Magic: The Gathering and Commander (EDH)

[UTDZac]

I've been doing well this weekend so far. Went 4-0 at FNM with my homebrew Myrs deck (lolololol), went 3-0-1 first pre-release and 4-0 second pre-release

Gogo gadget planeswalker points.

 

[Sariku]

I can't wait for Innistrad.<3 But I work every Friday right now, so I barely get to play Standard. Either way, my box, fat pack, and other supplies ship on the 30th. <3

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I played in sealed at the prerelease I got 4th winning 8 packs of in. I play white red aggro with a green splash for some green werewolves and the wolfs run land that gives trample.

5 lillys were pulled, 3 by my friends who came with me lol.

I had fun, and I won a lot for sealed.

 

[Sariku]

Oh, how awesome, Red Ryu. :o I want a few Liliana's, so I'm glad to see that hopefully they won't be too hard to come by?

I have a question though, because I got into an argument with one of my friends about it. Your double faced card is completely separate from the rest of the pack, right..? For example, if your double faced card was Garruk, will you still get a regular rare?

If your double faced card was an uncommon, do you only get two uncommon regular cards instead of the normal three?

Or do you get 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare, and 1 double faced card? I'm not quite sure how it works, but I want to think that it works how I just said, and that the double faced card is independent from the pack?

Also, I'm working on my EDH deck and I was wondering if any of you guys had any input? It's somewhat budget, as in the cards that I don't have in it that I should are too much for me to spend right now (ex. Jace, the Mind Sculptor/Damnation). But if anyone wants to look, here it is. I'd love some feedback if anyone is willing. ^_^

 

[Lore]

You still get a regular rare in addition to the double face. The god pack is a foil double face, mythic, and a foil mythic in the same pack.

And LOL at Lili's being not too hard to get. Release hype is still very much around, and prices are ridiculous.

 

[UTDZac]

I didnt see a single lili in the 3 events I went to.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It is indeed separate because I got Garruk with a rare.

Werewolves, based on my playtesting seem to be more mid range than super aggro, can't force the transformation well either. Might be nich with a few, Waif and the Mayor will see play regardless of the others status in standard, maybe the first strike that turns into a double strike as well.

Green red looks like a great aggro deck I don't know if tribal is the right move with the support currently out.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

That new Garruk is gonna get pricy.

Also, if anyone wants some old lands, I'm selling my stuff off on MTGS. Got a few fetches, rav duals, tons of Shadowmoor duals, etc.

 

[Sariku]

I know that I'm looking for some Birthing Pods if anyone has a playset for a decent price...

 

[UTDZac]

I'd be up for taking those old cards off your hands. Just msg me.

I think moommist and full moon rise will make tribal werewolves viable. There's four really good ones right now: 3/2 vanilla, 3/3 mayor, 3/3 intimidate, 3/3 two-headed double striker.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It depends how easy it is for them to flip, they need more cards like moonmist or are like it in the sense flipping is easy for them.

Any at the 1-2 mana range could flip on their own, especially the Waif. Otherwise flipping might be a problem.

 

[UTDZac]

Ugh, I can't use the pink sleeves I normally use for FNM tonight. Running werewolves teching Beast Within and Manabarbs. Stupid transform cards are totally see through with pink sleeves, lame sauce.

 

[Lore]

Just got several warewolves for my deck!

And I also got a playset of Magma Jet for 50 cents each. That's ten bucks saved. :3c

 

[Lythium]

I got a Mirror-Mad Phantasm in my first booster. :3c

 

[Lore]

I got a Reaper from the Abyss in my first booster. :3

I also finally got a playmat!

 

[Lythium]

Nice!

I did a draft with my boyfriend yesterday, and I also pulled an Essence of the Wild and Geist of Saint Traft. :3c

Dem mythics.

 

[Lore]

The mythics in this set are a ton of fun in EDH, too, even if they aren't the best in standard and such. :3

 

[Lythium]

Well, since I pretty much only play EDH these days, I am okay with this. And I only need one copy, so that helps. :3

I really like Innistrad so far. It's a really fun set.

 

[Lore]

Yeah, it really is! Especially since I love both werewolves and the double-faced cards. :3

This is a huge make up for Scars block which sucked until New Phyrexia.

