well, honestly, for the time being with flash back cards, reanimator and snapcaster mage being in the meta I wouldn't worry about milling someone to finish the game.  Keep the cards it may be an okay strategy after rotation, but even then some decks will still want to be milled playing scavenging ooze and golgari.

Milling someone to death can be slow.  Even after Jace comes online he can take 4-5 turns to kill them with mill and that gives them time to answer jace or just kill you, and only a few of the mill cards provide a board presence.

spartan is correct.  The idea is to control the game with the deck.  once you have control of the game you can use anything to win.  And honestly for the mana investment Ætherling is a much more efficient win condition.

In these colors I see a couple pretty glaring spell omissions though.  Far/away and Turn/burn.  If you're playing standard then you should heavily consider these 2 spells.  Turn/burn shuts down cards like thragtusk and sire of insanity.  Far/away is just good removal and can be used against the hexproof decks as well as aggro.

If you main deck counters they need to be dissipate and syncopate to exile spells against decks like reanimator.  The article linked is a good starting place for a standard grixxis deck right now.

Our store has a section set aside with some custom tokens and alters.  I'm not sure how they worked out the deal though, but that might be an option.

Do you have more samples?

604

(1 replies, posted in Trading Post)

proposal sent.

I should quantify that I'm only a somewhat competitive player.  I've topped 4 in a few FNMs at our LGS, which usally has 25-30 players. The players there are competitive though and frequently travel to the larger events. I like to watch the streams and listen to the SCG commentaries. I've played on and off since the mid 90s.

I've been posting regularly on deckbox for a little while.  My view of helping people on here understand the game and why the competitive players make the choices they do is that it makes the whole community that much better at the game when you educate someone about why a card does what it does.


To your questions.

Smite has a condition attached to it.  What if you don't have a blocker?  It's a dead card in your hand regardless of the cost in that situation. In a control deck these days you usually run just a handful of powerful creatures and depending on having a creature and smite at the same time to use the card creates unfavorable odds. A straight removal spell is preferred to this even if it cost a mana or two more.

Urban burgeoning, is a terrible terrible card.  Yes it's only "that" land.  I can't imagine an instance in which I would want to use it. Multiplayer games?  maybe?

Runners bane does sort of qualify as removal.  It might stop some aggro decks.  But it won't stop over 50% of the cards being played in standard right now.  The card is to restrictive.  If a player plays creatures that are only 4 power or more?  or if they have a way to pump their creatures? sac them?  What if the creature just has  a great ability like deathrite shaman?  it can't stop any of that.  Where as for the same mana cost you can cast searing spear that kills something, or mizzium mortars... kills something... or think twice, which can draw you a card that kills something... or azorious charm which has multiple uses... Runners bane has limited value against a limited number of decks, against a limited number of creatures in those decks.

Transguild promenade, think about it like this... this is a concept called tempo. the amount of resources you have are cumulative.  So on turn 1 you have 1 mana, turn 2, 2 and so on.  see below.

Tempo is a term used in Magic: The Gathering to indicate the advantage gained when a player is able to play more or stronger cards in a shorter period of time due to efficient resource allocation.[1] A companion concept to card advantage, it is sometimes defined as the means by which a player gains additional options or decreases the options possessed by the opponent by means not directly pertaining to respective numbers of playable cards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_%28M … thering%29

turn 1, 1
turn 2, 2
turn 3, 3
turn 4, 4

That's a total of 10 mana over 4 turns.  if you pay for trans guild promenade on turn 2 then your costing yourself mana.

turn 1, 1
turn 2, 0 - because you have to use your other land to pay for the promenade
turn 3, 3
turn 4, 4

Now you're down a 2 mana play while you're opponent probably played something on his 2nd turn.  Now obviously gates hurt your tempo but not as bad, in the same scenario your only down 1 mana if you played a gate on turn 2 instead of the promenade.  yes the promenade "fixes" your colors but at the cost of tempo.  That's bad, tempo is important, Especially in a control deck.  The ramp decks work on positive tempo gains. Like elves and farseek.  So that if you play farseek on turn 2 you get the example below.

turn 1, 1
turn 2, 2
turn 3, 4
turn 4, 5

that's twelve mana available, and farseek "thins your deck", by pulling a land out, you accelerate your available mana, and you limit the possibility of drawing a land as card.  You'll draw more "stuff" instead.  The best thing to do in the current meta is to have the "shock lands" (2 damage to come in untapped) and the check lands, that look to see if you have a mountain,forest, island, etc... in play to come in untapped. These "dual" lands fix your mana and let you maintain your tempo.

