Topic: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

Hey guys just got into magic a few months ago and i want to try to compete at tournaments. I really enjoy this theme so i got a few cards from half a booster box and after a few hours of play testing, tweaking, and trading this is my final deck.

The goal of this deck is to proc the infinite Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood combo. In case you are not familar with it it goes:

Sanguine Bond : "Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life."
Exquisite Blood : "Whenever an opponent loses, life you gain that much life."

From what I have been told tournament level decks are FAST and can kill you by turn 4-5 easy. So my deck is full of ways to deal with creatures and to keep a small battlefield until my combo rolls out and wins me the game. Mostly kill spells. I play to just absorb any red burn spells and I have enough copies of cards to withstand control decks. My biggest fear is from decks so fast I cant get my combo up. I have also added a bit of card draw "Underworld Connections" and anti aggression card.  Any suggestions or discussions about it would really make my day.

Thanks for reading! smile

p.s. I have no clue what to sideboard to counter either what others or doing, or to counter my counters.

http://deckbox.org/sets/436474

Last edited by Renaissance (2013-07-25 10:27:53)

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

A rather interesting budget deck, I'm really tempted to play it at my LGS just to hit the combo once.

Just a few personal remarks:

I prefer sign in blood over underworld connections.

Add more vizkopa guildmage as it does the same thing as sanguin bond.

Remove 2 sanguine bonds for 2 exquisite blood.

You have multiple plays that require WW or BB T3-T4. You may want to invest in godless shrines (Isolated Chapels potentially as well). Lands that count as B or W really help prevent being mana screwed.

Remove Angelic Accord In favor of more high preist of penance or vampire nighthawk.

Honestly I don't know if I like Indistructibility. (Seems like good Sideboard if they bring in enchantment hate)

You may want to play xathrid necromancer. You have a humans deck.

Overall Here are my changes:

http://deckbox.org/sets/436550

LMK what you think.


Edit: My suggestions aim to keep your current goal and to restructure it to be more stable and conistent which makes it, in turn, more competitive. That being said, you can scrap the whole list as suggested below and make a RWB Midrange or Junk Combo deck that already exists and be extremely competitive, just depends if you want to throw upwards of $200 (or trades) into making that work.

Last edited by shadowsmiles42 (2013-07-25 16:00:04)

Profile/Tradelist/Wishlist  <(^_^)>  Favorite Card: Chains of Mephistopheles

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

There are a couple major problems with the deck.  A lack of non basics to fix your mana and just a lack of plain good cards. 

13 Plains
11 Swamp
4 Festering Newt
4 Soulmender
4 Bubbling Cauldron
4 Celestial Flare
3 Doom Blade
1 High Priest of Penance
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
4 Banisher Priest
1 Basilica Guards
2 Underworld Connections
3 Angelic Accord
2 Diabolic Tutor
2 Indestructibility
1 Exquisite Blood
3 Sanguine Bond

When you say competition what do you mean? FNM? PTQ?  If FNM how competitive is your area? I would say even at a mildly comparative FNM you can expect to lose more than you win with a deck like this.  Sanguine bond can be enough of a threat on it's own if you have the cards to support it. To get this deck into shape I'd say you'd need about 150 bucks worth of singles imo. Non-basic lands, obzedats, blood barons, archangel of thune, vault of the archangel, lingering souls, vampire nighthawks.



1     Fiendslayer Paladin    
1     Frontline Medic
1     Boros Charm
1     Firemane Avenger    
2     Firemane Avenger
2     Boros Elite
1     Mindsparker
2     Young Pyromancer
1     Pyreheart Wolf
1     Firefist Striker
2     Scourge of Valkas
2     Sacred Foundry

You honestly have cards better suited to a RW aggro deck which is completely viable and more likely to get you somewhere than a gimmicky combo deck with sub par standard cards.  Maybe even a RW/midrange/agro with legions initiative. Adding a few commons/uncommons and a splash of rares and you could have a tournament worthy deck.  look up R/W "boros" aggro decks.  I think you'd need to at least get a few more of the non-basic lands though. The price to get a competative RW aggro deck with what your representing would be a lot cheaper than trying to make the B/W viable.

Last edited by elpablo (2013-07-25 12:53:45)

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

Thanks for the replies!

Elpablo, you are sorta of just changing the entire theme of my deck, while i respect your suggestions and definitely see the strength, switching to a RW agro deck just isn't something im looking to do as of right now, but will try in the future. And as a new player I can't drop 150 bucks on a few cards just to change up my strategy to something else.

Shadowsmiles42(what does "You have multiple plays that require WW or BB T3-T4" mean?), If i did have more vizkopa guildmages or High Priest of Penance, I think i would add it. though I do like just having that sanguine bond for my next point. In case you missed my next combo which i forget to mention was my backup plan. The bubbling cauldron sacrificing a creature(first) gets me a 4/4 flying angel out. Then at the end of my opponents turn I can sack that angel gain 4 life re introduce that angel and continue play. If i have 2 angelic accords out I would get 2 angels and gain 4 life for each tapping/1mana of Bubbling Cauldron. So if I am not getting to my combo and getting blitz my agro decks by midgame I am producing 4/4 angels and gaining 4 life. Keep in mind if i keep doing this combo with sanguin bond im pinging for 4 while createing my token army. I dont feel like i would have 3 spare mana with vizkopa guidmage each turn to do this, hence why i lean more towards the enchanements over the vizkopa guildemage.