And EDH is fantastic.

 

[quote]

So yeah, I had an amiazing weekend.

I take second in FNM, and today I took first in a 14 man draft for rares. I picked up a liliana.

I put my box of cards on the back of my car.

I drive home.

I look in my back seat and realize my whole collection isn't there.

I drive back to look for my cards.

I find half of them on the road, run over, and the other half is MIA.

I'm out 1000+ dollars in cards.

Give me sympathy.

 

[UTDZac]

So yeah, I had an amiazing weekend.

I take second in FNM, and today I took first in a 14 man draft for rares. I picked up a liliana.

I put my box of cards on the back of my car.

I drive home.

I look in my back seat and realize my whole collection isn't there.

I drive back to look for my cards.

I find half of them on the road, run over, and the other half is MIA.

I'm out 1000+ dollars in cards.

Give me sympathy.

Same here. I'm driving from Dallas to Oklahoma for one of the mtg states championships. I get 10 miles from the venue and this happens: http://i.imgur.com/NqAUa.jpg

That's my friend who was riding in the back seat, he was lucky lol.

I feel ya buddy

 

[quote]

Mutual sympathies.

Were your cards crushed too? The car getting totalled like that was bad enough.

From now on. I think that I'm only going to carry the deck that I'm using. This is too much of a blow all at once. If there was card insurance. I would buy it.

 

[Lore]

Major sympathy, Quote. I'm sorry that that happened.

 

[Gates]

So yeah, I had an amiazing weekend.

I take second in FNM, and today I took first in a 14 man draft for rares. I picked up a liliana.

I put my box of cards on the back of my car.

I drive home.

I look in my back seat and realize my whole collection isn't there.

I drive back to look for my cards.

I find half of them on the road, run over, and the other half is MIA.

I'm out 1000+ dollars in cards.

Give me sympathy.

Same here. I'm driving from Dallas to Oklahoma for one of the mtg states championships. I get 10 miles from the venue and this happens: http://i.imgur.com/NqAUa.jpg

That's my friend who was riding in the back seat, he was lucky lol.

I feel ya buddy

Damn, these are probably the two worst things I've ever heard happen to somebody's collection. My sympathies to you both.

From now on. I think that I'm only going to carry the deck that I'm using. This is too much of a blow all at once. If there was card insurance. I would buy it.

I would say that that's extreme, but I guess you don't really have a choice now.



**cough** So, uh, on the lighter side of things....

So I was messing around with Snapcaster Mage in a Vintage deck and he's really good. And by "really good", I don't mean Goblin Welder/Mental Misstep/Tezzeret "really good". I mean like Yawg Will/Tolarian Academy/Tinker "really good". He's basically a one-shot Yawg Will for a sorcery in your graveyard. Look at all this stuff he can get back:

[collapse=So Many Insane Plays]Snapcaster Ancestral
Snapcaster Time Walk
Snapcaster Tutor
Snapcaster Duress/Thoughtseize
Snapcaster FoW/Mana Drain/Mental Misstep/Spell Pierce/FluttershyFlusterstorm
Snapcaster Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain
Snapcaster Gifts
Snapcaster Tinker
Snapcaster Regrowth/Nature's Claim
Snapcaster Hurkyl's
Snapcaster Gush
Snapcaster Dark/Cabal Ritual
Snapcaster REB
Snapcaster Mind's Desire (so cheesy but so awesome if you pull it off)
Snapcaster Gitaxian Probe
Snapcaster Draw7
Snapcaster hate card
[/collapse]
This **** is bananas. I really wanna make a combo deck with this guy. He's just so damn good.

 

[UTDZac]

Jeez, just realized how nuts he sounds in High Tide.

 

[Gates]

Oh ****, you're right. He's going to be so nuts in Legacy High Tide. Just imagine being able to flashback a Time Spiral You can't target Time Spiral because Time Spiral removes itself from the game on resolution, but you can still flashback Turnabout and stuff.

This guy just made my favorite Legacy deck even more fun to play. :D

 

[Lore]

Good god, High Tide seems even more fun now.

 

[Gates]

Speaking of fun decks, I just remembered a deck that's a ton of fun for casual multiplayer. For the person playing it that is.