Couple huge problems with the deck.

It's got 12 lands.  A control deck needs 24-26 lands to be effective.  I hope this is just a constructional transitional phase of the deck and not the actual plan for the manabase.

It's 4 colors.  A 4 color deck can work, BUT, you have to have a completely divers mana base.  You have to have a very specific plan for why you need the 4th color.  YOU need to decide which color to drop. 

Honestly copying a ling is a bad idea.  You can't use one of it's most powerful abilities which is the exile ability.  If you exile a token, poof, it's gone, and if you exile the mimic you have to copy something else again when it comes back into play.

Note on some of the cards in the deck. you can probably cut all/most of these.

Electrickery - only good as a sideboard card against token decks and some aggro decks.
Dispel - sideboard card against control decks
Smite - situationally good, but requires a defense creature base to work, not good in this deck
Spell Rupture - situationally good, only works in a deck where your creatures can have a healthy power, Bant hexproof is an example.
Annihilating Fire - searing spear, and pillar are better options for now.
Riot Control - you don't need to fog, you need to remove the creatures from the board, either by bouncing them or destroying them
Essence Backlash - kind of expensive for the effect, dissipate and syncopate are the counters you want to run. Perhaps essence scatter or negate depending on what you face.
Clan Defiance - mizzium is just so much better right now.
Urban Burgeoning - uhh... why?
Runner's Bane - see, riot control
Inaction Injunction - it stalls, it draws a card... I'd rather have think twice.
Verdant Haven - if you go green, this is not the ramp you want to run, if you go green you want elves, both arbor and pilgrim, or farseek.
Thespian's Stage, transguild promenade - <obi-wan kenobi> these are not the lands you're looking for </obi-wan kenobi> , you would rather run gates and basic lands over these, and a lot more of them.

taking the lists I gave you below that was more mid-rangy here's some substitution options if you're on a budget.


Creatures (3)

    1 Aetherling
    2 Snapcaster Mage - auger of bolas

Planeswalkers (2) - no subs here sad

    1 Jace, Architect of Thought
    1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Lands (26) - gates > basic lands

    1 Island
    1 Plains
    3 Clifftop Retreat
    1 Desolate Lighthouse
    4 Glacial Fortress
    4 Hallowed Fountain
    4 Sacred Foundry
    4 Steam Vents
    4 Sulfur Falls

Spells (29)

    1 Assemble the Legion - not an expensive card, no reason not to trade for it
    1 Detention Sphere - 5 bucks, not too bad to get. oblivian ring can sub here.
    3 Azorius Charm - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Dissipate - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    1 Essence Scatter - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Searing Spear - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    4 Sphinx's Revelation - no real substitute here, sphinx's is in a class of it's own
    1 Syncopate - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    3 Think Twice - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Turn - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Warleader's Helix - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    1 Mizzium Mortars
    2 Pillar of Flame - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    3 Supreme Verdict - no real substitute here either.
    1 Terminus - no real substitute here either.

    Sideboard
    1 Aetherling
    3 Clone
    1 Oblivion Ring
    2 Negate
    2 Renounce the Guilds
    1 Turn
    1 Jace, Memory Adept
    2 Pillar of Flame
    2 Terminus

Creatures (10)

    2 Snapcaster Mage - Auger of Bolas
    2 Ætherling - better than the mimics trade for em if you can
    4 Boros Reckoner
    1 Angel of Serenity
    1 Aurelia The Warleader - something big and scary, with wings?, assemble the legion perhaps

Planeswalkers (3) - no subs here sad

    1 Ral Zarek
    1 Jace, Architect of Thought
    1 Tamyio, the Moon Sage

Lands (25) - gates > basiclands

    2 Cavern of Soul's
    3 Clifftop Retreat
    4 Glacial Fortress
    4 Hallowed Fountain
    3 Sacred Foundry
    1 Slayers' Stronghold
    4 Steam Vents
    4 Sulfur Falls

Spells (22)

    3 Azorius Charm - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    1 Dissipate - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Searing Spear - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Sphinx's Revelation - no substitute here.
    1 Syncopate - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    3 Turn//burn - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Warleader's Helix - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Mizzium Mortars
    2 Pillar of Flame - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em
    2 Think Twice - uncommon/common, no reason not to get em

    Sideboard
    2 Clone
    3 Izzet Staticaster
    1 Counterflux
    1 Dispel
    2 Negate
    2 Purify the Grave
    2 Pillar of Flame
    2 Supreme Verdict

608

(11 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

Time to test it out and see how you feel about your choices. 

