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Magic: The Gathering and Commander (EDH)

Octave

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Connecticut USA
Alrighty, decklists are go!

Legacy - S-crap

Code:
[B](20) Creatures - [/B]
Painsmith x4
Glaze Fiend x4
Disciple of the Vault x4
Arcbound Ravager x4
Salvage Slasher x2
Salvage Titan x2

[B](24) Artifacts - [/B]
Mox Opal x4
Urza's Bauble x4
Mishra's Bauble x4
Ichor Wellspring x4
Chromatic Star x4
Dispeller's Capsule x2
Executioner's Capsule x2

[B](16) Lands - [/B]
Darksteel Citadel x4
Vault of Whispers x4
Ancient Den x4
Great Furnace x2
Cabal Pit x2
Code:
[B][U]EDH - Skullbriar, the Walking Grave[/U][/B]

General: 
Skullbriar


[B](23) Creatures -[/B]
Bloodghast
Birds of Paradise
Cytoplast Root-Kin
Fertilid
Forgotten Ancient
Fungal Behemoth
Grim Poppet
Jugan, the Rising Star
Melira, Sylvok Outcast
Mephidross Vampire
Midnight Banshee
Mycoloth
Necroskitter
Nether Traitor
Oracle of Mul Daya
Serrated Biskelion
Skinrender
Solemn Simulacrum
Triskelion
Vorinclex
Vigor
Wickerbough Elder
Woodfall Primus

[B](13) Enchantments -[/B]
Abundance
Asceticism
Blowfly Infestation
Crumbling Ashes
Doubling Season
Fevered Convulsions
Flourishing Defenses
Glistening Oil
Grave Pact
Oversold Cemetary
Quest for the Gemblades
Rancor
Sylvan Library
 
[B](14) Artifacts -[/B]
Basilisk Collar
Blade of the Bloodcheif
Birthing Pod
Contagion Clasp
Contagion Engine
Golgari Signet
Lightning Greaves
Loxodon Warhammer
Mimic Vat
Phyrexian Altar
Power Conduit
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Sol Ring


[B](14) Other Spells -[/B]
Beseech the Queen
Cultivate
Dread Return
Genesis Wave
Incremental Blight
Kodama's Reach
Krosan Grip
Maelstrom Pulse
Praetor's Council
Putrefy
Snuff Out
Strength of the Tajuru
Sudden Death
Tooth and Nail



[B](35) Lands -[/B]
Forest x16
Swamp x12
Golgari Rot Farm
Command Tower
Bojuka Bog
Exotic Orchard
Llanowar Reborn
Rupture Spire
Reliquary Tower
The only cards I do not own from these lists are Mox Opal and Arcbound Ravager because they're two four-ofs that cost $22 each, meaning roughly $174 for two cards :/

Now, you might think that Skullbriar is incredibly voltron, however I have gone a good number of games not playing him a single time. I can completely dominate a table, killing off creatures with -1/-1 counters and taking control of them in response to you trying to do anything to my board. It feels good, like I'm playing something UW. :awesome:
 

Matunas

I'm a monster!
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How in the hell have I not posted in this thread. I'm out of competitive magic completely but play the hell out of EDH. Eventually I'll get a list up here. My main deck has been Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper for awhile now.
 

UncleSam

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Oct 14, 2008
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Troy, NY
Oh my god, Innistrad is absolutely amazing so far. I'm definitely building a Werewolf deck after the release.
I really want to make U/B zombies splashing G for essence of the wild. That way zombies won't come in tapped and come in 6/6

:phone:
 

Lore

Infinite Gravity
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Formerly 'Werekill' and 'NeoTermina'
I WANT to build around Lab Maniac, but a friend of mine is being a **** and says that he "called" the deck first, so he thinks I'll be an ******* for building the deck too. >_<
 

Smooth Criminal

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=/

Lab Maniac is cheese. Pure, unadulterated cheese.

