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Deckbox Forum » Posts by Xan
I agree that removing the Ordeals is a good idea. In this deck, they won't last as long before you have to sacrifice them (since your heroic creatures put down their own 1/1 counters).
I actually forgot Precinct Captain had first strike. 
It is a good card, and you can certainly put it in. Doesn't really add to the deck's theme though.
Ok, that puts this into perspective. Right now, the deck is very random. There aren't enough copies of anything for this deck to be consistent. Every time you play, you'll have a different experience. I'm hesitant to give a lot of advice when I'm not sure I understand where you are taking the deck.
First thing, I'd remove the two Battle Slivers. 5 cost is a lot for a 5/3 creature with no other abilities, and because you only have the two slivers, that is what they are.
Second, I'd settle on a more definitive strategy. You want a bunch of cheap creatures, but half the creatures you've selected cost 5 or more mana. That isn't bad, per se, but those aren't particularly cheap. If you want cheap creatures, I would definitely re-evaluate some of the 5 cost creatures. And you should put in more than one creature for 1 cost, even if you keep the cost ratio the same otherwise.
Trim down the deck (put in multiple copies of cards to remove other cards). That alone will make the deck significantly better, and after that we will better see what you are thinking.
what would i get rid of for the Precinct Captain and Spear of Heliod?
As you get into the game, you should critically consider questions exactly like the one you have asked. Evaluate your deck, and see if it is weak in any one area. If the new card doesn't plug a hole, but you still like it, then you need to decide if it is better or worse than another card already in the deck which fulfills the same function.
Consider Spear of Heliod. This is creature removal. It is reusable, making it superior to many of the creature removal options you already have in your deck. Unlike Banisher Priest, the creature is destroyed- this means it won't come back without your opponent using a revive card, unlike those removed by the Priest. However, cards that are indestructible cannot be destroyed, and cards with regenerate may survive the Spear, meaning the Priest can at least temporarily remove cards that the Spear cannot. Additionally, the Spear can only take out a creature that damages you, while the Priest can remove any enemy creature. This is important if the creature would kill you when it deals damage, or if you want it removed because of its abilities but it never does damage to you directly. Further, the Priest is a creature that can block, or attack and actually do damage to your opponent. But the Spear also gives a global buff to all your creatures. But the Priest isn't legendary, so you can have two out at once. But you shouldn't need two Spears at once. But then, the Spear requires you to keep mana available during your opponent's turn.
Therefore, while the Priest and Spear would both be in your deck primarily for their ability to remove creatures, they do not operate the same, and both have pros and cons. Of course, you can compare the Spear to other cards in the deck as well, going through the same analytical process.
Looking at your deck, I'm not sure what I would remove to add Spear of Heliod and Precinct Captain. Honestly, I'm not convinced the Captain needs to be added at all, nor that the deck would be horrible without the Spear. This is what separates Magic players- the ability to correctly build a deck. Many MtG players can handle a good deck (if they understand how it should operate), but building a deck, that is an art form. What makes sense to me won't make sense to other experienced players, and ultimately nobody is really right or wrong until proven thus in combat.
(To clarify, I'm not saying TyWooOneTime's suggestion for the Captain and Spear are bad. Merely that I personally wouldn't put the Captain in.)
I need to clarify a few things before giving any advice so I don't make a fool of myself.
What format are you hoping to keep this in? Are you going to add more cards to the deck, or keep it within the deck builder's set?
Local FNM varies greatly between play groups. Some are extremely competitive and focus entirely on quick kills, while others are more about having fun, and still others are all multiplayer instead of duels.
You need to discover what is normal for the FNM group you will be playing in. You can simply play at one and see how you fare, or you can go and watch. In either case, here are the things to look for:
Do players only play standard, or do they play pauper, or EDH, or something else? Do they rotate between different formats on different weeks? (Here is a good page to reference.)
How many turns do games normally last? Short games indicate aggressive players trying to win. If games last thirty turns, you're looking more at games just for fun. If it is all over the board, then you have tons of variations between different decks.
How many players are there? Large groups will mean more variation in who attends on any given week and what decks you face.
Once you know what to expect, you can design your deck(s) around what they are doing. If everybody there is just out to have fun, and you build a super-fast, kill-everybody-in-three-turns deck, then you will win a lot of games and no one (yourself included) will have much fun. If they have super fast decks and yours takes twenty turns, you will lose a lot of games and won't have much fun. If they play pauper every other week and you show up with a standard deck, they won't even let you play in the tournament (though some players may play a side game or two with you).
