Topic: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

I'm just looking for some general advice or suggestions about my Green/Black Graveyard Themed deck that I want to build. I am not a huge fan of Arbor Elf but I had Sakura-Tribe Elder and they're not standard anymore so I was looking for some other mana acceleration low cost creature to replace Sakura with.

http://deckbox.org/sets/416556

5 Forest
4 Golgari Guildgate
4 Haunted Fengraf
5 Swamp
2 Arbor Elf
4 Rancor
4 Slitherhead
2 Ambush Viper
4 Boneyard Wurm
2 Farseek
2 Mulch
4 Dreg Mangler
2 Golgari Cluestone
4 Golgari Keyrune
4 Putrefy
2 Splinterfright
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Corpsejack Menace
2 Deadbridge Goliath
2 Jarad's Orders
2 Thrashing Mossdog
2 Ghoultree

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Well to start, are you only running 18 land?  Typically decks run around 24 land.

I'm also assuming you have a particular budget that you would like to keep this deck within since I see no shocks?

Last edited by Nevpicasso (2013-06-30 15:23:45)

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Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Nevpicasso wrote:

Well to start, are you only running 18 land?  Typically decks run around 24 land.

I'm also assuming you have a particular budget that you would like to keep this deck within since I see no shocks?

With my cluestones and keyrunes I have 24 tappable mana. I'm only running 10 basic land but I have 10 green or black mana taps and 4 colorless. As for budget, yes and no. I don't have a real budget on this. I am a very new to MTG and this is the first deck I'm building on my own. I am keeping the cost down a little bit when I can, for example I had 4 Woodland Cemetery in there but they're 7-8 a pop and I can do the same thing with cheaper cards so why not? The biggest issue is I don't know that much about the cards that would fit this deck and finding them is tough because I don't really know what to search for. This deck is a collaboration of advice I've gotten from friends and I understand how it plays and it does basically what I want with Scavenge and self-milling to power up Boneyard Wurms and things like that.

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Well then welcome to magic! smile First piece of advice, mana sources and lands are very different.  The most important difference in this deck is lets say your opening hand has 1 Forest, 2 Golgari Keyrunes, a Golgari Cluestone and 3 creatures.  In theory, you have access to 4 mana with this hand.  However, you can't play the Keyrunes or Cluestone until you already have 3 mana available to cast them.  That makes this a 1 mana hand until you pull 2 more lands instead of a 4 mana starting hand if you replace those Keyrunes and Cluestones with forests and swamps.  So my first piece of advice is to drop the Cluestones and Keyrunes for extra land (assuming those were just mana sources in this deck)

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Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Nevpicasso wrote:

Well then welcome to magic! smile First piece of advice, mana sources and lands are very different.  The most important difference in this deck is lets say your opening hand has 1 Forest, 2 Golgari Keyrunes, a Golgari Cluestone and 3 creatures.  In theory, you have access to 4 mana with this hand.  However, you can't play the Keyrunes or Cluestone until you already have 3 mana available to cast them.  That makes this a 1 mana hand until you pull 2 more lands instead of a 4 mana starting hand if you replace those Keyrunes and Cluestones with forests and swamps.  So my first piece of advice is to drop the Cluestones and Keyrunes for extra land (assuming those were just mana sources in this deck)

Would it be better if I dropped the Golgari Cluestone and got Woodland Cemetary instead? Then I'd have 20 land and 4 extra tappable mana. Still run into that issue if I have alot of Golgari Keyrune in my opening hand but if I do I can mulligan.

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

That's not bad but I'd drop 2 Keyrunes as well so you can at least have 22 land.  If you're going to pay that much for a dual land, get Overgrown Tombs instead.  They will be in standard longer and hold their value better.  I would also consider putting a Lotleth Troll or two into the deck, maybe dropping 1-2 slitherheads for them

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Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Nevpicasso wrote:

That's not bad but I'd drop 2 Keyrunes as well so you can at least have 22 land.  If you're going to pay that much for a dual land, get Overgrown Tombs instead.  They will be in standard longer and hold their value better.  I would also consider putting a Lotleth Troll or two into the deck, maybe dropping 1-2 slitherheads for them

Lotleth Troll is a pretty cool card, thanks for that. Thanks for the tip about Overgrown Tomb as well. The whole standard non-standard crap confuses me. The original green/black I built used Dredge instead of Scavenge and had alot of other non-standard stuff. It's taken alot more than I expected to get this deck to standard. Anything else in there look like it will be out of standard soonish or do you know where I can check on that kind of stuff.

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

I'm rather new too, so I don't have many card suggestions; however,  I do see that you are slightly hurting yourself by using your graveyard in multiple ways.
Mixing between scavenging your graveyard and using creature count to beef your creatures / cut casting costs may put you in precipitous situations. It would be easier to move this deck towards full out scavenge than it would to go towards anything else.
If you do that, I would suggest a full playset of Lotleth Troll to beef up with creatures with scavenge, and a few Strangleroot Geists, and maybe some other creatures with undying to work in tandem with the Corpsejack Menaces on top of scavenging.