Mirror-Mad Phantasm is pretty cheese-y, too. Hot damn if it wouldn't be baller for a blue/black deck, tho'. 's like Morality Shift on crack.

Smooth Criminal
 

Octave

Smash Ace
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Jan 4, 2010
Messages
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Location
Connecticut USA
Yeah I definitely agree, those are cheese cards. I still like them though. Also, why does nobody comment on my decklists ;-;
 

1048576

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
3,417
Legacy and EDH are foreign to me.

Necrotic Ooze + Mirror-Mad Phantasm? You get to put Necrotic Ooze back, but you keep searching and searching until you find a different copy of Mirror Mad. Also, Necrotic Ooze would prolly play well with the rest of the deck. How to make it fast though?
 

UTDZac

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Image a blue-white control deck. It runs Birthing Pod with creatures like:








Again, it's UW control, but it gets insane card advantage from snap caster, pod, and the flying zombie. It finishes by copying the single Mad-Mirror Phantasm with the Image, then returning the image to your deck looking for the mad mirror. Can't find one? Guess you're whole deck is in your game and you win :)
 

1048576

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
3,417
They cast Shock and you lose.
Pod + Snapcaster is bad magic. You want a toolbox of creatures and nonpermanents at the same time. There's not enough room. Milling is directly opposed to what Birthing Pod wants. I'm having a terrible time fitting Mesa Enchantress + O-Ring and Angelic Destiny into a Snapcontrol deck. I think this would be even worse.
 

Octave

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What'd you get, singles or boosters?

Just bought a **** ton of tiny deck-color-matching d6 and white dragon shield sleeves along with a Tibor and Lumia, my next general.
 

UTDZac

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I wanted to get white dragon shield sleeves but the backs are partially see through, making double-faced cards a pain :(
 

Octave

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Ah.. that's unfortunate. We'll see if any double sided cards make it into Tibor and Lumia.

Who else is going to be picking up a box of Innistrad?
 

Octave

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It's 36 boosters. Boosters are usually $4 apiece, so you hit $100 at 25 boosters. I've seen the boxes on preorder for like $90, though, so you figure 36 boosters is valued at $144 individually, you're saving like $54 buying a box rather than buying the same amount of individual boosters.
 

UTDZac

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True, but what if I plan on attending all the pre-release / release events my store plans on having. I get 6 per sealed event plus cards from drafting.

Hmm... what to do...
 

Octave

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Connecticut USA
Both!

Nah, idk. Do what you want. I don't have a way to get to prerelease events or anything so I'm just buying a box. I haven't ever bought a box for myself, it's always been split with a friend and he always gets the mythics and money cards ;-;
 

Gates

Banned via Warnings
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Mar 22, 2008
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9,316
Werekill asked me to post this here.

Gates, we need to talk about 'dose modern bans.
I think Rite of Flame is the only ban I agree with. I mean, Dark Ritual was almost always banned in Extended and Rite of Flame is basically the Dark Ritual of Modern. I kind of disagreed with Blazing Shoal at first, but then I remembered the potential turn 1 kill with Raging Goblin+Blazing Shoal*2, AND WE CAN'T HAVE THAT NOW CAN WE? Green Sun's Zenith is very, very good, but at this point it's not overly centralizing. Cloudpost, Ponder, and Preordain did not need to be banned at all though.

I'll talk about Ponder and Preordain soon enough, but basically they should have known that Cloudpost was going to be this good in this format when they printed not only Vesuva but also Glimmerpost and when they made it so that Primeval Titan can search for any land instead of basic lands. They say that there are alternatives for mana ramping in the format. Like what? Urza lands? Heartbeat? Vernal Bloom? I mean yeah they COULD work, but they don't even come close to having the competitive capabilities of Twelvepost.