[collapse=Old Discard]
25 Mana
17 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Cabal Coffers

12 Combo
4 Megrim
4 Words of Waste
4 Geth's Grimoire

6 Creatures
3 Ravenous Rats
3 Withered Wretch

17 Piss You Off
4 Terror
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Tangle Wire
3 Syphon Soul
2 Underworld Dreams
3 Syphon Mind
[/collapse]

The deck is basically built around using Geth's Grimoire to repeatedly trigger Words of Waste leading to your opponent discarding multiple cards on your draw step and allowing you to draw a ton of cards. Megrim supplements this by making your opponent take damage for each card they discard too. This really works well in a multiplayer setting when you can have multiple opponents discarding cards every turn, allowing you to tear through your deck.

The rest of the deck is basically just to annoy your opponent - Tangle Wires and Spheres keep them low on mana so that you can't pick off what's left of their hand, additional discard means additional damage, Terror is for creature control, manlands are for doing damage while getting mana up under Sphere, Syphon Soul is really good for damage and life gain in a multiplayer setting, and Withered Wretch gets beats in and keeps them from doing any graveyard tricks (and also because I just really love this guy).

If I were to rebuild it today, here's what it would look like

[collapse=New Hotness]
24 Mana
11 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Cabal Pit
2 Cabal Coffers
1 Volrath's Stronghold

13 Combo
4 Liliana's Caress
1 Megrim
4 Words of Waste
4 Geth's Grimoire

12 Creatures
4 Rotting Rats
3 Withered Wretch
3 Nezumi Shortfang
2 Urborg Syphon-Mage

12 Other Control
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Syphon Mind
2 Black Sun's Zenith/Damnation/Syphon Flesh
[/collapse]
Liliana's Caress is pretty much Strictly Better than Megrim since it's cheaper and loss of life is harder to prevent than just damage. A lone Megrim is in there anyway for redundant effects. Liliana herself is also vital to the deck, possibly enough to merit a 4-of. I couldn't ignore the synergy between Liliana's self-discard effects, Rotting Rats, and Cabal Therapy. With all the other effects in this deck, the ability to get each opponent to discard 2+ cards, lose 4+ life, and draw up to 3 cards all in one turn is pretty damn good. Nezumi Shortfang is a good source of permanent discard and he can get flipped in a short amount of time if you put some other components together for it quickly. Stabwhisker is great for additional upkeep damage and he's the biggest dude in the deck. Urborg Syphon-Mage is good for getting parts of the Rat Therapy combo into the graveyard and gaining life while hitting your opponents - basically a replacement for Syphon Soul. Black Sun's Dawn is recommended for mass removal as it gets around indestructibility and is reusable, but Damnation is more cost efficient, and Syphon Flesh can potentially get you enough dudes to win the game. Cabal Pit is a tiny bit of spot removal, not much but should be enough that creatures in the early game aren't a problem. Volrath's Stronghold is used to recur creatures since this deck relies on them for discard effects. And like I said before, I love Withered Wretch.

This deck is very decidedly multiplayer. Most of the combo will not work nearly as well in a one-on-one scenario. That said, it's a very fun deck in 2 on 2, Emperor, or free-for-all setting.

 

[Octave]

Alright, I decided I wanted to build something for Modern format and this is what I've come up with - an atrocity of a deck that focuses on Vengevine but uses absolutely no green mana. I haven't come up with a clever name for it yet so for now it's just UB Vengevine.

[COLLAPSE="UB Vengevine"]

20 Creatures -
Vengevine x4
Bloodghast x2
Nether Traitor x2
Reassembling Skellington x2
Memnite x3
Ornithopter x3
Civilized Scholar x4

15 Spells -
Gifts Ungiven x4
Dismember x4
Smallpox x4
Foil x3

3 Enchantments -
Zombie Infestation x3

22 Lands -
Island x10
Swamp x12
Explanation of inclusions:

Alright, so, without green mana sources, you were (until you read the card list, I hope) wondering "How does he expect to play a green creature without using green mana?" Well, Vengevine can be cast from the graveyard quite easily. All it takes is two other creature casts. Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, Skellington, Memnite, and Ornithopter are all inexpensive creatures (especially the last two, duh) with the first three being recurrable. Then, Civilized Scholar will pitch a VV to become a 5/1 beater. Gifts Ungiven will name Vine, Ghast, Traitor, and Skellington. Dismember is obv creature control. Smallpox allows me to put more easily recurrable creatures into the GY while controlling the boardstate. Foil can both counter a spell and put Vine into the GY. Zombie Infestation can let me pitch to make chump blockers/more beaters.[/COLLAPSE]

I am open to opinions and suggestions, naturally.

