very very interesting. I like the idea, and might fiddle with it some because it IS damn nice. Thanks for the heads-up.

Timely Reinforcements. They help a lot against purely aggressive strategums like U/W Humans. I do agree that Thalia is just impossibly bad for you, though. Perhaps there is a good way around this. Perhaps...Forge Devil? That sounds laughable, but maybe it's good. I mean, you get quite a bit of advantage with Forge Devil against Humans if you knock a Thalia or (somehow) a Champion of the Parish.

Timely seems nice, but it doesn't handle Thalia, which is the serious issue that I'm facing. I can Day or Slagstorm through a Thalia without too much trouble, but still. I may bring two Timely's in for the Ratchets in the board and try that out though.

I like that Forge Devil idea, I hadn't considered it until right now. It seems good. There's a LOT of x/1's in the format that matter. I like Gut Shot too, but it eats 2 life, which is an issue here, since this deck really doesn't want to lose too much life to aggro decks. I'm better losing one to Forge Devil because it comes with a blocker, which I'm pretty ok with.

[Bucky]

Any. It's so I can make a sample deck for a new casual format.

Gifts Ungiven and Mystical Teachings are both good for casual control, because they let you run all these fun 1-ofs.

[Penguinizer]

There are two main things control wants in addition to wincons, card advantage and disruption. What cards you use largely depends on the color.

Blue has stuff like Ancestral Vision, Careful Consideration, Thirst for Knowledge, Compulsive Research and other similar cards. Stuff like that. Black has stuff like Phyrexian Arena, Dark Confidant, Necropotence, Price of Power and the like. Green is fairly limited in card advantage, only having Harmonize. Red and White don't have much either. There are also a lot more different forms of indirect card advantage (like 2-for-1 removal and the like).

The second important part is disruption. Stuff like removal and counters so you can hinder the opponents game until you can get your wincon to stick.