Everything besides Rite of Flame and Blazing Shoal is total bull**** and I think that they're just trying to take all the fun stuff out of Modern. Maybe it's my bias as a Vintage fan, but I really don't mind having to deal with all of my opponents being able to do broken things with their decks (or at least play Tarmogoyf, which is still kind of broken). There's an argument out there that control isn't very good in this format, and although I agree, I think that just banning things isn't going to solve the overall problem. Instead, you should look at the cards that you already banned, and think about how unbanning them would benefit the format instead of just saying "no, we won't unban it unless it becomes totally harmless, just like Gush in Vintage". All this just seems like knee-jerk reactions to the results of a Pro Tour that happened not even 3 weeks ago.

If I were in charge of the DCI, my banlist in Modern would be this:
  • Blazing Shoal
  • Chrome Mox
  • Dread Return
  • Jace, The Mindsculptor
  • Rite of Flame
  • Sensei's Divining Top OR Ponder+Preordain
  • Skullclamp
  • Stoneforge Mystic
  • Umezawa's Jitte
And that's it. Aside from Disciple of the Vault (which is where Affinity and Ironworks decks have traditionally gotten their biggest damage from), the artifact lands (which could be compensated for by banning Disciple instead), Green Sun's Zenith (which admittedly is a bit silly in the current format but could end up being not nearly as good under other circumstances), and Mental Misstep (which honestly doesn't seem to have too much bearing on the format compared to Vintage or Legacy), I can't think of any other cards besides the ones I've listed that completely break the format in half or enable turn one kills, which are the criteria that Wizards seems to be looking at when writing the banned/restricted lists (or at least the ones they SHOULD look at for a new format).

I have to lean towards their judgement on Blazing Shoal - it has potential for a turn 1 kill using the old Raging Goblin strategy even though it's mostly used for the more consistent turn 2 or 3 kill with Inkmoth Nexus or Blighted Agent. If they really want to reduce the amount of super-fast kills, then banning Blazing Shoal is a much less restrictive idea than banning Inkmoth Nexus.

Chrome Mox and Rite of Flame are the most dangerous accelerants in the format by far. Chrome Mox turns every deck's turn 2 kills into turn 1 kills and Rite of Flame makes red decks way better than they should be.

Dread Return is the core of what makes Dredge decks playable. With no Bazaar of Baghdad, Lion's Eye Diamond, Cabal Therapy, or Ichorid, I doubt Dredge will be remotely as threatening in Modern as it was in Vintage, Legacy, and Extended. Still, people seem to be afraid of it (I guess because graveyard hate is so hard to come by in modern*) so banning arguably the most important card from it should be enough. With the right hand, Dredge can potentially set up a turn 2 or 3 kill using lots of discard and dredge, Dread Return, and a big creature like Sun Titan. I realize that Wizards banned Golgari Grave-Troll along with this initially, but I don't think the troll is enough of a threat on his own to constitute a banning. I mean for god's sake they don't even have Careful Study in Modern!

[collapse="*Except for..."]
Bojuka Bog
Tormod's Crypt
Surgical Extraction

Extirpate
Nihil Spellbomb
Relic of Progenitus

Scavenging Ooze What do you mean it's not legal? That's bull****!
Withered Wretch
Faerie Macabre
Jund Charm
Ravenous Trap
Leyline of the Void


And everything in bold costs 0 colored mana to cast or remove cards from the graveyard, so they can be run in any deck.
[/collapse]

Jace is stupid and I hate his stupid ****ing face. If there's any card selection that I can support the banning or restriction of, it's mister auto-Brainstorm here.

I shouldn't have to talk about Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte, or Stoneforge Mystic. If you played Standard when they were legal, you know why they're banned. Although I did have a fun deck that I played before Skullclamp was banned that was built around Skullclamp, Genesis Chamber, Auriok Steelshaper, and Disciple of the Vault. Once I was playing a 2v2 game and I killed both of my opponents with it in one turn and then on that same turn I killed my partner just for ****s and giggles. Good times.