One last piece of advice.  I think you might want a couple more lands.  25 seemed to be a sweet spot for me, and that was with faithless looting to sculpt my hand.  You could drop a pillar and a spear, you have 17 removal spells (including 5 sweepers) not counting Olivia and high priest.

Furthermore you should treat it as a new card when it comes back into play.   It comes into play from exile untapped, it loses all enchants, it loses all counters all damage is erased, it gets summoning sickness again, etc... it's as if you just played it.

610

(11 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

Money is always a problem isn't it? smile

Souls are more important than sorin, imo.

611

(11 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

penance is really just a strange form of removal.  And putting him on the board means your opponent can play around it or just remove him and then you get no value out of it, other than them wasting a removal spell on your little dude.  At least in masters case, he has to be answered or he can potentially get out of hand.   Which is why i like the reanimator version,  I can generally put my threats back on the board making they're removal useless. 

If you put an obzedat and Olivia in there, you wont' regret it.   I guarantee it. 

Olivia with vault of the archangel is mean, death touch machine gun?  yes pls.  She also combos with reckoner, ping your own reckoner to pump her and just have the damage redirect to your opponent. 

Obzedat is hard for control decks to deal with, and jund has to use their instant removal to catch him on the exile.

Also, just because you can't surprise people with sire doesn't mean he isn't good.  You're deck has the ability to top deck well like jund so pitching your hand isn't as hurtful for you as it is for those control dudes. 

Even on the master plan, there's nothing wrong with adding in sorin and lingering souls as chumps/flyers.  souls also makes blasphemous act damn near free.   Although sorins emblem is irrelevant with masters abilities.  He works for everyone else.

612

(11 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

Just some notes on the dega deck as I've played it at FNM. In my experience, it works well against other mid-range decks, like jund, and especially bant (it eats bant).  It's very solid against aggro, but it is moderately week to control, in a heavy control meta, i would want some more edict effects (for those running geist of saint cheater poop), rakdos return and slaughter games really wrecks control on the side,  Nevermore can go in too.

IMO best cards against control... sire of insanity + cavern of souls... mmm, sire is delicious.

613

(11 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

You planning on playing at an FNM or something with your deck? 

I've seen a few versions of these decks and even played one my self to some moderate success at FNM. 

There are 2 main versions of the deck i've seen, the version with unburial and the more midrange version.  I'll make some quick Critiques, then talk about the versions.

A word on the master.

You're really committing to the master of cruelties plan, I think that card is deceptively bad. I could be wrong.  I've seen people try to play it at our LGS and it just does nothing.  I've never been scared of a master of cruelties on the board in any of my decks. You're mileage may very on the creatures, but I see master as being inconsistent at best.


  • Some notes on the creatures -   Olivia is much much better here than master imo.  Also, you really need to include a couple obzedats. In my list I ran an aurelia, sire and angel of serenity as well (i just recently changed it, to focus on something else)  I'd consider these creatures as well.

  • I see the plan with stuffy doll and reckoner, but the redundancy with the doll is not necessary for the blasphemous act combo. Really,  you want blasphemous act as a sweeper and the combo is just icing.  Trust me here.

  • Speaking of sweepers you need at least a couple more.  2-3 Mizzim mortars will help a ton.

  • One of the most glaring omissions from your list is lingering souls.  I can't imagine playing the deck without them.  Combo'd with sorin they have won games for me by themselves.

  • Vault of the archangel is a must, it does what the Master does, but it's repeatable and it does it for every creature, and life gain can't tell you how awesome it is with some 2/1 lingering souls.

  • Removal,  dreadbore, pillar, blasphemous act, searing spear are all totally valid removal choices.  You should also consider tragic slip, some edict effects(like tribute to hunger, devour flesh), mizzium mortars (all day every day), warleader's helix

The midrange version of the deck focuses on a game plan that's very similar to the Jund midrange.  Heavy removal, powerful value added creatures and life gain.

I prefer the reanimator version and plan to update and play it a few more times before rotation happens. It uses faithless looting unburial and angel of serenity with a lot of the strong removal, lingering souls for value.  It's a real strong version of the deck.  See my list below.

http://deckbox.org/sets/378031

Cards that really need to go.