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Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Ech0_2G wrote:

It's taken alot more than I expected to get this deck to standard. Anything else in there look like it will be out of standard soonish or do you know where I can check on that kind of stuff.

Sets that will rotate in a couple months:
Innistrad
Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored
M13

Sets that will stay Standard for another year:
Return to Ravnica
Gatecrash
Dragon's Maze
M14

That's not to say don't get cards from the rotating sets, just know that they will lose a lot of value when they rotate so now's not a good time to buy them.

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Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Nevpicasso wrote:

Sets that will rotate in a couple months:
Innistrad
Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored
M13

Sets that will stay Standard for another year:
Return to Ravnica
Gatecrash
Dragon's Maze
M14

That's not to say don't get cards from the rotating sets, just know that they will lose a lot of value when they rotate so now's not a good time to buy them.

Awesome, thanks for the information!

Kyrs wrote:

I'm rather new too, so I don't have many card suggestions; however,  I do see that you are slightly hurting yourself by using your graveyard in multiple ways.
Mixing between scavenging your graveyard and using creature count to beef your creatures / cut casting costs may put you in precipitous situations. It would be easier to move this deck towards full out scavenge than it would to go towards anything else.
If you do that, I would suggest a full playset of Lotleth Troll to beef up with creatures with scavenge, and a few Strangleroot Geists, and maybe some other creatures with undying to work in tandem with the Corpsejack Menaces on top of scavenging.

I thought about this as well. I originally wanted the Boneyard Wurm and Mortivore combination with creatures in the graveyard. Then alot of what I wanted to play into that was out of standard so I moved to scavenge to help beef things up. While that will make my Boneyard Wurm a little weaker I don't think it's going to be too damaging from when I've tested it since I don't really scavenge everything I can. I typically would only Scavenge the stronger guys that are more worth it and I have some throwaways to stay in the graveyard.

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

If you're going for all-out keeping creatures in your graveyard, you'll want a sac outlet and/or Lotleth Trolls.  Something that guarantees you will have creatures in the graveyard.  I would say:
-2 Golgari Cluestones
-2 Golgari Keyrunes
-2 Slitherheads
-2 Thrashing Mossdogs
-3 Haunted Fengraf
+4 Overgrown Tombs
+2 Lotleth Trolls
+2 Vorapede
+3 Grim Backwoods

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Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Nevpicasso wrote:

If you're going for all-out keeping creatures in your graveyard, you'll want a sac outlet and/or Lotleth Trolls.  Something that guarantees you will have creatures in the graveyard.  I would say:
-2 Golgari Cluestones
-2 Golgari Keyrunes
-2 Slitherheads
-2 Thrashing Mossdogs
-3 Haunted Fengraf
+4 Overgrown Tombs
+2 Lotleth Trolls
+2 Vorapede
+3 Grim Backwoods

Vorapede and Grim Backwoods are cool cards. Thanks for the tips.

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

Hey there I would have to agree with some of the above posts. The New Ravnica Keyrunes arn't so bad, but I am of the opinion that the clue stones are. You don't really need them in your deck.  I also agree with the above posters talking about sac engines. I think Garrod is a pretty good one alongside the lotleth troll. Jarad works well with late game creatures and in multiplayer games. If your opponent has a lot of removal or you don't have away of attacking them Jarad is good at dealing damage to them.

As far as keeping it standard I wouldn't worry about that unless you have some desire to turn it into a tournament deck. If you want to keep it standard I would wait for M14 to come out, and probably the New Block Theros, to make any new additions. It would also mean cutting everything Innistrad from your deck.
GL tweaking it!

Re: Advice on my Green/Black Graveyard Deck

twilighteternal wrote:

Hey there I would have to agree with some of the above posts. The New Ravnica Keyrunes arn't so bad, but I am of the opinion that the clue stones are. You don't really need them in your deck.  I also agree with the above posters talking about sac engines. I think Garrod is a pretty good one alongside the lotleth troll. Jarad works well with late game creatures and in multiplayer games. If your opponent has a lot of removal or you don't have away of attacking them Jarad is good at dealing damage to them.

As far as keeping it standard I wouldn't worry about that unless you have some desire to turn it into a tournament deck. If you want to keep it standard I would wait for M14 to come out, and probably the New Block Theros, to make any new additions. It would also mean cutting everything Innistrad from your deck.
GL tweaking it!

I have kind of went back and forth between Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Varolz, the Scar-Striped a few times. Jarad is really cool and I like him but Varolz allows everyone in the graveyard to have Scavenge which is nice if one of my big guys gets removed or something. Jarad seems to fit keeping things in the graveyard while Varolz is scavenge. I guess I really need to decide which way I want to go there hmm

Last edited by Ech0_2G (2013-07-01 14:42:07)