I support the banning of either Sensei's Divining Top or Ponder+Preordain, but not all three. Having all three legal means that everyone in their right mind will either play Counterbalance decks to win or Aether Vial decks to try and beat the Counterbalance decks, like in Legacy between 2007-2008. Nobody wants that because nobody likes Legacy it was an unbalanced format with a lot of issues and just really boring overall. That said, I think banning the only good sources of card selection in this format is preposterous. Wizards has said that with SDT banned, blue decks dominate the card draw department and thus the metagame as a whole (oh wow, the color that specializes at drawing cards is good at drawing cards, big shock). I personally never saw anything wrong with this, but apparently the success of good decks was totally unexpected by Wizards, so whatever. My point is that if you want to be able to balance the power level in a new format, you should first look at what you could give them by unbanning things instead of just banning **** left and right until the format becomes as slow as Standard. I mean they might as well ban Tarmogoyf for making green decks too powerful, or Mountain for making red decks too sexy.

And I guess that's really my biggest criticism of Wizards' approach to Modern - they're treating it like they would treat Standard, Extended, or Block when they should be treating it as an eternal format. As far as I know, Modern isn't going to "rotate" like Extended does every few years, so if they want to let it settle into being a good metagame they need to let it work out its own kinks before making any rash decisions. Right now the DCI is being like a sheltering overprotective mother who doesn't want her pwecious widdwe fowmat to be hurt by the big scary stuff and they think they're justified in this but they end up spoiling their kid, which is almost as bad as neglecting them entirely like they did when they didn't ban Tinker in Extended before Pro Tour New Orleans in 2003, right after Mirrodin was released (7 Tinker decks in the top 8? Talk about an unbalanced format). What the DCI really needs to do is be a responsible parent and only ban things if they know for certain that it'll be a bad influence, like getting hopped up on red mana with Rite of Flame, pitching the lunch money you gave them that morning on Chrome Mox, cutting off all their hair to attach some sort of clamp to their skull, or hanging out that white haired girl who dresses kind of like a goth **** because she looks like she's been around.

There's really no reason why Wizards is being so restrictive to their child with what they're allowed to do. I mean I mowed the lawn, I cleaned my room, I did my laundry, I finished all my homework, my Eagle Scout project is done and I've already prepared for the review board, and I put gas in the car (with my own money I might add), so why can't I just go hang out with my friends at this party, dad!? I won't drink, I promise! What about my progress report? I am trying hard! Oh, like knowing about Chaucer is useful in the real world! "All As" isn't a reasonable academic goal, dad, that **** would take way too much work! Of course I'm not lazy, I just told you all the **** I did today! I'm 16 and I'll ****ing swear if I want to! You raise your voice to me all the time, why can't I raise my voice to you!? Yeah, well **** YOU you FAT PIECE OF ****!

...

...Anyway, the Modern bannings are kind of like that and I disagree with them.





OF COURSE, NONE OF THIS **** MATTER ANYWAY SINCE EVERYONE IS JUST GOING TO PLAY ZOO WHEN PTQ SEASON ROLLS AROUND, LOLOLOLIOOLOL. Shoutouts to Tarmogoyf for being one of the stupidest easy-win creatures ever.

[collapse="tl;dr version"]
[/collapse]

Uhhhhhhhh no. Not at all. It's mono blue, for one thing. Also, I've taken out Misstep since it's banned in legacy.
Mono-Blue could work I guess. It's much slower and you lose a lot of good tools, but it could work.

I wrote the list before I saw that Mental Misstep was banned. You could replace it with, idk, Dispel, Disrupt, Spell Pierce, etc.

Why don't you just post that decklist already so I can actually see it?



Is Gush still unrestricted in Vintage? I really thought they'd re-restrict it and just keep it that way. FoF being legal makes a lot more sense than Gush imo. Big broken blue cards that cost a ton of mana aren't nearly as potent as they used to be.
 