Toil and trouble... not enough value you here.  You'd be better off with almost any of the other spells I listed.
Faith's Sheild, it's cheap and it can help protect your creatures, but if you need that then boros charm does that much much better.  You'd honestly be better just running rogues passage if you stay on the master plan.
Boros Charm - I know I just praised it, but boros charm is really an agro card or even aggro-mid-range.  I don't think it's right for this deck.  It does double strike, but the creatures you're running already have half of that with first strike.  It does indestructible, which protects them from the blasphemous act combo, but you're better off just not playing every creature if you have the combo, and just playing one after the board is empty instead of dedicating a card to just the combo. It does 4 to the dome... true, but obzedat does 2 and gains you 2 and provides a decent threat on the baord, olivia is flying and so are the tokens they go over the top.  I've never needed to burn my opponent to finish the game. It's a one shot and done card and there's no getting it back, I think those 4 slots would be better served by putting solid creatures or spells like lingering souls in.

maybe needs to go

Rakdos's Return - it's a solid burn card.  With a great effect.  I might main deck one side the other? dependson your meta and if control is prominent.

side board. 

You need something aginst Ætherling - pithing needle works here, also stops any crazy maze's ned decks.
You def need something for reanimator matchup.  If you go midrange, rest in peace is great, if you go reanmiator version then purify the grave is where it's at.

sin collector is okay against control, but what would you side out for him, he's got a weak body though and won't trade well.

Putting your own touch on a deck is usually good, but be careful and remember that these guys that build these decks usually have a really good understanding of the game and it'd be hard to do much better than they have.  It's like that old adage, "someone else has already said it better", someone has already built it better so stick to the decks plan and don't change too much.

If you're seriously interested in the deck reddit/r/spikes has some good posts about the UWR deck to research.

In ken's deck the win cons are a little lite imo.  I think i'd want to see at least one more Ætherling in the deck, maybe a 2nd assemble.  Ral Zarek might be good in it too.  Ken even said in a post on reddit that the deck was a meta call and that he'd like to make some changes to it. 

To make the point, my friend net decked the exact deck the next FNM and had a match where he actually lost because he couldn't draw a win condition tongue

you exile Ætherling to protect it from effects that would harm it.  If he supreme verdict ed you'd want to exile it instead of letting it get destroyed.  You always want to keep mana up to exile your ling.

Also you can use it to block and exile it and prevent all the damage.  Alos, exiling it... it comes back into play untapped for blocking.

can't help you much on the commander decks, but if you're looking for advice on standard I can help there.  I love to watch the pro streams and do deck research on strategies in standard.  the card pools for legacy/modern are to wild and varied for my taste and the cards that are really good are also really expensive. 

If you're looking build a standard deck, I'd start on something now and just make changes as the sets are released.  No one knows what will be in theros yet and m14 is only half spoiled though there will be no check lands in the set so we'll be stuck with gates and shocks which isn't terrible, but it will slow down the format some. 

You sounded like you enjoyed control/midrange decks and American is a great version of that deck and having some of the lands gives you a step in that direction.  Esper (black, blue white) is also good in that area.  I don't see the American archetypes changing a whole lot.  The cards that are good for American decks now, reckoner, angels, counters, aetherling, lands, draw spells, will be in the game in some form or another when the sets rotate in a few months.

It sounded to me you enjoyed shutting down you're opponents plays and then putting a presence on the board yourself after you had control of the game. 

You said you went to FNM, so I assume you want something at least mildly competitive. The list bellow is a list that went 1st in Dallas at SCG Open on 5/18.  It's an American control list that you might try to work towards.  Obviously with rotation coming soon, i wouldn't put a whole lot of money in it unless you just have the cash to blow, picking up the shocks will still be worthwhile as well as anything from the RTR block.

Below that list is a more mid-range creature based version of the deck that I personally like better. Reckoner is a solid creature and aetherling is hard to stop.


Creatures (3)

    1 Aetherling
    2 Snapcaster Mage

Planeswalkers (2)

    1 Jace, Architect of Thought
    1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Lands (26)

    1 Island
    1 Plains
    3 Clifftop Retreat
    1 Desolate Lighthouse
    4 Glacial Fortress
    4 Hallowed Fountain
    4 Sacred Foundry
    4 Steam Vents
    4 Sulfur Falls

Spells (29)

    1 Assemble the Legion
    1 Detention Sphere
    3 Azorius Charm
    2 Dissipate
    1 Essence Scatter
    2 Searing Spear
    4 Sphinx's Revelation
    1 Syncopate
    3 Think Twice
    2 Turn
    2 Warleader's Helix
    1 Mizzium Mortars
    2 Pillar of Flame
    3 Supreme Verdict
    1 Terminus