If they play a style you don't like (or can't afford), you can still make friends and play games outside of FNM.
Artifact/enchantment protection is perfect for a sideboard. If you expect most decks to play them, you include stuff like disenchant in the deck. Otherwise, you put four to six cards in your sideboard that help control them, and rotate them in if your particular opponent uses them.
Which is what a sideboard should be. Cards like Gainsay are usually too situational to be useful; unless there are a great deal of players using blue, and you often wish you could counter their spells because you can't handle them any other way, I wouldn't include it in a sideboard, and instead put in something else. As a rule of thumb, sideboards should help you deal with something your deck is weak against. Should you need more space in the sideboard, remove cards that are too situational. If you need more space, remove cards that do similar things to cards already in your deck, like Arrest.
Other thoughts... Dryad Militant is a good card against certain decks, but Soldier of the Pantheon is probably more useful against more decks. If you can afford it, put the Dryads into your sideboard and put in more Pantheons. If you face a deck using Revive or flashback cards, you can swap the Dryad back into the Pantheon's place. If you can't afford it (which I couldn't), then you probably want to take the Pantheon out and use that card slot for something else, perhaps Favored Hoplite or another 1-cost creature that fits your theme.
If your goal is to trigger Heroic, I don't think Fortify and Brave the Elements count, as they are global effects, not targeted ones. While those are both good cards, you may look for something to trigger Heroic abilities instead. Likewise, Soulmender isn't a bad drop, as it can give you some health or block or attack, making it versatile, but it isn't heroic.Elixir of Immortality seems a little out of place in this deck. If your format allows it, I would look at cards with storm or buyback, as they work well with heroic.
Your largest creature is 3/3. You may wish to put in two cards that are larger, like a 5/5 flier. Blue and White both have many creatures that fit the bill. These creatures can become a secondary win condition if you face an opponent who can deal with your ground creatures or your enchantments. They will of course require more mana to play, but having two in the deck means you are unlikely to draw them both early on before you reach the mana necessary, while still likely to draw one in a prolonged game. Putting in Gift of Orzhova can also help with this, and I see it is in your sideboard. I would consider swapping it into the main deck.
Let me give you some common terms and definitions to help you feel a bit more comfortable. You may already know some of these.
Mill decks focus on killing you by removing cards from your library. Sometimes this is direct (Balustrade Spy), and sometimes they just make you draw so many cards that you run out of cards to draw.
Discard decks force you to discard, and are a form of control deck. There are card combos that trigger when opponents discard (Confessor), but other discard decks force you to discard merely to keep you from playing cards.
Burn decks do direct damage to opponents or creatures. A burn deck contains many cards that perform a function similar to Lightning Bolt, and many burn decks contain cards that do damage to all creatures and/or all players (like Tremor).
Token decks are a more recent development, and focus on creating lots of expendable creatures (Acorn Harvest). These decks win by overwhelming their opponents or by making those tokens large with global buffs (Overrun)
Control decks attempt to control everything their opponent does. They counter spells, remove permanents, destroy lands, and/or bounce (Unsummon).
RDW means "Red Deck Wins," and is a common phrase because red decks can get overpowered.
Tribal decks focus around a specific creature subtype (Knight Exemplar). Common tribals are elves, knights, goblins, vampires, etc.
CMC, or MC, is converted mana cost or mana cost.
Boros is red and white. There are nicknames attached to almost any color combination. Why M:tG players create more terms to know is beyond me, but we are quite fond of our own little made-up language.
These are examples. There are many decks that are named for what they do. For example, life drain decks steal life from opponents and gain that much life, such as Corrupt, and reanimation decks continually bring creatures (or sometimes other spells) back from the graveyard. These will be fairly obvious to you over time as you become familiar with what is possible. Other decks are named for combos they use, like Juck Turtle's Legion of Invulnerability (named for its use of Assemble the Legion). You'll get to know the names of cards over time, though if you are like me you'll still frequently look up decks named after cards because there are simply so many cards and card combos.
Sorry this is so long. Hopefully it is useful information.
First, congratulations on making a deck and entering the (often intimidating) world of M:tG! Your first deck looks waaaay better than my first deck.
What kind of tournaments? Or rather, what kind of players are you expecting to face at said tournaments? As stated in the Art of War, if you don't know your opponents, your chances of survival are 50% at best.