 

[UTDZac]

Just note that, while bloodghast, nether traitor, and skeleton come into play form the grave, they arent gonna help you cast vengevine any easier.

 

[Octave]

Yeah, I know. I'm honestly not sure if I really want them in, except it makes Gifts Ungiven a little ridiculous. Do you have any better ideas? I could replace them with Frogmites for when I've got Thopters and Memnites out, or something like Compulsive Research.

 

[Gates]

I think you'd honestly be a lot better off running an Erayo Affinity-esque deck with cheap creatures and fast discard to get out multiple Vengevines than trying to somehow run Gifts.

[collapse=Something like this]
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Darksteel Citadel
3 Blinkmoth Nexus

4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3 Riddlesmith
4 Frogmite
4 Vengevine

3 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Repeal
3 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
[/collapse]

This deck uses the Erayo/Canonist combo as well as the Vengevine+2 creatures combo. Your ideal play is to get down a Riddlesmith on turn 2 along with some random artifact and discard Vengevine, then combo off with Erayo and Canonist the next turn. This will make your opponent unable to play non-artifact spells and it'll give you a 4/4 hasted beater and a sweet draw engine that you can use to quickly find and equip Cranial Plating. Almost 1/3 of your deck costs 0 mana, so getting to 4 spells and 2 creature spells with some careful planning shouldn't be a problem. One problem this deck does have, however, is a lack of discard outlets, with Riddlesmith being the only one. Still, the Erayo lock is strong enough to buy you time to search it out with your plethora of draw spells, so it shouldn't be a problem.

But really, the best way to use Vengevine effectively is with Fauna Shaman.

 

[Octave]

Yeah, I seriously considered simply making it a BUG deck so I could run Fauna Shaman and.. something else I can't recall. But I wanted it to be more hilarious and abstract than good. The list you've posted, while clearly much better, is most importantly not exactly how I would want to play the deck, and less importantly much more expensive money wise (I'm on somewhat of a budget, at least until I get paid in two weeks). Hallowed Fountain being $32 each (midprice on magiccards.info) is hella steep.

What's the point of Blinkmoth Nexus? I feel like I'm missing something, there. Is it just another artifact creature to get Affinity online? Also, if I were to actually include green in it, how different would it look? What else would go in besides Fauna Shamans?

 

[Gates]

Yeah, I seriously considered simply making it a BUG deck so I could run Fauna Shaman and.. something else I can't recall.

If you wanted to put in a green card but you can't remember what it is, it was probably Tarmogoyf lol.

But I wanted it to be more hilarious and abstract than good. The list you've posted, while clearly much better, is most importantly not exactly how I would want to play the deck, and less importantly much more expensive money wise (I'm on somewhat of a budget, at least until I get paid in two weeks). Hallowed Fountain being $32 each (midprice on magiccards.info) is hella steep.

You can substitute the Hallowed Fountains for Adarkar Wastes, which are like a buck each, or substitute both duals for basic lands (I don't advise this, but worst case scenario you could do it). Glimmervoid is also an option, but don't run more than 2 or 3. In all honestly though, buying duals is a very good idea in the long run since you can get a lot of use out of them in all sorts of different decks. Same deal with fetchlands.

After the duals, I think the most expensive things in the deck are Blinkmoth Nexus (which I'll get to soon) and Moxen, which are really important but I guess not completely necessary. The most expensive card after those is actually Vengevine, which is more expensive than Nexus lol.

The main non-land rares in the deck don't cost more than $10 each and most of the deck is commons and uncommons that are in low demand because they don't fit in any other decks. Affinity is an easy deck to build on a budget aside from that one guy.

What's the point of Blinkmoth Nexus? I feel like I'm missing something, there. Is it just another artifact creature to get Affinity online?