Gates

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I know, I was asking if it was unrestricted.

Honestly, Gush should be restricted and stay restricted. Every time they unrestrict it, broken **** always ends up happening in the deck that it powers. I guess now there's more broken **** going on in other decks though so they think it's ok, but Gush decks are really still the best.
 

Lythium

underachiever
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Yeah, it's unrestricted.

I like Gush though, because I like stupid cards. But in a competitive format, I agree with you. It should be restricted.
 

Lore

Infinite Gravity
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Gates, I'll do a long responce when I can.

However, I'll go ahead and say that I like the bans. Wizards is trying its best to make a format that isn't a copy of the "best hits" of the last few years of standard and extended, and I applaud them for it. Besides, playing against/with a bunch of autopilot combo decks where, since there's no force of will, games come down to luck is never fun. We might have different opinions, but that's just how I feel.

Also, P + P ban was totally necessary. It neutered Splinter Twin and Ascension into perfectly acceptable forms, imo, without actually banning the combos.

Polymorph decklist:
20 Island

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Brainstorm
4 Flayer Husk
4 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Spell Pierce
4 Wind Zendikon
4 Daze
4 Mana Leak
2 See Beyond
4 Proteus Staff
4 Polymorph


It's fairly consistent as is, but I need another Emrakul for consistency's sake. I also need to work on the mana base a bit, but it really does have decent consistency (yes, I shuffle well).
 

Gates

Banned via Warnings
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Messages
9,316
However, I'll go ahead and say that I like the bans. Wizards is trying its best to make a format that isn't a copy of the "best hits" of the last few years of standard and extended, and I applaud them for it.
I'd hardly call the PT Philly metagame "the greatest hits of Standard and Extended". I look at the decks with 18 points or higher and I see plenty of originality. Blazing Infect is (was) a new archetype, as is (was) the current incarnation of Twelvepost.

And anyway, hasn't Extended almost always been a collection of good Standard decks from years past over the last few years? I can't remember a time where Extended was a collection of decks that utilized cards from all sorts of different blocks since Tempest and Urza's block were legal. Ever since then it's more or less just been pre-established archetypes (old standard decks or new versions of Extended mainstays like The Rock and RDW), Zoo, Elves, and Dredge. Extended has always been like this and Modern is really just an extension of Extended, so it's only logical that this was going to happen.

Besides, playing against/with a bunch of autopilot combo decks where, since there's no force of will, games come down to luck is never fun.
Force of Will has nothing to do with it and the format is not all combo decks. I think you're overreacting. This isn't as bad as the summer of Necropotence back in the 90s or Pro Tour Tinker back in '03. Most of the blue decks in the format are less like pure, dedicated combo decks and more like control decks with a combo finish. Pyromancer decks and Storm decks are the only ones who don't fit this description, and they're largely ignored because they're less inconsistent than the decks that have more control elements in them.

When there's at least 5 or 6 solutions to dealing with every major deck archetype, I don't see any real need to ban anything than what you absolutely need to. I'm very against banning cards until they're proven absurdly broken, and I wish that PT Philly had a much smaller ban list (like about 7-10 cards instead of 21) so that we could see if anything absurdly broken would come up and make emergency bannings then. This format is only a month old and they've already gutted it. Its ban list is already over half the size of the Legacy banlist (not counting ante cards, dexterity cards, and Shazrad), doesn't anybody else think that's a bit high?

So yeah, if you REALLY want to see Faeries, Splinter Twin, RDW, The Rock, and Zoo be dominant in YET ANOTHER format, these bannings are fine. But that's the last thing I want to see, which is why I'm against them. Maybe I'm really biased because I loved Vintage back when Ritual-based combo decks were viable and they're not anymore and I'm taking out my frustration by wanting to have a format I can actually do broken **** in. I'd still like to see a metagame with Affinity, Dark Depths, Elves, Hypergenesis, Valakut, TwelvePost, Storm combo, Swath combo, and all the blue combo-control decks being viable in addition to RDW, Faeries, The Rock, and Zoo, but I doubt that'll ever happen. Maybe they should just reprint Force of Will to make it so that Modern can have all these things.