Not sure about the xathrid just because my deck doesnt have too many humans especially in play,and i rarely will ever be blocking with them.

I do like sideboarding my indestructibility untill game 2 and try to substitute 2 more cards in game 1 to get a better combo out faster and safer.

And i do agree, looks like its time to trade for those dual lands!

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

Just want to be clear, I'm not talking about changing your strategy with the suggestions I made for the B/W deck.  I'm talking about reinforcing it and making it work like you want it too.  you can do B/W humans it's a deck people are trying out with the release of the necromancer.  It had some mixed results at the last major tournament.


something like this.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat … ckID=57514

You can easily include some saguine bond in here, and tweak it.

Creatures (21)

    4 Blood Artist
    4 Cartel Aristocrat
    4 Champion of the Parish
    4 Doomed Traveler
    4 Xathrid Necromancer
    1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch

Planeswalkers (3)

    3 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Lands (23)

    8 Plains
    4 Swamp
    4 Godless Shrine
    4 Isolated Chapel
    2 Mutavault
    1 Orzhov Guildgate

Spells (13)

    1 Brave the Elements
    1 Orzhov Charm
    3 Tragic Slip
    4 Gather the Townsfolk
    4 Lingering Souls

    Sideboard
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Lifebane Zombie
    3 Sin Collector
    2 Intangible Virtue
    1 Brave the Elements
    2 Profit
    2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
    2 Appetite for Brains




The RW aggro deck is a different deck all together, and putting that together really doesn't hurt the build your working on.  You can proxy cards and test both and see which one works better for you.

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

You play multiple spells that cost 2 of the same color on turn 3 and 4, my suggestion was to get the shock/buddy lands so you can have 2 of each color on turn 3 so you dont have a problem casting a specific color.

Sanguine bond does the same thing as vizkopa guild mage, thats why you need less sanguine and more exquisite blood if you want to hit the combo. Vizkopa and High Priest are inexpensive so i'd get them for this deck.

As for blocking, you will be blocking quite often. With the speed of some of theses decks you will likely have to block multiple creatures a turn and thats where having them come back as zombies allows you to protect your guildmage win condtion. Xathrid really is a good fit in this deck as it dodges mass removal, i.e. supreme verdict.

I did see the angelic accord/bubbling cauldren combo, it also works well with Xathrid as it will ensure that you have creatures for you to sac. Unfortunately you can't do that during your turn and at the end of theirs ad the cauldren has to tap.
My only comment is that in standard a consistent deck wins a lot more often. Standard decks typically focus on having 3 or 4 of each card in the deck. Playing multiple "possible" combos does, in theory, give you more win conditions, but it usually has an adverse affect. More combos with a lower likelihood loses to fewer combos with a greater likelihood.

For example: if you have two combos with each being 35% likely or 3 combos with each 20% likely which one wins?

The reason why I'm against it is because you need: Angelic Accord + Bubbling Cauldren + Creature + Sanguine Bond

Where as your other options are Vizkopa Guildmage + Exquisite Blood (or Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood)

I just feel more comfortable going for a 2 card combo over a 4 card combo/


The earliest your deck can win is turn 6. You will have atleast 3 mana at this point to activate Guildmage

Here is your optimal play:

T1: Newt or Soulmender
T2: High Priest/Guildmage
T3: Removal/3rd Creature
T4: Tutor for Enquisite Blood
T5: Cast Exquisite Blood
T6: Activate Guildmage or Play Sanguine Bond

Edit: Didn't expect that I'd have to mention that this does not have a phenomenal likelihood. Assumming your opponent does nothing it's between a 1:7 and 1:8.

Also, as I said before I'm just working with your original deck goal.

Last edited by shadowsmiles42 (2013-07-25 18:11:04)

Profile/Tradelist/Wishlist  <(^_^)>  Favorite Card: Chains of Mephistopheles

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

realistically you can't count on having that sequence of play every time.   You might get that hand once every 10 games?  Even then the decks plan is play a chump, get some spot removal and do nothing for almost 3-4 turns while his combo comes online?  That's a lot of time for something to happen to any number of your combo pieces. 

I think you need to trim it down more than shadow is suggesting.  You need "good stuff" in the deck all the enchants just won't get you there.  If you want to do sanguine bond do that, or if you want to do the angelic accord do that.  Having it all together is too much. You will see more enchantment destruction since they've released more utility enchants.

I would highly suggest building an "ideal" version of the deck and testing it out against other decks in the format.

Re: My First Ever Competitive Deck(STD)

Thanks for all the advice guys! Ill be posted a new deck soon as i will try to acquire some new cards