Blinkmoth Nexus is a mana source in the early game and something to put Cranial Plating on in the late game. The fact that it can become a flying artifact basically makes it a better Ornithopter. It's used over other flyers because of the aforementioned mana abilities in the early game and due to the fact that once you start swinging with it you're generally in a position to win the game.

Also, if I were to actually include green in it, how different would it look? What else would go in besides Fauna Shamans?

In my build, there's no way you'd be able to integrate green into the deck. The list I posted is air tight as it is. I mean I had to cut Ravager just to fit all the stuff you need in.

In general though, there's several different builds you can look at that were used in Standard that had the Fauna Shaman/Vengevine engine. Obviously a lot of these have stuff like Stoneforge Mystic and Preordain that are banned in Modern now, but other than that they should help you make a decent framework and give you a general idea of which one looks most interesting to you:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6540&iddeck=47375 - Most recent one I could find, uses Vengeful Pharaoh to do some fun shenanigans.
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=5917&iddeck=42900 - I like the combo of Ornithopter+Kor Skyfisher that this one uses. It only uses one Vengevine though.
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6480&iddeck=46953 - This one is, ah, unconventional. It's probably the least consistent of the variations here, but it does run Immolating Souleater which is cool if you're like me and don't give a **** about your life total.
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6514&iddeck=47180 - This one combines Fauna Shaman, Birthing Pod, and Splinter Twin. The deck has about 10 different win conditions. It's hilarious.

In general though, Fauna Shaman decks are basically Survival of the Fittest decks, so I'd suggest you look up some of those to get inspiration. I'm too tired to write up another list right now, but I might later.

EDIT: You should definitely put in Eternal Witness if you're running green though.
EDIT2: Project Melira is actually a fun deck in Modern. Maybe you could look into incorporating the Fauna Shaman engine into that?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

So I decided to do W/G tokens in standard. It's working very well, only MU I detest is wolf run ramp.

Otherwise I like it a lot as a token deck, great late game plays it can do are absurd.

 

[Gates]

So...Worlds?

I think it's pretty funny that there were 4 people in the top8 with the exact same decklist. Did people sleep on Tempered Steel then or is the deck just that good?

Right now there's some pretty interesting stuff happening with combo decks in Modern too. I thought that the banning of Rite of Flame would have castrated combo decks but all it's really done is slow them down a bit. I especially like the Ad Nauseam Conflagrate and Yawgmoth's Will Sins of the Past in Flames decks.

Past in Flame is really fun actually. I'd love to see a Past in Flames Standard deck but there's no good Ritual effects in the format. Seems like a neat trick in theory though - Past in Flames, replay rituals, replay all your burn spells. At the very least you get your Gut Shots back.

 

[1048576]

My hypothesis is that Tempered Steel folds to Ancient Grudge, so it wasn't so good when the best deck was RG, but CFB was the only team at worlds to notice the deck again after RG stepped down.

 

[Gates]

Inferno Titan is more relevant than Grudge imo since it's just good against the whole format. Grudge definitely helped against Tempered Steel though.

Olivia is pretty cool too.

I'm just now noticing with the Titans how much power creep is getting into Magic these days. I remember back when the Pit Fighter Legends of Onslaught were released and I thought they were pretty powerful. Now they look like a joke.

 

[Mike2]

So I want to get into MTG and I'm a little confused on how things work. There are core and expansion sets? What's the difference exactly? I'm assuming expansions are smaller.
And what kind of starter deck would people recommend me getting? Read a review that the Innistrad one is bad.
Also I want to get a booster box. Which one should I get?

 

[UTDZac]

There are core and expansion sets? What's the difference exactly? I'm assuming expansions are smaller.

Core Sets and Expansion Sets are the same thing... they are both Sets. A Core set has a lot of reprinted cards in it, the other sets all have new cards.

See here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/products/allproducts

And what kind of starter deck would people recommend me getting? Read a review that the Innistrad one is bad.

Intro decks are bad, they don't really have any good cards/value. What you want is an Event Deck. Those are tournament ready and have a decent amount of good cards.

More info here: http://mtg-realm.blogspot.com/2011/09/innistrad-intro-packs-and-event-decks.html

Also I want to get a booster box. Which one should I get?

Innistrad.