Have you played with the deck to see how well it does? Play testing is the best mark of success. If your deck does well against the types of decks you will face in a tournament, then there you have it. If you need opponents, try looking around here for online opponents, but these may play quite differently than the folks at the tournament(s) you are going to.
Looking at your deck, I have a few questions. You don't have much for artifact/enchantment control. This is fine if you don't expect players you face to field many of them, but could cost you if they do and you're left trying to handle it with only two Detention Spheres.
Second question is win condition. This is something every deck needs. Looking at the deck, it seems that your goal is to remove their creatures and then kill them off with smallish creatures (aided by a few buffs). You have some nice options available for a little health gain when necessary, and I appreciate that your mana costs are low- a common mistake for new players is to add lots of cool spells and disregard mana cost. What happens to your deck against burn decks (usually red decks with lots of spells that do direct damage), or other decks that have few creatures?
Last question is consistency. You only have two cards with four copies in the deck (excluding lands). Consistency could be a problem. Depending on your budget (I personally can't afford to go buying another three copies of Frontline Medic, for instance), I would think about this.
Lastly, let me just say that any advice you get from me (or anyone else online) is subject to doubt. We don't know your opponents, so what we say may be completely invalid. If the deck performs well in the environment you're in, then you shouldn't ask for general advice and instead focus on specific questions ("is this card better than this other card" type stuff). I should also point out that although my first and second questions above point at possible holes, no deck can handle every possible opponent- there are too many types of decks out there. Don't water down your deck too much in attempts to defeat opponent you may never have to face.
Sorry for doubling up.
Paired down the deck significantly. The wurms were cool, but just didn't fit with the deck's theme. Down to 68 cards and looking to cut more. I'm thinking there are too many mana grabbing cards; just have to decide which ones to pull. Maybe Overgrowth, or some of a mana creature?
Spore frog by its self can be nasty when comboed with genesis to bring him back or even pattern of rebirth to grab your big creatures. I have a friend that gets that last combo off quite often.
Hm... hadn't thought of that. I think Genesis would work better for this deck; I could run only two copies and continually bring frogs (or other creatures) back, while the Pattern of Rebirth only enchants a single creature. If I ran Genesis, I would definitely take out the Werebears in favor of something else, as threshold would never happen with Genesis in.
The deck: Crush of Wurms
I first built this deck back when Crush of Wurms came out. I've always loved big green decks; to me there is nothing more satisfying than smashing an opponent's carefully-laid plains. Consequently, I put a lot of love into this deck.
Years later, I'm playing MTG again and realize it needs updating. I've done some changes to it already. Cards like Sundering Growth just make my day. As you'll notice, I prefer cards that can do double duty- Werebear can provide early mana but becomes a 4/4 later in the game, Hidden Spider provides a cheap Reach defender but also discourages flying creatures in the first place, Krosan Tusker can be a 6/5 creature or an extra card plus a forest. I don't like Llanowar Elves or Rampant Growth, as they are of limited usefulness later in a game, and as a mono green deck I don't need to search for specific lands.
In the decklist I've included 20+ cards I thought might work well. You'll know them because they are the only ones with a single copy in the deck. I was considering removing Elvish Aberration in favor of more Krosan Tuskers. Also thought Elderscale Wurm might be a welcome addition. The Werebears are great in theory, but playing flashback cards often means I don't get threshold for quite some time- I'm thinking of replacing them with something else, perhaps Joraga Treespeaker?
Doubling Season isn't actually in the deck yet, but it is so good I can't imagine not adding four in. Am I wrong?
For reference, I don't play in tier 1 tournaments. My local group consists of mostly home brew decks or modified pre-built decks. The current version of this deck performs fairly well. It has trouble with fast decks. The Reach creatures are there for obvious reasons, and artifact/enchantment killing is a must for our group. Additionally, we play a lot of multiplayer games, either 1v1v1v1 or teams. None of my opponents are playing mill decks, control decks (multiplayer, remember?), or heavy land destruction. I haven't had crippling mana problems in a long time, but do occasionally get slowed down for a turn or two. Some of my opponents do run board wipes, but with flashback cards I can usually survive. Cards like Fog Patch, Moment's Peace, and Spore Frog help with unblockable creatures or nasty combos I don't see coming, and often give me the leeway I need to attack all-out for a kill when another opponent would otherwise come in behind my back.
Suggestions? Comments?
Deckbox Forum » Posts by Xan