And have you ever played Belcher? It's anything but autopilot. I think you're only saying that combo decks are autopilot because Polmorph is, lol.

Also, P + P ban was totally necessary. It neutered Splinter Twin and Ascension into perfectly acceptable forms, imo, without actually banning the combos.
Well if you're going to neuter all the decks that can compete with Splinter Twin then yes you should do something to nerf Splinter Twin as well.

Polymorph decklist:
20 Island

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Brainstorm
4 Flayer Husk
4 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Spell Pierce
4 Wind Zendikon
4 Daze
4 Mana Leak
2 See Beyond
4 Proteus Staff
4 Polymorph


It's fairly consistent as is, but I need another Emrakul for consistency's sake. I also need to work on the mana base a bit, but it really does have decent consistency (yes, I shuffle well).
Seems solid. At first I didn't see the point of See Beyond, but I suppose it's the best thing you have for getting Emrakul out of your hand. idk if 12 counters is really necessary, you could probably get away with only 10. If you want a second creature to Polymorph up, why not Blightsteel Colossus? He ends the game in one swing.
 

1048576

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
3,417
Smallpox and Mulch seem good together. You end up with like 6 cards in your grave, both cards are good on their own, and both cards want you to be playing extra lands. but what should the rest of the deck look like? You can't do the green creature dump thing, because the two namesake cards aren't creatures and you don't want to be killing a guy to your own smallpox. Vengeful Pharoah might be good. new Lilianna is prolly an auto-include. Solemn Simulcrum seems like a natural fit. It might be worth playing red for grim lavamancer, since you're playing enough extra lands that the mana won't be too big a deal. What should the wincon be? Is it better to dip into blue for the Snapcaster, Visions of Beyond, Think Twice, Forbidden Alchemy package?
 

Gates

Banned via Warnings
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Messages
9,316
Mulch is a cool card. It's like a ghetto version of Life from the Loam.

Simulacrum should be in the deck regardless of what colors you run. It's excellent with Smallpox. If you're going to run green and Smallpox you should consider running Viridian Emissary and Caravan Vigil as well.

The way I see it, there's two things you could do with a BG deck using that engine. The first thing is to make it a more or less typical BG Rock deck and have a lot of 187 creatures and ways of hitting the opponent's permanents. It would be pretty consistent but probably lack the raw power of a blue deck.

[collapse="Rock Sample Decklist: 61 Cards"]
24 Land
8 Forest
2 Inkmoth Nexus
10 Swamp
4 Woodland Cemetery

21 Creatures
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Viridian Emissary
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Thrun, The Last :troll:
2 Acidic Slime
1 Massacre Wurm
2 Grave Titan
3 Vengeful Pharaoh

16 Spells
2 Caravan Vigil
4 Mulch
4 Smallpox
3 Dismember
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Spider Spawning

15 Sideboard
1 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Phyrexian Crusader
2 Acidic Slime
3 Naturalize
4 Go for the Throat
1 Dismember

This deck is basically all about stopping your opponent from doing what they want by killing their good cards, getting more lands than them, and eating their hand. The deck is based around these simple principles and everything in it is designed to help with that goal. Rock is traditionally a metagame deck, so you can change stuff around depending on what you typically play against in tourneys.

Inkmoth Nexus is not really necessary to the deck, you can cut it for some swamps if you want. It does have some synergy with Phyrexian Crusader post-board though.