    Sideboard
    1 Aetherling
    3 Clone
    1 Oblivion Ring
    2 Negate
    2 Renounce the Guilds
    1 Turn
    1 Jace, Memory Adept
    2 Pillar of Flame
    2 Terminus





Creatures (10)

    2 Snapcaster Mage
    2 Ætherling
    4 Boros Reckoner
    1 Angel of Serenity
    1 Aurelia The Warleader

Planeswalkers (3)

    1 Ral Zarek
    1 Jace, Architect of Thought
    1 Tamyio, the Moon Sage

Lands (25)

    2 Cavern of Soul's
    3 Clifftop Retreat
    4 Glacial Fortress
    4 Hallowed Fountain
    3 Sacred Foundry
    1 Slayers' Stronghold
    4 Steam Vents
    4 Sulfur Falls

Spells (22)

    3 Azorius Charm
    1 Dissipate
    2 Searing Spear
    2 Sphinx's Revelation
    1 Syncopate
    3 Turn//burn
    2 Warleader's Helix
    2 Mizzium Mortars
    2 Pillar of Flame
    2 Think Twice

    Sideboard
    2 Clone
    3 Izzet Staticaster
    1 Counterflux
    1 Dispel
    2 Negate
    2 Purify the Grave
    2 Pillar of Flame
    2 Supreme Verdict

ratchet bomb is in there, which can nuke a lot of tokens, doom blade is in there too, but there's still a lot of multicolored creatures, idk now I feel about something that restricts you to killing a non-black in this format.

620

(2 replies, posted in Trading Post)

probably should post this in the trade forum.

Go to google and type "magic what's happening".   It should take you to a link on the wizards page for online play.  In the bottom right hand side of the page there are listings of tournaments.  If you look at the RTR block tournaments, it's a good indicator of what you might see post rotation, but remember that there are still 2 sets that come out M14 and Theros.  Esper is heavily figured.

M14 will not impact the meta a lot, so far only scavenging ooze looks to be a game changing card.  I could be wrong though.  I'm actually looking towards BG.  Golgari has a lot of strong cards in rtr block.  vraska, abrupt decay, varolz, lotleth troll, deathrite shaman, deadbridge chant, gaze of granite...

An edh player I am not... smile

I'm sure there's someone here that can offer "constructive" advice

623

(5 replies, posted in World of Warcraft)

I don't want to speak for the deckbox people, but I assume they have a limited amount of time and resources to spend on improving the website.  I would also assume that the overwhelming majority of people that frequent the site are magic players/collectors.  It seems to me the logical thing to do would be to make updates and changes that affect this larger group of players first. 

I think you said it best yourself when you said.

the community is almost dead enough not to care.

I played the WoWtCG for the first 3-4 sets, went to regional tournaments. It's a decent enough game.  We got out of it when we were treated badly by LGS which abused the prize support from Upperdeck.  Let alone problems with upperdeck themselves at the time.  The community and support just isn't there.  SCG stopped listing prices for it. I'd wager part of the problem is that since the 3rd parties don't sell a lot of product for it they don't support the APIs that allow deckbox to interface with it and that leads to problems here.  Just a guess though.

I think it's an inevitably wow TCG players need to accept.

You've got a lot of singles.  There's not really a respectable deck to build, that I can see, without a more consistent card base. 

What kind of deck do you want to build?  What have you seen so far that sparks your interest?  How will you be playing the deck?  FNM? Casual?

625

(12 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

I'd suggest, 4 supreme verdicts maindeck.  Some people use 3 verdicts 1 terminus and put the other verdict on the side.  You Also might consider getting a hold of some terminus, but be aware that it's not a card you want to see in your opening hand especially against aggro.  It's purely there for the miracle advantage. against aggro.  Though terminus is great against reanimator decks as well.  Hard for them to unburial something if it's on the bottom of their deck.

I would think 3 revs in a control deck.  Some run 2, some 4.  My friend the long time controly player, runs 3.

You'll want one or 2 of some win condition cards.  Most control decks only run one or two of the following creatures.

Aetherling,
obzedat
Angel of serenity
Jace, AoT
Tamiyo

My friend actually runs one one ling, one obz, one serenity, one tamiyo, one jace and a lot of removal sweepers, draw, and control. 

The more midrangy versions will have resto angels as well.  Snapcasters are good in the deck, but you only need a couple if you run any.

If you go the token route, you'll want a couple sorins. 

They variation you run is up to you, but doing some more research on the interweb can't hurt.  But if you're worried about rotation and card price then I'd stick with a version that runs most of the RTR block cards.