Phyrexian Revoker is basically good against the entire metagame. He can stop Splinter Twin by naming Deciever Exarch. He can stop Birthing Pod by naming Birthing Pod. He can even help against aggro decks game 1 by naming Sword of Feast and Famine (although against Aggro you should board him out game 2 for Phyrexian Crusader or Go for the Throat). He's just an amazing card if used correctly and he can hit for two, which is why he's in the maindeck instead of just the sideboard. Oh, and don't play Smallpox if you have nothing but this guy out. Obviously.

Viridian Emissary and Solemn Simulacrum are there for the obvious synergy with Smallpox. The added fact that Emissary is a 2 power creature for 2 is also nice.

Thrun is maindeck here. Problem, blue decks? :troll:

Acidic Slime is the only 187 that made it into the final draft of this deck because he's phenomenally good at eating your opponent's equipment/enchantments/lands. If you want you can also run Skinrender, but there's enough creature kill here right now imo.

Massacre Wurm and Grave Titan are your win conditions. Massacre Wurm is going to help a ton against creature decks and Grave Titan makes all your Smallpoxes pretty safe since you can just sack a zombie. Spider Spawning is another win condition here. After several Mulches and Smallpoxes, you'll have a sizeable graveyard with lots of creatures in it. You can take advantage of it by flashing back this late game and getting a legion of SPIDERS! Definitely board it out it against opponents you think will run mass removal like Black Sun's Dawn or something.

Vengeful Pharaoh was a good idea. The synergy between him and Liliana is very strong. Liliana is going to be mostly used for card advantage with her +1 ability once you get a Pharaoh in the graveyard. Her -2 ability will be used somewhat more sparingly. You'll probably never use her ultimate ability though, partly because it's not that special for an ultimate and partly because they'll try to kill her first (and probably succeed).

Caravan Vigil is a neat trick to do to make your Smallpoxes more potent mid-late game. For BBG, you can get back a land that you sacrificed and have it untapped. Unless of course I'm misinterpreting the word "died", but I'm pretty sure it's just the new version of "put into a graveyard from play" and not just "destroyed through combat damage" or something.

I'm not entirely sure if 4 Mulch is the right number, but it's your only "draw" in the deck so I don't want to run any less.

Dismember is awesome. 'Nuff said.

Crusader goes in against white and red aggro decks. He and Inkmoth Nexus will mostly be trying to race the opponent.

Naturalize and Go for the Throat are good against a lot of things, but will rarely both come in together. The only match where they will is an important match though - Splinter Twin. Against Splinter Twin, you'll board out your Pharaohs, your Vigils, and all your sorcery-speed removal (Acidic Slimes, Massacre Wurm, and a Smallpox) and bring in a 4th Revoker, a 4th Dismember, all your Naturalize, and all your Go for the Throats. The reason why Go for the Throat is used is because it can't be Spellskited. For this reason, it is going to be your very best friend in this matchup. You have a good amount of discard and Splinter Twin probably won't board in Negates against you after seeing that you're heavily creature based. With all this protection, you should be able to keep them off their gameplan long enough to get there with Thrun.

Everything else in the sideboard is just additional copies of stuff in the maindeck.
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What you could also do with these cards is make a Reanimator type deck with stuff like Postmortem Lunge, Massacre Wurm, Sun Titan, Splinterfright, and Sutured Ghoul. This deck probably wouldn't be very good and it would be VERY weak to Nihil Spellbomb among other things, but it would be a ton of fun:

[collapse="Reanimator Sample Decklist: 61 cards"]
20 Lands
7 Forest
9 Swamp
4 Woodland Cemetery

22 Creatures
3 Spellskite
4 Viridian Emissary
4 Splinterfright
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Sun Titan
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Sutured Ghoul

19 Spells
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Postmortem Lunge
4 Smallpox
4 Mulch
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Spider Spawning

15 Sideboard
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Spellskite
2 Thrun, the Last :troll:
3 Autumn's Veil
3 Mental Misstep
2 Naturalize

This deck is a bit more straightforward. Just get a bunch of cards in your graveyard and do one of three things:

1. Postmortem Lunge for 6 to get Sun Titan, bring back a Spellskite when it comes into play, swing for 6 and bring back Splinterfright, putting yourself in position to win next turn.
2. Postmortem Lunge for 7 to get Sutured Ghoul, exile creatures in the graveyard (besides Spellskite and Splinterfright), swing for a ton of damage.
3. Play Sheoldred and bring back Sun Titan, Pharaohs, etc.
4. Hardcast Splinterfright and beat down with him backed up by Spider Spawning.

The rest of the deck is primarily focused on setting up and protecting the combo.

Spellskite is the primary way you're going to be protecting your Ghoul/Titan/Splinters. He's also a creature that can potentially be put in the graveyard, which is good for Splinterfright (but not Ghoul).

I already talked about Viridian Emissary, Solemn Simulacrum, Vengeful Pharaoh, Smallpox, Liliana, and Spider Spawning in the Rock commentary. In this deck, a 3rd Liliana may be beneficial though.

Gitaxian Probe is really good for combo decks that don't have access to permission or Duress/Thoughtseize. It's a 0 mana cantrip that will tell you if your opponent has a way to stop you or not. If he does, play another Smallpox to get it out of his hand or ramp your mana some more to prepare for a Mana Leak or just dig deeper into your deck to get some more cards. If he doesn't, you can safely go off and you've spent 0 mana to check your opponent. It's really a fantastic card for combo.

Postmortem Lunge is the closest thing anyone will get to Corpse Dance in this format, and because of that I paired it with Corpse Dance's BFF, Sutured Ghoul. The only problem with it is that it costs an almost unreasonable 7 to bring him back but you shouldn't have trouble getting there thanks to Mulch, Simulacrum, and the fact that the game's over when he hits the table. Sun Titan is also a good target for Lunge and it's more reasonably costed. And if there are somehow 20 creatures in your graveyard, you can also Lunge up Splinterfright.

Green Sun's Zenith is only there to be Splinterfright #5+. It's pretty much useless otherwise. I'm considering cutting it for a Spellskite. Or a land.

Revoker can easily be maindeck. The only reason I have him sideboarded is because I doubt anyone's going to run Nihil Spellbomb game 1, which is what will completely destroy your deck.

I totally faked you out and put Thrun in the sideboard this time. Problem, reader? :troll:

Autumn's Veil is there to protect your reanimation from counterspells, bounce spells, and removal spells (though Dismember won't do much to any of your targets). Naturalize is to protect your deck from Nihil Spellbomb - they could just activate it in response, but it's better that they do that than in response to you already sinking mana into Sutured Ghoul - and also splash hate for things like Splinter Twin and Birthing Pod. Mental Misstep is a combination of these two.

The deck isn't very good, but it's mostly designed to just be fun.
[/collapse]

I also don't think you need to run blue, but if you did then you'd have access to Skaab Ruinator and Lab Maniac. You'd also have access to a bunch of other stuff since Blue is the best color in Standard right now imo.
 

UncleSam

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
3,809
Location
Troy, NY
I went 1-3 at the pre-release today, yeah I know I didn't do so well. :urg:

But hey, I pulled Garruk Relentless, so it's okay.


:phone:
 

Gates

Banned via Warnings
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
9,316
Did you go in the main sealed deck event?

When I still played Magic and went to prereleases, I eventually stopped going to those. They start too early in the day and I have a better shot at doing well in the 8-man booster drafts.
 

UncleSam

Smash Master
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
3,809
Location
Troy, NY
Did you go in the main sealed deck event?

When I still played Magic and went to prereleases, I eventually stopped going to those. They start too early in the day and I have a better shot at doing well in the 8-man booster drafts.
yeah I did the sealed deck event, they were doing a booster draft after the event but I didn't enter, If I go tomorrow I might go for the booster draft.

:phone:
 
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